“Papal Permission for Latin Mass in St Peter’s Gives Traditionalists Hope.”

This headline in an October 25 article in the New York Times sums up the reaction of many people to Pope Leo’s permission for Cardinal Raymond Burke to celebrate a traditional Latin Mass (TLM) at the Altar of the Chair behind the main altar of St Peter’s in the Vatican.

The Mass was the crowning event of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage, which drew an estimated 3,000 people to Rome to celebrate the widened permission that Pope Benedict XVI had given in 2007 in a document of the same name.

From permission to restriction

That permission had been severely restricted by Pope Francis in a rare reversal of a predecessor’s policies in his letter Traditionis Custodes of 2021.

Francis’ rationale for the reversal was twofold. In the first place, Benedict had issued his letter expressly to allow those small groups with an affinity to pre–Vatican II liturgy to celebrate in peace. But what happened was far different.

A number of more traditionally minded clergy and laity took Benedict’s expanded permission as an opportunity to promote the TLM widely. They have been successful. It seems that a growing number of more conservatively minded families and young adults (especially younger males) have been attracted to these liturgies.

Questions about tradition and renewal

So what? Why shouldn’t people who are seeking more solemn worship and especially more traditional music be accommodated? After all, the older rite has roots that go back about fifteen hundred years.

This brings us to Francis’ second motive for the restrictions he put on the older rite. For many who are actively promoting the TLM, it isn’t a matter of greater piety or reverence. It isn’t about aesthetics. It’s about a rejection of Vatican II and the last sixty years of renewal in the Catholic Church.

The deeper meaning of resistance

The rejection of the post–Vatican II liturgical reforms is a dog-whistle for rejecting ecumenical outreach, interreligious dialogue, and religious freedom, not to mention the opening to dialogue with the rest of the world represented by the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).

Make no mistake; along with a very strict approach to traditional Catholic morality (especially sexual morality), this is the agenda of the ardent proponents of the TLM. They regard the last sixty years as a massive mistake and a dangerous accommodation to the secular world.

Reverence and reform

You cannot begrudge Catholics for wanting reverent liturgy, beautiful music, and solid preaching. All Catholics deserve all three. But Francis was right. We must not abandon the many gifts that the post–Vatican II renewal has brought to the Church.

We cannot go backwards.

Where many saw permission to celebrate the older rites as legitimate diversity, Francis saw the increasing popularity of doing so as division, not diversity.

A word to the wise

I do not doubt the sincerity of those who participated in the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage and the Mass at St Peter’s. They are admittedly a very small fraction of the Catholic population. But a word to the wise is sufficient: you’d better watch what you’re asking for.

• John Baldovin, SJ, is Professor of Historical & Liturgical Theology at Boston College’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry. He has been teaching ministerial students for over 40 years.