The 71-year-old English archbishop added: “What was produced in 1570 was very appropriate for the time. What is produced at this time is also very appropriate for the time.
VATICAN CITY – The head of the Vatican liturgy said this week that Pope Francis has released Traditionis custodes because the effort to reconcile the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX) “has not been entirely successful” and we must “return” to what Vatican II demanded of the Church.
In a maintenance With a television station serving Italian Switzerland, broadcast on November 14, Archbishop Arthur Roche declared that “the normal form of the celebration of the Roman rite is found in the documents which have been published since the Second Vatican Council”.
that of Pope John Paul II Ecclesia Dei and Benedict XVI Summorum Pontificum “Were established to encourage the Lefebvrists, above all, to return to unity with the Church”, continued Mgr Roche, referring to the SSPX by the name of its founder, Mgr Marcel Lefebvre.
“It’s clear that Traditionis custodes said: okay, this experiment was not entirely successful. And so, back to what [Second Vatican] Council required of the Church, ”declared the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Issued with immediate effect on July 16, Pope Francis motu proprio Traditionis custodes (“Guardians of tradition”) stressed that it is the “exclusive competence” of each bishop to authorize the use of the traditional mass in Latin in his diocese.
In a letter to the bishops of the world explaining his decision, the Pope said he felt compelled to act because the use of the 1962 Missal was “often characterized by a rejection not only of liturgical reform, but of Vatican Council II. – even, affirming, with unbearable affirmations, that he betrayed the Tradition and the “true Church”.
Traditionis custodes made significant changes to Summorum Pontificum, a 2007 apostolic letter recognizing the right of all priests to say Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal.
The Mass said with the help of the 1962 missal is known in different forms such as the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, the Tridentine Mass and the traditional Latin Mass.
Pope John Paul II wrote the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei in 1988, after Lefebvre ordained four bishops without the permission of the Holy See. Lefebvre, who founded the SSPX in Écône, Switzerland, was excommunicated along with the four bishops.
Benedict lifted the excommunication of the four illegitimately consecrated bishops in 2009, years after Lefebvre’s death, as part of his attempt to bring the Society back into full unity with the Catholic Church. The SSPX continues to have a canonically irregular status.
In his comments to the Swiss television program, Bishop Roche said that liturgical reform was desired by the majority of bishops attending Vatican II, which took place in Rome in 1962-65.
“And we must remember that [the liturgical reform] was not the will of the Pope. It was the will of the great majority of the bishops of the Catholic Church, gathered in the 21st Ecumenical Council, guiding the Pope for the future ”, declared the Archbishop.
The 71-year-old English archbishop added: “What was produced in 1570 was very appropriate for the time. What is produced at this time is also very appropriate for the time.
