[Catholic Caucus] Ten Reasons Why Cardinal Roche’s Document is Only Good for Lining Your Parrot Cage With

The document that, according to an article by Diane Montagna, was presented by Cardinal Arthur Roche to the Extraordinary Consistory of January 2026 purports to defend “sound tradition” while simultaneously advocating a theory of perpetual liturgical reform.

If Roche’s treatment of the concept of Catholic Tradition is sound, then I am a time traveller from the planet Zorg.

Upon examination, the theological foundations of this two-page document, which is a thinly veiled defense of Traditionis Custodes, prove incompatible with the Church’s pre–Vatican II magisterium and with classical Catholic theology. What follows are ten reasons why Roche’s arguments are garbage and laughable when read in the light of Roman tradition.

The document asserts that Tradition is not the transmission of fixed forms but a “living river” subject to continual change. This notion directly contradicts the Church’s perennial understanding of traditio as that which is handed down.

The Council of Trent defined Tradition as what was “received from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the Apostles, the Holy Ghost dictating” (Session IV). St. Vincent of Lérins famously insisted that legitimate development occurs only “in the same sense and the same judgment” (eodem sensu eademque sententia). A Tradition that alters its substance is corrupted, not living.

2. It Treats the Roman Rite as Historically Contingent Rather Than Normative

The Consistory document presents the Roman liturgy as a series of culturally conditioned stages, implying that no form possesses normative authority. This view is foreign to Catholic theology.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that divine worship belongs to the virtue of religion precisely because it is regulated by God, not human invention (ST II–II, q. 93). Once rites are approved by the Church, they participate in moral stability because they are ordered to the immutable God. The Roman Rite is not one historical option among many; it is the Church’s received norm.

Although the document cites Pope St. Pius V, it empties his words of force. In Quo Primum (1570), Pius V promulgated the Roman Missal not as a temporary discipline, but as a permanent settlement following the Council of Trent. He declared that the Missal was to remain valid “in perpetuity” and that no one could ever be obliged to abandon it.

This was not rhetorical flourish. Trent sought to safeguard doctrinal unity through liturgical immutability. To suggest that later generations may simply override this settlement is to deny the authority of an ecumenical council and its papal executor.

The Council of Trent anathematized the claim that the Church’s received ceremonies are “incentives to impiety rather than offices of piety” (Session XXII, Canon 7). This canon presupposes that the Roman Rite, as handed down, is theologically sound and spiritually efficacious.

The Consistory document’s implicit claim—that the traditional Mass required fundamental reform to be pastorally or ecclesiologically viable—stands in direct tension with this teaching. If the Roman Rite needed reconstruction, Trent was wrong.

Pre–Vatican II theology never understood papal authority as creative or revolutionary in matters of liturgy. Pope Benedict XIV, a towering liturgical scholar, taught that the Pope is the guardian, not the inventor, of rites.

Pope Pius XII reaffirmed this in Mediator Dei, stating that no one—not even bishops—may alter the liturgy at will. Authority over rites is ministerial and not despotic. Cardinal Roche’s document presumes a scope of authority that previous popes explicitly rejected.

While Mediator Dei allows limited reform, Pius XII strongly condemned both antiquarianism and novelty introduced under pastoral pretexts. He warned against those who “introduce new customs” or reshape worship according to contemporary theories.

The Consistory document’s claim that “without liturgical reform, there is no reform of the Church” would have been unintelligible to Pius XII. For him, the liturgy reforms the Church precisely by remaining stable, transmitting unchanged doctrine and spirituality.

The document assumes that participation requires external verbal or ritual activity. Pre–Vatican II theology taught otherwise.

St. Alphonsus Liguori and countless spiritual writers insisted that true participation in the Mass consists primarily in interior union with the Sacrifice of Christ, not audible responses. The traditional Roman Mass formed saints precisely because it oriented the soul toward contemplation, not self-expression.

8. It Falsely Claims That Unity Requires Liturgical Uniformity Under One Modern Form

Historically, the Roman Rite unified the Church for centuries precisely because it was stable and universal. Latin worshiped Catholics across continents with a single voice.

Pius V sought unity by suppressing novelty, not by enforcing adaptation. To claim now that unity demands the suppression of the traditional Mass is historically and theologically incoherent. The Mass that once embodied unity cannot suddenly be its enemy.

By insisting that liturgical reform was necessary for ecclesial renewal, the document implicitly indicts centuries of Catholic worship as pastorally inadequate.

This implication is intolerable. The Church evangelized nations, formed saints, and resisted heresy under the traditional Roman Rite. To suggest that this liturgy required structural correction is to imply that the Holy Spirit failed in His guidance of the Church for centuries.

The maxim lex orandi, lex credendi has always meant that the Church’s prayer safeguards her faith. Cardinal Roche’s document inverts this principle, treating worship as something to be reshaped according to theological theories or pastoral strategies.

But as Cardinal Cajetan taught, “The Church is the guardian, not the mistress, of the sacraments.” The same applies to her rites. When worship is treated as malleable, doctrine soon follows.

Cardinal Roche’s defense does not represent continuity with the Catholic tradition but represents a rupture disguised as historical inevitability. Its theology of Tradition, authority, reform, and worship would have been rejected by the popes, councils, and theologians who formed the Roman Rite.

The traditional Mass does not stand in opposition to the Church. It is the Church’s worship received, sanctified, and handed down.

For Catholics faithful to the pre–Vatican II magisterium, there can be only one conclusion: this document’s content must be rejected.

Thus, the Horse Manure Grading Committee declares Roche’s little document Grade “A” Equine Pooh-Pooh of the finest vintage!

Message from Jim Robinson:

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well,
for all the fancy-high-faluting verbiage in the first 90% of the epistle...
it finally ended up with a few that even I, bozo dummy par excellence, can understand

like “Horse Manure” and “Poo-poo.”

(I sorta suspected all along that the author didn’t like Cardinal Roche’s pronouncement.... but the communications clarity at the end clinched it. The author certainly knew I’d be reading his epistle, ha! Thanks!)
smiles
smiles
smiles

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