Pope Francis during his weekly audience at the Vatican on February 15, 2023. Vincenzo PINTO / AFP
Faced with appeals from dioceses to defend the faithful’s access to the ancient rite Mass, the Pope issued a rescript depriving local bishops of all powers over this act. Henceforth Rome decides alone.
Pope Francis is tightening the noose around traditionalists. During an audience granted to English Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, this Monday, the Pope officially endorsed a rescript, a sort of legal decree, withdrawing almost all powers to manage the traditionalist dossier from the local bishops, solely for the benefit of the Vatican. The text was published on Tuesday.
Rome thus becomes the final decision-maker on two specific points. The first is permission for possible young priests ordained after July 16, 2021 to celebrate Mass according to the old Missal of 1962 in force before Vatican II, nicknamed “Mass in Latin”. . The second is the possibility of using a parish church or establishing a personal parish for the celebration of the Eucharist according to the old rite. The local bishop will no longer be able to decide on these two points without the Roman go-ahead.
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It was Benedict XVI who, in 2007, made it possible to celebrate Mass according to the ancient Catholic ritual as an “extraordinary” rite and for the sake of “reconciliation”. However, under certain conditions, including the existence of a “stable” community of believers who had to await approval from the local bishop who was then in charge of this discernment.
But the pastoral success that these traditionalist communities have since achieved, especially in the United States and France (prosperity, strong presence of young people and families, numerous priestly and religious vocations) led Francis to legalize this liberality on July 16, 2021 In order to avoid, as it was said in Rome, the constitution of a “parallel” Catholic Church, the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council was viewed very critically.
“authoritarianism”
One of the keys to this restoration lies in the restoration of a “single” way of celebrating Mass, the “ordinary” rite that emerged from Vatican II (1962-1965), with regard to the people and in the spoken Speech by the faithful was the suppression of the legal existence of this “extraordinary” rite and the deprivation of all power in the matter from the local bishop.
In the United States, particularly in the dioceses of Knoxville, Tennessee, Lake Charles, Louisiana, Portland, Oregon, Springfield, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado, several pro-traditionalist bishops played canon law—the Canon Law and its Article 87 – to challenge Pope Francis’ decision.
This article states: “The diocesan bishop has the power to dispense the faithful from the general and special disciplinary laws made by the supreme authority of the Church for his territory or subjects when he considers it advantageous to their spiritual well-being . Excluded, however, are laws whose “dispensation is reserved specifically for the Apostolic See or another authority.”
This is what the publication of the February 20 rescript aims to do. Signed by Cardinal Roche and authorized by Francis, it prevents recourse to Article 87 because it reserves any “dispensation” in liturgical matters solely to the Apostolic See.
Second masterful intervention
A further consolidation: the legal form of the rescript, signed by a cardinal under the authority of the pope, now brings it into the realm of the “papal magisterium”. One can no longer oppose the possible imagination of the signing cardinal. He acquired the maximum authority.
This rescript is the second judicial intervention to enforce the Motu Proprio of July 16, 2021, which has failed in traditionalist circles. On November 18, 2021, a technical document, “Responsa ad dubia”, had already set the i-dots in the same direction, but without being able to delete the slingshot. Hence the use of this legal form. He could also announce an even more binding document against traditionalist communities next spring.
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A development that worries several French bishops, albeit moderate ones, who see their responsibilities diminished by a papal “authoritarianism” that nevertheless shows a “synodal” quest for a common government and is not imposed “from above”.
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