My own view of the Novus Ordo is that it is fundamentally defective and an impediment to reunion with the Orthodox Church.
I specifically object to the following:
- Celebration of the mass versus populum
- The disappearance of Gregorian chant from the life of many Catholic parishes where the mass has been introduced
- The use of Lay Eucharistic Ministers
- The Three Year Lectionary, which is unprecedented in the history of Christendom
- The removal of the Last Gospel at the end of a Sung Mass
- Changes to the Paschal Triduum which began in 1955
- The excessive simplification of vestments to a degree which is minimalist and ugly
- The lack of the prepratory ritual which accompanies the Tridentine Mass
- The general lack of reverence, piety and dignity which characterize the Tridentine Mass and the Orthodox liturgies.
My preference would be for the RCC to revert to the Tridentine Mass rubrics as they existed following the reforms of Pope Pius X, albeit with the option of the mass being said wholly or partially in the vernacular. A more explicit epiclesis, like the one the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate inserted into their Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory, would be of great benefit.
The only change, aside from the use of the vernacular, which I can support, is the 1962 modification of the Good Friday litany to delete the phrase "perfidis iudeam." Perfidy means faithless, but by extension, it has shifted in context to refer to treacherous acts, such as war crimes (it is a war crime, perfidy, for example, to surrender, and then attack the enemy, or to infilitrate the enemy by wearing their uniforms, or to kill an officer who is negotiating under a flag of truce). In light of the change of context surrounding the word "perfidy," it creates a reading of the mass which looks anti-Semitic, even though the intent was actually pro-Semitic, for the conversion of the Jews, and because of that, I think Pope John XXIII was correct in deleting it.