Pope Francis, the Latin Mass, and the Right Questions

There have been a lot of stories the past few weeks, all beginning with Rorate Caeli speculating that a papal document restricting the Latin Mass (effectively revoking Summorum Pontificum) was imminent. Allegedly, the document would leave religious orders that celebrate the Latin Mass alone, but revive the indult for all diocesan priests, requiring them to get permission from their bishop before celebrating the Mass publicly. There were other rumors that the document would restrict the celebration of the Latin Mass to dedicated parishes, so dioceses would not be stretched too thin by the alleged amount of priests saying the Latin Mass.

For what its worth, we are a month past this imminent document coming, and nothing has come. We do know that the Pope has asked the worlds bishops how Summorum Pontificum has impacted their dioceses, and we also know that while some bishops complained, most regarded it as a non-event. (For better or worse, this is true.) I have no doubt there are some discussions about the Latin Mass, and there could be some cosmetic changes here or there, but I think for the most part such a document will not be coming. I think this for the same reason that we’ve never had any action on the Latin Mass in his pontificate, or discussions about the female diaconate, married priests, etc. There’s always a lot of talk, but nothing happens.

Yet let’s speculate that indeed, something were to happen. Let’s say we try to turn back the clock to the days of the Indult. Will that fix everything? I don’t think so. Instead, we are likely to see the return of several things, and maybe worse for those who want the Latin Mass banned:

The Return of the Liturgy Wars

One of the truly worst parts of being a faithful Catholic during the pontificate of John Paul II was partaking in the liturgy wars. These were events where someone would find a liturgical abuse and use it as proof the liturgical reform was bad. It would then be defended by someone who, while hating the abuse, viewed calling the reform bad as throwing the baby out with the bath water. This discussion would then continue ad nauseum, with nothing ever getting solved.

By and large, Summorum Pontificum ended this debate. It wasn’t just “the Church doesn’t endorse crappy liturgies.” It was “the Church has outlined steps you can take so you can offer something as an alternative.” If you take away the Latin Mass, you bring this fight back. There is an idea that the average priest has become more reverent in celebrating Mass since John Paul II’s pontificate. Don’t believe it for a second. There’s just little need to discuss it.

It Isn’t 2004 anymore

Maybe you are a critic of the Latin Mass who thinks its worth it. The “radtrads” were a problem before 2006, but they didn’t cause too much of a problem. Why not just try it again? The world and Church have changed a lot since 2006.

In 2006 Facebook was available to rich college kids only, and a tweet was something a bird did. YouTube was a startup website that had just been purchased by Google, and the Iphone was a secret concept being developed by Apple Engineers called Project Purple. What is the point of this history lesson? Social media changed everything. The world is a lot more decentralized online, and video clips from random parishoners can and will go viral overnight before a Bishop gets out of bed. To the extent they are even aware of the capabilities of this technology, they are woefully unprepared for managing it.

These are the people who would be managing the most drastic suspension of the rights of priests and Catholics in 50 years, during a time in which faith in the Institutional Church has never been lower after 30 years of sexual abuse scandal after sexual abuse scandal. Influential lay Catholics have more power than Bishops thanks to this technology, and they can organize in ways that people aren’t really appreciating. Doing this kind of highly polarizing move is likely to just case trench warfare in every diocese in the United States, and significant unrest throughout Europe since all it takes is one video to go viral. A bored and angry Catholic decided to do something about some statues in Rome during a Synod and suddenly it becomes a massive global story. Imagine what happens when you take a few hundred thousand bored and angry traditionalists who have now been deprived of something by the Church that just yesterday the Church was calling a beautiful treasure that everyone should have access to?

The Return of Being Forced to Care about Vatican II

One of the quiet great accomplishments of Pope Francis is how he has more or less closed the book on Vatican II. Bishops are more than willing to admit mistakes were made during the Council and its implementation, secure that this doesn’t impact on the infallibility of the Magisterium. People who spent their time dying on the hill of endless debates not only don’t die on those hills anymore, they pose the question of if this is even the right hill in the 21st century. Francis defends Vatican II as settled, but views it settled, not something he has any intention of revisiting.

If you restrict the Latin Mass, you are going to be bringing back the pointless debates about Vatican II that were always a proxy for the Latin Mass. Except most Catholics have been trained over the last 10–15 years to not care that much about the Second Vatican Council. That traditionalists are spending time debating integralism and political action with the wider conservative movements throughout the US and Europe is a sign that people are ready to move on. The concessions the Church has made in its general praxis towards Vatican II and its implementation aren’t going to change. Most people are still going to believe the way the Church treated the Latin Mass before Benedict XVI as a mistake, and that most of these debates no longer matter. Take away the Latin Mass, and that debate is suddenly reignited for most traditionalists, yet it just won’t have the same defenders it used to have.

A Resurgent SSPX?

Without a doubt the biggest benefactors of restricting the Latin Mass would not be a bunch of aging liberals or a Pontiff in the final 2–3 years of his pontificate, but the canonically irregular Society of St. Pius X. When the Latin Mass was originally restricted, the bishops of the SSPX were excommunicated, and the general consensus was that they were in schism. (The validity of that consensus is not relevant to the existence of that consensus.) In 2021, those bishops are not excommunicated, and the Church has increasingly supplied them authority and jurisdiction for sacraments such as confession, and even their annulments are more or less accepted by the Church now. Bernard Fellay is given jurisdiction by the pope for canonical proceedings against SSPX priests. The previous stigma towards the Society just isn’t there, especially amongst traditionalists. Even if you wanted to bring back that stigma, doing so would be incredibly difficult thanks to the liberalizing of relations started by Pope Francis. Any move by the Society would even win defenders from outside their tanks, as it would be a clear case of spiting them out of hatred of the Latin Mass. Attempting to restrict the Latin Mass with the SSPX in their current arrangement would be a pastoral nightmare. The hierarchy would have even less control over Catholics attached to the Latin Mass, which leads us to the following question:

What are we Doing?

I don’t view preserving the Latin Mass as a hard sell against chaos. I find it something beautiful and worthy of defense in and of itself. I just want people who want to restrict the Latin Mass to answer one question: what problem does that solve? It isn’t going to make the Church more united. It isn’t going to close the door on a liturgical reform that is already closed. The liturgical reforms of Benedict XVI to the Ordinary Form, alongside Summorum and subsequent legislation, were a magisterial concession that traditionalists had a point. Acting like its no longer true doesn’t make it so. The Church is beset globally by a series of problems. Her credibility has never recovered from the McCarrick scandal, no matter what rationalizations are muttered in the halls of the Vatican about their “institutional knowledge.” She’s trying to recover from a pandemic where the biggest difficulty will be getting people to return to Mass when they stopped going due to lockdown or despair. There is a return to national disputes long thought dead as Rome and Germany are coming to a soon to be decisive point over synodality, and the Church’s long hoped for diplomatic breakthrough with China now looks to be further than ever. Nobody is even bothering to talk about reunion with the East anymore. Restricting the Latin Mass solves none of these problems, and introduces several potentially newer problems.

If you will not consider the positive case for keeping the Latin Mass (which is as simple as souls want something which is good, and the Church provides it to them so they can grow in holiness), then consider the alternatives. I’m still a skeptic that this will actually happen. Yet if it does, what are you hoping to accomplish?