The Pope’s Vindictive Campaign against the Latin Mass

Thirteen and a half years ago, Pope Benedict XVI boldly granted permission to priests and groups of Catholics to have their patrimony back, what’s commonly called the Traditional Latin Mass, and not just the mass, but the ancient prayers and liturgies for baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations. The result of this permission was a massive growth of interest in the traditional rites and prayers of Catholicism, the growth of liturgical arts, the formation of choirs, and scholas equipping themselves to sing the Gregorian chant, or the great polyphonic compositions of Monteverdi, Mozart, Tallis, Morales, and so many others.

Pope Francis has always treated this enthusiasm as if it were toxic sludge, making fun of the “rigid” young priests who want to celebrate this Mass. Francis was formed by the revolutionary spirit of the Second Vatican Council that went deep into his Jesuit formation. This revolution held as a dogma that the traditional Mass of the Church was a dead end, a moribund rite that would repel the young. Only the new reformed rites, after the Council, would have the vital spirit that the Church needed. He has given homily after homily and sermon after sermon denouncing the spirit of rigidity that is, as he sees it, obsessed with upholding tradition, the spirit that says, in Pope Francis’s words, “it’s this or nothing.”