MyCatholicSource.com - 'Quick Help' Page: Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi (Definition)

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Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi is "A form of the axiom of Pope St. Celestine I, Legem credendi statuit lex orandi: 'The rule of prayer determines the rule of faith,' that is, the liturgy of worship is a chief instrument in the [transmission] of true doctrine." (Catholic Dictionary)

In our age, this phrase is often mentioned in connection with the Novus Ordo Mass. As stated in our publication 'The Traditional Latin ('Tridentine') Mass vs. the New (Novus Ordo) Mass'...

"Consider this telling admission from Pope Paul VI, the pope who imposed the New Mass: 'Some might get the wrong impression from a particular ceremony or rubric that has been added [in the 1960's Novus Ordo Mass], as if this involved or implied an alteration or diminution of the truths that have been acquired once and for all and authoritatively sanctioned as part of the Catholic faith. They might think that the correspondence between the law of praying, lex orandi, and the law of believing, lex credendi, has been compromised as a result.'

The pope who called the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII, has said, 'It is supremely important that the Church's liturgy fully conform to Catholic belief ('the law for prayer is the law of faith), and that only those devotional forms be sanctioned which well up from the unsullied springs of true faith.'

If the well known maxim is true - which it undoubtedly is - that the 'law of praying is the law of believing', then if the Catholic prayers are stripped of all that is specifically Catholic [as may be seen in the Novus Ordo Mass] and if Catholics 'pray like Protestants', then Catholics will start believing less like Catholics and more like Protestants. This has been confirmed in practice, not only by apparent beliefs, but also to the point of singing Protestant hymns during Mass." (emphasis added)

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