[Catholic Caucus] The Roche Rescript impoverishes the whole Church, says Chairman of Latin Mass Society

Seminarians of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP) prepare to receive minor orders at Wigratzbad

Since Pope Francis’s Apostolic Letter Traditionis Custodes in 2021, congregations attending the pre-Vatican II Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), have been living on borrowed time. Pope Francis announced that he wished to enforce “single and identical prayer” and to this end deprecated the use of parish churches for the liturgy of the TLM. The Dicastery for Divine Worship later explained that “the exclusion of the parish church is intended to affirm that the celebration of the Eucharist according to the previous rite, being a concession limited to these groups, is not part of the ordinary life of the parish community.” On February 21 the Pope approved a rescript, signed by Cardinal Arthur Roche, to the effect that permission for the continuing use of parish churches for the TLM was “reserved to the Holy See”. Local bishops could not allow it on their own authority.

There are many puzzling things about this situation, but here I shall focus on two. One is the spiritual benefit some Catholics receive from the Traditional Mass; the other is the value of this liturgy to the Church as a whole. That those who attend this Mass typically benefit, spiritually, from doing so, seems to be taken for granted by the documents restricting it: they repeatedly refer to their “good” as a potential justification for allowing celebrations to continue. The Holy See is not claiming that attending the Traditional Mass is bad because this liturgy is theologically misleading, or inculcates a false spirituality.

Indeed, different liturgical forms are like different optional devotions or schools of spirituality. The Church does not condemn variety in these things, but welcomes it. With the Eastern Rites in mind, Vatican II’s Unitatis redintegratio (n. 4) tells us:

All in the Church must preserve unity in essentials. But let all, according to the gifts they have received enjoy a proper freedom, in their various forms of spiritual life and discipline, in their different liturgical rites, and even in their theological elaborations of revealed truth. In all things let charity prevail. If they are true to this course of action, they will be giving ever better expression to the authentic catholicity and apostolicity of the Church.

The TLM has not been recognised officially as a separate Rite, and attendees have not usually grown up with it; again, many attend both the new and old forms of Mass. Nevertheless, it has been approved by the Church over many centuries, and has a spirit somewhat different from the reformed version. This being so, it is natural that some Catholics may find it helpful as a part or the whole of their liturgical experience, and on the above principles this should be welcomed.

If, then, it is “good” that people be allowed to attend it, why is this to be discouraged? The answer we have been given is “unity”: Pope Francis tells us that this liturgy has been “exploited” or “instrumentalised” to “expose her to the peril of division”.

As many have pointed out, the characterisation of traditionalists in this document seems to have been inspired by extremists already outside the Church. Even if some within her walls are indeed like this, it seems a strange way of dealing with them: to overrule local bishops to force them to attend Mass in a parish hall or inaccessible convent chapel, or to drive them out of the Church altogether. Penalties in the Church are supposed to be “medicinal”: to help the individuals who are penalised, and not simply to sacrifice them for the greater good. Isolation, marginalisation, and persecution are a recipe for radicalisation. It hardly seems helpful to stop Catholics who attend the Traditional Mass from mixing with those who do not, and to provide apparent justification for their most paranoid assessments of the hierarchy.

The good of individual Catholics attached to the TLM is not the whole story, however. The dogged persistence of supporters of this liturgy carried them through long periods of time in which few of them were able to attend it regularly. The Latin Mass Society and similar groups all over the world are testament to this. Their long campaign for the freedom of the “earlier Missal” cannot be explained solely by personal devotional habits. They did not just want the ancient Mass for themselves: they saw its disappearance as something bad for the whole Church. In the words of the founding President of the worldwide Una Voce Federation, Erich von Saventhem, in 1970: “It is our task—since we have been given the grace to appreciate the value of this heritage—to preserve it from spoliation, from becoming buried out of sight, despised and therefore lost forever.”

The same attitude was articulated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, in his letter to bishops which accompanied Summorum Ponti cum. He explained his decision to make the TLM more widely available: “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 behoves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

It is, then, not just a matter of individuals who have been drawn into a liturgical form which will be painful for them to give up – important as this is to the bishops and priests charged with their pastoral care. In addition to that consideration, the ancient liturgy is part of the heritage of the whole Church, and in- deed, of worldwide human culture. We are all impoverished when a cultural practice recognised for antiquity, beauty, and profundity, is lost, or becomes detached from the community which had been its bearer to become a mere museum piece. UNESCO has for some years now been registering endangered cultural practices as items of “Intangible Cultural Heritage”: human culture needs biodiversity just like the natural world. What is true for the world is also true for the Church.

What UNESCO cannot account for is the spiritual, as well as cultural, value of religious practices: a value sometimes glimpsed even by non-believers, as well as by established members of a religious community. It would be a spiritual as well as a cultural tragedy if, say, the Byzantine Rite were lost, and we look to Byzantine Rite Christians to preserve it, even at some cost and inconvenience to them- selves, as their own special heritage and as a component of the Church’s spiritual patrimony. We should have the same attitude to the greatest spiritual and cultural monument of the Latin Church, the Traditional Latin Mass. It is to preserve this, as a living liturgy of a living community, that Catholics attached to it have fought so hard, and suffered so much, for so long.

The preservation of this liturgy does not imply the disappearance of the reformed Mass, or victory in any particular theological wrangle. To return to the 1970 speech of Erich von Saventhem, it should be available, for those who want it, “if only in a corner of the rambling mansion of the Church”. This preservation should be desired not only by its particular partisans, but by all who love the Church.

Francis is destroying the Church.
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Let’s cut to the chase. The Satan Council (Vatican, 1962-1965) was convened for the purpose of determining how best to destroy the Catholic Church and replace it with what Archbishop Lefebvre has rightly named the Conciliar Church. It is basically a newly minted Protestant denomination that mimics the theology and the worship practices of the mainline Protestant denominations. Francis was chosen to finalize this transition under the direction of the Great Satan, thus he is increasingly being referred to as Satan’s Pope! Meanwhile, the true Catholic Church that was founded by our Lord and Savior has been driven once again back into the catacombs so to speak. Thank Jesus there is a growing number of Tridentine Latin Mass Institutes around the world at which traditional Catholics may worship at Latin Masses and receive the other Holy Sacraments no longer administered by the Conciliar church.

Francis is destroying the Church.

I saw Father Frank Pavone today on Bannon's WarRoom. It seemed strange to see him there without his collar. I think he was removed from the Priesthood by this Pope. A man who has been fighting for the unborn for decades. Is Satan winning?

Not at the end thankfully. But he’s certainly in control of a lot of Bishops and priests.

It makes me sad that Fr. Pavone can’t even wear his collar in public anymore.

A response that is far too timid in my opinion. I understand why, out of fear of the repercussions from the vatican or local bishops for being to bold. I much prefer the courageous response of Father Pagliariani (the superior general of the SSPX). https://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/letter-father-pagliarani-about-motu-proprio-%E2%80%9Ctraditionis-custodes%E2%80%9D-67623

I agree with you almost a hundred percent. I went to the SSPX chapel for years. The only reason I don’t go now is because I’m disabled.
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Thanks for responding. I have a friend who sold his home in Maryland and moved to Sanford, FL so he could be near the SSPX St. Thomas More Chapel there. Unfortunately for me the nearest Latin Mass location is in Pittsburgh, over 100 miles from my home. Now, I may be soon disabled myself because I may be in need of a hip replacement, although I’ve not had that confirmed yet by examination. I used to live and work in the D.C. area and attended the Latin Mass for years at old St. Mary’s.

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