Context: Far and wide we are getting reports of bishops celebrating Pontifical Masses, for example the latest in Holland by Card. Eyck. Also, on the horizon the SSPX will consecrate bishops with or without mandate of the Holy See. People have have been seriously abused by bishops who have a rigid view of forced uniformity of liturgical rites (which in the Novus Ordo is non-sensical and virtually impossible). Traditional groups have growing numbers of priests.
We read that, before the French bishops meet in a plenary session the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, sent a message which clearly related the desire of Pope Leo. Parolin (Leo XIV) urged the bishops of France to seek “generous” pastoral solutions for Catholics attached to the Traditional Latin Mass.
I am minded of John Paul II in 1988 after the consecrations by the SSPX. In Ecclesia Dei adflicta he wrote:
“by virtue of my Apostolic Authority I decree the following:… c) … respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.”
Most bishops simply ignored him.
Will it be different this time?
Shooting from the hip, if I may (super-long, thoughtful comment is being prepared for another time):
What if the Holy Father would simply say: each diocese should have at least one FSSP/ICKSP (etc) parish, or failing that, each bishop should celebrate a vetus ordo mass himself at least monthly his his cathedral? Easily checked, no wiggle room.
(No prizes for guessing which option would be the most popular choice)
At best it seems disingenuous – how can Pope Leo keep in force the vindictive and unjust TC which has been interpreted to give the bishops no leeway whatsoever in not conforming to the persecution of Traditionalists while simultaneously appealing to the French Bishops to be generous? The obvious thing he could do is just rescind TC, but he hasn’t. It’s like a big pharmaceutical company charging a billion dollars to distribute a medicine but then telling the local pharmacist to be generous to his customers and to sell the drug as cheaply as possible. That dog don’t hunt.
I wonder: does this ‘generosity’ extend to those who attend the Latin Mass exclusively at SSPX chapels, or are they excluded from such pastoral care?
I am a bit less pessimistic about this news. Yeah, “generous” leaped out at me, but my actual first thought was that it sounded like what I imagined the Holy Spirit might have whispered into the ear of Pope Benedict when he was mulling over his motu proprio!
I’m not saying that the consecrations, excommunications – and Ecclesia Dei – weren’t a big deal in 1988 – they were – but the landscape has changed dramatically since then. “Traddies” were mostly regarded – if they were regarded at all – as fringe weirdos; but mass and momentum did begin to build after 1988, and especially in the last few years of St. John Paul’s reign… then 7-7-07, the Wuhan Flu, and the period of Tumultus Francisci…
Nearly 40 years later we are in a far different position. Questions regarding the TLM – and the liturgy in general – were “top five” during the conclave and the consistory, and continue to be prominent in both the Catholic and secular media. A great many people have been waiting to see what Pope Leo will say and do; while there is nothing concrete here I believe nonetheless that it is significant. Everything heretofore has been somewhat “passive” and in response to particular requests e.g. 2y “renewals” under T.C., approval of +Burke’s Mass for the Pilgrimage; but in this instance he has actually – if cautiously, as is his wont – revealed a direction which initially seems to lie somewhere between that of St.JP2 and B16.
As such, my “gut” is that- without touching or even mentioning T.C. – he is inviting bishops to request exceptions, exclusions, derogations, or other relaxations from its strictures, which – generously granted – will become precedents enabling the gradual (not to say “slow”) erosion of every clause of that odious document. Deo volente!
n.b. The PREVIEW button was absent when I submitted my comment a moment ago… perhaps another casualty of the migration? If so, probably not the last one ;-)
FWIW – I was using the mobile site.
Uhg. It didn’t have to be like this. What a painful thing to have witnessed over the past five years.
As I read this, I recalled a memo from one of my employers containing this sentence: “We value you and respect you as a person, and, as long we have a need, you will have job with us.” (Try to contain the laughter.)
This feels the same: “We value you and respect you as a traditional Catholic, and, as long as TC allows, you will have the TLM.” In other words, nothing has truly changed.
Like WVC, I was thinking that if Pope Leo XIV really wants the TLM to be more widely available, all he has to do is cancel “Traditionis custodes.” He is not doing that, though. I suppose he does not want to appear in blatant opposition to Jorge Bergoglio. So he is basically telling the bishops to ignore “Traditionis custodes”. It might be a diplomatic approach with regard to Jorge’s legacy, but I think it is ultimately not the correct approach. In terms of an organization’s operations, it is dysfunctional to have policy documents which the boss is telling the subordinates to ignore.
The TLM is clearly on Pope Leo’s radar and on the radars of bishops around the world, particularly, it seems, in France and the U.S., on both sides of the liturgical divide. He is paying attention, and listening. He sees this tension is not good, and I believe he wants to address it. He knows it isn’t going to just go away on its own. He’s going to take some action, in the not-too-distant future, I believe.
Coming from that perspective, I’m hopeful that this was an intentional signal to the French bishops not to do something (i.e. come down hard on the TLM) that is going to make them look foolish when he eases up on it within a few months. At the least, he doesn’t want them to do something that ties his hands.
This liturgical whiplash harms the church’s credibility and is pastorally harmful. Whatever his flaws as a man and as a pope may or may not be, I do believe he is intelligent and good-willed enough to see that and to want to address it in as pastorally sensitive a way as his worldview allows.
As long as TC remains in place and bishops continue to suppress the holy and valid TLM, we can have no expectations. In case anyone forgets, the TLM is still not supposed to offered in a diocesan church! A gym or meeting room might be ‘allowed’ or perhaps a small chapel in a remote location but not in the diocesan parish except where some good shepherds are allowing it to continue. Of course, no new TLMs to be tolerated.
Nope. Simple as that. And…..
A man who bows to a demon Pachamama will soon excommunicate SSPX members. That’s the horrific state we are in.
I was wondering along the lines Archlaic suggests – but, how likely is history indeed to repeat itself? – “Most bishops simply ignored him.”
Meanwhile, I’m not sure when last I visited the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra YouTube channel, but see the latest two “Let’s Sing with the Pope” series entries are (13) “Salve Regina” (“Jan 15, 2026”) and (14) “Ave Regina” (“Feb 12, 2026”).
Foll0wing up Cardinal Eijk’s interview, I see that his FSSP reference is to the village of Lobith, near the German border, population according it is English Wikipedia article (with 2021 data) 3,055, but according to its Dutch Wikipedia article (with 2023 data) down to 3,015: the Latin Mass Directory has a link to its website – but I have not checked its other 12 entries for the Netherlands to see if any sheds light on his reference to “two brothers of St. John, who both celebrate Tridentine Masses in one of the churches in the city of Utrecht”. I can imagine his failure to mention the thriving FSSPX chapel in the same city as a missed opportunity and/or a prudential decision.
Is this really a change of direction or is it a one off? I hope it is the latter, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Fr. Z, I had the same thought. “I’ve heard this one before… will the bishops actually listen this time?”
Honestly ya’ll, we’re at a point where the last thing we should be doing with Pope Leo’s comment here is finding a way to complain about it. This might be the most pastoral thing a pope has said about TLM-attendees since Pope Benedict XVI. If we want to get off our timeout, we have to be good little trad boys and girls, and that will likely mean holding our tongues.
IMO, the most significant difference between this intervention by Pope Leo and that by Pope John Paul seems to be that Leo is requesting/demanding obedience to the actual canons of Sacrosanctum Concilium, instead of ignoring that document’s proper doctrinal and disciplinary requirements.
I am deeply grateful for this statement. Pope Francis was overtly hostile to the traditional Latin Mass, and expressly said that it was slated to be abolished. I found it painful to have the Mass put under this papal cloud. Pope Leo’s statement is not a full U-turn but it is close to one: It is effectively a papal blessing of the traditional Latin Mass. It marks an important turning point. The traditional Latin Mass has survived Traditionis Custodes and the accompanying papal letter that said it had been consigned to the dust bin of history.
Pope Leo’s recent statement is the most that we could have hoped for from a Pope elected by a college of Cardinals dominated by Pope Francis appointees. It is naive and completely unrealistic to expect under the present circumstances that any Pope would immediately go to war against liberal bishops who are hostile to the traditional Latin Mass. It is a major win to have the Pope say, effectively, that the Vatican-blessed Grillo-Parolin-Roche attack on the traditional Mass is over.
When I signed my first apartment lease my landlord allowed me to have my dog. But he wouldn’t take out the “no pets” clause in case my dog became a problem.
Sensing a similar move to maintain leverage in this situation.
I’m with WVC, Ionathas Gnosis ph. d. , and possibly others in regard of the necessity to withdraw TC.
The Church is supposed to be a dispenser of truth, but for it to promote inconsistencies, in this case between what amounts to the law (TC) versus practice (as Leo XIV seems now to be recommending) only leads one to think that the Church is being “economical with the truth” in matters of grave importance, the consequences of which for souls should not be minimised.
It’s all really quite paradoxical. Today we have TC saying “no TLMs” but the Pope saying “accomodate them”; while from 1969 we had a succession of Popes saying “no TLMs” (or “let them have them if they ask nicely”) whereas as Benedict XVI admitted the ban on (or even the later “mere restriction” of) on the TLM was extra-judicial … I should say “tyrannical abuse of power”, but hey if tyrants can be canonised then there’s hope for a sinner like me.
The big questions to me are:
* why did just about the entire (Latin-rite) episcopate roll over and play along with the pseudo-abolition of the TLM from 1969, when there was (again citing Benedict XVI) no such abolition at all?
* why did we have to wait for Benedict XVI to confirm the invalidity of the ban on the TLM, i.e. why did John Paul II act as if the TLM was something of an illegal exception that needed an indult?
Keep up the great work Fr Z.
I tend to agree with what Taylor Marshall said about this recently, that there are about 600,000 people that attend SSPX chapels worldwide so that it is larger than some Eastern Rite churches, some of which have their own bishop, even a cardinal in one case. Of those SSPX attendees, a large percentage are in France. It also would be strange in this era of synodality, inclusion and ecumenism, that the Holy See would suddenly go all medieval on the SSPX and start issuing excommunications. So maybe this is an indication that the Holy Father wants some kind of solution, now that the talks with Fernandez went nowhere.