[Question:]{.underline} Is the Dialogue Mass a “diabolical disorientation” and can it be compared to Communion in the Hand?
[Answer:]{.underline} The custom of the faithful making the responses at Low Mass, and reciting with the celebrant those parts that they would sing at a High Mass (e.g.Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) began in 1922, as an outgrowth of the liturgical movement founded by Dom Gueranger and promoted by Saint Pius X, to bring about an active participation of the faithful in the celebration of the Mass. Saint Pius X had requested in 1903, in his motu proprio on Gregorian Chant, the restoration of the active participation of the faithful in the Mass, outlining this principle, for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls: “Our keen desire being that the true Christian spirit may once more flourish, cost what it may, and be maintained among all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in whicih the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its primary and indispensable source, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and the public and solemn prayer of the Church.”
The so-called dialogue Mass was nothing other than the application of this same principle to the recited Mass, on occasions on which the Mass could not reasonably be sung (e.g. daily Mass for a community of religious). However, modernism did enter into the application of this principle, for the modernists did not see this form of active participation simply as an elaboration of the liturgy but as necessary to it, in virtue of their substitution of the emphasis on the common priesthood of the faithful in place of the ordained, sacramental priesthood. Consequently, they wanted to insist on the people reciting the Mass not simply as an alternative, but as an obligation.
As with other excesses of the liturgical movement, the 1947 encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, made the necessary distinctions, condemning the abuses and promoting the correct Catholic understanding of the liturgy. After pointing out the primacy of the interior participation of the faithful, uniting themselves with the Divine Victim on the altar, it then recommends the outward participation that expresses this union. “They also are to be commended who strive to make the Liturgy even in an external way a sacred act in which all who are present may share. This can be done in more than one way, when, for instance, the whole congregation in accordance with the rules of the Liturgy, either answer the priest in an orderly and fitting manner, or sing hymns suitable to the different parts of the Mass, or do both, or finally in High Masses when they answer the prayers of the minister of Jesus Christ and also sing the liturgical chant.” (§105).
However, the Pope at the same time refutes the modernist error of those who make such external participation an end in itself. “Their chief aim (of these methods of participation in the Mass) is to foster and promote the people’s piety and intimate union with Christ and His visible minister and to arouse those internal sentiments and dispositions which should make our hearts become like to that of the High Priest of the New Testament”. (§106) He continues, drawing the logical conclusion: “They (these methods of participation) are by no means necessary to constitute it (the Mass) a public act or to give it a social character. And besides, a ‘dialogue’ Mass of this kind cannot replace the High Mass, which…possesses its own special dignity due to the impressive character of its ritual and the magnificence of its ceremonies.” (Ib.)
Consequently, one who accepts the teachings of Popes Pius X and XII cannot question the legitimacy of the so-called Dialogue Mass, provided that it be done correctly, and that it be regarded as just a means to a more perfect interior participation, nor can it possibly be compared with such sacrilegious and openly modernist practices as Communion in the Hand, a practical denial of the Real Presence.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.