Some historical reference about the insertion of Saint Joseph in the missal. Saint Pius X agreed?
We found in the years 1993 that Joseph Sarto (who became later Saint Pius X) signed a petition in the beginning of the 20th century, done by the congregation of rites with the question if he found it suitable to insert the name of St Joseph in the canon of the Mass. He agreed indeed.
The first petition was actually made to the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1815.
Excerpt from the book “The Rhine flows into the Tiber” by R.P. Ralph Wiltgen, – corresponding to the Second Vatican Council -, relating the genesis of this decision of John XXIII:
“The last speaker to speak on October 30 was Bishop Sansierra, auxiliary to the bishop of San Juan de Cuyo and Argentinian. He expressed the hope that “the desire of a very large number of bishops and priests” to see the name of Saint Joseph included in the Canon of the Mass would not be forgotten. On November 5, the same request was made with more than 15 details by Mgr Cousineau, bishop of Cap Haitien in Haiti, former superior of the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal, who requested that “the name of Saint Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was introduced into the Mass each time the name of the Blessed Virgin was mentioned therein”.
At the end of the Eighteenth General Congregation, held on November 13, the Cardinal Secretary of State made a statement on this subject. The Holy Father, he said, desiring to conform to the wish “expressed by many Council Fathers”, had decided to insert the name of Saint Joseph in the Canon of the Mass, immediately after that of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. . This measure was to serve forever as a reminder that Saint Joseph had been the patron saint of the Second Vatican Council. “This decision of the Holy Father, added the cardinal, will come into force on December 8 next, and in the meantime the Sacred Congregation of Rites will prepare the necessary documents”.
Cardinal Montini was to say later that this unexpected initiative had been “a surprise given to the Council by the Pope”.
John XXIII was harshly criticized in some circles for taking what they called an independent step while the Ecumenical Council was at work. In fact, this decree was only the culmination of sporadic but intense campaigns carried out since 1815: hundreds of thousands of signatures of bishops, priests and lay people had reached the Vatican. The campaigns had been particularly intense during the announcement of the convocation of the first Vatican Council by Pius IX, and that of the second Vatican Council by John XXIII. Immediately after the latter, Bishop Joseph Phelan, of the Church of Saint Joseph of Capitola in California, had distributed, with the help of his parishioners, a petition which collected some 150,000 signatures.
The main responsibility for the action taken by John XXIII, however, fell to Frs. Roland Gauthier and Guy Bertrand, directors of the Center for Research and Documentation of the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Montreal, who in 1961 wrote a 75-page brochure retracing the history of these campaigns. They explained that the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph after that of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Canon of the Mass would have the effect, doctrinally and liturgically, of officially recognizing the eminence of the holiness of Saint Joseph over that of the other saints. except Mary. In collaboration with the Discalced Carmelites of the Ibero-American Society of Josephology in Valladolid and with the Fathers of Saint Joseph of Blessed Leonard Murialdo of the Saint Joseph Research Center in Viterbo, these two Fathers of the Holy Cross were able to publish English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian translations of their pamphlet, and had sent to the Council Fathers, well before the opening of the Council, a copy to which was attached a petition.
In mid-March 1962, six volumes containing petitions signed by 30 cardinals, 436 patriarchs, archbishops and bishops and 60 superiors general had been delivered to John XXIII who, after examining the signatures, had said: “Something will be done to Saint Joseph”. These signatures only confirmed his personal desire to actually do something special in honor of Saint Joseph, to whom he had had a special devotion since childhood.
On October 19, three days before the discussion of the schema on the liturgy was opened in the aula, Fr. Edward Heston of the Holy Cross Fathers, who had delivered the petitions on behalf of the three centers mentioned above , had been officially informed that the Sovereign Pontiff had decided to follow up on the proposal, and that he was going to decree the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph in the Canon of the Mass. »
Conclusion:
the initiative and the request for the insertion of the name of St Joseph in the canon dates from 1815, long before modernism arrived and Freemasonry decided to infiltrate the Church. This request comes from thousands of Catholics around the world, especially those who are devoted to Saint Joseph.
The Church often inserted names of saints into the canon in the first century as martyrs were made. So that new names are introduced into the canon is quite possible because it is done from the beginning of the existence of the Church.
That the insertion was made by a bad pope during a false council does not make the insertion itself bad or invalid. Even if for the modernists they abused it to make the people believe “that the canon could be changed at will”…which is not the case with the insertion of a saint’s name in the liturgical diptychs of Mass. It is an abuse. But the abuse of something does not make the thing itself bad.
That’s my humble (but well documented) opinion.
Fr Eric Jacqmin+