Versus populum - A Conciliar practice?

One of the great myths of the contemporary liturgical crisis is that Mass facing the people was a product of the Second Vatican Council.

Sadly both the 1962ists and the more avant garde modernists both identify the Council as the originator of the practice in their revisionist rewriting of liturgical history. In fact the Council documents say nothing about versus populum.

Actually the practice was relatively widespread by the 1950s in parts of the USA and Continental Europe. A picture, it is said is worth a thousand words. So for the benefit of readers here are several. The top picture appears in Gerald Ellard's 'Men at Work at Worhip' that was published in 1940. So that picture was probably from the late 1930s. The picture below is taken from the same author's 1948 work 'The Mass of the Future':



Again, from his 1956 book 'The Mass in Transition' the picture below shows a sanctuary that has been reordered, significantly, before the Council. The fact that a book can bear the title 'The Mass in Transition' is rather indicative. Yet the 1962ists would have us believe everything in the Church was wonderful and perfect until the Council?



After the Ordo orders have been despatched I will post an article on the subject.