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| Philip Agius, Pro Tridentina (Malta) member, next to St. Pius V monument in Valletta. |
Quo Primum is a papal bull decreed by Pope St. Pius V on 14 July, 1570, which set in stone for all time the exactness of the holy
sacrifice of the Mass to be said in the mother tongue of the Church, i.e. Latin.
A papal bull is a solemn instrument that popes use for various questions such as doctrinal decisions, canonizations, disciplinary questions, jubilees and the like. Only occasionally have they been used for the liturgy.
Quo Primum is above all a legal document although it also contains some doctrinal elements. As such it is not intended to be definitive in the same way as a doctrinal definition would be and would not bind St. Pius V himself or future popes if they decided to further fine-tune the missal.
The saintly Pope's concern was to ensure as much unity as possible for the liturgy in a time when such unity was sorely needed. Even so, the same bull contains a clause exempting any Church which had its own ordo more than 200 years old. Many local Churches could have availed of this concession but most preferred to adopt the new missal for practical reasons. Some religious orders and some dioceses such as Lyon in France and Milan in Italy did opt to legitimately maintain their own rite.
A papal bull is a solemn instrument that popes use for various questions such as doctrinal decisions, canonizations, disciplinary questions, jubilees and the like. Only occasionally have they been used for the liturgy.
Quo Primum is above all a legal document although it also contains some doctrinal elements. As such it is not intended to be definitive in the same way as a doctrinal definition would be and would not bind St. Pius V himself or future popes if they decided to further fine-tune the missal.
The saintly Pope's concern was to ensure as much unity as possible for the liturgy in a time when such unity was sorely needed. Even so, the same bull contains a clause exempting any Church which had its own ordo more than 200 years old. Many local Churches could have availed of this concession but most preferred to adopt the new missal for practical reasons. Some religious orders and some dioceses such as Lyon in France and Milan in Italy did opt to legitimately maintain their own rite.
A couple of years after publishing Quo Primum, St. Pius V added
the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to the missal following the Battle
of Lepanto in 1571. This slight change indicates that, except in matters of faith and morals, a
pope's disciplinary decrees in matters such as the non-essential
elements of liturgical rites are never "set in stone" and can be changed
by a subsequent Supreme Pontiff whenever he believes that the duty of
feeding Christ's flock requires it.
(Adapted from EWTN Q&A)
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