By Tim Rohr
It's Christmas morning, 2025. I was looking for something on YouTube to enhance the spiritual sense of today before I head off to Mass and came across a devotional video of the type of what I was looking for.
In the video, after the devotional part, a book was mentioned (and quoted from) that piqued my interest: Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the 21st Century. The link in the video took me to the article titled: A Book-Interview in Which Leo XIV Speaks About the Traditional Latin Mass.
For 20 plus years, my family and I attended the Latin Mass here in Guam (there is only one). In fact, we did more than attend. My sons were some of the original altar boys for several years, and for many more years, I was the organist. I also helped build the congregation for the TLM by constantly inviting others. At one point, I believe at least half the congregation was the result of those invitations. I no longer attend the Latin Mass for reasons I won't discuss here. However, I continue to defend and promote it.
The article (I encourage you to read it), quotes the pope as saying:
“Well, you can say the Latin Mass right now. If it is the rite of Vatican II, the Mass of Paul VI, there is no problem. Obviously, between the Tridentine Mass and the Mass of Vatican II, the Mass of Paul VI, I don’t know where that will lead us. It is obviously very complicated.”
The pope goes on to propose "synodality" as a solution to the debate:
“I have not yet had the opportunity to meet with a group of defenders of the Tridentine Rite. The opportunity will present itself soon, and I am sure there will be occasions to discuss it. But it is a problem that I also think we perhaps need to address through synodality. It has become such a polarized subject that people are often reluctant to listen to one another.”
A Vatican observer and expert, counters:
“Sitting down and discussing ‘in a synodal context’ is not the method of the Holy Catholic Church. It is a method the Church adopted from the world, reducing it to a caricature of political democracy. A method that, at best, leads to an endless series of misunderstandings and, at worst, openly betrays the faith.”
I happen to agree with the expert. Synodality (there is actually no such word), is exactly that: "a caricature of political democracy" - the very opposite of a "Magisterium."
The pope admits the abuses of the Novus Ordo ("NO"), and proposes that the NO, rightly celebrated, will resolve the issue. And this is where I want to comment.
It won't. The NO "rightly celebrated," is not possible because the NO is itself an abuse. There are many volumes which support this, but in short, it's an abuse because it is a wholly manufactured liturgy created by mostly one man (Bugnini), and thrust upon the Church in the wake of Vatican II. At no time in the history of the Catholic Church was the liturgy ever wholly manufactured as was the NO. The liturgy is an organic thing. It has always grown organically through the centuries, beginning with the Lord's Last Supper and as also found in Acts 20:7.
Modified, codified...yes. But never manufactured "out of whole cloth," despite its creator's appeal to the"primitive church,"which was nothing more than the "antiquarianism" condemned by previous popes.
The NO is inorganic. It is divorced from two thousand years of Sacred Tradition. This is why, more than 50 years after it's fabrication, it not only continues to be "abused," but has created ever more divisions in the Catholic Church. A "discussion," as the pope proposes, will not solve this. As the observer states, he (the pope) is the pope. It is his call. However, the pope really has no call. And if he has a call at all, it is to abrogate the NO, not the TLM. And here's why.
As Benedict XVI rightly stated in Summorum Pontificum:
"...what was sacred and great for past generations remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly forbidden or considered harmful."
This fact led Benedict to declare that the TLM was "never abrogated." However, in the context of "sacred then, sacred now," it can be clearly deduced that Benedict meant not only was the TLM "never abrogated," he meant, and would have rightly stated: "it can never be abrogated."
Thus there is no discussion, no debate, no synodal solution. What was sacred then is sacred now. The NO never was either.
