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Posted on 10/26/2026 1:46:09 PM PDT by ebb tide
The Catholic Church prides itself on its universality, cherishes an impressive diversity of liturgical traditions, and regards that diversity as an expression of its richness. A Catholic can attend the Divine Liturgy according to the Byzantine tradition, the Maronite tradition, the Armenian tradition, or the Chaldean tradition. No one considers this a threat to ecclesial unity in and of itself. But as soon as a Catholic wishes to attend Mass as it has been celebrated for centuries in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and virtually the entire Latin Church, some ecclesiastical authorities in Rome begin to express concern.
Suddenly, liturgical diversity becomes a problem. Suddenly, attachment to tradition is viewed with suspicion. And suddenly, the unity of the Church must be protected against people who wish to pray as their ancestors did. This raises a question that is certainly not unreasonable: why is virtually every ancient Catholic liturgical tradition considered a treasure, except for the ancient Roman liturgy?
Cardinal Arthur Roche recently stated in an interview with AdVaticanum that traditionalist groups sometimes use the earlier liturgy to oppose the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. According to the cardinal, such an attitude can undermine ecclesial unity. He warned that those who reject the Council distance themselves from the heart of Catholicism. Furthermore, he said that, in his view, Catholics should not exclusively attend the traditional Mass. Here an important distinction must be made.
Those who deny the validity of the new Mass on principle, reject papal authority, or claim that the Catholic Church is no longer the Catholic Church after Vatican II do indeed take a problematic position. But those who love the traditional Mass, deepen their faith through it, accept Catholic doctrine, and remain faithful to the pope cannot simply be accused of the same thing. Attachment to a liturgical tradition is not the same as rejecting the magisterium. It is precisely this distinction that is in danger of being lost in the current discussion.
The Catholic Church comprises 24 churches sui iuris: the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic churches. They have different liturgical traditions. Examples include the Byzantine, Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, and East Syriac traditions. Even within the Western Catholic world, there are distinctive liturgical practices, including the Ambrosian Rite in Milan. And no one need fear for the unity of the Church when a Byzantine Catholic priest stands before the iconostasis, incense rises abundantly, and the faithful experience a liturgy that differs in many ways from the customary Roman Mass. For Catholic unity has never been synonymous with liturgical uniformity. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council explicitly states in Sacrosanctum Concilium that all legitimately recognized rites are of equal value and that the Church wishes to preserve and promote them. This is a remarkable statement in light of Cardinal Roche’s remarks. If liturgical diversity does not necessarily harm the unity of the Church, why would the centuries-old Roman liturgy do so? After all, the Catholic faith is not a collection of customs whose expiration date is determined by an ecclesiastical commission.
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Postwar liturgical practice has demonstrated a shift from God’s transcendence to a community-centered focus. When the Eucharist increasingly resembles a communal meal, a celebration of human solidarity, or an opportunity for pastoral creativity, the sacrificial dimension risks fading into the background. It is precisely against this that the traditional liturgy, with its consistent focus on God, provides a visible counterbalance. And perhaps that is part of the discomfort: the traditional Mass continues to proclaim something ancient that people easily forget these days. Pope Benedict XVI understood something essential: the Church cannot credibly claim that what it held sacred yesterday should be regarded as a danger today.
Is the Second Vatican Council being used as a break-off point? Here the discussion touches on a deeper problem. A council stands within that Tradition; it does not establish a new Church. Vatican II provided for a reform of the liturgy, but at the same time stipulated that Latin must be preserved in the Latin rites and that Gregorian chant has a position of priority. Much of what is considered typically traditionalist today was therefore entirely self-evident to the Council Fathers. That is why it is remarkable when attachment to the older liturgy is presented as resistance to the Council itself.
After all, criticizing certain aspects of the post-conciliar liturgical reform is not automatically the same as rejecting the Second Vatican Council. The liturgical reform was largely developed and implemented after the Council. That does not mean all criticism is valid. It merely means that such a discussion can be legitimate.
When a council is effectively treated as an absolute watershed between an old and a new Church, it creates precisely the rift that one claims to want to avoid. The Catholic Church is not an institution that was reestablished in 1965. It is the same Church that received the apostles, produced the Church Fathers, built the medieval cathedrals, held the Council of Trent, and convened the Second Vatican Council. Anyone who truly believes in the continuity of the Church need not fear its past.
Cardinal Roche constantly invokes the unity of the Church. That is, in itself, entirely justified. Unity is not an incidental characteristic of the Church, but belongs to its very essence. The only question is what we mean by unity. Unity in the Catholic faith, in the sacraments, and in communion with the successor of Peter is something different from uniformity in ritual expression. The official reasoning is that the traditional Latin Mass, unlike the Eastern liturgies, has become a symbol for some groups of resistance to the reform and authority of the Church. That argument deserves serious consideration. But the problem with that reasoning is that it easily shifts from a judgment on specific abuses to a general judgment on an entire liturgical community. Why should families, young people, priests, and religious—who desire nothing more than to celebrate the traditional liturgy in full ecclesial communion—have to bear the consequences of this?
A father who takes his children to the traditional Mass because he experiences the sanctity of the Eucharist particularly strongly there is not engaging in church politics. He is simply going to Mass.
The history of the Church is marked not only by renewal but also by preservation. Traditio means tradition: receiving what one has not invented oneself and passing it on to the next generation. Precisely for this reason, it is remarkable that at a time when there is constant talk of listening to the faithful, the desires of traditionally-oriented Catholics sometimes meet with so little understanding. A Church that wants to listen to the world should also listen to its own children (or does synodality mean something else?). Certainly when those children are not asking for a watered-down Catholic doctrine, but rather for its unabridged proclamation. Or is that where the problem lies?
A sensible approach would make room for the older liturgy where it is sincerely desired, while at the same time demanding fidelity to the ecclesial community and correcting abuses in all liturgical forms. For the latter deserves attention as well. Those who strictly regulate the old Mass out of concern for the sanctity and unity of the liturgy must act with the same seriousness against abuses in the new Mass.
Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon is that the traditional Latin Mass does not exclusively appeal to people who grew up before the Council. Young Catholics are drawn to it as well. When young people consciously choose silence, Gregorian chant, ritual precision, and a liturgy that hardly caters to today’s preference for spontaneity and immediate comprehensibility, that says something. It suggests that modernization is not always the best path to evangelization. Perhaps modern people sometimes long precisely for what is not modern. Perhaps they are not seeking a liturgy that resembles as closely as possible the world in which they live daily—a world that has nothing to offer them—but rather a liturgy that helps them rise above that world. This is not an argument against the new Mass. It is an argument against the notion that liturgical renewal necessarily coincides with adaptation to the spirit of the times.
It would be a pity if the traditional Latin Mass were ultimately to fall victim to an ecclesiastical struggle in which the focus is no longer truly on worship, but on the interpretation of the past 60 years. For then a liturgy that has formed saints for centuries and sanctified countless believers would be treated as a problem to be solved. Less suspicion, more historical honesty, more theological depth, and, above all, more pastoral generosity would be desirable here.
The “et-et”—the famous Catholic principle of “both-and”—could also serve as a fruitful starting point here. Tradition and legitimate development. Unity and diversity. Fidelity to the Council and respect for the centuries that preceded it. The new Mass and room for the traditional Roman liturgy within the community of the Church.
Your Eminence, the Church does not need to banish its past in order to secure its future. A Church that truly trusts in the living Tradition can afford to love its own history. A Church that joyfully welcomes Byzantine, Maronite, and Armenian liturgies into its midst should not feel overly threatened by a Roman Mass that has been so dear to it for centuries. After all, the traditional Latin Mass is not a foreign intruder into the Catholic Church; it comes from within her own home. And a mother church should not treat her own children as strangers simply because they prefer to pray in the language of their grandparents.
Originally published in Dutch at Paarse Pepers. Translated by DeepL, with minor edits.
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Except the synodal fathers believe their "church" started in 1962; and no earlier.
Ping
I am not even Catholic and I ask the same question.
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