What Paul VI Unleashed

Continuity, novelty, and the institutionalization of ambiguity

In a previous article here, we said:

“The Novus Ordo was constructed by a post-conciliar committee (Consilium); promulgated by Pope Paul VI; implemented rapidly (1964–1969); and explicitly not the result of centuries-long organic growth. Pope Paul VI himself acknowledged it was a new rite, and from this it logically follows it was not a revision in the classical sense. While some might argue Paul VI also spoke of continuity, this objection equivocates: continuity of authority and pastoral intent is not continuity of form. To invoke ‘continuity’ in order to deny novelty after a new rite has been explicitly acknowledged is not an argument—it is a semantic maneuver.”

“Paul VI declared the promulgation of a new rite and simultaneously appealed to continuity with tradition, yet without specifying the metaphysical register (juridical, sacramental, historical, or formal) in which that continuity was to be understood. This unresolved ambiguity — especially striking given the papal office’s role as guardian of tradition—did not itself resolve the tension between novelty and continuity, but rather institutionalized it. And that unresolved ambiguity became the interpretive space in which later reformers could equivocate. We will discuss this further in a future article.”

This is that future article.

The argument concerning the Novus Ordo itself—its form, finality, operative principles, and the Thomistic impossibility of stable reform—has already been made and will not be repeated here. The purpose of this article is narrower and more fundamental—to assess Paul VI’s act itself, the manner in which he spoke of that act, and the conceptual consequences his mode of promulgation set in motion. The question now is, what did Paul VI’s way of declaring and justifying the reform unleash—and why has the Church been unable to escape its consequences?

New and Continuous: When the Categories Are Not Policed

It is not philosophically incoherent, in itself, to speak of something as new while also asserting a form of continuity. Much depends on what kind of continuity is being asserted. A new law can be promulgated by the same authority and thus be continuous in jurisdiction. A new constitution can be enacted while preserving continuity of sovereignty. Likewise, a new liturgical rite can be promulgated lawfully while remaining continuous in authority, legitimacy, and sacramental validity.

A clear ecclesial example of this distinction is the reform of the Roman Breviary under Pope St. Pius X. That revision involved real structural change, exercised lawfully under papal authority, without rhetorical appeals to organic continuity where none was claimed. Its legitimacy—juridical, moral, and metaphysical—is not seriously disputed, even where its prudence or aesthetic consequences may be debated. We will examine this reform in a future article, as it provides a useful contrast to the case under consideration here. It reflects a distinction that is historically operative, philosophically coherent, and explicitly grounded in Thomistic principles.

The same distinction is well established in civil law, where new statutes have often replaced earlier ones while remaining continuous in jurisdiction, because legitimacy derives from the authority of the lawgiver rather than from continuity of legal form. This is a principle St. Thomas affirms when he teaches that human law may be changed without loss of authority (ST I–II, q. 97, a. 1).

A clear example is Roman law, where the Lex Julia replaced prior marriage legislation without any claim of organic revision, its legitimacy resting solely on the authority of the legislator. Likewise, modern political history routinely distinguishes continuity of sovereignty from continuity of constitutional form. France adopted new constitutions in 1791, 1795, and 1799—none of them organic revisions—yet each claimed continuity of the sovereignty of the French nation. Whether one accepts the legitimacy of those regimes is irrelevant. The conceptual distinction was universally understood. No serious political theorist would argue that because sovereignty is continuous, the constitution must therefore remain the same in form.

Most directly, the Church herself recognizes multiple rites—e.g. the Roman, Dominican, Ambrosian—as distinct in ritual form yet continuous in authority and sacramental validity. As St. Thomas explains, the Church governs sacramental rites but does not alter sacramental essence (ST III, q. 64, a. 2). These examples suffice to show that continuity of authority and legitimacy does not require continuity of form.

There is no contradiction here. The contradiction arises only when continuity is invoked to deny novelty at the level of form, once novelty has already been declared. This is not a rhetorical disagreement, but a metaphysical one. Organic revision in the classical sense presupposes continuity of form through gradual modification. A declaration of a new rite excludes that category by definition.

But this point is not entirely self-evident to the modern reader. In the classical Aristotelian–Thomistic sense, “organic” development means growth according to an existing form, not the replacement of form; and revision presupposes the same subject perfected, not a new subject substituted. In metaphysical terms, change that preserves identity is accidental or perfective change, while change that replaces form is substantial change. Therefore, an “organic revision” that does not preserve form is a contradiction in terms.

That this has ceased to be self-evident today is due to three factors: first, “organic” has been flattened in modern usage to mean merely “living,” “flexible,” or “pastoral,” rather than form-preserving growth; second, post-conciliar discourse has routinely employed the term rhetorically, without metaphysical content; and third, many readers implicitly assume that authority can redefine what counts as “organic.” Thus, while the statement is metaphysically true, it is no longer culturally obvious—especially in the context under examination.

In summary, Paul VI did not deny novelty. He declared it. What he did not do—and what matters—is specify the register in which continuity was being claimed. He appealed to continuity pastorally and juridically, but he did not distinguish continuity of authority from continuity of form, structure, or operative logic. His language was rhetorical rather than metaphysical. And because the papal office exists precisely to guard tradition at the level of principle, this lack of conceptual precision was not neutral.

Declaration Versus Acknowledgment

At this point, it is necessary to make a crucial distinction. As we said earlier, Paul VI did not acknowledge novelty, he declared it. To describe this declaration as “honest” or “dishonest” would be to import a psychological or moral judgment that cannot be established from the texts and is therefore inappropriate in a philosophical argument. Declaration is a juridical act (see Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), can. 7; Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 90, a. 4). Acknowledgment, in the stronger sense, would require metaphysical clarity—the explicit differentiation of categories, the avoidance of equivocation, and the recognition of consequences. Paul VI did the first (declaration). He did not do the second (acknowledgement). This is not an accusation of bad faith. It is a judgment about conceptual indeterminacy at the highest level of authority. And this distinction matters, because ambiguity at this level does not remain private. It becomes institutional. By declaring a new rite while invoking continuity without specifying the mode of continuity, Paul VI did not resolve the tension between novelty and continuity. He embedded it into the Church’s interpretive framework—intentionally or not.

How Ambiguity Became Institutional

Because Paul VI did not police the categories, a conceptual gap was left open—one that later defenders would repeatedly occupy. What Paul VI can be reconstructed as saying coherently is that a new rite has been lawfully promulgated by legitimate authority, in continuity with the Church’s sacramental life and mission. This statement is metaphysically coherent, even if incomplete.

What he did not say—and what cannot be derived from his declaration—is that this new rite represents an organic revision of the prior Roman Rite in the classical sense. That stronger claim appears later, introduced by reform defenders (see here Ratzinger in his reform-of the reform; and Roche in contemporary defenses of the Novus Ordo) who silently shift the meaning of continuity from jurisdiction to form, from authority to structure, from legitimacy to identity. Annibale Bugnini has never been documented to claim the Novus Ordo is an organic revision of the Roman Rite in the classical sense—he frames it instead as a pastoral adaptation (see here), even at the cost of removing inherited ritual elements.

Hence, we might briefly chronicle it more accurately as such—Paul VI supplied the ambiguity that institutionalized the reform; Bugnini supplied its design and novelty; and later defenders quietly upgraded continuity of authority into continuity of form, supplying the organic-continuity claim.

This shift by reform defenders is not argued for. It is assumed. And it is precisely this assumption that has sustained decades of confusion, where juridical continuity is treated as if it guaranteed metaphysical sameness. Authority is made to substitute for form. Legitimacy is made to stand in for identity. But in Thomistic metaphysics, identity follows form, not intention, and not authority. Continuity of governance does not generate continuity of being.

The Deeper Problem Paul VI Did Not Address

Even when Paul VI’s continuity claim is read in the “most charitable” and minimal sense—continuity of authority, validity, and ecclesial identity—a deeper problem remains. From a strict sacramental standpoint, the Eucharist remains the same sacrament in essence: the same matter, the same words of consecration, the same priestly power, and therefore valid. To deny this would be to claim invalidity, which we explicitly reject, and which we have illustrated as a category error—confusing questions of sacramental validity and jurisdiction with questions of ritual form, signification, and identity. The sacrament is numerically the same in substance wherever valid; what differs is the rite’s accidental mode of signification and its pedagogical efficacy.

But sacraments are not only valid acts. They are also signs that form belief. In classical sacramental theology, sacraments work ex opere operato, but they also work per modum signi—by the mode in which they signify. And mode of signification is governed by ritual form, not merely by matter and words (cf. ST III, q. 83, a. 5). When the liturgical form is restructured—simplified, verbalized, optionalized, and adapted—the sacrament remains valid, but it no longer signifies, forms, and safeguards belief in the same way. What is identical in substance may differ in form in such a way that its effects differ predictably (cf. ST III, q. 83, a. 5; q. 60, a. 2).

Paul VI’s appeal to continuity rests on a minimalist account of sacramental sameness. Validity alone does not preserve the pedagogical and doctrinal function the Roman Rite historically fulfilled. And because the Church’s responsibility is not merely to confect sacraments validly but to transmit the faith intact, this distinction is not incidental.

What Was Unleashed

We cannot assert, Paul VI caused the crisis by ill will. He caused it by leaving unresolved what required resolution. By declaring novelty while invoking continuity without specifying its metaphysical register, he institutionalized an ambiguity that later generations would exploit—sometimes sincerely, sometimes strategically, but always predictably. The result has been an endless oscillation between novelty and denial of novelty, reform and counter-reform, restraint and relapse. The debate over the Novus Ordo has therefore never been resolved, because the terms of the debate were never disciplined at the moment of promulgation. What should have been clarified at the level of principle was deferred to pastoral rhetoric. And once deferred, it could no longer be contained.

This is what Paul VI unleashed: not merely a new rite, but a permanent interpretive instability—one in which authority is asked to do the work that form once did, and discipline is asked to supply what structure no longer generates. That instability has defined the post-conciliar Church ever since. In another future article, we will discuss this ambiguity relative to the papal office itself, where the standard of evaluation is proportioned not merely to authority, but to the office’s end: the guardianship of tradition at the level of principle. To be clear, authority may legislate; the question is whether legislation can replace what a stable inherited form accomplishes more reliably.

But conservatives and “reform of the reform” defenders might exploit our recognition of the reality of the “exploit” in—“an ambiguity that later generations would exploit—sometimes sincerely, sometimes strategically”—which might be received as: “The problem is not the ambiguity itself, but its misuse.” Hence, they might argue, Paul VI acted prudently but incompletely; Vatican II was sound but misunderstood; the Novus Ordo is structurally neutral; reform of the reform is the responsible solution. This is the classic “abuse, not structure” defense—now elevated to the level of interpretation. Defenders of reform might redefine exploitation as misinterpretation, and then cast themselves as the correct interpreters.

Why Ambiguity Cannot be Closed

But as we have already established in the first article here, the ambiguity is not resolvable from within the system Paul VI created. Hence, “reform of the reform” cannot close the ambiguity. And here, we will repeat what we have already established—an ambiguity at the level of form and finality cannot be resolved by interpretation, discipline, or intent—only by form itself, because interpretation presupposes a stable object; discipline presupposes a form worth enforcing; and intent presupposes a structure capable of embodying it. And our first article already established that the Novus Ordo’s form is inherently open-ended; its finality is pastoral accommodation; and its identity is not self-securing. Therefore, any attempt to “clarify” the ambiguity while retaining the form is not resolution, it’s management.

This means “reform-of-the-reform” defenders are not solving the problem. They are performing the very labor the problem requires, which is the trap they cannot escape—and which is precisely what has been happening since at least Ratzinger rolled out Summorum Pontificum. The result is not resolution but repetition: the same ambiguity generating the same corrective labor, which in turn reproduces the same conditions—an ecclesial cycle that advances only in motion, not in outcome. In lived terms, it resembles a time loop.

Hence, to hopefully save those emotionally invested in reform to take up what we have philosophically illustrated as circular and futile, and which empirical reality itself has unfolded (countless times) in all efforts to reform, we will stress:

1) Paul VI is not merely a permissive cause. He is the formal institutional cause of the instability, not because of bad intent, but because he legislated without metaphysical precision, allowed authority to substitute for form, and deferred principle to rhetoric at the moment where principle was required. This makes the instability irreversible from within his framework.

2) Vatican II’s authority cannot resolve the problem it created, because similar to its product known as the Novus Ordo, the Council’s language is pastoral and programmatic, not metaphysical; it presupposes adaptability rather than fixed form; and it authorizes reform without specifying the limits of reform. Thus, appealing to Vatican II to resolve the ambiguity is circular. The Council becomes both the source of the problem and the proposed solution, which is philosophically incoherent. None of this implies the Church is unable to govern or to restore clarity; it implies only that this particular textual/pastoral mode does not, by itself, settle metaphysical questions about form.

3) While the Novus Ordo is valid and lawfully promulgated, and while it may be celebrated reverently, this is possible only under the four conditions identified in Part I—conditions that render such efforts fragile, contingent, and prudentially hazardous. For this reason, the rite cannot function as a structurally definitive form. “Reform of the reform” therefore does not represent a path to stability, but an implicit admission that the rite cannot reliably secure its own end. This is the decisive point conservatives cannot concede without abandoning reform-of-the-reform altogether.

Hence, the only coherent resolution to close all gaps is— if an ecclesial form requires constant interpretation, discipline, and corrective intent to prevent doctrinal erosion—and a prior form exists that secures the same end by its structure—then prudence, justice, and theological responsibility require preferring the stable form. Anything else is managerial Christianity, perpetual emergency governance, and liturgy as policy rather than inheritance.

The appeal to “reform of the reform” does not resolve this ambiguity; it confirms it. For to reform a rite precisely because it cannot reliably secure its own end is to admit that the rite itself lacks the form necessary for stability. Interpretation cannot substitute for structure, nor discipline for form.

Appeals to Vatican II fare no better, since a pastoral council that authorized adaptation without metaphysical precision cannot later supply the limits it declined to define. The instability is therefore not a matter of misuse, but of design and promulgation. What requires constant correction is not being perfected; it is being managed. And where a prior liturgical form already secures the Church’s sacrificial, doctrinal, and pedagogical ends by its structure, continued reliance on an inherently unstable form is no longer moderation, but negligence. It was negligent then, and it is negligent to persist in it even now.