Latin Mass ban? Analyzing rumors, sources and Vatican context
Latin Mass ban? Analyzing rumors, sources and Vatican context
Devotees of the traditional liturgy have been told by one website to expect sweeping new restrictions of the ancient Mass.
VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — In recent days, reports have emerged suggesting that the Vatican is set to usher in restrictions or even ban the traditional Mass: but numerous questions still remain.
As the confusion and controversy of potential restrictions has already made waves in Catholic circles, Per Mariam seeks to analyse the rumors and provide poignant background context based on firsthand experience in Rome.
Initial rumor
On June 17, the traditional blog Rorate Caeli issued a report suggesting that the Vatican is set to publish new measures restricting the traditional Mass even further than it already is. Rorate wrote:
An attempt is being made to implement, as soon as possible, a Vatican document with a stringent, radical, and final solution banning the Traditional Latin Mass. The same ideologues who imposed Traditionis Custodes and its implementation, and who are still frustrated with its apparently slow results, especially in the United States and France, want to ban it and shut it down everywhere and immediately. They want to do it while Francis is still in power. They want to make it as wide, final, and irreversible as possible. {Emphasis original}
Describing their sources as “credible,” Rorate stated that the sources for the information were “the very same sources that revealed to Rorate that the Vatican had sent out a survey to bishops on Summorum Pontificum (in preparation for what would become Traditionis Custodes), and Rorate was the first source to post this; and the very same sources who first revealed that a document like Traditionis Custodes would come (and Rorate was also the first to reveal it at the time).” {Emphasis original}
Rorate continued by saying that this latest information has been corroborated by “other credible sources who have now mentioned the same present rumors and whom Rorate was not acquainted with at the time of Traditionis custodes, and who now corroborate the persistent rumors.”
Rorate’s report was published by one of the site’s editors known as “New Catholic”: this correspondent understands that “New Catholic” has kept information about his sources strictly to himself.
Rorate did not reveal how the Vatican was intending to restrict or ban the traditional Mass, nor from which dicastery it would likely emerge. By speaking of a “final solution,” Rorate’s report naturally aroused suspicions that any potential ban would extend to the traditional communities who have so far been largely exempted from the restrictions of Traditionis Custodes – namely, groups like the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, and the Institute of the Good Shepherd.
This would entail at least the cooperation of the Congregation (Dicastery) for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL).
Echoes of 2023
Before assessing the latest rumors, a look back at recent history is worthwhile.
Following the Vatican’s quashing of the Ecclesia Dei office within the CDF, the traditional communities have fallen under the purview of CICLSAL, thanks to the prescriptions of Traditionis Custodes.
Indeed, from January 2023, persistent rumors abounded that CICLSAL’s prefect – Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, who is a staunch opponent of the traditional Mass – was intending to issue a document which would usher in hefty restrictions on the former Ecclesia Dei communities.
The projected date for the document was rumored to be April 3, the Monday of Holy Week. The rumor was taken seriously, even among notable traditional communities and cardinals, leading to key events being arranged in advance of the anticipated release of the document.
The document did not emerge on April 3, though the news outlets which first predicted its release suggested that the document would yet emerge within days, or at most, within weeks.
This correspondent managed to meet with Cdl. de Aviz on April 5 last year, and the cardinal firmly denied that his dicastery was going to issue any such document and that he was not aware of any such document.
The rumored text never emerged.
That same April 5 last year also saw at best confusion – and at worst straight lies – from various Vatican bodies. CICLSAL officials told this correspondent that it would not be in the competency of the Congregation to issue such a text as was rumored to exist. But under the terms of Pope Francis’ July 2021 Traditionis Custodes, CICLSAL would be the very Vatican department responsible for dealing with the traditional communities, thus casting doubt on the Congregation’s statement. A CICLSAL official stated that such a document would be the responsibility of the Congregation for the Clergy, but when questioned, that Congregation said such a document did not exist.
However, the strong body of evidence from multiple sources speaking to multiple news outlets and journalists indicated that the document did indeed exist, despite Cdl. de Aviz’s denial. This correspondent’s own Vatican sources attested to the fact that the document did exist, with the sources adding that the only question was whether it might be published or not.
Cdl. de Aviz’s 2023 text, as already noted, did not emerge. It could perhaps be that the text has been revised in someway and is at the heart of the rumors which Rorate have published. With no further details on what sort of restrictions are likely, any more is conjecture at this point.
Return to 2024 - what is likely?
July 16 marks three years since the ill-fated and much contested Traditionis Custodes was issued by Pope Francis and the staunchly anti-traditional Cardinal Arthur Roche – who leads the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW).
Given that aspect, LifeSiteNews’ John-Henry Westen has authorized a report attesting that sources have informed LifeSite that the rumored restrictions which Rorate has announced might well be revealed on July 16. Rorate has specifically stated that such a date has not come from their sources.
A number of precise dates were also given for the 2023 document’s anticipated release (which never materialized), leading to the conclusion that attempting to predict the precise release date of a document so far in advance is nearly always an inaccurate and fruitless science.
Rumors are always rumors until proven by the fruition of that which they anticipate. Rorate has placed great faith in their sources regarding the predicted, un-specified restrictions or ban on the traditional Mass, but also added that “Can we stop it from happening? Yes, we can: by prayer, sacrifice, penance -- and influence and pressure, of whatever sort we can manage to put forward. The enemy is strong, but Our Lord and Our Lady are mightier.”
Indeed, there is strong reason to believe that the rumored 2023 text set to be issued by Cdl. de Aviz was in fact prevented by the amount of media coverage given to it, and the fact that he was put in the position of denying its existence in a recorded interview.
Would Pope Francis enact such measures?
However, for Pope Francis to issue such a text would be in some manner, highly peculiar. Though he has demonstrated that he is no friend or supporter of tradition or the traditional Mass, it is highly unlikely that he would be unaware of the impossibility of actually banning a form of the Church’s liturgy.
Indeed, he met with superiors of the Fraternity of St. Peter in 2022 and also this March, confirming them in their charism to offer the traditional liturgy.
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This correspondent understands that in their 2022 papal audience, the FSSP superiors clearly outlined that attempts to somehow restrict or prohibit their offering of the traditional Mass under Traditionis Custodes would be an attack on their papally-approved constitutions, and thus would open the Holy See up to having to sort that ‘difficulty,’ for want of a better term.
Should some kind of ban attempt to be effected by the Vatican, it would likely instigate a revolt far greater than the somewhat unprecedented rejection of Fiducia Supplicans.
Furthermore, even the more stringent critics of Pope Francis have attested that his apparent attack on all things traditional is not centered solely on the traditional Mass – hence his comparative happiness to so readily exempt the traditional communities from most of Traditionis Custodes.
Such information has also been confided to this correspondent by Vatican sources with close proximity to Francis.
For Francis to thus attempt an outright ban on the traditional liturgy would therefore be – in the restrained language of Westminster politics – ‘bold’ or simply ridiculous. An increased restriction would perhaps be more likely than an attempt to permanently ban the Mass.
But any text now restricting, or attempting to ban, the traditional Mass and also impact the traditional communities would likely come via the CDW or CICLSAL. Indeed, the respective cardinals prefect of the two congregations are known for their anti-traditional stance, and are – with their secretaries – arguably the driving force behind any future restrictions on the traditional Mass.
This correspondent has formally requested comment from Cdls. Roche and Braz de Aviz about the rumored restrictions or ban on the Mass, but has received no response. In the meantime, Cdl. Roche has blocked this correspondent on an internet social media platform.
Per Mariam’s correspondent has also sought confirmation from its sources inside the Vatican: none have corroborated Rorate’s report, although none have argued it is false.
As attested to by news reports and by the systemic closure of Latin Masses in recent years, along with the gradual throttling of traditional religious communities over an even longer time span, the combined efforts of Cdl. Roche, the CDW’s secretary Archbishop Vittorio Franceso Viola, and Cdl. de Aviz are focussed on bringing a severe end to the provision of the traditional Mass as is currently present.
Indeed, Cdl. Roche has demonstrated his dedication to eradicating the traditional Mass following Traditionis Custodes via his own subsequent documents, and his efforts to prevent bishops from exempting priests from Traditionis Custodes – in which he was subsequently supported by the Pope directly – a move which canonists have told this correspondent was arguably canonically illegal.
Along with Cdl. Braz de Aviz’s prohibition on bishops from independently establishing new groups of the faithful in their dioceses, which had been a move widely used to foster new communities devoted to the traditional liturgy, the two influential Vatican prelates have been able to effect a stranglehold on the traditional Mass.
But to this mix must be added the aspect that Francis is widely understood by Vaticanists not to get along with Cdl. Roche. Therefore, while Cdl. Roche may well be personally eager to publish a document restricting the Mass, he will not necessarily win the support of the Argentine Pontiff.
With Francis’ rocky relationship with Cdl. Roche taken into consideration alongside his personal dis-interestedness in liturgical matters, new bans on the traditional Mass are not a forgone conclusion.
However, it must not be forgotten that when this correspondent asked Pope Francis directly about his reason for implementing restrictions on the traditional Mass, Francis simply replied: “Read the motu proprio; everything is there for you.”
Francis accompanied the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes with a letter presenting official reasons for the devastating and widely impactful restrictions. He wrote that his new measures were done out of “solicitude for the whole Church, that contributes supremely to the good of the Universal Church.”
Ever the Peronist, Francis’ actions should never be underestimated, nor should attempts to predict his moves rule out anything. As biographers and commentators have noted, Francis’ key focus is power, and decisions taken will always reflect that end.
Coinciding with Rorate’s report is a ground-breaking interview conducted by Messa in Latino with the Italian Andrea Grillo, widely believed by analysts to be the driving force of intellect behind Traditionis Custodes.
“The merit of Traditionis Custodes is that it re-establishes the one “lex orandi” in force for the entire Catholic Church,” Grillo told Messa in Latino. “If someone tells me he is faithful at the same time to the Novus Ordo and Vetus Ordo, I reply that he has not understood the meaning of tradition, within which there a legitimate and insuperable progress that is irreversible.”
“Traditionalism is not ‘one among many movements’ (even though it may have characteristics that are partly similar to some of the more fundamentalist movements that were inappropriately favored over the last 40 years), but a form of ‘denial of the Second Vatican Council’ that cannot but be clearly obstructed within the ecclesial experience,” he added.
In short, this is by no means the first time that rumors have surfaced predicting further restrictions or a ban on the traditional Mass. However, the credence Rorate is giving to its sources on the matter demands notable attention and seriousness.
Cdl. Roche is on record as saying that devotion and adherence to the Latin Mass is a mark of being “more Protestant than you are Catholic,” and that the Latin Mass needed to be restricted because “the theology of the Church has changed.”
Given that Pope Francis has at ready call three prelates – Cdl. Roche, Cdl. Braz de Aviz, Abp. Viola – who are so eager to effect the restriction of the traditional liturgy, it remains to be seen in what manner their personal goals will align with his and how they will be attained.