Pope Francis on Sunday gave one of his strongest affirmations to date of his belief in the Second Vatican Council reform that introduced the Mass in the vernacular. He celebrated Mass at the parish of Ognissanti (All Saints) in Rome on the fiftieth anniversary of the first vernacular Mass that was celebrated there by Pope Paul VI in 1965.
According to Pray Tell blogger Anthony Ruff OSB, who was in the congregation that spilled over outside the church, Pope Francis came out afterwards and addressed those who had followed the liturgy on a screen. According to Ruff’s translation, Francis said: “Let us thank the Lord for what he has done in his Church in these 50 years of liturgical reform. It was truly a courageous gesture for the Church to draw near to the people of God so that they are able to understand well what they are doing. This is important for us, to follow the Mass in this way. It is not possible to go backwards. We must always go forward.”
A few days earlier in a letter to Cardinal Aurelio Poli, Chancellor of the Catholic University of Argentina on the 100th anniversary of its founding, the Pope pointed out that the anniversary coincided with that of 50 years from the closing of the Second Vatican Council. The Council, he said, was “an update, a re-reading of the Gospel in the perspective of contemporary culture. It produced an irreversible movement of renewal that comes from the Gospel. And now, we must go forward.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, adopted a slightly different tone in an interview he gave in Paris, when he insisted that “rancour” must be avoided in disputes within the Church over the Ordinary and Extraordinary forms of the Mass.
“Vatican II never asked us to reject the past and abandon the Mass of St. Pius V, which spawned many saints, nor discard Latin,” Cardinal Sarah told the Catholic Aleteia online network. “But at the same time we must promote the liturgical reform sought by the Council itself.”
Speaking at the launch of his book “God or Nothing”, Cardinal Sarah said it was vital to respect the sensitivity of others, and this had been the intention of Pope Benedict XVI in his motu proprio of July 2007, Summorum Pontificum, that readmitted the Tridentine Rite.
In this “face-to-face” with God [that takes place in the Mass] our heart must be pure, free of all hatred, all rancour. Each person must remove from his heart anything that might cast a shadow on this meeting,” the cardinal said.
Pope Benedict was not totally successful in his intention, Cardinal Sarah said, because people "clung" to their specific rite and mutually excluded each other. “In the Church, everyone should be able to celebrate according to his or her own sensitivity. It is one of the conditions of reconciliation … If the Mass is celebrated with fervour and beauty, an understanding will certainly be reached.”
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