Friends, as we celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the pontificate of Pope Francis, Mike Lewis of “Where Peter Is,” offers an insightful retrospective of the successes and challenges of his his leadership as Universal Pastor of the Catholic Church.
At this time, I would like to offer my own “two cents” regarding what some in the more conservative camp see as a duplicity on his part in relationship to those attached to the Traditional Latin Mass. Having interacted with many of these folks over the years as the first delegate of our Diocese to implement and celebrate this mass under the initial concessions granted to Dioceses under Pope St. John Paul II, and having pastored a parish where the weekly celebration of the “usus antiquior” took place, and, having celebrated it myself, I hope I bring some practical experience to this issue.
One of the most critical reforms of the Second Vatican Council that brought home in a tangible and concrete way for every day Catholics of the both the letter and spirit of reform and renewal ushered in by the Council was in the Sacred Liturgy. The Council Fathers wanted to recapture the vibrancy of our life of worship that had become fossilized in a language and format that hindered the “full, active and conscious” participation of all the People of God. Its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy called for and mandated in the most authoritative way, the “reform and renewal” of our liturgical rites including its heart and center, the Mass. To more clearly articulate the maxim, “the law of prayer grounds the law of belief” (lex orandi statuit legem credendi), the subsequent decrees mandated by the Council shaped a reformed liturgy in continuity with the Tradition of Worship that has now become, over these past 50 years, the definitive expression of the Church’s life of Worship. It supplanted the older rites and forms that were desperately in need of revision to express the recaptured theology of Church that that the Council proclaimed.
The modest concessions to the “old rite” granted by Popes St. Paul VI and John Paul II, in no way were a compromise to the renewal and reform of the Sacred Liturgy mandated by the Council. However, Pope Benedict XVI in his Motu Proprio, “Summorum Pontificum,” in my opinion shared by many liturgical scholars, upended the modest concessions granted by previous Popes and set the unhistorical precedent of a “dual” liturgical expression within the Latin Rite, granting parity to the old rites with the new (Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form of the Eucharistic Rites). In fairness to Benedict, he granted such an extraordinary concession in the hope that those who had separated from communion with Rome over the neuralgic issue of the reformed liturgy might be reconciled leading toward greater communion in the Church. Sadly, the experience of Bishops around the world in their candid observations solicited by Pope Francis, shared the opposite conclusions to Benedict’s wide, expansive and, in my opinion, overly generous concessions.
A relatively small but highly vocal and contentious “separatist” mentality was growing, adhering to the older rites, especially in the United States. In my experience, I would hear from not a few folks following Benedict’s Motu Proprio, that they were attending the “real liturgy” rather than the English Mass. Additionally, the ecclesiology as well as the ecumenism of the Council were functionally rejected by many, though not all, of those who adhered to the older rite. In other words, Pope Francis' fear that this situation was empowering a failure to fully and whole heartedly "receive" the Conciliar renewal and reform was not misplaced.
For these reasons and with great courage knowing the inevitable push-back that he would inevitably encounter by his detractors, Francis issued his Motu Proprio, "Traditiones Custodes" (Guardians of Tradition), that would greatly restrict the overly-generous concessions granted by Pope Benedict for the use of the Traditional Latin Mass. Why? - To safeguard the integrity of the reform and renewal of the Sacred Liturgy mandated by an Ecumenical Council and to, in time, bring about a unity in practice in the Latin Rite to the normative liturgical rites, reformed and renewed by the Council. In other words, Francis is mandating a return to the genius of the Conciliar liturgical reforms that there be only one form to those Rites that express the "Lex orandi, lex credendi" of the Church.
Does that mean that Latin can no longer be used? Absolutely not. Every bishop, pastor and priest can prudently discern with pastoral sensitivity whether the reformed rites could be celebrated in their Latin Form for the benefit of the People of God. On the occasion when a priest might celebrate in the absence of a congregation, assuming he is knowledgeable of the Latin language, he is free to celebrate the reformed rite (Novus Ordo) in Latin without recourse for permission to the Bishop or Rome.
Additionally, a parish celebration utilizing the Novus Ordo in Latin, perhaps facing East, utilizing the Latin Chants for the propers of the Mass duly updated thanks to the Benedictine community of Solesmes in France, with the full participation of both schola and assembly is not only possible but praiseworthy as an expression of the timeless liturgical tradition and heritage of our Church.
Having studied the unreformed rites, and here, permit me to speak with candor, particularly the Solemn Pontifical Mass utilizing the unreformed "Pontificale Romanum," it is particularly anachronistic and antiquarian in the 21st century to be celebrating a liturgy suffused with Byzantine court ceremonial, from the entrance of the Bishop in Cappa Magna (forbidden by a decree of Paul VI), ceremonial vesting of the Bishop at a 'throne,' replete with individual kissing of each of the innumerable pontifical vestments as ministers genuflect to the Bishop, the use of two miters, precious and gold, assisting ministers sitting at the feet of the presiding bishop, etc. One cannot help but wonder if this has more to do with an inordinate attachment to arcane ceremonial of another era rather than the noble simplicity of the Rites mandated by the Council. Such ceremonial sadly reflects a theology of the Bishop that is a far cry from that envisioned by the theology and spirit of the Council. He is not a Byzantine emperor but the servant of the community as successor of the Apostles in imitation of the Good Shepherd.
While EWTN and social media continue to decry what they perceive to be the heavy hand of Pope Francis toward the Traditional Latin Mass and its adherents, with the restrictions of its use in parish churches along with restricting permission for its celebration for priests ordained after the issuance of the Motu Proprio to Rome, Francis as the Pope of the Council will weather any storm to insure its doctrinal and liturgical legacy and reception among God’s people.