Need a 1962 Missale Romanum for the altar? Bring lots of money!

Preserving Christian Publications is reprinting the Benzinger edition of the 1962 Missale Romanum. 

Happily, they made sure that it really is a 1962 edition. 

You have the choice of it being bound in red or green, just like the old editions were back in the day.

And for the pre-publications sale it costs…

… are you sitting down? ….

$410

This is the price for the pre-publication, until February 28, 2008.  After that it will be $460.00.

It looks like it is going to be a very nice book, worthy of the altar.

But…

Whew!

In the meantime, I heard from Baronius Press that they are working now on their altar Missal. 

I wish them well for that. 

The Baronius hand missal is one of the best I have ever seen.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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15 Comments

  1. disla says:

    Can I ask what it means to “really [be] a 1962 edition”? Are others not “really” 1962 editions?

  2. Paul says:

    The Baronius Press 1962 Missal is wonderful and I recommend it 100%. The quality is exceptionally high and for $54 it is very good value.

  3. Henry Edwards says:

    disla: As Father Z has discussed in a previous post, some of the so-called 1962 altar missals recently reprinted do not contain the following additions that were made late in 1962 after the bulk of the revision:

    ST. JOSEPH’S NAME IN THE CANON (added in November 1962),

    the AD LIBITUM PREFACES (added in July 1962 and which includes the restored Advent preface!),

    the PRO ALIQUIBUS LOCIS section specifically arranged for the USA DIOCESES per the 1962 liturgical calendar (added in December 1962)

    Our TLM community has one of these. It came with a neatly printed St. Joseph sticker insert, so the only way this has affected us in two years of Masses is that we inserted a copy of the restored Gallican Preface of Advent to use instead of the Preface of the Most Holy Trinity that is specified for Advent in the older missals. (I believe that most TLM celebrants still use the MHT preface during Advent, but the Gallican prefaces are very beautiful.)

  4. xathar says:

    Any reviews of the Sodi missal?

  5. Caeremoniarius says:

    The Sodi reprint of the 1962 editio typica is a beautiful book, but it is
    definitely intended to be a study edition. The pages are a little too
    transparent, and the gorgeous Canon-plate is now
    reproduced in very muddy 2-color. I also wonder if the binding would withstand
    the kind of punishment a normal altar Missal would take. Still, if you wanted
    to, you could add ribbons and tabs and try it out for altar use.

  6. Caeremoniarius says:

    The Sodi reprint of the 1962 editio typica is a beautiful book, but it is
    definitely intended to be a study edition. The pages are a little too
    transparent, and the gorgeous Canon-plate is now
    reproduced in very muddy 2-color. I also wonder if the binding would withstand
    the kind of punishment a normal altar Missal would take. Still, if you wanted
    to, you could add ribbons and tabs and try it out for altar use.

  7. Unfortunately, any good altar Missal seems to be expensive. Now as long as the quality of the Missal is truly altar-worthy it seems to be justified. However, in terms of getting the 1962 “caught-up” to Canon Law and dealing with calendar questions and additions, it becomes hard to justify a steep price when there might be (reasonable) changes made in the near future which would necessitate purchasing a new edition.

  8. mike says:

    I will stick with my 1943 edition (1920) Missale Romanum. I still have an 1891 Ritus solemnis pro SS. Ordinibus. Unfortunately my 1948 Holy Week altar missal is now in Africa, having been persuaded to donate it to a fledgling trad community in Nigeria. Any sedevacantist would love to have those books.

  9. RBrown says:

    So a decision will need to be made: Should I buy this new missal or order a BMW?

  10. The Baronius hand missal is one of the best I have ever seen.

    I just got mine; I’ve never owned such a book before. It’s wonderful!

  11. Transitional Deacon says:

    Midwest Theological Forum sells their Latin Novus Ordo Sacramentary of comparable quality for $410 with no discount and you have to pay for shipping.
    http://www.theologicalforum.org/marketplace/product_desc.asp?Sku=1-890177-55-5&Category=92

    I think that, relative to the low demand for the 1962 books up until recently, and the extremely high costs of bringing these items back into print, we should expect to see high prices for a little longer. Hopefully there will come such a time when there is enough demand that publishers can print these books in larger numbers and thus bring the price down. I am sure that companies like Baronius and PCP, who appear to be running honest Catholic businesses, will lower their prices when they can.

    I am going to be ordained this year, but I am still somewhat hesitant to spend the $400+ on a Missal given the indications that the Holy Father could be changing the Good Friday prayer or that he could be updating the Calendar, etc. It’s the same way with the English-language books; I would love to get a “Masses of the Virgin Mary” set for the Novus Ordo, but from all that I can gather, within 2 years they will be obsolete, as it appears that ICEL is adding the special Masses for the BVM to the new edition of the Sacramentary. There is no clear information on their web site about this.

    In any event, we are in a time of transition, a very exciting transition.

  12. mike says:

    Go for the Beemer :-)

  13. Brian C. says:

    Ditto: I think the Baronius Press 1962 Missal is phenomenal… and it’s even available for $41.25 at the following site:

    http://allcatholicbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

    The direct link doesn’t seem to work (and searching is a bit tricky), but the Baronius Press Missal is item #: AT25x06 (A search for that item # takes you right to it.)

    They also *seem* to have an altar missal on sale for 60% off (i.e. $124), item #: R20x11ii

    Enjoy!

    In Christ,
    Brian C.

    P.S. I’d also like to put in a non-sequitur plug for “Angel in the Waters”, a wonderful pro-life book for little children (item #: DDN9l–the last character is a lowercase “L”), which is being sold at the same site for 40% off ($4.20, 3 copies left). And no, I don’t work for them… :)

  14. Louis Tofari says:

    Dear All,

    When Benziger sold this book in 1963 (it was not printed until after May of that year, as all printers to the Apostolic See were awaiting final approval), depending on what type you purchased (standard [the edition PCP is assisting in reprinting], deluxe [with brass clasps, 5-color litho title and Canon-title pages]) sold between $36.00 and $45.00 each, which adjusted for today’s inflation, cost of materials and labor costs, works out to nearly $400.00! So PCP is actually selling the missal for nearly the same price as Benziger did (so much for retaining the value of the almighty dollar).

    As for the FULL edition of the “1962” Missale Romanum (rather a misnomer), as PCP’s website denotes, there is more than just St. Joseph’s name in the Canon to worry about (and actually, there are some minor differences in the Rubricae Generales section too).

    Finally, though Roman Catholic Books made a good attempt at a reprint, they made some cardinal layout (typograph; e.g., spreading the Canon texts across the entire page instead of in columns and bolding the newly re-set typeface [kudos for that though!] instead of finding a lead-type style font; bolding makes the eye stop on every character) and binding mistakes (an insufficiently reinforced spine, and the leather binding, though nice, will eventually cause problems over time). In addition to overcoming these inherent deficiencies, the faithfully reproduced Benziger missal will also have very durable ribbons made from poly-grosgrain material that does not fray like satin-based ribbons, and the ends are being buttoned-bowed (so no fraying there either, and handy for grabbing when switching ribbons).

    Hope this helps to clarify matters, and God bless.
    LJFT for PCP

  15. Peter Wilkinson says:

    Speaking of Missals old and new, when were the names of the station churches removed? Or were they added to the text of the Missal ‘ad lib’? I have some with them and some without them. It is of interest (I think) that Sexagesima’s station church was St Paul’s Outside the Walls, for the text of the Mass has a lot to do with that great sower of the Word, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Quinquagesima’s station Church is St Peter’s in the Vatican. Petrus.

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