Traditionalist Catholics reacted strongly to the promulgation of Traditionis custodes, a motu proprio signed by Pope Francis on July 16.

They decried it as an attack on them and the ancient liturgy.

The crackdown, which comes into effect immediately, reversed one of Pope Benedict XVI's signature decisions. It is seen as a major challenge to those Catholics who long to return to pre-Vatican II days.

The pontiff issued a new law requiring individual bishops to approve celebrations of the old Mass, also known as the Tridentine Mass. In addition, newly ordained priests will be required to receive permission from bishops in consultation with the Vatican.

Francis said he was taking action because Benedict's reform had become a source of division in the church. He suggested it had been exploited by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the church and its liturgy.

Under the new law, bishops must also determine if the current groups of faithful attached to the old Mass accept Vatican II. This allowed for Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

These groups cannot use regular churches; instead, bishops must find alternate locations without creating new parishes.

Francis also said bishops are no longer allowed to authorize the formation of any new pro-Latin Mass groups in their dioceses.

The pope's rollback immediately created an uproar among traditionalists. They are already opposed to Francis' more progressive bent and nostalgic for Benedict's doctrinaire papacy.

"This is an extremely disappointing document which entirely undoes the legal provisions of Benedict's 2007 document," said Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.

While Latin celebrations can continue, "the presumption is consistently against them: bishops are being invited to close them down," Shaw said. He added that the requirement for Latin Masses to be held outside a parish was "unworkable."

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco told CNA that "The Mass is a miracle in any form. Christ comes to us in the flesh under the appearance of Bread and Wine. Unity under Christ is what matters."

"Therefore the Traditional Latin Mass will continue to be available here in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. It will be provided in response to the legitimate needs and desires of the faithful."

However, Christopher Bellitto, professor of church history at Kean University, said Francis was right to intervene.

Bellitto noted that Benedict's original decision had had a slew of unintended consequences that not only created internal divisions but temporarily roiled relations with Jews.

"Francis hits it right on the head with his observation that Benedict's 2007 loosening of regulations against the Latin rite allowed others to use it for division," he said. "The blowback on Latin Mass restrictions proves his point."

Sources

Daily Mail

National Catholic Register

Catholic News Agency

NZ Catholic understands that Bishop Denis Browne, Emeritus Bishop of Hamilton, will ordain Deacon Roger Gilbride, FSSP, to the priesthood and Mr Brendan Boyce, FSSP, to the diaconate on Saturday, October 3. Read more in NZ Catholic.

Francis met with Cardinal Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, on July 10.

This followed comments by the cardinal at a liturgy conference in London last week.

Cardinal Sarah invited priests to start celebrating the Mass "ad orientem", towards the liturgical east, from the first Sunday of Advent.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, said that when the Pope visited Cardinal Sarah's dicastery, Francis expressly told the Guinea cardinal that the "ordinary" form of celebrating the Mass is the one promulgated in the missal by Pope Paul VI.

Francis also said that the "extraordinary" form, while accepted under the means expressed by Benedict XVI in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, shouldn't become the norm.

At the meeting, it was also decided that a statement should be issued clarifying the cardinal's remarks.

Fr Lombardi said some of Cardinal Sarah's expressions had been misinterpreted by the press as a signal that changes in liturgical norms were imminent.

The spokesman also quoted paragraph 299 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal about the placement of altars.

This states that Mass celebrated facing the people is "desirable wherever possible".

Fr Lombardi said the GIRM remains "fully in force".

"Cardinal Sarah has always been rightly concerned about the dignity of the celebration of the Mass, in order to adequately express an attitude of respect and adoration of the Eucharistic mystery," Fr Lombardi added.

But the spokesman rejected the vocabulary of a "reform of the reform" in liturgical practice.

He said that phrase is "at times the source of misunderstandings".

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster wrote to his priests saying that the Mass was not the time for priests to "exercise personal preference or taste".

Sources

• Crux
• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Catholic Herald
• Full text of Cardinal Sarah's remarks in London
• Image: Southern Orders

Cardinal Robert Sarah said this at the Sacra Liturgia conference in London recently.

The cardinal said the Pope has asked him to "to study the question of a reform of a reform and how to enrich the two forms of the Roman rite".

Cardinal Sarah said that if the Church is to "achieve what the [Second Vatican] Council desired, this is a serious question which must be carefully studied and acted on".

He suggested liturgical study has indicated that some post-conciliar reforms may have "gone beyond" the intentions of the Fathers of Vatican II.

He said that some "very serious misinterpretations of the liturgy" had crept in, thanks to an attitude to the liturgy which placed man rather than God at the centre.

"The liturgy is not about you and I," Cardinal Sarah told the conference.

"It is not where we celebrate our own identity or achievements or exalt or promote our own culture and local religious customs.

"The liturgy is first and foremost about God and what he has done for us."

Cardinal Sarah has previously been outspoken in calling for priests and congregations to face the liturgical east together at Masses, towards the Lord who comes.

At the London conference, he suggested the first Sunday of Advent as a good time for priests to start this practice.

The cardinal said: "I ask you to implement this practice wherever possible".

He added that "prudence" and catechesis would be necessary,

"Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come' and ‘who will not delay'."

Responding to the cardinal's comments, Fr Anthony Ruff OSB, who contributes to the Pray Tell Catholic blog said: "I wonder how much confusion this will cause, before it's clarified that this is only the private opinion of the cardinal prefect?"

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Herald Malaysia

The prayer reads: "Let us also pray for the Jews: that our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Saviour of all men."

The prayer was revised by Benedict XVI in 2008 after he permitted wider celebration of the Mass in the older form with his apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum.

Previously the prayer had included references to the "blindness" of Jewish people and their "immersion in darkness".

But the prayer remains different from the Novus Ordo version introduced after the Second Vatican Council.

This reads: "Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant."

Archbishop Kevin McDonald, chairman of the England and Wales bishops' Committee for Catholic-Jewish Relations, said the difference had caused "great confusion and upset in the Jewish community".

He said: "The 1970 prayer which is now used throughout the Church is basically a prayer that the Jewish people would continue to grow in the love of God's name and in faithfulness of his Covenant, a Covenant which - as St John Paul II made clear in 1980 - has not been revoked."

"By contrast the prayer produced in 2008 for use in the extraordinary form of the liturgy reverted to being a prayer for the conversion of Jews to Christianity."

He said the English and Welsh bishops had "added their voice" to that of the German bishops, who had already asked for the prayer to be amended.

Archbishop McDonald said: "Such a change would be important both for giving clarity and consistency to Catholic teaching and for helping to progress Catholic-Jewish dialogue."

Joseph Shaw, president of the Latin Mass Society, said the request for a change is surprising as the extraordinary form version reflects the theology and imagery of 2 Corinthians 3:13-16.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Summorum Pontificum
• Image: St Patrick Parish

In June, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth assigned St Mary's, Gosport, to the Franciscans of the Immaculate.

Since then, parishioners say people are required to kneel to receive Communion and women are asked to cover their heads at Mass.

Dr Amanda Field, a convert to Catholicism, says she has stopped attending the church after six years.

"We used to have something really special here. The church was packed; people had to stand in the porch.

"But since the friars came we've been plunged back into the days before Vatican II," said Dr Field.

Jean Watson, who has been serving the parish as a catechist and music-leader for 30 years, also described a "reversion" since the friars' arrival.

"I was a child in the parish before Vatican II and it wasn't even like this then," said Mrs Watson.

There have also been objections to the use of some Latin at Sunday Masses.

A parishioner said she has considered leaving because of the changes.

The parishioner said: "I have been going to this church for years and these changes aren't wanted. Part of the service is in Latin which I don't like."

"It seems the Bishop of Portsmouth does what he likes without thinking of the congregation.

"I know some of the older members of the church like the changes because it is what they grew up with. But as a younger member, I don't like it."

The Franciscans of the Immaculate attracted controversy in 2013 when Pope Francis dissolved its general council and forbade the friars to celebrate Mass in the extraordinary form without permission.

However the Mass is celebrated in the old rite six days a week at St Mary's.

A statement from Portsmouth diocese said it is not unusual in a Catholic diocese for a bishop to ask a religious order to provide pastoral ministry.

Bishop Philip Egan said: "The friars will continue to ensure St Mary's is open for prayer, and will build on the wonderful evangelisation in which the parish is already engaged."

Sources

• The Tablet
• The News Portsmouth
• Image: Catholic Herald

In an article in L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy should not be read with a "hermeneutic of rupture".

"It would be wrong to consider the extraordinary form of the Roman rite as coming from another theology," he said.

It would be "desirable" that there be an appendix in an upcoming edition of the Roman Missal that would permit celebrants in the ordinary form to use the penitential rite and the offertory of the extraordinary form.

This would show that the ordinary form and the extraordinary form are "in continuity and without opposition", Cardinal Sarah stated.

"If we live in this spirit, then the liturgy will cease to be the place of rivalry and criticism," he wrote.

Instead it would be the place in which we participate actively in the heavenly liturgy, the cardinal added.

Cardinal Sarah also it consistent with the conciliar constitution that, "during the rite of penance, the singing of the Gloria, the orations, and the Eucharistic prayer, everyone, priest and faithful, should turn together towards the East".

This is "to express their will to participate in the work of worship and of redemption accomplished by Christ," he continued, adding that this would be especially appropriate in cathedrals.

He recalled Vatican II's teaching that the faithful should "be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them".

He also critiqued the "contemporary Western mentality" in which the faithful are to be "constantly busy" and in which the Mass is to be rendered "convivial".

The cardinal said the council suggested sacred silence as one of the means of active participation.

"The liturgy is essentially the action of Christ," he noted.

"If this vital principle is not received in faith, it is likely to make the liturgy a human work, a self-celebration of the community."

Sources

• Catholic World News
• Image: Salt and Light TV

Bishop Mark O'Toole of Plymouth told Mass of Ages magazine he would like to "establish a regularity of provision and systematised provision" of the Mass.

"I don't like the idea of someone just going round and saying Mass here, there and everywhere," Bishop O'Toole said.

"It's much better to have some consistent provision," he said, according to a report in the Catholic Herald.

That includes not just "making provision for the celebration of Mass".

"There is also the question of how you pastorally accompany the people who come to it - the priestly support in terms of catechesis and support and advice."

He added that he wants to create a centre for traditional liturgy.

This already exists at Lanherne, in the west of his sprawling diocese, but he wants more to be done.

"If we had something around Exeter, the east Devon part of the diocese, that would help," he said.

And if people go to there instead of their own parish church, he does not see this as a problem.

"If there is regular provision, then that will become their parish," he said.

"People travel anyway."

Bishop O'Toole has been meeting with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter about the provision of the extraordinary form.

The bishop said he is "open" to the FSSP "manning a parish in the diocese".

Bishop O'Toole described tensions between groups of laity over the form of the liturgy as "unfortunate".

He said openness needs to run both ways.

"As long as people recognise that it is a way to holiness, not the only way . . . you can't be exclusive. That's the attitude that people object to."

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Latin Mass Society
• Image: Plymouth Herald

By 2009, Bishop Morlino had invited nine priests of the Spanish-based Society of Jesus Christ the Priest to serve in various parishes in his diocese. In 2010, when parishioners at St. Mary's in Platteville complained that the society's priests at their parish were "pre-Vatican II," the bishop defended the priests.

According to the parish's liturgical schedule, Mass is offered daily in the ordinary form and on most days in the extraordinary form, with confessions heard for one hour before every Mass.

Bishop Morlino then urged parishioners to reflect upon selected texts from the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Code of Canon Law, including texts on canonical penalties.

Read More EWTN

The clarification comes after the recent Vatican encouragement to bishops, for them to "be generous" in providing the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

In answer to question whether female altar servers were permitted in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, posed at the time of the new instruction to bishops, Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, said the matter was not specifically addressed in the instruction.

The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has clarified the Vatican's position, saying the instruction for the Tridentine Rite does not allow female altar servers because the norms, as applied in 1962 do not permit them.

Universae Ecclesiae states "the Moto Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the Sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962″.

Permission for female altar servers came with the Circular Letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments of 1994. However, the rubrics of the 1962 Missal does not even allow for females on the sanctuary during Mass.

The letters was signed by by Mgr Guido Pozzo, Secretary of Ecclesia Dei

A spokesperson for the Latin Mass Society said the clarification was "significant" and that all bishops should practice in accordance with what has been stated in the letter.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• CathNews