The next significant document is the General Instruction on the Roman Missal published in April 1969. Article 262 of this Instruction, while purporting to quote article 91 of the First Instruction, actually falsifies it. It reads:

The high altar should be constructed away from the wall so that one can move round it without difficulty, and so that it can be used for a celebration facing the people.

We thus have a simple suggestion, "It is better that", falsified into an implied command, and the distasteful situation of the Liturgy Constitution being falsified in the First Instruction, and the First Instruction being falsified in the General Instruction. However, despite being based upon these falsifications, by no possible stretch of the imagination can article 262 of the General Instruction be interpreted as mandating the destruction of existing altars to make possible a celebration facing the people. Interpreted in the light of the authentic text of Article 124 of the Liturgy Constitution, it can only refer to the construction of altars in new churches, not the demolition of altars in existing churches.

© 1997 Michael Davies.

Last modified 27th October, 1997, by David Joyce.