Corrections

This Index will get things wrong. When it does, the error and its repair are recorded here, in public, with the date. Nothing is quietly edited away.

What is recorded here

A record is opened whenever a page changes a claim a reader could already have read and believed. 15 corrections have been made since 13 September 2026, when the first of these pages went live.

Corrections to a draft are not listed: those are editing, not correcting, and listing them would advertise errors nobody was ever shown. Neither are changes of design or wording that alter no claim. Where a question was reviewed and the page left standing, that is recorded in the entry itself, among its sources, rather than here.

Each record says whether the page was open to search engines while it was wrong. The whole Index was published closed to search from 13 September 2026 so that it could be reviewed on the real site, and opened on 25 September 2026; pages outside the Index were never closed.

The ledger

Newest first. 15 records.

The 2023 milestone, and the prose on the rite today

FactCorrected 24 September 2026On Vetus Ordo

It said: The milestone gave two reserved dispensations but omitted half of the first, naming only the use of a parish church. The prose was further out: it listed three dispensations, splitting the first one in two.
It now says: "The use of a parish church or the erection of a personal parish for celebration with the 1962 Missal, and permission for priests ordained after the publication of Traditionis custodes (16 July 2021), are the two dispensations reserved to the Holy See."
Why that was wrong: The rescript of 20 February 2023 reserves two dispensations, and the first of them covers both the use of a parish church and the erection of a personal parish. Our milestone dropped the personal-parish half; our prose turned one dispensation into two and so reported three where the rescript gives two.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 14 September 2026.

The lineage drawing, title of the trunk

OverstatementCorrected 24 September 2026On Roman Rite

It said: "The organic and unbroken development of the Roman Rite, from the Upper Room to 1962."
It now says: "The Roman Rite as received, from the Upper Room to 1962: the trunk as this Index draws it."
Why that was wrong: "Unbroken" is this Index's judgment, and a contested one: the sources support "received versus made" as an argument about degree, with a strong opposing case on the record. The old title presented that judgment as a neutral description of the drawing. The new one says whose drawing it is.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 15 September 2026.

The lineage drawing, the note beneath it

OverstatementCorrected 24 September 2026On Roman Rite

It said: "Its critics have called the result made rather than received, and without precedent."
It now says: "…and without precedent in the freedom with which its makers altered the texts, as Pristas judges of the orations; Gelineau … wrote that 'the Roman rite as we knew it exists no more'."
Why that was wrong: Pristas proves a narrow claim about the orations; Gelineau supplies an image, not a survey. Neither surveys the whole Missal, so neither establishes "without precedent" in every respect. The claim now says what its witnesses actually show, and names them.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 15 September 2026.

In brief, the sentence on the apostolic planting of the Roman church

CitationCorrected 24 September 2026On Roman Rite

It said: The sentence carried a citation to the Catechism, §1203.
It now says: The citation is gone. The sentence stands on the sources that do bear it.
Why that was wrong: CCC §1203 establishes neither the apostolic planting of the Roman church nor the arrival of its liturgy with it. The citation decorated the claim rather than supporting it, which is worse than no citation: it invites a reader to check a reference that will not hold. The Index's other two citations of §1203 are correct and were left alone.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 15 September 2026.

The "What changed" panel, its heading

FramingCorrected 24 September 2026On Roman Rite

It said: "What changed in 1969."
It now says: "What changed in the making of the 1969 Missal", with a subtitle noting that some changes, such as the Last Gospel's removal in 1965, came earlier.
Why that was wrong: The rows under that heading are precisely dated, and several of them are not 1969: a change of 7 March 1965, the Lectionary's second edition of 1981, a comparison with the Missal before 1951. The data was right and the heading misdescribed it.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 15 September 2026.

The 1570 milestone, on Quo primum

FactCorrected 24 September 2026On The Descent of the Roman Rite

It said: "…churches with 200-year-old customs excepted."
It now says: "…churches excepted whose way of celebrating had been approved by the Apostolic See from its first institution or rested on custom, in either case continuously observed for over two hundred years."
Why that was wrong: Quo primum gives two grounds of exception, approval by the Apostolic See from a church's first institution and custom, and the two-hundred-year test governs both. The descent page had dropped the first ground. The Roman Rite's own page already carried the corrected reading, so the Index was inconsistent with itself.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 18 September 2026.

The opening facts of the descent

CitationCorrected 24 September 2026On The Descent of the Roman Rite

It said: "19 centuries of one line, from the Upper Room to 1962", cited to the decree of 23 June 1962 that declared that edition typical.
It now says: The line is cited instead to the lineage spine, using locators already verified elsewhere in the Index.
Why that was wrong: The 1962 decree attests that the edition is typical. It says nothing about nineteen centuries of descent. A citation has to carry the claim standing over it, and this one could not. No new locator was invented to close the gap.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 18 September 2026.

The 1969 break, detail panel

OverstatementCorrected 24 September 2026On The Descent of the Roman Rite

It said: "Never before had the Roman Rite's own Order of Mass given way to one made to take its place."
It now says: "In 1969 the Roman Rite's own Order of Mass gave way to one made to take its place, as Paul VI's own words state; this Index finds no earlier instance in the rite's history."
Why that was wrong: The sources prove that 1969 was a replacement. None of them surveys the rite's whole history, which is what "never before" asserts. The claim is now split: what Paul VI's own words establish, stated as fact, and what the Index has not found, stated as ours.

Our own inspection of the Roman entries, 20 September 2026. Live but closed to search while it stood. In place from 18 September 2026.