New rules on the old liturgy, more responsibility for the bishop

Vatican News

Pope Francis, after consulting the world’s bishops, decided to amend the rules governing the use of the 1962 Missal, which had been edited as an “unusual Roman rite” fourteen years earlier by his predecessor Benedict XVI. Published the Supreme Pontiff today Special Movement “Guardians of Traditions” On the use of the Roman liturgy before 1970, accompanied by a letter from him explaining the reasons for his decision. Here’s the main news.

Responsibility for organizing the celebration according to the pre-conciliation rite rests with the bishop, superintendent of diocesan liturgical life: “It is his exclusive prerogative to authorize the use of roman 1962 in the diocese, following the guidelines of the Holy See. The bishop must ensure that the congregations celebrating the Old Liturgy “do not exclude the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform, the dictates of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs.”

Masses with the old rites will no longer be held in the parish churches, and the bishop will establish the church and the days of festivities. The readings shall be “in the vernacular” using translations approved by the Councils of Bishops. The priest is a priest ordained by the bishop. The latter is also responsible for checking whether or not ceremonies are to be maintained according to the ancient Missal, and for checking their “effective usefulness for spiritual growth.” Indeed, it is necessary that the responsible priest receive not only the honorable celebration of the liturgy, but also the pastoral and spiritual care of the faithful. The bishop will “take care not to allow the creation of new groups”.

Priests ordained after the publication of Moto’s book today, who intend to celebrate with a pre-congregational mass “must make a formal application to the diocesan bishop who will consult the Holy See before permission is granted.” Whereas those who already do will ask the diocesan bishop for permission to continue using it. Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life “established by the Pontifical Committee at that time Ecclesia Day” They pass under the jurisdiction of religious worshipers. The Departments of Worship and Religious Affairs oversee the observance of these new provisions.

at attached message In the document, Pope Francis explains that the concessions made by his predecessors to the use of the ancient Missal were motivated above all by a “desire to remake the schism with the movement led by Archbishop Lefevre.” The request to the bishops to welcome generously the “just aspirations” of the faithful who requested the use of the Missal, “was therefore ecclesiastical reason to remake the unity of the Church.” Francis notes that this power “has been interpreted by many within the Church as the possibility of free use of the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V, and the identification of a parallel use of the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Paul VI”.

The Pope states that Pope Benedict XVI’s decision on the “Summorum Pontificum” (2007) was supported by “the conviction that this judgment would not cast doubt on one of the fundamental decisions of the Second Vatican Council, and thus undermine its authority”. Pope Ratzinger declared fourteen years ago that the fear of divisions in pastoral societies was groundless, because he wrote, “The two forms of use of the Roman rites would have enriched each other.” But the poll recently promoted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith among Bishops provided answers that reveal, as Francis writes, “a situation that distresses and worries me, and stresses the necessity of intervention,” where the desire for unity was “dangerous.” ignored, and the concessions made magnanimously were used “to increase distances, to strengthen dissensions, to build contradictions that are harmful to the Church and impede its progress, and to expose it to the danger of divisions.”

The Pope says he is saddened by abuses in the liturgical celebrations “on both sides,” but he also says he is saddened by the “effective use of the Roman Missal of 1962, marked by a growing rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Second Vatican Council, emphasizing which is baseless and unsustainable as betraying tradition and the “true Church”. Francis explains that to question the Council “means to question the intentions of the Fathers, who exercised their collective authority in a formal manner with Petro et sub Petro in the Ecumenical Council, and, in the end, to question the Holy Spirit himself who leads the Church”.

Finally, Francis adds one final reason for his decision to amend the concessions of the past: “The close relationship between the choice of ceremonies according to the liturgical books that preceded the Second Vatican Council and the rejection of the Church and its institutions in the name of what they consider the ‘true Church’.” The apostle Paul reacted to him resolutely. To defend the unity of the body of Christ, I find myself compelled to cancel the power bestowed upon me by my predecessors.