Hawks and doves fight over Latin Mass

Bergoglio saves the Latin Mass, but the feud between "hawks" and "doves" continues, N. Spuntoni, Il Giornale 21/7/2024

The new crackdown on the ancient Rite, scheduled for July 16, has not been issued. However, the pressure from "hawks" and "doves" on the Pope does not end here.

THE KEY POINTS

Danger averted, at least for the moment. The so-called traditionalists breathed a sigh of relief at  one minute past midnight last Wednesday, when they were certain that the Holy See would not publish the document with which to drastically ban celebrations in the ancient Rite. July 16, in fact, was considered D-Day for the release of the new restrictions on the so-called Latin Mass. Not a random day: exactly three years earlier Francis had signed Traditionis custodes, the Motu Proprio that repealed the liberalization granted in 2007 by Benedict XVI with Summorum Pontificum.

The enemies of the Latin Mass

The publication of Traditionis custodes has opened a season of further division in the Church that should see, according to many rumors, a new chapter with the entry into force of an even more drastic crackdown. Leading the offensive is the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments led by British Cardinal Arthur Roche, supported by the secretary, Monsignor Vittorio Francesco Viola. Vatican sources report that it is the two of them - at this stage the second more than the first - who are insisting on extending the ban to celebrations in the Vetus Ordo. Traditionis custodes, on the other hand, arrived just over a month after the retirement of Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah from the role of Prefect. The promotion of Roche, already hostile to the so-called Latin Mass since his mandate in the Diocese of Leeds during which he gave a rather limiting interpretation of Summorum Pontificum, has opened the doors to a series of documents aimed - even contradictorily - at making the celebration in the Extraordinary Form more difficult.

After Traditionis custodes, came the Responsa ad dubia and a Rescriptum, in addition to the numerous "no"s from the Dicastery to requests to authorize traditional Masses around the world. All this, however, must not have seemed enough to the supporters of the anti-traditionalist cause now intent on convincing the Pope to sign a restrictive document that, according to several Vatican sources, already exists.

Hawks and doves

In the Curia, however, there are not only those who push Francis to sign the definitive ban on the ancient rite. As often happens, not only "hawks" but also "doves" are flying over Santa Marta. Those who are turning up their noses at Roche and Viola's offensive are not only those Cardinals who celebrate in the Extraordinary Form without problem and whom Pope Benedict XVI in 2014 called "great cardinals", but also those who, for love of the Pope, want to avoid him causing unnecessary divisions with a measure destined to be strongly contested. According to what has been learned, the persuasion of several moderate Cardinals has had some effect on Francis, who for the moment has preferred to leave the document presumably produced by the Dicastery for Divine Worship in a drawer. "Holy Father, but is it convenient for you?", this is the sense of moral suasion that, behind the scenes, some Cardinals have tried to exercise.

According to what has been learned, others have instead tried to speak privately with Monsignor Viola to convince him of the inappropriateness of releasing such a document. There are also those who have taken a public position, taking pen and paper and writing to the Pope to implore him "not to let this happen". This was done by Mexican Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara and a former signatory of the latest Dubia, who in the letter referred to “rumours that the Latin Mass of Saint Pius V should be definitively banned” and argued that “what the Church has been celebrating for four centuries, the Mass of Saint Pius V in Latin, with a rich, pious liturgy that itself invites us to penetrate the Mystery of God, cannot be an evil.”

In the meantime, the petition launched on Change.org by British composer Sir James MacMillan in defense of the Latin Mass has reached 15,000 signatures.

There are many who think that the mobilization in favor of this cause that came not only from Catholics may have contributed to the temporary halt of a document that was considered imminently due for release on July 16. The game, however, is not over.

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