An outspoken conservative Dutch bishop says Pope Francis’s motu proprio limiting the Latin Mass and difficulties with Church hierarchies in Germany and the United States are signs that he is losing his authority.
Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts of ’s-Hertogenbosch, who has criticised the pontiff over other issues in the past, said Francis issued the “malicious ukase” without consultation, in contradiction to his stated goal of synodality where all can speak up.
This came after the German bishops “took no notice of the Pope’s advice regarding the synodal process” and the US bishops went ahead with their political fight over Communion despite Vatican warnings, he wrote in his blog.
All this “indicated that he is losing authority”, Bishop Mutsaerts said. “I think Francis is shooting himself in the foot with this motu proprio. This will turn out to be good news for the Fraternity of Saint Pius X.”
The SSPX is the most hardline traditionalist group defending the Tridentine Latin Mass and its bishops were excommunicated for two decades for defying the Vatican. Pope Francis tightly restricted use of that Mass because too many traditionalists said it was superior to the reformed rite after Vatican II.
Bishop Mutsaerts, 63, did not mention last year’s Vatican global survey of bishops, which Francis said showed that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 decision to allow wider use of the older rite had led to divisions within the Church.
“The language is very similar to a declaration of war,” he wrote in his blog Paarse Pepers (Purple Peppers), where his posts are called pepertjes (little peppers).
“Francis slams the door hard with Traditionis Custodes,” he continued. “It feels like a betrayal and is a slap in the face of his predecessors. The Church has never abolished liturgies. Not even Trent. Francis completely breaks with this tradition.”
Vatican II was conservative but its implementation was “far removed from the council documents”, the bishop said. Pretending this was in line with tradition “completely contradicts reality … liturgy is not a toy of popes, but the heritage of the Church”.
“The Pope should be the guardian of tradition. The Pope is the gardener, not the manufacturer.”
Bishop Mutsaerts said Francis acted not out of a concern for evangelisation or mercy, but out of “ideology and malice”. He made it almost impossible to say a Mass that a small group of Catholics loved while promoting a reformed rite often celebrated with many liturgical abuses.
“How dictatorial, how unpastoral, how merciless can you get?” he asked. “If you really want to evangelise, really show mercy and support Catholic families, then you honour the Tridentine Mass,” he wrote.
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