Does ‘Traditionis custodes’ have a future?
Pope Francis restricted older liturgical forms. Will those restrictions last?
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No one — not even a liturgist — can unerringly predict the future. How many Catholics attending Mass in 1962 knew that the Roman Missal issued that year would be the last of its kind?
How many Catholics at the start of 2007 sensed that restrictions on the 1962 missal, in place since the reform of 1970, were about to be lifted?
And how many Catholics suspected that use of the 1962 missal would be curtailed once again in 2021?
The answer in each case is surely very few. So when it comes to predicting the future of Catholic liturgy, a little modesty is in order.
But a March 7 interview with the Vatican’s liturgy chief Cardinal Arthur Roche has sparked discussion about whether the restrictions placed on the 1962 missal almost four years ago will once again be eased.
Is this wishful thinking on the part of Catholic traditionalists? Or are there clear signs of a coming change? Does Roche’s conciliatory tone signal a shift in policy, or is it merely a pastoral gesture amid ongoing tensions?
The Pillar asked experts across the ecclesial spectrum to weigh in — not so much to predict the future, but to assess where things currently stand and what possibilities might lie ahead.
Before a consideration of their responses, a little primer on the Latin Church’s “liturgy wars” might be helpful. The liturgical debate, after all, is sometimes hard to follow, given its shifting terms.
Years of liturgical upheaval
In 1962, Pope John XXIII approved a new typical edition — official source text — of the Missale Romanum, the book containing texts for Mass in the Roman Rite, the liturgy attended by the majority of the world’s Catholics.
The new typical edition contained changes to the liturgy that was codified in 1570 and amended periodically in the following four centuries.
It was the last typical edition of the Roman Missal published before Vatican Council II, which issued a resounding appeal for “the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy.” A reform process launched by the Council led to the promulgation in 1969 of a new version of Mass in the Roman Rite by John XXIII’s successor, Pope Paul VI.
The new Roman Missal, superseding the 1962 version, was seen to usher in a new era in the Church’s liturgical life. Catholics referred to the reformed liturgy as “the New Mass,” while the 1962 liturgy was termed “the Old Mass.”
The new version was also called “the Mass of Paul VI,” while the older one was styled “the Tridentine Mass,” in reference to the Council of Trent, which paved the way for the 1570 Roman Missal.
The new Mass was introduced throughout the Catholic world in 1970, inaugurating a liturgical revolution that some Catholics found exhilarating and others alarming. Churches were hastily “reordered” to accommodate a change in the direction the priest faced during Mass, from ad orientem (liturgical east) to versus populum (towards the people). Local languages mostly or completely replaced Latin.
The minority of Catholics who continued to attend the Old Mass found themselves on the margins of Church life. Following an outcry by cultural luminaries, including non-Catholics, Paul VI issued an indult, permitting the use of the 1962 missal in England and Wales. The indult was extended worldwide in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI significantly eased restrictions on the 1962 missal with his apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum. He described the missal issued by Paul VI as “the ordinary expression of the lex orandi (rule of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite.” But he also recognized the missal prior to the Council as “an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi of the Church.”
The “New Mass” became known as the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, while the “Old Mass” was termed the Extraordinary Form.
“These two expressions of the Church’s lex orandi will in no way lead to a division in the Church’s lex credendi (rule of faith); for they are two usages of the one Roman rite,” Benedict wrote.
In 2021, Pope Francis issued the apostolic letter Traditionis custodes, reapplying previous restrictions, and creating new ones. The new document declared that “the liturgical books promulgated by St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II” were “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”
In an accompanying letter to bishops, Francis said his action was necessary because concessions by his predecessors had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”
The pope said he was saddened “that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church.’”
What Cardinal Roche said
Cardinal Arthur Roche, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship since 2021, has led the global crackdown on the use of the 1962 missal announced in Traditionis custodes.
Given the controversial nature of this task, the English prelate’s relatively rare interviews are carefully studied.
In his new interview, with London’s Catholic Herald, Roche adopted a strikingly irenic tone when talking about the older liturgy.
He said: “There is nothing wrong with attending the Mass celebrated with the 1962 missal. That has been accepted since the time of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and now Pope Francis.”
“What Pope Francis said in Traditionis custodes is that it is not the norm. For very good reasons, the Church, through conciliar legislation, decided to move away from what had become an overly elaborate form of celebrating the Mass.”
He added: “I often hear people say, ‘Cardinal Roche is against the Latin Mass.’ Well, if they only knew that most days I celebrate Mass in Latin because it is the common language for all of us here. It is the Novus Ordo Mass in Latin. I was trained as an altar boy until the age of 20, serving the Tridentine Form.”
The interview, marking Roche’s upcoming golden jubilee of priestly ordination and appearing the day after his 75th birthday, reverberated among Catholics. Partly that was because of its publication while the 88-year-old Pope Francis recuperated from double pneumonia in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital — an uncertain time in the Church’s life.
But what was the meaning of Roche’s words? And do they shed any light on the future of Traditionis custodes?
What people are saying
Gregory DiPippo, editor of the New Liturgical Movement website, told The Pillar March 11 that he believed the Roche interview marked a change in the Vatican’s position.
“Quite a number of people made the comment right away that His Eminence did seem to be walking Traditionis custodes back, by recasting it in terms which are very, very similar to what Pope Benedict said about the status that the traditional liturgy ought to have in the Church in Summorum Pontificum,” he said in a phone interview.
“[Cardinal Roche] said there’s nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with attending it, which is exactly what Pope Benedict said, and he made no reference to the imputations made against the faithful who love the traditional liturgy, which were the purported motivation for issuing Traditionis custodes in the first place. He didn’t make mention of that.”
“I don’t see any reason why he had to say it or had to say it that way. He could have been just as diplomatic saying something like ‘the problems which the Holy Father referred to when he issued Traditionis custodes are still real.’ But he didn’t say anything of that sort.”
DiPippo added: “At the end, when he said ‘people think that I hate the Latin Mass, but I don’t, as you can tell from the fact that I often celebrate Mass in Latin and used to be an altar boy of the traditional Mass’ … if he wanted to leave the impression that he was extending an olive branch to those who love the traditional Mass, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.”
Asked whether Traditionis custodes would, in time, be revoked, DiPippo referred to a June 2024 article by the National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty, headlined “The Undefeatable Prayer.”
“I really think that [article] is the best possible summary of the situation, which is simply that Pope Benedict’s argument was correct and fully consonant with greater truths about the Church, about the Church’s wrestling with its history, and the Church’s wrestling with the problem of what it means to dismiss its history,” he said.
“Pope Francis issued Traditionis custodes on the basis of a sociological claim, which — again, I’m stealing this from Mr. Dougherty — was false when he made it and has proved to be falser as time goes on.”
“So I do believe that Benedict’s argument will prevail, and Traditionis custodes will be revoked. Not in the sense that another pope will come along and issue a motu proprio and say Traditionis custodes is canceled. But I do believe that Pope Benedict’s wisdom on the subject will be vindicated and the traditional liturgy will be given its liberty once again.”
Fr. Anthony Ruff, O.S.B., who teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John’s University School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota, and writes at Pray Tell blog, said the Roche interview didn’t seem to signal a U-turn.
“I don’t see Cardinal Roche walking back Traditionis custodes, but rather showing pastoral sensitivity in applying it — which ultimately means applying the Second Vatican Council,” he said in a March 10 email.
“By any honest reading, Vatican II intended that a reformed liturgy would replace the 1962 form. As Pope Paul VI emphasized, the reformed liturgy is the Church’s liturgical tradition now. For various reasons, the Church has since permitted the 1962 liturgy to continue. Cardinal Roche is following Pope Francis in working for eventual full acceptance of the Vatican II liturgy, but he shows respect for those attached to the prior form.”
He went on: “If we fully understand and accept the Second Vatican Council and its deeply rooted theological reasons for reforming the liturgy, Traditionis custodes would remain in effect and eventually be strengthened. But the situation in some sectors of the Church is rather difficult, and I am in no position to predict how Church authorities will deal with it.”
Andrea Grillo, an Italian professor of sacramental theology who has been described as “the mind behind” Traditionis custodes, also saw no dramatic shift in Roche’s words.
“I believe that from the interview with Cardinal Roche we can draw a very calm and clear rereading of the crisis that the Church has gone through because of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum,” he told The Pillar in a March 10 email.
“Too many people have been deluded into thinking that they could celebrate ordinarily according to a form of the Roman Rite that the Second Vatican Council explicitly wanted to reform.”
“It is obvious that Roche, just like Pope Francis, is astonished that those who love Latin are not prepared to celebrate in Latin (as is possible) according to the 1970 Ordo. The norm is clear and to think that, in order to find Latin, one must resort to a ritual form that is no longer in force is a contradiction.”
Grillo, who is a professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm, a pontifical university in Rome with a highly influential school of liturgy, suggested that the cardinal’s comments were in full harmony with Traditionis custodes.
“The insistence with which Roche recalls the ecclesial dimension of the celebration of the Eucharist seems to me to leave no doubt. There is only one lex orandi in force, and that is that of the ordines [the plural of ordo] approved by Paul VI and John Paul II.”
“It would be useful to remember that the so-called missal of 1962 was born ‘provisional,’ as is clear from the motu proprio with which in 1960, John XXIII decided to proceed with a small reform of the Tridentine missal, while waiting for the Council (then already convened) to establish the ‘altiora principia’ [higher principles] to proceed with the complete liturgical reform.”
“Those who think today that there is a competition between the missal of 1962 and that of 1970 do not know history and misrepresent Catholic tradition, in which there is legitimate progress.”
Joseph Shaw, president of the International Una Voce Federation (FIUV) and chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales (LMS), pointed The Pillar to an upcoming article he has written for Una Voce International’s magazine Gregorius Magnus.
“The apparent aspiration in Traditionis custodes that the Traditional Mass cease to exist completely, as a danger to the unity of the Church, was already contradicted by Pope Francis’ decree in favor of the FSSP [Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter] in February 2022,” Shaw wrote there.
“For this reason, the ferocity of some of the measures of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, and of some bishops acting on their advice, in restricting celebrations, has been puzzling.”
Shaw continued: “It is difficult to imagine a new pope considering the current policy as a success in winning souls for Christ. If he reversed the policy, he would only be following Pope Francis’ own example.”
“The simplest way for a new pope to ease the current conflict and suffering would be to allow bishops to give permissions for the TLM [Traditional Latin Mass] as they see fit, and I regard this as the most likely outcome in the medium term.”
Austen Ivereigh, a Fellow in Contemporary Church History at the University of Oxford’s Campion Hall and a biographer of Pope Francis, said he detected no sign of a policy change in the Roche interview.
“Obviously any future pope is free to develop further the regulation of the pre-conciliar Mass, but I think Traditionis Custodes is here to stay, for two main reasons,” he told The Pillar in a March 11 email.
“First, it was a collegial act by Francis in response to a widespread call by bishops above all in the U.S. and France, where traditionalist groups, though tiny in number, constitute a movement,”
“Bishops in those countries were concerned by the schismatic rhetoric of many traditionalist communities, or at least their vociferous leaders, in opposing the Second Vatican Council and the papal magisterium. In asking bishops to regulate and oversee the activities of those communities, the pope was giving back to bishops the authority they had under St John Paul II which Summorum pontificum took away.”
“The second reason is that, as was clear from the consultation of bishops, SP was a failed experiment. Benedict himself said that if it led to division it could be revised; it clearly did, as Archbishop Augustine Di Noia of the DDF [Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith] said, and Francis carried out the revision that Benedict had asked for.”
He added: “The division is not caused per se by the traditionalist preference for the 1962 Missal, but what so often goes with it: sectarianism, neo-gnosticism, and in general an attitude of contemptuous superiority. As a result, the impact on parishes of trying to integrate the traditionalists has not been a happy one, which is why TC asks that the 1962 Missal be celebrated outside parishes.”
“Of course, it’s possible that the effect of TC over time will be to quell the sectarian mentality to which traditionalist groups are so prone, which could lead to further revisions. But the astonishingly vicious reaction to TC gives little cause for hope.”
“I know many bishops who had little experience of traditionalism in their dioceses, but when they saw the response to TC completely understood why it was so necessary. For these reasons, I think TC is here to stay.”
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Nearly four years after Traditionis custodes, Cardinal Roche’s interview has rekindled the often fiery debate about the document. But there is no consensus about what’s coming next.
History suggests that liturgy evolves not only by decree but also by practice. Traditionis custodes’ future may be shaped as much by Catholics in the pews as by policies set in Rome.
The fact that Ivereigh still touts the claim that TC was, "in response to a widespread call by bishops above all in the U.S. and France" is laughable. The majority of U.S. Bishops never got the request from the Vatican nor were truly notified of it to make commentary, as many bishops have stated. It came from a small number of prelates who already had an agenda.
In reality, Roche's interview was, above all, a careerist move in preparation for the next Conclave, which Roche clearly doesn't think the Francis loyalists stand a chance in & he's just trying to save his own skin under the next guy. Or he's trying to present himself now as a moderate acting under orders to try and make a run for the Chair of St. Peter himself.
I classify myself as Reform of the Reform light. There is nothing wrong with attending the older form, but I do think encouraging lay participation, greater use of the vernacular, some simplification in the rubrics/calendar and an expanded lectionary were all praiseworthy and should be the norm. I do wonder though if the reformers got a little carried away with cutting things out. And more emphasis should have been placed on returning to the patristic sources vs updating to fit the modern era. That said God allowed the reforms to happen.
And only God though can tell what will happen in the future. What He wills, will be.