NO DISCUSSION, NO DEBATE, NO SYNODAL SOLUTION TO TLM VS NO

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.

OLD MASS, NEW MASS

Printed in the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Agana on 12/2/12.

Allow me to stray a bit this week into an internal Catholic Church matter which I feel could use some clarification: the return of the “Old Mass”, or more specifically some misunderstandings wrought by its return. By “Old Mass” I mean the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), now formally labeled the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

The restoration of the TLM began in 1984 when John Paul II first issued an indult, a special permission, for its usage. In 1988, the Pope again addressed the TLM and appealed for a wider and more generous usage. In 2007, Pope Benedict in the Apostolic Letter, Summorum Pontificum, went beyond the indult, declaring that the TLM  had “never been abrogated” and its celebration needed no indult.

In an accompanying letter to the world’s bishops, the Pope affirmed that there was “no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal” (the TLM and the Mass of Paul VI - the “New Mass”), and that “what earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too”. He also called on the bishops to see to it that the TLM, as one of the “riches which have developed through the Church’s faith and prayer”, be given its “proper place”.

All of this is to say that the Pope has declared both forms of the Mass to be equally valid and sacred and one is not to be considered superior to the other. So on to the misunderstandings.

It is not uncommon for those who find the TLM attractive to soon find themselves propagating it with a “born again” zeal. This is particularly true among the youth which is a fast growing demographic at this Mass.

Why the youth find the “Old Mass” new is a matter for another column. The issue we wish to address here is that advocates of the TLM, young or old, should not and cannot speak ill of the “New Mass” (though questioning innovations not prescribed by the Liturgical books is never off-limits).

However, most of the “speaking ill” comes from the other direction in a rather constant chorus of criticisms of the TLM, sometimes from those in high places. Those criticisms consistently center on the two elements of the TLM which most distinguish it from the New Mass: the use of Latin and the “ad orientem” position of the priest, or as critics put it, the priest’s “back to the people”.

We are told that previous generations of Catholics “didn’t get anything out of it” because they didn’t understand Latin, and the priest’s “back to the people” is impugned as a posture of ignorance.

First, let us examine these criticisms on their face. To make either of these accusations is to say that for the better part of 2000 years the infallible Church of God had it WRONG. This a very serious matter even if it is said in jest. But in fact it is normally not said in jest. It is normally said superciliously and often by people who should know better.

Pope Benedict has reaffirmed the sacrality of the TLM, and that includes both the rules governing the actions of the celebrant (rubrics) and the venerable language of its celebration. An attack on either is an attack on the sacred. We may prefer the Mass in the vernacular. We may prefer the priest facing the people. But we don’t get to belittle and impugn the language and rubrics of the ancient Mass. For what was “sacred then is sacred now.”

But beyond that, one does wonder why so many docilely accept these criticisms when there is enormous evidence to the contrary. On Guam, long before the priest turned around and spoke in Chamorro or English, the “Old Mass” was the source of a profound faith, a faith which saw generations of Chamorros through innumerable trials and the incalculable horrors of a World War, and left their faith stronger still!

To accept that our parents or grandparents didn’t get anything out of the “Old Mass” because the priest had his “back to the people” and said the Mass in Latin is an insult to their memory and dangerously doubtful of the power of the Holy Spirit who “blow(s) where it wills” (Jn 3:8)

Speaking only empirically, it is in fact SINCE the celebrant has turned around and the Mass said in local languages that the pews have emptied, the faith has waned, and Catholics have exited, not entered, the “door of faith”.

In fact, it is due to this recent physical, spiritual, and moral exodus from the one, true Church, that the Pope has declared a Year of Faith in the hopes of inspiring a return. And it is this same Pope who has called for the restoration of the ancient Mass. Maybe there’s a connection.