Sine Populo - History

History

Mass without a congregation was "known until Vatican Council II as Private Mass (Missa privata)".

Josef A. Jungmann defined such a Mass as "a mass celebrated for its own sake, with no thought of anyone participating, a mass where only the prescribed server is in attendance or even where no one is present, as was the case with the missa solitaria".

Monastic priests began, by the seventh century, to celebrate such Masses daily, and side altars were added to the churches to facilitate celebration by priests in a low voice and regardless of the presence of a congregation or religious community. Decrees were issued against solitary celebration by the priest alone, requiring the assistance of at least two persons, so as to justify the use of the plural in liturgical formulas such as Dominus vobiscum. This rule was later relaxed to having at least one server, so that the 1917 Code of Canon Law prescribed: "A priest is not to celebrate Mass without a server to assist him and make the responses." Making explicit the canonical principle that a proportionate cause excuses from an ecclesiastical law, the present Code of Canon Law states: "A priest may not celebrate the eucharistic Sacrifice without the participation of at least one of the faithful, unless there is a good and reasonable cause for doing so."

In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformers expressed opposition to any Mass without a congregation, but the Council of Trent defended the then existing practice. Canon 6 of session XXII of this council says: The sacred and holy Synod would fain indeed that, at each mass, the faithful who are present should communicate, not only in spiritual desire, but also by the sacramental participation of the Eucharist, ...: but not therefore, if this be not always done, does It condemn, as private and unlawful, but approves of and therefore commends, those masses in which the priest alone communicates sacramentally

Since the word "private" could be understood as opposed to public, the Code of Rubrics of Pope John XXIII recommended that the expression "private Mass" be avoided, since every properly celebrated Mass is an act of public worship.

The Second Vatican Council decreed: "It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private."

Pope Paul VI also stressed that "No Mass is 'Private'", explaining that "each and every Mass is not something private, even if a priest celebrates it privately; instead, it is an act of Christ and of the Church."

Though the Church no longer uses the term "private Mass", saying instead, as in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, "In Masses celebrated without the people" (In Missis sine populo celebratis), there are some who continue to use the term, even when talking about the content of a present-day document such as that motu proprio.