Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Holy See's former top liturgy official, has asked Pope Francis to repeal an instruction suppressing celebrations of the Mass said by a priest on his own.
A ruling from the Secretariat of State, which came into effect on 22 March, has prohibited “individual celebrations” and has restricted the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy (the old rite) to four Masses a day in the Vatican grottoes.
The decree said it was aimed at ensuring Masses take place in an “atmosphere of recollection and liturgical decorum” and has been understood as a move that makes the basilica's liturgy more in keeping with the reforms and spirit of the Second Vatican Council.
Over the years early morning Mass-goers at St Peter's had often found priests, accompanied by an altar server, celebrating liturgies alone in one of the side-chapels. These Masses were also frequently said in the pre-Vatican II rite.
But the new ruling has sparked a backlash from traditionalists and cardinals at odds with the Francis pontificate.
“I humbly beg the Holy Father to order the withdrawal of the recent norms issued by the secretariat of state, which are as lacking in justice as in love, do not correspond to the truth or the law, do not facilitate but rather endanger the decorum of the celebration, devout participation in the Mass, and the freedom of the children of God,” Cardinal Sarah wrote in a letter, first reported by Vatican journalist and Francis critic, Sandro Magister.
The changes to early morning liturgical worship at St Peter’s mean that priests and ordinary believers who come to the basilica “daily” can attend one of four Masses between 7am and 9am, with priests invited to concelebrate (celebrate collectively) rather than on their own. These Masses will also include readers and singers. Groups of visiting pilgrims with a priest or bishop will be able to celebrate the Mass in one of the chapels in the Vatican Grottoes, near to the tomb of St Peter. The old rite Mass can be celebrated four times a day in the Clementine Chapel by “authorised priests”.
Citing St Thomas Aquinas and Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Sarah writes that the “gift of grace is reduced” in a Mass that is concelebrated while arguing it is “less prudent” to have multiple priests celebrating at an altar during the Covid-19 pandemic. He says priests should not be compelled to concelebrate while asking: “Why should it never again be possible to celebrate the extraordinary form in the basilica?”
The Guinean cardinal, who left his post as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments upon reaching retirement age, has often clashed with the Pope on liturgical matters. Since his departure, Francis has ordered a visitation of his department to decide on who his successor should be.
The Pope has stated that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II (1962-65) are “irreversible”, with the council ruling that the concelebration of Masses take place in churches "when the needs of the faithful do not require that all priests available should celebrate individually”. The council also states that “each priest shall always retain his right to celebrate Mass individually” but “not at the same time in the same church as a concelebrated Mass”.
Other cardinals who criticised the secretariat’s ruling include Cardinals Raymond Burke Walter Brandmuller, and Gerhard Müller, all of them forthright critics of Francis.
Critics of the ruling say priests will now have to say Masses in Italian in the Basilica – although this is not mentioned by the decree – and that the side-chapels, which hold the relics of various saints, have been “condemned to death”. The ruling states that Masses can be said at the altar where the remains of saints on feast days.
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