On February 21, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, headed by prefect Cardinal Arthur Roche, issued a rescript, empowering Cardinal Roche with absolute and arbitrary power to grant or deny exceptions to Pope Francis’s 2021 motu proprio letter, Traditionis Custodes, which severely restricts celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). The rescript, like the motu proprio before it, seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t really exist. Yet the issuance of the motu proprio and rescript, and the reaction in the US to them, expose troubling fissures in the Church on this side of the Atlantic.
I am not a TLM advocate. I have only been to one Tridentine-Rite Solemn High Mass in my life, and that only because I was visiting friends who regularly attend. I do not have any doubt about the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo, nor even its beauty if celebrated with the sol-emnity appropriate to authentic reverent worship (yes, yes, I know…). All other things being equal and given the opportunity, I would prefer the TLM over the Novus Ordo, but I do not seek out a parish or church that regularly celebrates the TLM. In addition to Novus Ordo training, the seminary where I teach offers optional training in the TLM, which I enthusiastically endorse. In sum, though not personally invested in the TLM, I am a supporter of liberal permission for its celebration, as established by Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio of 2007, Summorum Pontificum.
On the other hand, I am uneasy about some advocates of the TLM in the United States, and about the form of reactions to Traditionis Custodes and the recent rescript. The entire controversy is something of a proxy for a number of issues in the American Church, including its relationship with Pope Francis. As noted above, I believe that Traditionis Custodes addressed a problem that did not exist. The TLM was not, as Traditionis Custodes seems to imply, a source of impending schism in the Church. Indeed, the number of participants in the TLM is so small as barely to make a ripple. Many, if not a large majority, of American Catholics are not even aware that there is such an option under Summorum Pontificum, or of churches that exercise it.
Thus, Traditionis Custodes seems to be papal flexing rather than pastoral guidance and concern for unity. And, of course, the rescript doubles down on the posturing, serving as a proxy for the authoritarian style of the current Pope. Lest I be misunderstood, I have no sympathy for sedevacantism, which is beyond the pale of serious ecclesial discourse. Both Benedict XVI’s retirement and Francis’s election were licit and valid. Having said that, however, I am often discouraged by the Holy Father’s heavy-handed manner and confusing edicts.
Furthermore, he seems to foment mean-spiritedness in his enthusiastic American supporters. The sole vocation of these devotees seems to be to troll Catholics who are uncomfortable with some of Pope Francis’s words and actions. His style, despite his conciliat-ory attitude about a variety of issues, precipitates rather than eases tensions in the Church. Traditionis Custodes and the rescript aggravate those tensions, even among Catholics who have no reservations about the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s authority.
On the other hand, Traditionis Custodes has exposed a small but very troubling vein in the Catholic Church in the US. There seems to be a significant correlation between enthusiasm for the TLM and subscription to a variety of fringe cultural, political and religious theories and movements. I want to be very clear: the vast majority of TLM worshipers do not subscribe to these theories, nor even take them seriously. These are Catholics who prefer the beauty of the TLM, but are just as comfortable with the Novus Ordo. They are far removed from the fringy elements of American culture.
But there is a strain of TLM advocacy that seems inseparable from a host of bizarre cons-piracy theories about everything from Covid-19 to the “stealing” of the 2020 US presidential election, to the election of Pope Francis. On YouTube, Twitter and other social media plat-forms, these folks are no less mean-spirit-ed than the overly enthusiastic cheer-leaders for Pope Francis. Calling the Pope by his sur-name and refusing to acknowledge his priest-hood (much less his papacy), they advance a grocery list of dissents and grievanc-es far removed from the liturgy of the Mass.
The correlation between subscribing to wacky and disproven fringe theories and exclu-sive recognition of the TLM as the only valid form of the liturgy is therefore not insignificant. The number of American Catholics who regularly attend the TLM is very small, but these Catholics disproportionately subscribe to a swarm of bizarre conspiracy theories. Among these theories, of course, is that the See of Peter is empty. The effect of Traditionis Custodes and the Roche rescript has been to cause discomfort in “traditional” Catholics, embolden hateful goading by “progressive” Catholics and further entrench a fringe mindset already predisposed to reject anything that emanates from the Vatican under the present regime. The Church would have been better off had Summorum Pontificum been left alone as the reasonable compromise that it was.
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