VATICAN (VaticanNews/CNS): Having consulted the bishops throughout the world last year, Pope Francis modified the norms regulating the use of the 1962 missal as the “extraordinary form [Tridentine] of the Roman Rite,” granted 14 years ago by his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican News reported on July 16.
In the text, Traditionis Custodes [Guardians of Tradition], issued motu proprio [own initiative], CNS reported that the pope restored limits on the celebration of the Mass according to the Roman Missal in use before the Second Vatican Council.
In a letter to bishops accompanying the text, the pope noted: “An opportunity offered by [Pope] 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 said that responses to a consultation of the world’s bishops carried out 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.”
Priests presently celebrating Mass according to the old missal must also request authorisation from their bishop to continue. For any priest ordained after the document’s publication on July 16, the bishop must consult with the Vatican before granting permission.
Responsibility for regulating the celebration of the pre-conciliar liturgy has now reverted back to the diocesan bishop, Vatican News reported, quoting Traditionis Custodes as saying: “it is [the bishop’s] exclusive competence to authorise the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See.” The text said the bishop must 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.”
Traditionis Custodes declared that the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council are “the unique expression of the lex orandi [law of worship] of the Roman Rite,” so priests must seek their bishops’ permission to celebrate according to the extraordinary Mass, CNS reported.
Priests presently celebrating Mass according to the old missal must also request authorisation from their bishop to continue. For any priest ordained after the document’s publication on July 16, the bishop must consult with the Vatican before granting permission.
The motu proprio said that Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missal will not take place in parish churches and that bishops must set out locations and days on which they will be celebrated; the readings must also be proclaimed “in the vernacular language” using approved translations. The celebrant is also to be designated by the bishop and not only have at heart the correct celebration of the liturgy, but also the pastoral and spiritual care of the faithful.
Vatican News also noted that bishops are to evaluate whether or not to retain the celebration of the pre-Vatican liturgy according to its “effectiveness for spiritual growth.”
Pope Francis also transferred responsibility for overseeing the implementation of the new rules to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, on the use of the pre-Vatican II Roman liturgy. It allowed any priest of the Latin-rite Church, without further permission from the Vatican or his bishop, to 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.
Restoring unity
The conditions set out by Pope Benedict for use of the old rite were: that there was a desire for it, that the priest know 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 harmonised with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop in accordance with Canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.”
‘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
The emeritus pope had also insisted that those celebrating according to the old rite acknowledge the validity of the new Mass and accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
However in his letter to bishops, Pope Francis lamented, “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’.”
To promote the unity of the Church, Pope Francis said that 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, CNS reported.
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 that bishops “ 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, Pope Francis noted.
“[Pope] St. Paul VI, recalling that the work of adaptation of the Roman Missal had already been initiated by [Pope] 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 wrote.
“This unity I intend to re-establishthroughout the Church of the Roman Rite,” the pope said.
