==The Roman Missal==
* The Roman Missal of 1570 was promulgated by Pope St Pius V in execution of the decree of the Council of Trent. It was, Pope Paul VI reminds us, "one of the many admirable results that the Council achieved for the benefit of the entire Church of Christ."
* Far from being a new rite of Mass, it was, as regards the Ordinary, Canon, Proper of the time and much else a replica of the Roman Missal of 1474, which in its turn repeated in all essentials the practice of the Roman Church of the epoch of Innocent III, which itself derived from the usage of Gregory the Great and his successors in the seventh century. In short, the Missal of 1570 was, in all essentials, the usage of the mainstream of medieval European liturgy.
* This codification of the rite of Mass ensured that Latin-rite priests would be able to celebrate the Mass "according to the custom and rite of the holy Fathers", and protected the Mass against any temptation to change its prayers and ceremonies in the direction of Protestantism.
* The prayers and ceremonies of this Missal are expressive of the traditional Catholic doctrines of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Sacred Host, doctrines which the Council of Trent was at pains to articulate and emphasise, and which are under renewed attack in our day.
* Legions of Catholic missionaries spread this Missal across the entire world, while innumerable holy men and women nurtured their spiritual lives on its ceremonies, its readings from Scripture and its prayer texts. In large part these prayer texts owe their arrangement to Pope St Gregory the Great - a holy legacy and tradition that forms our common Catholic patrimony, and a "witness to an unchanged Faith." A Faith, moreover, "which is an entire tradition originating in Christ."
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