Q: So, this is something I have always had an issue with: if something is a rubric once, do we not just keep it as the rubric until it is explicitly changed or suppressed? There are other rubrics, or decrees we follow from 1951, 1955, and we keep them, even though they are not mentioned in the current Roman Missal. And while Tenebrae is specifically (at one point) forbidden, or suppressed, it has made a comeback.
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A: When I’ve asked the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for guidance on the retention of rubrics from the 1962 missal, they’ve pointed me to these quotes from Notitiae 14 (1978), pages 301 and 535:
- Regarding incensation: “Ubi rubricae Missalis Pauli VI nihil dicunt aut parum dicunt singillatim in nonnullis locis, non ideo inferendum est quod oporteat servare ritum antiquum.”
- Regarding striking the breast once in the Confiteor:“Missale instauratum antiquum non supplet, sed substituit.”
I translate these in this way:
“Where the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing or little in specific or various places, it must not therefore be deduced that one should retain the former rite.”
“The restored Missal does not add to the previous one, but replaces it.”
This means that when the former rubrics are “missing”, they have actually been set aside.