The Ottaviani Intervention or Short Critical Study on the New Order of Mass was a study of 5 June 1969 written by twelve Roman Catholic theologians, who worked under the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci sent it to Pope Paul VI with a cover letter dated 25 September 1969. The study cast doubt on the orthodoxy of the Mass of Paul VI, which had been promulgated by the Apostolic ConstitutionMissale Romanum of 3 April 1969, though the definitive text, which took account of some of the criticisms of the Short Critical Study, had not yet appeared. Fr. Lauriers is said to be the main intellectual force behind the study. Pope Paul VI asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department of the Roman Curia that Ottaviani had earlier headed, to examine the Short Critical Study. It responded on 12 November 1969 that the document contained many affirmations that were "superficial, exaggerated, inexact, emotional and false". A letter of 17 February 1970 signed by Cardinal Ottaviani and addressed to Gerard Lafond, was published by . It stated: The letter also expressed regret on the part of the cardinal that his letter of 25 September 1969 had been published: Jean Madiran, a traditionalist Catholic who was the founder-director of the review Itinéraires, which was condemned by the French episcopate in 1966, maintained that Itinéraires had received the cardinal's authorization to publish his letter to the Pope and suggested that Ottaviani had signed the letter to Dom Gerard-Marie Lafond, prepared by his secretary, without knowing its contents, since he was blind, as he had been already when he signed his letter to the Pope. Cardinal Bacci, who also signed the covering letter, and the twelve authors of the intervention did not retract their statements. Also, Archbishop Lefebvre did not disown his connection with it. On the other hand, Cardinal Ottaviani failed to deny authorship of the letter to Dom Gerard-Marie Lafond.
