Papal Document Vindicates Adherents of Latin Mass

Papal Document Vindicates

Adherents of Latin Mass

by John Vennari

Pope Benedict XVI’s document Summorum Pontificum, easing restrictions for the celebration of the Old Latin Mass, was released on July 7.

“What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,” the Pope wrote.

The New Mass

The Pope’s move is an effort to heal a rift within the Catholic Church since Pope Paul VI’s introduction of the New Mass in 1969.

Thousands of Catholics the world over reacted against the New Mass, arguing that it is not merely an English translation of the traditional Mass, but an entirely new liturgy containing disturbing liberal elements.

The most well known of these “traditionalist” Catholics is the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. In 1970, the Archbishop founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in response to the requests of seminarians who wanted to be formed according to the traditional doctrine and liturgy of the Catholic Church. The SSPX was established as an international organization and now hundreds-of-thousands of adherents around the globe support the SSPX.

In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without Vatican approval. Pope John Paul II labeled the consecration a schismatic act and said that the Archbishop and the four bishops he consecrated had excommunicated themselves.

Lefebvre and his followers — arguing from Church tradition and Canon Law — insist they are neither schismatic nor excommunicated, but remain faithful to what the Church always taught and practiced. Such fidelity, they maintain, compels them (according to the Catholic Doctors of the Church, e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine) to resist many of the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council, such as ecumenism.

In 1988, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, led the discussions with the Society of St. Pius X in an effort to effect reconciliation. Since then, the Vatican has continued its conversation with the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X in an ongoing effort to heal the rift. On August 29, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI met with Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX.

Recently Vatican Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos stated that the Society is not in formal schism, though many issues remain unresolved.