This simple insight infuriated extremists on both sides. Traditionalists accused him of minimizing the old Mass. Progressives accused him of legitimizing the old Mass. Hahn just shrugged and kept teaching. It shows Hahn not as a polemicist (his public image), but as a structural theologian who uses ancient covenant patterns to resolve modern liturgical wars—peacefully, and with evidence.
The two Catholic rites, far from being opposites, were nearly identical in their covenant structure—just “unfolded” differently. The old Mass emphasized the sacrificial renewal of the covenant; the new Mass highlighted the covenant meal. But both contained the same four-fold covenant pattern (Preamble, Proclamation, Sacrifice, Meal). Hahn famously concluded: “The Latin Mass is the Novus Ordo in slow motion; the Novus Ordo is the Latin Mass in fast-forward.”
Most people know Scott Hahn as the fiery Presbyterian minister turned Catholic apologist, author of Rome Sweet Home and The Lamb’s Supper . But few realize he once played theological detective in a way that unsettled both Protestant and Catholic camps.
Here’s a brief, interesting text about author and theologian , focusing on a lesser-known but fascinating aspect of his journey: The Unlikely Detective: How Scott Hahn Cracked the “Mass of the Ages”
More provocatively, he argued that the Last Supper itself was not a “Mass” but a Passover meal transformed by Jesus into the new covenant sacrifice —meaning neither rite fully captures the original event. Both are legitimate, complementary expressions of the same reality.
