Imagine Liturgical Peace

By Mark Brumley

Surprise! The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) has returned as a hot button issue, if it ever really left. Singapore’s Cardinal William Goh Seng Chye hopes restrictions on the TLM will be dropped, The Catholic Herald reports. In 2021, Pope Francis severely restricted the TLM, following Pope Benedict XVI’s approval of greater freedom for the older form of worship back now some eighteen years ago.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, on X, “seconded” Cardinal Goh’s comments, writing that “lifting the restrictions on the use of the 1962 Missal would be grand, healing, and unifying.” He also stressed how doing so could strengthen unity and foster love.

Meanwhile Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte recently moved to limit the TLM in his diocese to a single chapel, as a result of the late Pope Francis’ pastoral charge. Supporters say the move promotes unity of the Roman Rite, while critics contend it imposes unnecessary uniformity and risks further alienating Catholics attached to the older form.

Cardinal Goh and Archbishop Cordileone’s approach seems to make a lot of pastoral sense, though dropping the current restrictions on the TLM won’t automatically be “healing and unifying.” It will take time, along with a lot of work—prayer, conversation, patience, and explanation. Also, good faith and room for reasonable disagreement among committed Catholics. Rhetoric will need toning down on all sides. Above all, charity will be a “must.”

In the long run, a seemingly unnecessarily severe, apparently 1970s-pastoral-assumption-driven approach—essentially to all-but-eliminating the TLM—probably won’t work. Even many Catholics with little or no interest in the TLM may find highly “unpastoral” what looks to many like a harsh “containment” or “suppression” strategy. Many Catholics prefer a live-and-let-live approach, since both the older form and the newer form are, from their perspective, expressions of the Roman Liturgy.

For the record, my wife and I are members of a fairly middle-of-the-road Catholic parish, with Mass celebrated according to the rubrics. That is, the 1969 Mass rubrics. And in English. No TLM. Even where I work—Ignatius Press—the Mass celebrated is the Novus Ordo, albeit with a mix of English and Latin, and with the Roman Canon offered ad orientem. More or less the “reform of the reform” championed by Pope Benedict XVI and others.

In either case, I don’t really have a dog in the TLM liturgical fight. But, like many people, my wife and I have Traditionalist Catholic friends and family, and fostering deeper communion should be on every Catholic’s agenda. Which is why it seems to me Church leaders ought eagerly to explore ways TLM Catholics can be reasonably accommodated and helped to contribute to the life and mission of the Church. There are growing numbers of young families at the TLM. Why risk adding them to the already large list of the disaffiliated?

Yes, some Traditionalists insist rather loudly that the old Mass is superior to the Mass according to the 1969 Missal, the so-called “new Mass.” So what? That sort of thing isn’t peculiar to Traditionalist Catholics. Eastern Catholic friends often assert the East “does it better,” while maintaining that all Catholic churches are of “equal dignity.” Eastern Catholics, as do Traditionalist Catholics (and, shhh, Novus Ordo Catholics), have their preferences. They often argue for those preferences. It’s no threat or at least it needn’t be.

Of course, it is a big deal that extreme Traditionalist Catholics have denied the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council, trash-talked the Novus Ordo liturgy as a pious picnic, and denounced Pope Francis as an anti-Pope. Respectful critique is one thing; wholesale attack is another.

Now I’ve known people who’ve suffer deeply and personally from Radical Traditionalism. Their stories aren’t pretty. They point to a problem, and we shouldn’t deny it. But these are much like the stories of people getting messed up from other forms of Catholicism, including strands of progressive Catholicism. Let’s not overgeneralize.

In my experience, most Traditionalists are not hardliners or radical Traditionalists or Vatican II repudiators or Novus Ordo invalidators. They may have concerns and questions about Vatican II, doubts and uncertainties about this or that in the Novus Ordo, but most want to be in full communion with the Church. And even some who are radicals are at least willing to talk.

Something some critics neglect is how many hardliners feel provoked, or at least tempted, to adopt a more extreme position by various, recent upheavals in the Church, including what they feel have been public insults from church leaders, including Pope Francis, targeted at them. Fair or not, those reactions should be considered in any genuinely pastoral response.

With all the talk about being a “synodal” Church, surely there are better ways to foster communion with Traditionalist Catholics than a policy of containment. Surely, considering the various groups some synodal gatherings went out of their way to include, cultivate, and accompany—because everyone was told to “go to the peripheries”—we shouldn’t act as if Traditionalist Catholics are on a periphery too far, and are unworthy of accompaniment.

At a 2019 youth gathering, Philippino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle famously sang John Lennon’s “Imagine,” sans the gratuitous swipes at the afterlife and religion of the original song. Maybe if a prominent Cardinal with an eye on ending the Liturgy Wars publicly performed “Give Peace a Chance” or “All You Need is Love,” some opponents of freer TLM access would be so overwhelmed by it they’d look for ways to build bridges to their Traditionalist Catholic brothers and sisters. Love is all you need.

Unfortunately, some Catholics seem to interpret Vatican II without due regard for the possibility that in the last seventy years the Holy Spirit (or, maybe he is the Holy Ghost?) might have tried to teach us a few things about how liturgical reform and renewal have gone (or not). The Spirit may be encouraging a legitimate diversity within unity, one that includes those deeply attached to the older form of the Mass. Perhaps the Spirit isn’t a fan of easily reducing people to a label like “backwardist” any more than he likes a too ready resort to words like “modernist” and “heretic.”

Maybe Pope Benedict XVI was right when, in his 2007 document Summorum Pontificum, he sought to avoid more division over the Liturgy, and he saw the possible work of the Spirit with those younger Catholics interested in the TLM. That development wasn’t anticipated by Vatican II. The God of Suprises, perhaps? Maybe Benedict XVI was reading “signs of the times” others missed. Perhaps his project needed more time, greater conversation, and more sympathetic dialogue.

Pope Benedict sought to avoid the kind of missteps by church leadership that have contributed to divisions and grave conflicts among Catholics in the past. “Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of centuries have rent the Body of Christ,” he wrote to his brother bishops, explaining his reasons for permitting a “wider use” of the old Mass, “one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden.”¹

“This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today,” he stressed, “to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew.… Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.”²

I know many supporters of the present TLM crackdown think the Traditionalist Catholics abused Benedict’s effort. Some did, of course, but many didn’t. Probably most just want the older form of the Mass. What’s more, some opponents of Benedict XVI’s pastoral effort now use the polarization to which they have contributed to shut down that effort.

As a committed 1969 Missal Catholic, I’m not troubled by people participating in the TLM. It doesn’t disturb me that many young Catholic families are exploring it. If Traditionalist Catholics—old, young, or middle-aged—can find ways to participate fully, consciously, and actively in the TLM, then more power to them. Such participation in the Sacred Liturgy was the main goal Vatican II’s liturgical reform sought anyway.

Sure, I still argue why the particulars of Vatican II’s reform were needed. I still contend that the “TLM solution” isn’t “scalable” to the whole Church, for a variety of reasons, and even if it were, it wouldn’t ipso factobe desirable. But I can live with differences of opinion among Catholics on such points. Let’s have a robust but charitable discussion. Conversation about those differences is better than cancellation, which is where some critics of the TLM seem to want to move.

Yes, some Traditionalist Catholics can be obnoxious. Much the way you and I can be when something we cherish is under attack. Much as some progressive liturgists can be: “As we begin Mass today, I’d like you to turn to the person next to you, look into their eyes, and say, ‘Hello!’ and tell them where you’re from and what you like about them, this morning.” And, oh, by the way, if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, then there’s something wrong with you. You’re a legalistic, unloving, Pharisaical, rigid jerk. Thanks for joining us.

In any case, if some committed Catholics are able to enter better into the true spirit of the Sacred Liturgy via the TLM, why should it bother me? No one is suppressing the Mass I attend. Sure, some people call for a “reform of the reform,” which wants celebration of Mass to more closely resemble what Vatican II called for. But whether or not that happens, there’s no real risk of people who prefer the Novus Ordo not being able to attend such a Mass. The risk seems to be all on the side of the tiny group of Catholics especially attached to the TLM.

To be sure, there are those who believe, fantastically in my view, that the future belongs to a universal restoration of the TLM. Let them think so. I think they’re mistaken but so what? If TLM proponents don’t completely agree with my views of the TLM’s future and the Novus Ordo, there’s no need to denounce them or seek to restrict the TLM. Who am I to judge, to paraphrase someone or other, when it comes to others’ spiritual lives, anyway? Shouldn’t I be happy they find the TLM spiritually beneficial? We can still dialogue, disagree, and discuss the Sacred Liturgy, without trying to put the kibosh on the TLM.

H.L. Mencken famously (but unfairly) described Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Well, certain Catholics seem to operate from “the haunting fear that some other Catholic, somewhere, is attending the Traditional Latin Mass.”

“All are welcome,” right? Why shouldn’t that welcome include our brother and sister Traditionalist Catholics? Todos, todos, todos! A Traditionalist Catholic I know has started praying for Pope Francis’ intercession for an end to the TLM restrictions. What if his prayer is answered?

Since Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio limiting the TLM, division seems to have increased. Indeed, it seems that despite early missteps and problems, a decade and a half ago progress was being made toward mutual understanding. Not perfect harmony but progress. In recent years, though, we have seen heightened polarization. We’re further away from unity, in many ways, than we were.

It seems time to revisit Pope Benedict’s caution about the Church not contributing to divisions and to ask whether leadership in recent years has sometimes added to unhelpful antagonism. For example, in the use of harsh language and insults directed at “conservative” or “Traditionalist” Catholics. Is that sort of thing really likely to help deepen mutual understanding or will it tend to alienate?

Something, something, “synodality”… something, something, “walking together” comes to mind. To which my supposedly open, welcoming, accepting “progressive” and soi disant “synodal” Catholic pal answers, “Walking together doesn’t mean agreeing on everything!”

Exactly. I don’t have to agree with everything a Traditionalist Catholic thinks to see a brother or a sister there, and not “the other” whose form of Catholic worship is to be suppressed. We can walk together, right?

Again, there’s no personal stake for me in more widely permitting the TLM. But I am interested in greater Catholic unity and treating as sacred the older form of Roman Rite Catholic worship, alongside the many other older forms of Catholic worship we have in Eastern Catholicism.

“We can work it out,” another Singing Cardinal might belt out for us.

Not that I think it will be easy. But perhaps, with the widespread positive response many Traditionalist Catholics have given Pope Leo, it can happen. Of course, some Catholics may say I’m a dreamer, but then I’m not the only one. Maybe someday more will join us and the Church will be as one.

Not exactly a chant but maybe we can find more than a few Cardinals and other Church leaders to sing the tune. Then again, we now have a Pope who sings the Regina Caeli. Perhaps he will inspire others. Perhaps, in time, he will reconsider his predecessor’s restrictions. Imagine that.

---

Mark Brumley is president and CEO of Ignatius Press.

1. Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, Motu Proprio, July 7, 2007.

2. Ibid.