The centrality of the Mass of Pope St. Gregory the Great to the Roman liturgical tradition can scarcely be overemphasized:

What Augustine sketched in theory [10th book of The City of God] in the early fifth century, Gregory at the end of the sixth reduced to perfect practice. It happens that we possess a detailed account of a papal feast-day Mass of an age not long after Gregory's [i.e., the Ordo Romaus Primus], and scholars agree that, barring a detail here and there, it shows us Gregory's own Mass. On reading this ancient sketch of Gregory's Mass, one does not wonder that the Church for more than thirteen hundred years has regarded it as the most perfect expression of her Eucharistic worship ever realized. The full sacrificial consciousness on the part of the worshipers there had its counterpart in the chief fruit of their worship, an ennobling sense of the Christian solidarity.¹

It is little wonder, then, that liturgical innovators have sought to justify their innovations by establishing a pedigree for them in the Mass of Pope St. Gregory.

One such innovation is the procession of gifts, or offertory procession, of the Novus Ordo Mass. In this ceremony, a pair of laypersons bring the bread and wine for the sacrifice up to the altar and present them to the priest. It is often claimed that this procession traces back to the Church’s ancient liturgy. However, this claim was put to rest, at least on paper, as early as 1948.

That year, the Rev. George J. Booth was awarded a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of America. His dissertation was entitled "The Offertory Rite in the Ordo Romanus Primus. A study of its bearing on the so-called 'offertory procession.'" It was given an imprimatur by Archbishop (later Cardinal) Patrick O'Boyle. In this dissertation, Booth argues convincingly that the lay offertory procession was not part of the traditional Roman Rite, and can claim support only in the hybrid Roman/Gallican local practice of some Frankish countries.

The Conflation of Rites

According to Booth, E. G. Cuthbert F. Atchley was the first Catholic theologian to argue that in the Ordo Romanus Primus, the Offertory pertains not to the clergy, but to "that royal priesthood which... is the common property of the body of baptized Christians", and consists in bringing the materials for the sacrifice (i.e., the bread, wine, and water) up to the altar in procession.²

One possible explanation for Atchley’s error was that he conflated two distinct ceremonies which appear in different Rites of the Church: in the Ordo Romanus Primus, the laity present the clergy with the gifts before the start of the Mass, whereas in the Gallican and Eastern Rites, the clerical procession of the gifts is a central part of the liturgy. Abbe Louis Duchesne had already pointed out this distinction in his 1889 book, Origines du culte chretien:

The offering by the people at this point in the Mass (before its actual start), is a ceremony of Roman origin, and is incompatible with that of the procession oblationis, [procession of the oblation] a custom common to the Gallican and Oriental rites. The bread is brought in a vessel having the form of a tower, and the wine, mixed with water, in a chalice.³

Further, according to Rev. Booth, the mixed missal of Gaul (containing prayers from both the Roman Rite and the Gallican Rite) contained both the peoples' offering prior to Mass, which was of Roman origin, and the Gallican offertory procession which took place at the time during which the (traditional) Roman Rite has its offertory prayers. Thus, Booth provides us with the first of two interpretive keys as to what may have happened in the 1960s during the revision of the Roman Missal. Liturgists conflated these two ceremonies, merging them into a single lay procession which holds a prominent place within the liturgy.

The Procession Lacks Pedigree

This practice has no solid basis in tradition. Booth does say that in the 17^th century a document was discovered, entitled “Explanation of the Gallican Liturgy,” by Pseudo-Germanus of Paris, and dating to about 600 A.D. This is the oldest document to refer to lay offerings as a "procession." Further, according to Joseph Jungmann⁴, "In other churches of the West, and more especially in the Roman liturgy after it was transplanted to Frankish countries, the oblation was metamorphosed into an offertory procession of the faithful."

However, this is scant evidence, and suffices to establish a pedigree for lay offertory processions only in the local practice of some Gallican churches, not in the practice of Pope St. Gregory or the Roman Rite at large. Booth proceeds to articulate more and weightier reasons why Atchley, and modern attempts to introduce lay processions into the liturgy in general, are wrong.

First, according to Booth, anyone who promotes the offertory procession of the laity thinks that this procession is therefore the most important part of the Roman Rite Offertory, which becomes as a result a sacrificial action of the laity. On the contrary, Booth finds the central act of the (traditional) offertory of the Roman Rite to be the blessing of the bread and wine so that they are no longer profane, but dedicated as the matter for the Sacrament.⁵

Second, lists of processions exist(ed) in the Rituale Romanum and the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, and neither includes an offertory procession. Although Booth does not elaborate, the Rituale Romanum has three classes of processions⁶:

1. Processiones generales, in which the whole body of the clergy takes part.
2. Processiones ordinariae, on yearly festivals, such as the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, the procession on Palm Sunday, the Litaniae majores and minores, the feast of Corpus Christi, and on other days, according to the custom of the churches.
3. Processiones extraordinariae, or processions ordered on special occasions, e.g., to pray for rain or fine weather, in time of storm, famine, plague, war, or, in quacunque tribulatione, processions of thanksgiving, translation of relics, the dedication of a church or cemetery. There are also processions of honor, for instance to meet a royal personage, or the bishop on his first entry into his diocese (Pontif. rom. iii.).

Third, in a 1898 decree⁷ from the Sacred Congregation of Rites⁸, the Church had positively prohibited offertory processions. Further, in 1945, when a bishop asked whether the offertory procession should be allowed, the Sacred Congregation of Rites replied that it was "a practice in no way to be tolerated." While it is true such processions existed, this was because when Pope Pius V restored the Roman Rite in 1570, he made an allowance for local rites to be preserved as long as they had 200 years of continuous use behind them.

Finally, Booth notes that private Masses, which are known since primitive times in the Roman Rite, did not have an offertory procession. That private Masses did not have an offertory procession indicates that such a procession could not be the principle meaning of the offertory.

Another Interpretive Key

Carefully studying the earliest evidence of the Roman Rite, the Ordo Romanus, Booth states that the Pope and his retinue were the ones who processed, going from the altar to the nave, first to the men, then to the women, gathering up the gifts, and returning with them to the altar. In all of this, the laymen stayed where they were in the nave. To quote from Booth, "it was more a collection than a procession of the faithful." Jospeh Jungmann⁹ confirms: "How the offertory was conducted at the papal stational service in seventh century Rome, we know in fullest detail. Here the gifts were not brought by the people to the altar, but were collected by the celebrant and his retinue."

Thus, we have another potential explanation for where modern liturgists got the idea of an ancient, Roman Rite, lay offertory procession. They misunderstood who was doing the processing.

The Main Purpose of the Offertory

Booth goes on to describe the traditional offertory prayers of the Roman Rite, and identifies the particular parts of two of the prayers in which the bread (in the prayer Suscipe Sancte Pater) and wine (in the prayer Offerimus tibi) are set aside and dedicated to the purpose of consecration. Booth implies that it is possible this is the main purpose of the offertory.

The Offertory and the Modern Roman Rite

What Booth could not have known is that the lay procession was made a standard part of the Offertory of the New Rite of Mass of 1970. The irony of this is that in the Classical Roman Rite, the lay offerings had been transformed from giving bread and wine to giving money. Therefore, to have the laity make two different offerings, one of money (in which all laity hopefully participate) and one of bread and wine (in which only a select couple, who probably neither made nor donated the bread and wine themselves, participate), constitutes a duplication. One of the most important principles of Sacrosanctum concilium is that the revised Roman Rite is not to contain duplications!

While it is true that Sacrosanctum concilium did strongly encourage the active participation of the laity, it did not encourage changes to the liturgy that were not organically related to past forms. The New Mass's lay offertory procession is clearly such a change. Perhaps the time has come to eliminate this artificial creation of certain liturgists who, deliberately or not, misrepresented the traditions of the Roman Rite.

Ed Snyder
June 29, Anno Domini MMVII

[1] Gerard Elard, S.J., Christian Life and Worship (The Bruce Publishing Company, 1950) p. 123.
[2] Cf. Atchley, Ordo Romanus Primus (London: Moring, 1905) pp. 82-84.
[3] Origines du culte chretien (Paris: Thorin, 1889); English translation Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (London: Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1910) pp. 204-205.
[4] Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, Volume II (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1955) p. 9.
[5] cf. I. Wapelhorst, Compnedium sacrae Liturgiae, 1931.
[6] Classic Encyclopedia, "Procession".
[7] Decreta Authentica Congregationis Sacrorum Rituum.
[8] The predecessor to the modern day Congregation for Divine Worship.
[9] Ibid., pp. 6-7.