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There is a very welcome article by Dr. Adam A..J. DeVille now online that provides clear and exact support for Cardinal Sarah's statement on returning to the celebration of Holy Mass "facing East" this Advent. Dr. DeVille writes:
The question of the proper orientation of Latin liturgics is so painfully simple that people cannot deal with it. There is, in fact, no question: the posture of the entire assembly facing liturgical East is universal and ancient, and until the 1960s no Christian, East or West, would ever have dreamt of disorienting the priest by turning him around in the wrong direction. That bizarre decision of the Latin church in the 1960s immediately set her at odds not only with her own sacred tradition but that of the rest of the Christian world, especially the other major liturgical families—the Byzantine, Alexandrian, Armenian, and Syriac. It should never have happened, and can only be counted a massive mistake.
I strongly encourage reading the entire article here. What he has to say is aimed at the worship and ecclesiology of the Latin Church, but it should be taken very seriously by those of you, dear Readers, who are traditional Anglicans, traditional Lutherans, and traditional Methodists because your churches for the most part followed lock step with the liturgical changes that swept the Catholic Church after Vatican II.
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