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Pope Francis Drops a Bomb on the Church
Friday, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio” entitled, Traditionis Custodes.(TC)
This letter severely restricts the use of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), effectively throwing Benedict XVI and his issuance of Summorum Pontificum (SP), under the bus. Pope Benedict XVI issued SP in order to help those faithful who “continued to be attached with such love and affection to the earlier liturgical forms which had deeply shaped their culture and spirit.” Apparently, Pope Francis doesn’t think that’s necessary anymore.
It will no longer be possible for any priest to pray the TLM at any time, but will now be dependent on having a benevolent bishop who will allow the TLM. Article 3 of TC is where we get gutted:
Art. 3. The bishop of the diocese in which until now there exist one or more groups that celebrate according to the Missal antecedent to the reform of 1970:
§ 1. is to determine that these groups do not deny the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs;
§ 2. is to designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather for the eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes);
§ 3. to establish at the designated locations the days on which eucharistic celebrations are permitted using the Roman Missal promulgated by Saint John XXIII in 1962. [7] In these celebrations the readings are proclaimed in the vernacular language, using translations of the Sacred Scripture approved for liturgical use by the respective Episcopal Conferences;
§ 4. to appoint a priest who, as delegate of the bishop, is entrusted with these celebrations and with the pastoral care of these groups of the faithful. This priest should be suited for this responsibility, skilled in the use of the Missale Romanum antecedent to the reform of 1970, possess a knowledge of the Latin language sufficient for a thorough comprehension of the rubrics and liturgical texts, and be animated by a lively pastoral charity and by a sense of ecclesial communion. This priest should have at heart not only the correct celebration of the liturgy, but also the pastoral and spiritual care of the faithful;
§ 5. to proceed suitably to verify that the parishes canonically erected for the benefit of these faithful are effective for their spiritual growth, and to determine whether or not to retain them;
§ 6. to take care not to authorize the establishment of new groups.
Pope Francis loves hanging out with Muslims and Lutherans and Pachamama but seems to hate those of us who love the traditional Latin Mass. One of the great injustices of this action is that there has been great growth in the TLM in diocesan parishes. The alleged ‘Pope of accompaniment and those on the margins’ has dumped us and sent us to the margins.
This is a big deal. There is a quote attributed to Pope Francis that he was not to be excluded that he will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church. This makes it look like he is trying to do exactly this.
I am trying to find out if the TLM that I attend will still be offered this Sunday, and if so, where will it be held. Because apparently, according to TC 3.2, it can’t be held in the parish church.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
From the editor of Crisis Magazine, a 13 tweet thread on the differences between the pre and post V2 Church.
Again, you’re not exactly disproving the Pope’s assertion that:
Eric writes:
Is he not claiming that “pre-Vatican II Catholicism” constitutes the “true Church,” while “Post-Vatican II Catholicism” is a different religion:
That certainly sounds like a “rejection of the Church and her institutions” to me.
Yes, the Modernists reject Tradition and seem to think the Church of today started at Vatican2. That is the pope’s message: it is V2 or nothing.
I agree with Eric.
Brian Holdsworth offers a charitable but forthright response.
About 40 minutes in, he makes the crucial observation that unity would be well served by efforts to correct abuses of Vatican II and revival of good traditions within the Novus Ordo. My hope is that Catholics deprived of the Latin rite will help to lead this reform of the modern rite.
The Lord brings good from all. He will bring good from this misstep by Pope Francis.
I’m old enough to remember when we were taught by B16 to interpret V2 in the “hermeneutic of continuity”. Francis basically just said to heck with that, as he has done throughout his pontificate (AL communion for the adulterers, no more death penalty, allowing demon idols in St. Peter’s, God wills all religions, etc., etc.). The merciful great uniter Francis.
As am I, and it’s still the position that I hold. Recall as well that he contrasted his position with two different errors:
It seems to me that since Francis became pope, an increasing number of conservative Catholics have abandoned the “hermeneutic of continuity” position and adopted the “hermeneutic of rupture” view that everything that has gone wrong since the Council was because of the Council, so we should reject it wholesale and turn the clock back to the good ole’ days.
Vatican II also helped root out a nasty strain of anti-Semitism that had long existed within certain corners of the Church, and we’ve seen a closer relationship with our Jewish brothers since the Council.
One of the more controversial documents of VII was Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Freedom. The Church may have accepted democracy, but there were still some within the Church who argued that a Catholic state should suppress false religions. Vatican II clarified that the Church endorses freedom of religion.
Thanks for the laugh. I need it right now.
A bit off-topic, but I like Vatican II because I can cite it against the goofy theory that says “Biblical inerrancy is a brand-new product of North American Protestant evangelicals reacting to liberalism!”
So uninformed, so uncomprehending.
So neglectful of Vatican II. Augustine. Aquinas.
I should shut up now. This really is off-topic here, isn’t it?
Well it is one thing to open the church windows, and it is another thing to start tossing the furniture through the open windows.
I am a Catholic, I’ve been saying the same thing , it used to be a sort of joke now it’s a legit question.
Amen.
That was a good video – he did a good job of exposing the vindictiveness of the Apostolic Letter. As he said this action will do nothing for unity in the Church.
As for correcting abuses and reviving traditions in the NO, I don’t see that happening. Remember when Cardinal Sarah (then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship) asked priests to start celebrating ad orientem during Advent a few years ago? Francis cut that off immediately. Now Sarah is out and a Francis sycophant, Arther Roche, a staunch hater of the TLM, is in.
This is a terrible day for the Church.
Again – V2 was called as a pastoral council – not one to address doctrinal issues. So why was it that the liberals took over after V2? Why is it that we have so many priests that pay no attention to Humanae Vitae? Why is it that a heretic like Fr. James Martin is given a position at the Vatican. Why is it that belief in the Real Presence is a minority belief now? Why have vocations and mass attendance gone down? These are the fruits of V2. Who ruptured from the teachings of the Church, Joseph?
Thread:
I wrote this post back in 2017.
https://ricochet.com/451826/archives/interpreting-or-not-pope-francis-on-the-liturgy/
Here is the gist:
In a recent address to the participants of the 68th National Liturgical Week in Italy, Pope Francis said:
When this Pope speaks, particularly when he states something as forceful as “we can affirm with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible”, my radar immediately tunes to “incoming” mode. What did he mean by this seemingly definitive statement? Is this good news or bad news?
The answers are Traditionis Custodes and bad news.
He has no intention of reforming the NO – he’s done nothing of the sort during his pontificate.
Are you saying the universal magisterial teachings of the documents of Vatican II are a rupture? ‘Cause I think you’re in dangerous waters if you go there. I’m just asking for clarification.
I don’t think you’ll get any argument from Catholics here that there have been abuses to the liturgy since Vatican II and that catechesis has been dismal since then — throughout my formative years, for sure. Nor even much dissent that Pope Francis is a bad pope (there’s a very good Catholic Answers Focus episode about this with apologist Joe Heschmeyer) . It’s especially unfortunate in contrast to his immediate predecessors JPII and BXVI. But, we’ve had bad popes before and we’ll have them again barring the Second Coming. Heck, we’ve had over half the hierarchy adopt the Arian heresy in the past!
I think it’s a mistake for small-o orthodox Catholics (my preferred label) to attack Vatican II rather than the abuses that have come from its implementation by dissenting clergy. It sets up the dynamic Pope Francis is reacting to poorly — as if it’s an attack on the Church’s magisterial authority. I prefer a careful, targeted attack on the abuses and a critique of Pope Francis when he exacerbates the problems. But, we should make clear our belief that Jesus gave the authority to bind and loose to his apostles and their successors. Full stop.
I repeat that everyone should read Austin Ruse’s book. The sufferings of the faithful are opportunities! He says there are low-hanging halos all over the place, and we should each reach up and grab one (he’s been fighting for life at the UN for decades). Christ will not abandon His Church and we have the privilege of living in times when we can serve Him in the course correction that’s coming.
Right. The same spiritual affliction that pervades political conservatism infects religious conservatism: cowardice and imprudent meekness. That has allowed the misguided to dominate without charity.
Pope Francis is not a typical leftist — he has explicitly condemned homosexual behavior. But he ascribes to a corruption of accompaniment that abandons truth in mercy that wants no justice.
In the West. Catholicism has flourished in Africa. It is growing in Asia, though the Vatican has seemingly thrown our Chinese brethren under the bus.
Pope Francis is a bad pope. He sews confusion with every formal expression. He accuses without charity and offers no respectful response to criticism. He tolerates heresies and indulges idols.
But the doctrine of faith and apostolic succession have survived thousands of years through bad popes, schism, and other evils within the Church. Despite the appointments of Pope Francis, I pray that Cardinal Sarah is our next pope.
When they are used as the be-all and end-all of defining the Church, yes I suppose they are – and that is what the modernists like Francis and his sycophants do.
This is Christ’s Church, and apart from him, there is a limit to obedience. When this pope contradicts the universal magisterial teachings of the Church (AL, death penalty, God wills all religions, etc.) we have no obligation to be obedient to those contradictions.
My point, that I am apparently making poorly, is that V2 needs to be dropped as THE authority on everything in the Church. The big split from Tradition is obviously the mass. And I will bet you dollars to donuts that those attending the TLM are way more in line with the universal magisterial teachings of the Church than those who attend the NO. Yet it is those rigid neo-pelagians at the TLM who get cited for creating disunity. The pope is vicious in whom he chooses to attack. The German Church is in a defacto schism but nothing is said about them because synodality or something. And Fr. James Martin prances around teaching heresy and he is rewarded with high profile audiences with the pope and Vatican assignment.
I’m not the one in dangerous waters.
Saying V-II shouldn’t be the end-all, be-all is different from saying V-II is fundamentally in error. The latter undermines the idea of Jesus’ delegation of divine authority to the apostles’ successors and the infallibility of universal magisterial teaching. I think we agree that the error is with the people — especially clergy — who abuse V-II, not V-II itself. But, this is a temporary condition of the Church in our time. We may not live to see it corrected, but Jesus is faithful and triumphs over all this mess in the end.
I should add, I share your frustration and sadness about the Church under Francis. We can be thankful he won’t be pope forever and pray that Christ ends this time of chastisement with a good and holy man (and that Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Arinze are on the short list).
It’s easy when considering the effects of VII to fall into the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. The Council happened in the Sixties, and so did the Sexual Revolution. Pre-VII American Catholics grew up in a country where abortion, sodomy, contraception, and pornography were illegal. Today’s young Catholics grow up in a world where abortion and gay marriage are Constitutional rights supported by our Catholic president, schools give out free contraception to pupils without their parents’ knowledge, free hardcore porn is available on every child’s smartphone, and the schools and Hollywood both teach that anyone who opposes gay marriage or letting men use the women’s bathroom are hateful bigots. Once kids accept this, and conclude that the Church must be wrong in some of her moral teachings, they begin to doubt her authority on everything else as well.
The Church was woefully unprepared for all of this. Saint John Paul II gave us the wonderful Theology of the Body, and that has now begun to percolate down to the parish level, but we have a long way to go. I think it’s a vast oversimplification to point to Vatican II and say “if only we’d stuck with the Latin Mass, none of this would have happened.”
And the funny thing is, many of the young going to the mass today, prefer the TLM to the NO – because the TLM is countercultural. And the examples you give are all the more reason for the Church to assert herself (pray for bishops with a spine).
Unprepared? Really? Maybe gutless to stand up is a better way to say this. Unfortunately, St. Pope John XXIII’s vision of aggiornamento appears to me to be a failure. The Church post V2 has in many ways aligned itself with the world. We need to be a sign of contradiction again. To me, that starts with the mass – our public work. Lex orandi, lex credendi. We see it in the fruits.
Just returned from what possibly will be our last parochial TLM (at least under Pope Francis).
Bishop Strickland allowed the TLM to be prayed in the diocese today as he prays and studies over the Apostolic Letter from the pope (so ironic that the Latin title Traditionis Custodes translates as Guardians of the Tradition).
Our priest was devastated but uplifting as well. His homily in bullet form:
+ We are in dark days
+ This was a severe injustice
+ Be angry but do not sin – especially to beware of calumny and detraction
+ Pray and fast
He spoke of the irony of the suppression of the TLM and that it affects the one group of people who love to be Catholic and to express their love for the Church through Her Traditions.
An important point which many, no doubt, do not understand (I’ve never been entirely clear on the subject myself–what, do I look like a Catholic?):
At a Latin Mass, you’re still getting something at church in the language you understand.
(Either that, or your Latin skills are way the heck better than mine.)
Well, your name sort of gives something away – nothing about the way you look.
My Latin skills are relegated to about 10-15 prayers.
When I’m at the TLM I feel like I give something more than I get something – and that is what we are at mass for: to give glory to God.
Hey, anytime you Catholics want to get into a discussion about whether Augustine is a Catholic as such–I’m game. But it could be long and complicated.
Well, he wasn’t Baptist.
Bring a 6 of IPA and we’ll discuss. Not here.
Cheers.
The 1962 Missal includes the complete standard service in both Latin and English. The sermon and supporting readings are read in English, and the Pope Leo Prayers are said in English at the end. These prayers, and others in the 1962 rite explicitly address the Devil and were scrubbed from the NO at the insistence of his lawyers. Exorcists report that the Devil is delighted with the reduced confrontationalism and spirit of rapprochement found in the new mass. Pachamama was unavailable for comment.
The rite is approachable, and a great read, it is just a bit of a challenge for new worshippers.
Indeed.
Um, does that mean not tea? I’m sort of the opposite of Thor.
But seriously–should we do a new post on this or something?
That claim seems a bit, well, parochial, if you’ll pardon the pun. I assure you there are people who love to be Catholic who prefer the Mass in their native tongue.
[Clever remark about how Catholic starting doing things in Latin in the first place.]