Missa Cantata

Missa Cantata (Latin for "sung Mass" ) is a form of Tridentine Mass defined officially in 1960 as a sung Mass celebrated without sacred ministers, i.e., deacon and subdeacon.

Other names in pre-1960 sources:

1. Missa cantata sine Ministris (Sung/Chanted Mass without the Ministers) – documents of the Holy See such as the Decree of the Congregation of Sacred Rites of 14 March 1906
2. High Mass without Deacon or Sub-Deacon – Ceremonial for the Use of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America (commonly called the "Baltimore Ceremonial" because published by request of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, 1884), page 67.

While the Baltimore Ceremonial thus classified the Missa Cantata as a High Mass, Adrian Fortescue wrote in his 1910 article "Liturgy of the Mass" in the Catholic Encyclopedia, that a Missa Cantata "is really a low Mass, since the essence of high Mass is not the music but the deacon and subdeacon."

Pope John XXIII's Code of Rubrics, 271 gave the following definition of the forms of Mass in 1960:

Masses are of two kinds: sung Masses (in cantu) and low Masses (Missa lecta)).

A Mass is called a sung Mass, when the celebrant actually sings those parts which the rubrics require to be sung; otherwise it is called a low Mass.

Moreover, a sung Mass, when celebrated with the assistance of sacred ministers, is called a solemn or High Mass (Missa solemnis); when celebrated without sacred ministers, it is called a Missa cantata.