Pope Francis has said he launched the latest crackdown against access to the Traditional Latin Mass because the Old Rite was being misused “in an ideological way”.
The Pontiff told a group of fellow Jesuits that he authorised the “rescript” that led to the cancellation of Old Rite Masses in churches throughout the world because of the rise of ideological “restorationism”.
He said he considered the movement to be a form of indietrismo, an Italian word meaning “backwardness”, which he believed agitated against the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.
Francis said the trend toward restorationism also ran counter to the intentions of Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI when they liberated the traditional form of the Latin Mass from restrictions imposed after the Council.
Francis said: “The Council is still being applied. It takes a century for a Council to be assimilated, they say. And I know the resistance to its decrees is terrible.
“There is incredible support for restorationism, what I call indietrismo, as the Letter to the Hebrews (10:39) says: ‘But we do not belong to those who shrink back’.
“The flow of history and grace goes from the roots upward like the sap of a tree that bears fruit. But without this flow you remain a mummy. Going backwards does not preserve life, ever.” The Pope quoted the observation of St Vincent of Lérins who, he said, remarked that “the dogma of the Christian religion progresses, consolidating over the years, developing with time, deepening with age”.
“But this is a change from the bottom up,” said Pope Francis. “The danger today is indietrismo, the reaction against the modern. It is a nostalgic disease.
“This is why I decided that now the permission to celebrate according to the Roman Missal of 1962 is mandatory for all newly consecrated priests.
“After all the necessary consultations, I decided this because I saw that the good pastoral measures put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI were being used in an ideological way, to go backward.
“It was necessary to stop this indietrismo, which was not in the pastoral vision of my predecessors.”
The remarks of the Holy Father were made during a meeting Hungary but have been reported for the first time in La Civilta Cattolica magazine
The rescript from the Holy See earlier this year represented the third wave of restrictions since the Pope issued Traditiciones Custodes a motu proprio of July 2021 to curb access to the Old Rite following its liberation by Summorum Pontificum, the 2007motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI.
It led to the immediate cancellation of Old Rite Latin Masses in parish churches in Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds. Some bishops of other British dioceses have applied to Rome for permission for parish-based Latin Masses to continue.
The rescript clarifies or modifies the meaning of Traditionis Custodes by stipulating that permission for the use of a parish church for celebrations of Mass using the 1962 Missal may be granted only by the Dicastery for Divine Worship, which is headed by Yorkshire-born Cardinal Arthur Roche.
It refers to Canon 87.1 which states that bishops may lift the obligations of universal law for the good of souls in their diocese before making clear that this loophole no longer applies to the provision of the Latin Mass, a matter, it says, which is now “reserved to the Holy See”.
It means that the Traditional Latin Mass may now be celebrated in a parish church only with a dispensation from the Dicastery for Divine Worship.
Besides permissions for Masses, it also reserves to the Holy See the permission for the erection of new personal parishes, and permission for priests ordained after the publication of Traditionis Custodes to celebrate the 1962 Missal.
The rescript follows correspondence between Cardinal Roche and an American bishop who contested the canonical limits of Traditionis Custodes. The effect of the document is to amend the Code of Canon Law retroactively.
Dr Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society, said: “Pope Francis explained in Hungary that his restrictions on the 1962 Missal are designed to defend the legacy of the Council against ‘restorationism’.
“This is puzzling since Vatican II consistently called for ‘restoration’ (instauratio) in the liturgy, and in other areas of the life of the Church. Pope Francis does not make it clear what he means by ‘restorationism’ or why he regards it as a bad thing.”
He continued: “It is interesting to note that the idea found in Traditionis Custodes that there is a deep theological problem with liturgical diversity in the Latin Rite – that the reformed books are the ‘unique expression of the Roman Rite’ – has not been repeated by Pope Francis in the informal remarks he has made about the issue since then.
“Instead he has suggested that the Traditional Mass needs to be controlled rather than eliminated, not on principle but because of its association with certain individuals or ideas.”
In his remarks, Pope Francis also described sexual predators as “children of God”.
“How do we approach, how do we talk to the abusers for whom we feel revulsion?” he said.
“Yes, they too are children of God. But how can you love them? It’s a powerful question.
“The abuser is to be condemned, indeed, but as a brother. Condemning him is to be understood as an act of charity. There is a logic, a form of loving the enemy that is also expressed in this way, and it is not easy to understand and to live out.
“The abuser is an enemy. Each of us feels this because we empathise with the suffering of the abused.
“When you hear what abuse leaves in the hearts of abused people, the impression you get is very powerful. Even talking to the abuser involves revulsion; it’s not easy.
“But they are God’s children too. They deserve punishment, but they also deserve pastoral care.”
(Photo: Latin Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican 15 May 2011 (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
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