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[Catholic Caucus] "A pope would be schismatic... 'if he if he were to change all the liturgical rites of the Church that have been upheld by apostolic tradition'." (Francisco Suárez / Klaus Gamber) Only four years had passed since the publication of the new Missal when Pope Paul VI surprised the Catholic world with a new Ordo Missæ, dated April 6, 1969. The revision made in 1965 did not touch the traditional liturgical rite. In accordance with the mandate of Article 50 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, it had been primarily concerned with removing some later additions to...

Why Is Francis So Afraid of the Roman Rite? During a February 14 audience for the participants in the plenary of the Liturgy Congregation, Pope Francis read a text about the liturgical development of the past fifty years which sounded like a parody compared to what really happened. Francis claimed that in the 1960s the Church's "praying tradition" needed "renewed expressions, without losing anything of its millennial wealth." However, as a result of the changes, the "millennial wealth" was lost, and the "renewed expressions" turned out to be a flop. As if he wanted to make fun about the disaster,...