VATICAN (CNS): “The TLM [Traditional Latin Mass] movement has hijacked the initiatives of [Pope] St. John Paul II and [Pope] Benedict XVI to its own ends,” Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said on July 20, following the release of Pope Francis motu propio document, Traditionis Custodes [Guardians of Tradition], on July 16.
Archbishop Di Noia, speaking as a theologian and not as a Vatican official, said the pope’s explanatory letter accompanying the document, which modified the norms regulating the use of the pre-Vatican II [Tridentine] Mass granted 14 years ago by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, “fearlessly hits the nail on the head.”
The archbishop, a Dominican, who was previously secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, was deeply involved in the Vatican’s dialogue with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
He pointed out that the liberal permission to use the older Mass has not promoted the hoped-for healing of the rift with members of the Society of St. Pius X, established by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The archbishop said, “What we have got now is a movement within the Church herself, seemingly endorsed by her leaders, that sows division by undermining the reforms of the Second Vatican Council through the rejection of the most important of them: the reform of the Roman Rite.”
Archbishop Di Noia said that since St. John Paul allowed some use of the older liturgy and, especially since Pope Benedict’s 2007 document, Summorum Pontificum, “the thing has gotten totally out of control and become a movement, especially in the US, France and England—a movement that aggressively promotes the Traditional Latin Mass among young people and others as if this ‘extraordinary form’ were the true liturgy for the true Church.”
Archbishop Di Noia said that since St. John Paul allowed some use of the older liturgy and, especially since Pope Benedict’s 2007 document, Summorum Pontificum, ‘the thing has gotten totally out of control and become a movement, especially in the US, France and England—a movement that aggressively promotes the Traditional Latin Mass among young people and others as if this ‘extraordinary form’ were the true liturgy for the true Church.’
Archbishop Di Noia urged Catholics—both those upset by Pope Francis’ decision and those gleefully applauding it—to reread Summorum Pontificum, which gave broad permission to use the pre-Vatican II Roman liturgy.
Pope Francis withdrew most of those permissions with Traditionis Custodes and likely either consulted with or at least gave advance copies to Emeritus Pope Benedict.
Archbishop Di Noia remarked on Pope Francis rationale saying, “The decisive point is there for all to behold: the evident and ongoing betrayal of the intentions of the two pontiffs who permitted the celebration of the 1962 Missal to draw traditionalists back into the unity of the Church. What the Holy Father is saying is that the TLM movement is working for objectives that are precisely contrary to what St. John Paul and Benedict XVI hoped for.”
‘In TLM, there is little concern for active participation. The traditional Latin Mass, as in the past, becomes the occasion for engaging in various types of private prayer if the participants don’t follow the Mass with a missal.’
Archbishop Augustine Di Noia
The archbishop said that like his predecessors, Pope Francis believes “the way to address abuses is not by adopting the ‘extraordinary form,’ but by promoting the true renewal of the liturgy which, in many places, has simply not happened.”
He said, “this renewal is not a matter of creatively ignoring the rubrics, but finding the true spirit of the liturgical reform by mining the riches of the Word of God which have now been made available both in the vastly expanded cycles of the Lectionary and the Divine Office, and celebrating the Mass with absolute fidelity to the texts and rubrics and to its proper nature as a participation in the celestial worship of Christ for the Father with the communion of saints.”
Archbishop Di Noia observed, “Many people with a desire for Latin in the liturgy would have been better served by the novus ordo [the modern Mass] in Latin than by the repristination [restoration] of the pre-conciliar liturgy,”
The archbishop said, “The TLM movement promotes the rejection of that which the liturgical movement sought above all: active participation of the faithful in the liturgical celebration of the mysteries of Christ.”
He went on to add, “In TLM, there is little concern for active participation. The traditional Latin Mass, as in the past, becomes the occasion for engaging in various types of private prayer if the participants don’t follow the Mass with a missal.”
He noted that the liturgical reform movement “was recognised at Vatican II as the work of the Holy Spirit and became the basis for a massive overhaul of the liturgical life of the Church.”
Archbishop Di Noia said, “Pope Francis is right to see in the repristination of the pre-conciliar liturgy at best a form of nostalgic dalliance with the old liturgy and at worst a perverse resistance to the renewal inspired by the Holy Spirit and solemnly confirmed in the teaching of an ecumenical council.”
