Here in Provence, as in much of Europe, we have had an exceptionally hot summer – so much so that in the past few weeks we have watched and waited and prayed as the wildfires that have broken out around us have been fought valiantly and professionally by the emergency services who, thus far, have succeeded in limiting the untold damage of which they are capable. It seems that most started accidentally, though it is clear that some were deliberate acts of arson.
It has been a relatively calm summer ecclesiastically; the Pope and his officials went on holiday in July and no major fires broke out to disturb them. No doubt some of the time was spent studying and praying and thinking about ‘hot’ topics – amongst them the excommunication of the Society of St Pius X and the related, but also distinct, question of whether and how the severe restrictions imposed on the older liturgical rites by the previous pope should or could be relaxed or overturned. They are not small questions and, whilst those concerned naturally want the Holy Father to move forward quickly, at a practical level they may take some time to resolve.
In the meantime, it seems there are arsonists about, doing their best to fan the embers of the so-called ‘liturgy wars’ into flames. The first is The Tablet, whose somewhat curiously timed interview with Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery of Divine Worship – the interview was seemingly conducted earlier in the summer, but published only after the Holy Father resumed work last week – saw the cardinal repeat many of his familiar spurious, tired and inaccurate claims, and then make the astounding assertion that “Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes, and he’s not going back to Summorum Pontificum” – the 2021 and 2007 motu proprios of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict restricting and permitting the older liturgical rites respectively.
Now, this may be perfectly true – in the sense that the Holy Father may address the issue by doing neither and, in fact, by doing something else, for example by issuing a higher-ranking document, as Bishop Athanasius Schneider has suggested. But that solution does not seem to be in the mind of The Tablet or of its eminent interviewee. Far from it.
No, the intent seems to be to second-guess the Holy Father and to incite and enrage those attached to all that is good in the older liturgical rites. Whether they will succeed with the former is doubtful: the Holy Father is no fool and is no doubt gaining much insight into the wiles of various officials as the dispute gathers momentum.
They have, however, partially succeeded in firing up many of the devotees of the usus antiquior – at least if headlines can be believed. People who pray daily for the Pope and who wish at all costs to live and worship in unimpeded communion with him and with the bishops are throwing up their hands almost in despair. “If this is really what the Pope thinks, what hope do we have?” they cry out. And if this is the case with Catholics in a regular canonical situation, one can only imagine how others perceive it. What member of the Society of St Pius X would consider asking a bishop to regularise their situation when a cardinal fulminates thus? What Catholic whose Sunday Latin Mass has been summarily cancelled will hesitate to find one wherever it exists? As the Archbishop of San Francisco observed last week, people who seek the traditional forms of worship will feel they “have no choice” other than “to go outside of officially approved institutions and communities” if provision is not made for them.
The latest arson attack comes from a Spanish journal, La Razón. Citing an unnamed Vatican source, it claims that Cardinal Roche’s long-since-discredited consultation document, distributed to the consultative meeting of cardinals in January, was in fact a precise indication of the Pope’s actual thinking and a decisive declaration of his intentions on liturgical matters, including the traditional Latin Mass and associated rites.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A discussion document remains just that – and popes frequently permit such papers to be circulated without endorsing their contents, precisely so that they can be discussed. But arsonists care little for law or the truth and, once again, we have good people ‘giving up’ on Pope Leo because he has, if one believes La Razón, already made up his mind to strengthen the ban on the older liturgy, which Pope Benedict XVI taught “remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful”. (Letter, July 7, 2007)
Why the arson? One suspects that the temperature is rising in Rome, just as is the fear that the Holy Father might decide on an inclusive resolution of the liturgy wars – as Pope Benedict did before him – that promotes ecclesial unity and communion within the legitimate diversity that the Catholic Faith itself allows. Certainly, the one document in which the Pope’s mind has been expressed on this question – the letter sent in his name to the French bishops in March – called for “a perspective that can allow brothers, enriched by their diversity, to welcome one another in charity and in the unity of faith” and “solutions that generously include those sincerely attached to the Vetus Ordo”.
For the partisans of post-conciliar liturgy, however, this would be an intolerable admission – just as Summorum Pontificum was in 2007 – that all is not perfect with the reformed liturgical books. It would undermine all that they hoped they had finally achieved in having Pope Francis promulgate Traditionis Custodes. It has to be stopped in any way possible. In their desperation, they seem now to be turning to pyromania in order to scorch the possibility.
We can probably expect further coordinated outbreaks citing “Vatican sources” or “senior cardinals” soon enough. Amidst all of this, it is essential that we watch and wait and pray and do not evacuate, and that, where possible, we fight the flames valiantly and professionally so as to limit the damage of which they are capable – all the while renewing our prayers and sacrifices for the Holy Father who, with our help, will be able to see clearly through the smoke and ashes that these arsonists are so frantic to raise.
Dom Alcuin Reid is the prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignoles, France.
