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Showing posts with label Summorum Pontificum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summorum Pontificum. Show all posts
Vatican liturgy chief says Pope Leo will not overturn Latin Mass restrictions
Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, is pictured in a 2022 file photo. (OSV News/Reuters/Marko Djurica)
by Justin McLellan
Vatican City — July 30, 2026
The head of the Vatican's liturgy office said that Pope Leo XIV will not be peeling back restrictions on celebrating the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass put in place by his predecessor in 2021, dashing the hopes of traditionalist Catholics seeking a reversal of the controversial decree.
"Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes," said Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, referencing Pope Francis' 2021 restrictions on the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in an interview with the English Catholic magazine The Tablet published July 29.
Traditionis Custodes created new norms for the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, which follows the 1962 Roman Missal, declaring that priests must request permission from their bishop to celebrate that form of the Mass and that communities attached to the liturgy must celebrate it at designated locations apart from ordinary parish churches.
Publicly, Leo has not spoken at length on the issue, but Roche told The Tablet that the pope is "not going back to Summorum Pontificum" — the 2007 decree issued by Pope Benedict XIV that allowed priests to celebrate Mass from the 1962 missal.
Some Catholics have turned greater access to the old form of the Mass into a rallying cry for a church that rejects modernity, turning the liturgy into a flashpoint between more traditionally minded Catholics and those advancing a Vatican II vision of the church marked by greater participation of the laity.
Yet in the interview, Roche, who was appointed by Pope Francis to his current post in 2021 less than two months before Traditionis Custodes was published, appeared to state that the current conditions in no way marginalize Catholics with an affinity for the pre-Vatican II Mass.
"It’s interesting. When I meet with groups who want the antecedent liturgy, and I say: 'Well, the Holy Father has given you that, so what’s the problem?' they can’t answer," the cardinal said. "But then they go away and say, 'We’re still being persecuted.' In what way persecuted? Why is the band still playing a tune that is discordant with the life of the Church?"
The Vatican last year granted two U.S. dioceses temporary dispensations from enforcing Traditionis Custodes, and Leo allowed U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke to celebrate a pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, spurring hope among traditionalist Catholics that the American pope would soften restrictions on the old form of the liturgy.
Yet under Leo's leadership, the Vatican has not changed its official position that the reformed liturgy remains the sole expression of the Latin-rite Mass.
In January, a text authored by Roche, who at 76 is past the retirement age for cardinals, was distributed at a meeting of the world's cardinals which said that Francis "pointed the way to unity" with the restrictions he imposed on the old form of the liturgy and wrote that "there ought to be only one rite for celebrating the Mass."
Speaking to The Tablet, Roche said that Vatican II expressed the need for the church be more missionary in its focus, "and that to prepare people to be missionary, the very central core of the life of the Church, which is the Eucharist, has to nourish people in a different way."
He said the Mass today offers Catholics more spiritual nourishment than the 1962 Mass.
"The abundant diet of scripture that is now given through the celebration of the Mass and the sacraments is something that wasn’t available to use before, but it is now," he said. Whereas the old form of Mass portrayed the priest as acting on behalf of the congregation, the cardinal said that "in fact, when the Mass is being celebrated, because the baptized people are a priestly people, they too are celebrating with the priest," as emphasized in the reformed liturgy.
Documents have emerged, in what appears a leak at the Vatican, which indicate that the majority of Catholic bishops did not support the move by Pope Francis to restrict the Latin Mass.
The texts from the Vatican’s doctrine office were posted online on Tuesday by the Vatican correspondent Diane Montagna, who has followed the Latin Mass dispute since Traditionis Custodes, the apostolic letter issued motu proprio by Pope Francis in 2021 that restricted the celebration of the Tridentine Mass of the Roman Rite. It reversed Pope Benedict XVI’s previous permission for the Latin Mass to be celebrated.
The Associated Pressreports that the Vatican’s spokesman and prefect of the doctrine office hadn’t responded when asked on Wednesday, 2 July, to confirm the documents’ authenticity or to make any comments about the development.
The news wire reports that the documents show that the majority of Catholic bishops who responded to a 2020 Vatican survey about the Latin Mass expressed general satisfaction with it, and that they also warned that restricting it would do more harm than good.
The documents, if authentic, could add pressure on Pope Leo XIV to take action on Traditionis Custodes.
Pope Leo, since the start of his pontificate, has spoken about the need for unity and reconciliation in the Church, while many conservatives and traditionalists have pointed to the Latin Mass dispute as an area that requires urgent resolution, notes the AP.
It relates the words of Pope Francis in 2021 regarding Traditionis Custodes, when he stated that he was responding to “the wishes expressed” by bishops around the world who had responded to the Vatican survey, and to the Vatican doctrine office’s own opinion.
“The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene,” Francis wrote at the time, while arguing that Benedict’s permission had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division”.
The documents posted online indicate otherwise, the AP notes. They suggest that the majority of bishops who responded to the Vatican survey had a generally favourable view of Benedict’s reform and warned that suppressing or weakening it would lead traditionalist Catholics to leave the Church and join schismatic groups.
They warned that any change “would seriously damage the life of the Church, as it would recreate the tensions that [Benedict’s reform] had helped to resolve”.
The documents include a five-page “overall assessment” of the survey findings, written by the Vatican’s doctrine office, as well as a seven-page compilation of quotes from individual bishops or bishops’ conferences, the AP reports.
It notes that negative and neutral opinions on the use of the Latin Mass were expressed in the documents, and that some bishops considered Benedict’s reform “inappropriate” and “disturbing” and hence in need of suppression.
But the Vatican’s own assessment noted that the majority of bishops who responded expressed satisfaction, citing the rise in religious vocations in traditionalist communities and how young Catholics in particular were drawn to the “sacredness, seriousness and solemnity of the liturgy”.
The new documents have “comforted traditionalists who felt attacked and abandoned by Francis”, states the AP.
Joseph Shaw, director of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, told the AP in an email: “The new revelations confirms that Pope Francis restricted the Traditional Mass at the request of only a minority of bishops, and against the advice of the dicastery in charge of the subject.
“The majority view of the bishops, that restricting the TLM would cause more harm than good, has sadly been proved correct.”
He added that Leo should address the issue “urgently”.
Photo: Pope Francis attends the weekly general audience in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on 29 December 2021. (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images.)
Cardinal Raymond Burke said he has asked Pope Leo XIV to remove measures restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in dioceses.
Burke spoke at a London conference organized by The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, telling attendees that he hopes the new pontiff will “put an end to the persecution” of Catholic faithful who want to celebrate Mass using the “more ancient usage” — “usus antiquior” — of the Roman liturgy.
The prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura and former patron of the Order of Malta was one of seven guest panelists invited to speak at the faith and culture conference held on June 14.
Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, who has written extensively on the Eucharist and Church tradition, also spoke at the weekend conference held to mark the 60th anniversary of the U.K.-based society.
“I certainly have already had occasion to express that to the Holy Father,” Burke said via video link. “It is my hope that he will, as soon as is reasonably possible, take up the study of this question.”
After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969. This liturgy, celebrated in the vernacular, largely replaced the TLM in dioceses worldwide.
“It is my hope,” Burke said at the conference, “[Leo will] even continue to develop what Pope Benedict XVI had so wisely and lovingly legislated for the Church.”
Besides criticisms leveled against Traditionis Custodes, the U.S. cardinal has been publicly critical of other initiatives led by Pope Francis.
In 2016, Burke and three other cardinals submitted “dubia” — formal requests for clarification — regarding interpretations of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
The prelate also criticized the 2019 Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region convened by Pope Francis, saying parts of the agenda appeared “contrary” to Catholic teaching.
Vatican announces apostolic visit to Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
Solemn Mass is celebrated at St. Clement Parish, Ottawa, Canada, which is entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). | Credit: Public Domain
By Walter Sánchez Silva
CNA / EWTN Vatican, 2024-10-01
The Vatican has announced it will carry out an apostolic visitation to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), an institution whose priests celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and which is in full communion with the Catholic Church.
The FSSP should not be confused with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist group that is not in full communion with the Catholic Church and which has an irregular canonical status.
The Sept. 30 statement from the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life says that “it has called for an apostolic visitation to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter … in order to deepen the understanding of this society of apostolic life of pontifical right and to offer the most appropriate support to its journey of following Christ.”
The apostolic visit, says the text signed by the prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Joăo Braz de Aviz, and Sister Simona Brambilla, the dicastery’s secretary, is taking place “in the context of the process of accompanying the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life that were previously established by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and which Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodeshas placed under the jurisdiction of this dicastery.”
In a statement published by the FSSP on Sept. 26, the institution specified that “as the prefect of this dicastery himself made clear to the superior general and his assistants during a meeting in Rome, this visit does not originate in any problems of the fraternity but is intended to enable the dicastery to know who we are, how we are doing, and how we live so as to provide us with any help we may need.”
“The last ordinary apostolic visit of the fraternity was undertaken in 2014 by the Ecclesia Dei commission,” the statement added.
What is the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter?
The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter states on its website that it is a society of apostolic life of pontifical right whose priests “work together for a common mission in the Catholic Church, under the authority of the Holy See.”
In its apostolate and mission, the FSSP uses “the liturgical books in force in 1962,” meaning it celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass, “as specified in its decree of erection of 1988, confirmed by decree of Pope Francis dated Feb. 11, 2022.”
In February 2022 the Holy Father authorized the FSSP to continue celebrating the TLM, but he also encouraged them to reflect on what is established in Traditionis Custodes. The authorization was then confirmed by the Holy Father himself in March of this year.
The general house of the FSSP is in Fribourg, Switzerland, and has about 368 priests and 201 seminarians. The society has eight members in Mexico, 10 in Chile, 13 in Spain, and a group of 25 in Canada.
What is the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei?
The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was created by Pope John Paul II in 1988 to dialogue with the Lefebvrists and to facilitate full communion with the Catholic Church for those “linked in various ways to the society founded by Archbishop [Marcel] Lefebvre” (the SSPX).
The Vatican further noted that “the pontifical commission exercises the authority of the Holy See over the various religious institutes and communities erected by it, which have as their own rite the ‘extraordinary form’ of the Roman rite [TLM] and preserve the preceding traditions of religious life.”
Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes
The Vatican published Pope Francis’ motu proprioTraditionis Custodes on July 16, 2021. The text severely limits the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (extraordinary form), or Tridentine Mass, i.e. celebrated with the 1962 missal.
Pope Francis thus modified the provisions given by Pope Benedict XVI in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which in 2007 had liberalized the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
HAVE WORKED in both the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. Neither is “perfect.” For example, I’ve been involved with TLM communities since 1994 and can affirm that such communities certainly have some bad eggs.1 On the other hand, some Ordinary Form Masses are celebrated with such monstrous irreverence it can damage one’s faith. If the celebrant truly believes JESUS CHRIST is present—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—it’s difficult to understand why any priest would allow such disrespect. And I’m not just talking about the recent bikini Mass. Moreover, the musical selections for the Ordinary Form are frequently profane, goofy, and embarrassing. If we truly believe the SECOND PERSON OF THE BLESSED TRINITY is present, why do we allow such things?
15th Anniversary • As we mentioned when speaking about a hymn for 14 September, today is the 15th anniversary of SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM. In the 2007 accompanying letter to Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI declared: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer…”
Isolation Camps? • During WW2, Franklin D. Roosevelt forcibly placed Americans of Japanese descent into “isolation camps,” in spite of the fact that many Japanese-Americans fought (and died) as United States soldiers. These days, nobody defends FDR’s actions toward Japanese-Americans, especially because it made them feel like traitors. Sadly, similar things are happening in the Catholic Church. Arthur Cardinal Roche wrote a letter (4 December 2021) saying that “Summórum Catholics” are supposed to be ostracized until they learn to prefer the Missale Recens.
No Action Too Petty • No action is considered too ‘petty’ by Cardinal Roche. For example, Roche says that EF celebrations should be omitted from the parish bulletin! The Sacrifice of Calvary is considered “banned” from the parish bulletin—can you imagine? And Roche says in his declaration that ‘normal’ Catholics need to make it clear to “Summórum Catholics” they belong at the bottom of the totem pole. For instance, §13 of his letter tells ‘normal’ Catholics to give every single “parish activity” of theirs a higher priority than Holy Mass in the EF.
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge • Bishop Burbidge recently decided to publicly punish Catholics who take seriously the words of Benedict XVI cited above. Bishop Burbidge, for instance, has removed the SANCTISSIMUM from churches, placing Our Lord into ‘interment camps’ such as gymnasiums. But just look what Catholics did in response! They made their gymnasium look beautiful (as shown in photographs taken by D. McConnell), and the attendance is standing room only:
Bishop Burbidge’s Flock • These families support the Catholic Church financially. Why are they being punished by Most Rev. Burbidge in this way? Is this the “accompaniment” which Pope Francis has so frequently called for? I invite Bishop Burbidge to contact me and explain why such a punishment was necessary in light of the following:
“Unity does not imply uniformity; it does not necessarily mean doing everything together or thinking in the same way.” —Pope Francis (31 October 2014)
“Wherever any minority is persecuted and marginalized because of its religious convictions or ethnic identity, the well-being of society as a whole is endangered, and each one of us must feel affected.” —Pope Francis (24 October 2013)
“Be open to acceptance, and hence to the value of inclusion. Don’t let yourselves be drawn into short-sighted ideologies that want to show others (those who are different from ourselves) as enemies.” —Pope Francis (6 July 2022)
“The Holy Spirit does not want closedness; He wants openness, and welcoming communities where there is a place for everyone. […] We are called to build an increasingly inclusive world that excludes no one.” —Pope Francis (26 September 2021)
The pope’s intention with his motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes, is to secure or restore the unity of the Church. The proposed means for this is the total unification of the Roman Rite in the form of the Missal of Paul VI (including its subsequent variations). Therefore, the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, as introduced by Pope Benedict XVI with Summorum pontificum (2007) on the basis of the Missal that existed from Pius V (1570) to John XXIII (1962), has been drastically restricted. The clear intent is to condemn the Extraordinary Form to extinction in the long run.
In his “Letter to the Bishops of the Whole World,” which accompanies the motu proprio, Pope Francis tries to explain the motives that have caused him, as the bearer of the supreme authority of the Church, to limit the liturgy in the extraordinary form. Beyond the presentation of his subjective reactions, however, a stringent and logically comprehensible theological argumentation would also have been appropriate. For papal authority does not consist in superficially demanding from the faithful mere obedience, i.e., a formal submission of the will, but, much more essentially, in enabling the faithful also to be convinced with consent of the mind. As St. Paul, courteous towards his often quite unruly Corinthians, said, “in the church I would rather speak five words with my mind, so as to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in tongues.” (1 Cor 14:19)
This dichotomy between good intention and poor execution always arises where the objections of competent employees are perceived as an obstruction of their superiors’ intentions, and which are, therefore, not even offered. As welcome as the references to Vatican II may be, care must be taken to ensure that the Council’s statements are used precisely and in context. The quotation from St. Augustine about membership in the Church “according to the body” and “according to the heart” (Lumen Gentium 14) refers to the full Church membership of the Catholic faith. It consists in the visible incorporation into the body of Christ (creedal, sacramental, ecclesiastical-hierarchical communion) as well as in the union of the heart, i.e. in the Holy Spirit. What this means, however, is not obedience to the pope and the bishops in the discipline of the sacraments, but sanctifying grace, which fully involves us in the invisible Church as communion with the Triune God.
For the unity in the confession of the revealed faith and the celebration of the mysteries of grace in the seven sacraments by no means require sterile uniformity in the external liturgical form, as if the Church were like one of the international hotel chains with their homogenous design. The unity of believers with one another is rooted in unity in God through faith, hope, and love and has nothing to do with uniformity in appearance, the lockstep of a military formation, or the groupthink of the big-tech age.
Even after the Council of Trent, there always was a certain diversity (musical, celebratory, regional) in the liturgical organization of Masses. The intention of Pope Pius V was not to suppress the variety of rites, but rather to curb the abuses that had led to a devastating lack of understanding among the Protestant Reformers regarding the substance of the sacrifice of the Mass (its Sacrificial character and Real Presence). In the Missal of Paul VI, ritualistic (rubricist) homogenization is broken up, precisely in order to overcome a mechanical execution in favor of an inner and outer active participation of all believers in their respective languages and cultures. The unity of the Latin rite, however, should be preserved through the same basic liturgical structure and the precise orientation of the translations to the Latin original.
The Roman Church must not pass on its responsibility for unity in cult to the Bishops’ Conferences. Rome must oversee translation of the normative texts of the Missal of Paul VI, and even of the biblical texts, that might obscure the contents of the faith. Presumptions that one may “improve” the verba domini (e.g. pro multis – “for many” – at the consecration, the et ne nos inducas in tentationem – “and lead us not into temptation” – in the Our Father), contradict the truth of the faith and the unity of the Church much more than celebrating Mass according to the Missal of John XXIII.
The key to a Catholic understanding of the liturgy lies in the insight that the substance of the sacraments is given to the Church as a visible sign and means of the invisible grace by virtue of divine law, but that it is up to the Apostolic See and, in accordance with the law, to the bishops to order the external form of the liturgy (insofar as it has not already existed since apostolic times). (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22 § 1)
The provisions of Traditionis Custodes are of a disciplinary, not dogmatic nature and can be modified again by any future pope. Naturally, the pope, in his concern for the unity of the Church in the revealed faith, is to be fully supported when the celebration of Holy Mass according to the Missal of 1962 is an expression of resistance to the authority of Vatican II, which is to say, when the doctrine of the faith and the Church’s ethics are relativized or even denied in the liturgical and pastoral order.
*
In Traditionis Custodes, the pope rightly insists on the unconditional recognition of Vatican II. Nobody can call himself a Catholic who either wants to go back behind Vatican II (or any other council recognized by the pope) as the time of the “true” Church or wants to leave that Church behind as an intermediate step towards a “new Church.” One may measure Pope Francis’ will to return to unity the deplored so-called “traditionalists” (i.e., those opposed to the Missal of Paul VI) against the degree of his determination to put an end to the innumerable “progressivist” abuses of the liturgy (renewed in accordance with Vatican II) that are tantamount to blasphemy. The paganization of the Catholic liturgy – which is in its essence nothing other than the worship of the One and Triune God – through the mythologization of nature, the idolatry of environment and climate, as well as the Pachamama spectacle, were rather counterproductive for the restoration and renewal of a dignified and orthodox liturgy reflective of the fulness of the Catholic faith.
Nobody can turn a blind eye to the fact that even those priests and laypeople who celebrate Mass according to the order of the Missal of St. Paul VI are now being widely decried as traditionalist. The teachings of Vatican II on the uniqueness of redemption in Christ, the full realization of the Church of Christ in the Catholic Church, the inner essence of the Catholic liturgy as adoration of God and mediation of grace, Revelation and its presence in Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, the infallibility of the magisterium, the primacy of the pope, the sacramentality of the Church, the dignity of the priesthood, the holiness and indissolubility of marriage – all these are being heretically denied in open contradiction to Vatican II by a majority of German bishops and lay functionaries (even if disguised under pastoral phrases).
And despite all the apparent enthusiasm they express for Pope Francis, they are flatly denying the authority conferred on him by Christ as the successor of Peter. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s document about the impossibility of legitimizing same-sex and extramarital sexual contacts through a blessing is ridiculed by German (and not only German) bishops, priests, and theologians as merely the opinion of under-qualified curial officials. Here we have a threat to the unity of the Church in revealed faith, reminiscent of the size of the Protestant secession from Rome in the sixteenth century. Given the disproportion between the relatively modest response to the massive attacks on the unity of the church in the German “Synodal Way” (as well as in other pseudo-reforms) and the harsh disciplining of the old ritual minority, the image of the misguided fire brigade comes to mind, which – instead of saving the blazing house – instead first saves the small barn next to it.
Without the slightest empathy, one ignores the religious feelings of the (often young) participants in the Masses according to the Missal John XXIII. (1962) Instead of appreciating the smell of the sheep, the shepherd here hits them hard with his crook. It also seems simply unjust to abolish celebrations of the “old” rite just because it attracts some problematic people: abusus non tollit usum.
What deserves special attention in Traditionis Custodes is the use of the axiom lex orandi-lex credendi (“Rule of prayer – rule of faith”). This phrase appears first in the anti-Pelagian Indiculus (“Against superstitions and paganism”) which spoke about “the sacraments of priestly prayers, handed down by the apostles to be celebrated uniformly all over the world and in the entire Catholic Church, so that the rule of prayer is the rule of faith.” (Denzinger Hünermann, Enchiridion symbolorum 3) This refers to the substance of the sacraments (in signs and words) but not the liturgical rite, of which there were several (with different variants) in the patristic era. One cannot simply declare the latest missal to be the only valid norm of the Catholic faith without distinguishing between the “part that is unchangeable by virtue of divine institution and the parts that are subject to change.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 21). The changing liturgical rites do not represent a different faith, but rather testify to the one and the same Apostolic Faith of the Church in its different expressions.
The pope’s letter confirms that he allows the celebration according to the older form under certain conditions. He rightly points to the centrality of the Roman canon in the more recent Missal as the heart of the Roman rite. This guarantees the crucial continuity of the Roman liturgy in its essence, organic development, and inner unity. To be sure, one expects the lovers of the ancient liturgy to recognize the renewed liturgy; just as the followers of the Paul VI Missal also have to confess that the Mass according to the Missal of John XXIII is a true and valid Catholic liturgy, that is, it contains the substance of the Eucharist instituted by Christ and, therefore, there is and can only be “the one Mass of all times.”
A little more knowledge of Catholic dogmatics and the history of the liturgy could counteract the unfortunate formation of opposing parties and also save the bishops from the temptation to act in an authoritarian, loveless, and narrow-minded manner against the supporters of the “old” Mass. The bishops are appointed as shepherds by the Holy Spirit: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” (Acts 20, 28) They are not merely representatives of a central office – with opportunities for advancement. The good shepherd can be recognized by the fact that he worries more about the salvation of souls than recommending himself to a higher authority by subservient “good behavior.” (1 Peter 5, 1-4) If the law of non-contradiction still applies, one cannot logically castigate careerism in the Church and at the same time promote careerists.
Let us hope that the Congregations for Religious and for Divine Worship, with their new authority, do not become inebriated by power and think they have to wage a campaign of destruction against the communities of the old rite – in the foolish belief that by doing so they are rendering a service to the Church and promoting Vatican II.
If Traditionis Custodes is to serve the unity of the church, that can only mean a unity in faith, which enables us to “come to the perfect knowledge of the Son of God,” which is to say unity in truth and love. (cf. Eph 4, 12-15).
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Translated from the German by Robert Royal with Msgr. Hans Feichtinger.
New norms regarding use of 1962 Roman Missal: Bishops given greater responsibility
Pope Francis publishes a motu proprio on Friday to redefine the use of the pre-Vatican missal granting the decision to allow its use the local bishops. Groups attending the pre-Vatican liturgy must not deny the validity of the liturgical reform dictated by the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs.
By Vatican News
After consulting the bishops throughout the world, Pope Francis has decided to modify the norms regulating the use of the 1962 missal granted 14 years ago by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, as the “extraordinary form of the Roman Rite”. The Pope has published the Motu proprioTraditionis custodes, dated 16 July 2021, regarding the use of the Roman liturgy prior to 1970. It is accompanied by a letter in which he explains the reasons behind his decision. Here are the main points.
The responsibility to regulate the celebration of the pre-conciliar liturgy returns to the Bishop, as the moderator of the liturgical life of the diocese: “it his exclusive competence to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See”. The bishop is to verify that groups already celebrating the liturgy with the 1962 Missal “do not deny the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs”.
Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missal are not to take place any longer in parishes. Bishops are to establish both the location(s) where and the days on which it will be celebrated. It is required that the readings be proclaimed “in the vernacular language”, using the translations approved by the Episcopal Conferences. The celebrant will be delegated by the bishop. The latter is also to evaluate whether or not to retain the celebration of the pre-Vatican liturgy according to its “effectiveness for spiritual growth”. It is also necessary that the designated priest not only have at heart the correct celebration of the liturgy, but also the pastoral and spiritual care of the faithful. The Bishop is “to take care not to authorize the establishment of new groups”.
Priests ordained after the publication of today’s Motu proprio who want to celebrate the pre-conciliar liturgy, “should submit a formal request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before granting this authorization”. While those who are already doing so may request from their diocesan Bishop the authorization to continue. The institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life, “erected by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei”, will now come under the competence of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life will monitor the observance of these new provisions.
In the letter accompanying the document, Pope Francis explains that the established concessions granted by his predecessors for the use of the 1692 Roman Missal were above all “motivated by the desire to foster the healing of the schism with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre”. The request directed to the Bishops to generously welcome the “just aspirations” of the members of the faithful who request the use of this Missal was also motivated by “the ecclesial intention of restoring the unity of the Church”. Pope Francis observes that, “many in the Church came to regard this faculty as an opportunity to adopt freely the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and use it in a manner parallel to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Paul VI”.
The Pope recalls that Pope Benedict XVI’s decision promulgated with the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) was sustained by the “confidence that such a provision would not place in doubt one of the key measures of Vatican Council II or minimize in this way its authority”. Fourteen years ago, Pope Benedict declared “unfounded the fear of division in parish communities, because ‘the two forms of the use of the Roman Rite would enrich one another’ ”.
However, the responses to the recent questionnaire circulated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith among the Bishops, Pope Francis writes, “reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene”. Benedict’s desire to ensure unity, Pope Francis says, has “often been seriously disregarded”, and the concessions offered with largesse have instead been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division”.
The Pope expresses he is “saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides”. In addition, he deplores the fact that the “instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’ ”. To doubt the Council, Pope Francis explains, “is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council, and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church”.
This is the final reason Pope Francis gives for his decision to modify the past concessions:
“Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — ‘I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ’ — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted (1 Cor 1:12-13). In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors”.
This article is a working translation of the original Italian
Cardinal Walter Brandmuller elevates the Eucharist during a Tridentine-rite Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in 2011. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Saying he was acting for the good of the unity of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has restored limits on the celebration of the Mass according to the Roman Missal in use before the Second Vatican Council, overturning or severely restricting permissions St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had given to celebrate the so-called Tridentine-rite Mass.
“An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences and encourage disagreements that injure the church, block her path and expose her to the peril of division,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to bishops July 16.
The text accompanies his apostolic letter “Traditionis Custodes” (Guardians of the Tradition), declaring the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council to be “the unique expression of the ‘lex orandi’ (law of worship) of the Roman Rite,” restoring the obligation of priests to have their bishops’ permission to celebrate according to the “extraordinary” or pre-Vatican II Mass and ordering bishops not to establish any new groups or parishes in their dioceses devoted to the old liturgy.
Priests currently celebrating Mass according to the old missal must request authorization from their bishop to continuing doing so, Pope Francis ordered, and for any priest ordained after the document’s publication July 16, the bishop must consult with the Vatican before granting authorization.
Pope Francis also transferred to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the new rules.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued “Summorum Pontificum” on the use of the pre-Vatican II Roman liturgy. It said any priest of the Latin-rite church may, without any further permission from the Vatican or from his bishop, celebrate the “extraordinary form” of the Mass according to the rite published in 1962. The Roman Missal based on the revisions of the Second Vatican Council was published in 1969.
The conditions Pope Benedict set out for use of the old rite were that there was a desire for it, that the priest knows the rite and Latin well enough to celebrate in a worthy manner and that he ensures that the good of parishioners desiring the extraordinary form “is harmonized with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop in accordance with Canon 392, avoiding discord and favoring the unity of the whole church.”
The now-retired pope also insisted that Catholics celebrating predominantly according to the old rite acknowledge the validity of the new Mass and accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
In his letter to bishops, Pope Francis said that responses to a survey of the world’s bishops carried out last year by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me and persuades me of the need to intervene. Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my predecessors, who had intended ‘to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew,’ has often been seriously disregarded.”
“Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true church,'” Pope Francis wrote.
To promote the unity of the church, Pope Francis said, bishops should care for those Catholics “who are rooted in the previous form of celebration” while helping them “return in due time” to the celebration of Mass according to the new Missal.
The pope also indicated he believed that sometimes parishes and communities devoted to the older liturgy were the idea of the priests involved and not the result of a group of Catholic faithful desiring to celebrate that Mass.
Pope Francis asked bishops “to discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the ‘holy people of God.'”
However, he also said that many people find nourishment in more solemn celebrations of Mass, so he asked bishops “to be vigilant in ensuring that every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II, without the eccentricities that can easily degenerate into abuses.”
The liturgical life of the church has changed and developed over the centuries, the pope noted.
“St. Paul VI, recalling that the work of adaptation of the Roman Missal had already been initiated by Pius XII, declared that the revision of the Roman Missal, carried out in the light of ancient liturgical sources, had the goal of permitting the church to raise up, in the variety of languages, ‘a single and identical prayer’ that expressed her unity,” Pope Francis said. “This unity I intend to re-establish throughout the church of the Roman Rite.”
