Church in the World

Pope allows unlimited use of Tridentine Mass

Pope Benedict XVI has ruled that priests will no longer need their bishop's permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, arguing that the sixteenth-century ritual was "never juridically abrogated" by the Second Vatican Council liturgical reform.

In a long-anticipated motu proprio - issued last Saturday under the title "Summorum Pontificum" - the Pope makes the hotly debated claim that the Roman Missal issued after the Council of Trent (1570) and its general revision following Vatican II (1970) are merely two different expressions of the single Roman Rite. "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal," the Pope stated in a letter justifying his four-page motu proprio (literally "on my own initiative"). While the reformed liturgy will remain the "ordinary expression" of the Church's worship, Catholics will also have the unlimited option to celebrate the Mass and all the sacraments in their pre-conciliar "extraordinary" form. The decree takes effect on 14 September.

Pope Benedict rejected the notion that the motu proprio, which replaces special episcopal-regulated indults of 1984 and 1988, would curtail the local bishop's authority. "Nothing is taken away," he wrote. "The local Ordinary will always be able to intervene, in full harmony, however, with all that has been laid down in the new norms," he said in the three-page explanatory letter. The Pope also sought to downplay concerns that wider use of the Tridentine Mass "would lead to disarray or even divisions" in the Church. "This fear strikes me as quite unfounded," he wrote. However, if lay people who want to attend Tridentine Masses find that their bishops "cannot provide this type of celebration," they are encouraged to inform the Vatican. Likewise, bishops who favour the Tridentine Mass, but cannot find priests who are able or willing to celebrate it, are also urged to seek the Vatican's "advice and help". The Ecclesia Dei Commission - the office set up in 1988 to help heal the rift with the schismatic Lefebvrist movement - has been given the authority of "maintaining vigilance over the observance and application" of the motu proprio.

Reactions to the new decree were predictable. Bishops and theologians - with very few exceptions - remained silent or offered tepid support. But self-defined "traditionalist" groups that have been hostile to the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms from the outset welcomed it. The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales said its "sufferings had been vindicated". In his letter, Pope Benedict said that he understood traditionalist feelings. "I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the [reformed] liturgy - which were hard to bear - caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the Church," he writes. He said he hoped his motu proprio would bring "interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church". But while effectively normalising the use of the Tridentine Mass he also said its proponents "cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books". 

Although it appears that most Catholics - including bishops - are not interested in returning to the Tridentine Mass, that cannot prohibit individual priests and small groups of lay people from reintroducing its regular usage in parishes. Priests can celebrate it "without the people" any day of the week (except during the Easter Triduum), but the "faithful who spontaneously request it" have a right to attend. Furthermore, religious communities will have the option of celebrating the Tridentine Mass "often or habitually or permanently". As for the Lefebvrist schismatics, the head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission - Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos - hoped the motu proprio would help lead to their reconciliation with Rome. In an interview with the Italian magazine 30 Giorni the cardinal claimed that the Second Vatican Council "had neither asked for nor foreseen the particulars of these [liturgical] changes" and bishops merely wanted a wider use of national languages in the Mass. In his letter to the bishops accompanying his motu proprio, Pope Benedict asked to hear of their experiences in three years' time so that issues arising could be reviewed.