Now, there are problems for many protestants in the Canon, like invoking the saints (albeit most of the made optional in the NO Canon) and remembering the dead, but there are protestants who accept those things, Lutherans for instance. But if they don't like that, as INPEFESS also said, they have three other "eucharistic prayers" to chose from.
ALL of the Canons of the Missal of 1969 have a commoration of the faithful departed.
Eucharistic Prayers II and III have an optional one only for Masses for the dead. Eucharistic Prayer IV says "Remember those who have died in the peace of Christ and all the dead whose faith is known to you," which on second thoughts, doesn't seem that hard for the protestant to say. The invokation of the saints is gone. And all of them, without any kind of traditional offertory, can be understood figuratively by a protestant.
My response was predicated on your statement that
But if they don't like that, as INPEFESS also said, they have three other "eucharistic prayers" to chose from.
, which, to my reading of the sentence, would seem to indicate that the other three Eucharistic Prayers, or Canons of the Mass, (in the Ordinary Form, or Novus Ordo, if one prefers) do not have a commemoration of the dead, which is simply not true.
I can find nothing in the rubrics to indicate that the commemoration of the dead is optional in Eucharistic Prayers II and III (Ordinary Form) II or III (ref. The General Instruction of The Roman Missal
http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/revmissalisromanien.shtml , Chapter II, Section IIIC, 9g)
Your citation of the commemoration of the dead from Eucharistic Prayer IV is incomplete. It continues in the very next sentence with
Father, in your mercy grant also to us, your children, to enter into our heavenly inheritance in the company of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and your apostles and saints . Most evangelical I know would defiantly choke on that.
I am certainly not arguing in favor of the Ordinary Form / Novus Ordo, which would be against the spirit of Fish Eaters, and offensive to the sensibility of most here. However, when discussing the Liturgy it is important, I believe, to discuss it in truth, and the truth is that
every proper celebration of the Mass in the Ordinary From does indeed commemorate the faithful departed.
I'm going by what it says in my Novus Ordo hand missal (it was a gift, before anyone asks), now that I look more closely there is a very small mention of the dead, "Welcome into your kingdom our departed brothers and sisters, and all who have left this world in your friendship," in Eucharistic Prayer III, and in EP II, I still can't find anything except for the optional add-on for Masses for the dead; it's subheaded "In Masses for the Dead the following may be added" then has the commemoration of the dead.
As for that section in Eucharistic Prayer IV, firstly, my quotation was complete, my NO hand missal put's you quotation under another subheading. And secondly, are you sure that would choke the protestants? It's not invoking the saints' intercession (like the traditional Canon does) but acknowledging that they are/will be in Heaven. I know the Anglicans and the Lutherans are fine with that, I believe that's the sort of protestantism we're talkign about really, Evangelicalism is protestantism on steroids, I don't think Bugnini would have gotten away with making the Mass acceptable to evangelicals. The saints are still there in most of the Eucharistic Prayers, but their intercession is often removed and mention of them is greatly reduced.
Another thing, I didn't mean to say there's
no commemoration of the dead in the other "eucharistic prayers," I think what I was going to write before I forgot it and typed that was "As INPEFESS also said, it would have been too controversial to completely change the canon so they added three others in which to more water it down."
