#traditionis custodes

There is a crisis in the Church today and that cannot be denied. There is widespread dissent from the official magisterial teaching on all manner of topics, ranging from moral theology to ecclesiology to Christology. But far from fighting this lamentable trend, the SSPX is in fact a part of it, as they engage in their own version of theological dissent which entails the assertion that they get to make up their own ecclesial rules as they see fit. And now here we are in 2026 facing another round of illicit, SSPX episcopal consecrations without a papal mandate. People have asked me for my views. Well, here is my view: should they do this then excommunicate them once and for all and let's be done with them. […] The Church has bent over backwards to accommodate them […] But nothing the Church does is good enough for the SSPX. They are completely wedded to their scorched earth rejection of Nostra Aetate, Dignitatis Humanae, and the Novus Ordo. I support the ongoing efforts by Rome to try and forestall any more illicit episcopal consecrations. But if the talks fail, and they go forward with their schismatic act, then in my view they will have incurred automatic excommunication.

What many do not appreciate is the real pastoral need the SSPX have for new, younger bishops. With over 730 priests, more than 260 seminarians, various religious communities and almost 800 churches or chapels around the world, as well as vast numbers of faithful, which increased substantially during the Covid-induced abdication of ministry by many mainstream parishes, and which increased further after the pastorally disastrous implementation of the 2021 motu proprio Traditiones Custodes, the Society needs more bishops for Confirmations, Ordinations, Professions and other pontifical functions. Its two existing bishops are no longer young enough or sufficient in number to meet these increasing pastoral demands and the constant travel they require. We would be wrong to view the episcopal consecrations that have been announced as some form of political manoeuvre or an attempt to augment the ceremonial splendour of the Society’s liturgies. The SSPX is rightly convinced that they are necessary for the sacramental life of the Catholic faithful who turn to them. Their bishops work harder than most and are truly missionary, motivated by the salvation of souls – not their own comfort or personal gain. This is a profound matter of conscience for them, and in truth, it is hard to say that they are wrong when bishops and even popes and cardinals sometimes do all they can to close down apostolates using the traditional liturgical rites for the Mass and the sacraments, and when seminaries and religious houses empty and close one after the other. Demands to submit blindly to obedience such as have been thrown at the Society since the 1970s simply will not cut: the reversal of Pope Benedict XVI’s generous measures by Pope Francis have increased their fears and confirmed their mistrust in authority.

WE GRANT AND CONCEDE IN PERPETUITY THAT, FOR THE CHANTING OR READING OF THE MASS IN ANY CHURCH WHATSOEVER, THIS MISSAL IS HEREAFTER TO BE FOLLOWED ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT ANY SCRUPLE OF CONSCIENCE OR FEAR OF INCURRING ANY PENALTY, JUDGMENT, OR CENSURE, AND MAY FREELY AND LAWFULLY BE USED. NOR ARE SUPERIORS, ADMINISTRATORS, CANONS, CHAPLAINS, AND OTHER SECULAR PRIESTS, OR RELIGIOUS, OF WHATEVER TITLE DESIGNATED, OBLIGED TO CELEBRATE THE MASS OTHERWISE THAN AS ENJOINED BY US.  WE LIKEWISE DECLARE AND ORDAIN THAT NO ONE WHOSOEVER IS FORCED OR COERCED TO ALTER THIS MISSAL, AND THAT THIS PRESENT DOCUMENT CANNOT BE REVOKED OR MODIFIED, BUT REMAIN ALWAYS VALID…

…WOULD ANYONE, HOWEVER, PRESUME TO COMMIT SUCH AN ACT, HE SHOULD KNOW THAT HE WILL INCUR THE WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD AND OF THE BLESSED APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL.

His Holiness Pope St. Pius V 

“TRADITIONIS CUSTODES”

ON THE USE OF THE ROMAN LITURGY PRIOR TO THE REFORM OF 1970

Réponse des milices toulousaines à Raymond VI, cité par Dominique Paladilhe, Simon de Montfort et le Drame Cathare

[T]he emerging tension over the full implementation of Traditionis custodes is only likely to increase — especially if, as seems likely, it becomes visibly asymmetrical across dioceses. More to the point, absent a clear and coherent papal vision for Traditionis custodes, the motu proprio could end up creating and exacerbating some of the very problems it supposedly is meant to address. One of Francis' stated concerns in issuing Traditionis custodes was to foster ecclesiastical communion at the local levels of the Church and address what he saw as a kind of parallel ecclesiastical reality developing around TLM celebrations. Francis specifically warned about and against the older form of the liturgy becoming a locus for and expression of a rejection of the Second Vatican Council by some. At the same time, there was a concern that authentic liturgical diversity had been replaced by division between communities, with Catholics devoted to the extraordinary form becoming detached from the wider pastoral reality of dioceses. However, if the stated aim of Traditionis custodes is to enhance communion in parishes and prevent self-segregation amongst Catholics according to liturgical preferences, the evidence, in some places at least, is that it has had the opposite effect. Some parishes in some dioceses have seen their congregations decimated by the barring of [the] TLM […] from parish churches, as previously regular attendees move to designated non-parish sites, effectively suppressing what were previously large liturgically diverse communities bound up in the common life of the parish. And many other Catholics might read Archbishop Weisenburger's "reminder" about their "obligations" to territoriality and question if the full care of their souls is really being met always and everywhere — especially given his prohibition of the celebration of the ordinary form of the Mass ad orientum, while insisting that "unity of our Catholic faith need not be diminished by diversity." Intentionally or not, the impression is forming in dioceses like Detroit and Charlotte that what local bishops have in mind is not "diversity" or even real communion, but an ecclesiastical monoculture created and enforced by episcopal decree. [... I]f a trend emerges of bishops appearing to combine a maximalist approach to the implementation of Traditionis custodes with imposing their own preferences on the the celebration of the ordinary form of the liturgy, it could end up creating and deepening exactly the kind of divisions and resentments virtually every pope since the council has said they want to avoid.

I cried the first time I went to a traditional Latin Mass.

It would have been difficult for me not to; I was an emotionally volatile 20-year-old college kid studying theology who loved the “smells and bells” that Catholicism offered—and man, there were a lot of bells and smells going on while Mozart’s “Requiem” carried the liturgy.

After that, I was hooked. A group of friends and I asked a Jesuit, the late Robert Araujo, if he would learn how to say Mass in the extraordinary form (how the pre-Vatican II traditional liturgy has been known since 2007) so we could have it on campus. He did, and a few of us were trained on how to be altar servers for it. To what I imagine was the shock and dismay of many of his brother Jesuits, we were able to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass at the Jesuit residence. To this day, one of my most-treasured books is a St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal for the Traditional Latin Mass that Father Araujo gifted me.

“Many have noted this dissociation, this sort of bipolarity of a pope who does not behave like a Pope and does not speak like a Pope. The problem is that we are not faced with a sort of inaction from the Papacy, as could happen with a sick or very old Pontiff; but rather with a constant action that is organized and planned in a sense diametrically opposed to the very essence of the Papacy…

…We have come to the point that even simple people with little knowledge of doctrinal issues understand that we have a non-Catholic pope…”

LAPIDES CLAMABUNT

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,

Just as my Predecessor Benedict XVI did with Summorum Pontificum, I wish to accompany the Motu proprio Traditionis custodes with a letter explaining the motives that prompted my decision. I turn to you with trust and parresia, in the name of that shared “solicitude for the whole Church, that contributes supremely to the good of the Universal Church” as Vatican Council II reminds us.

Most people understand the motives that prompted St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI to allow the use of the Roman Missal, promulgated by St. Pius V and edited by St. John XXIII in 1962, for the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The faculty —granted by the indult of the Congregation for Divine Worship in 1984 and confirmed by St. John Paul II in the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei in 1988— was above all motivated by the desire to foster the healing of the schism with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre. With the ecclesial intention of restoring the unity of the Church, the Bishops were thus asked to accept with generosity the “just aspirations” of the faithful who requested the use of that Missal.

Many in the Church came to regard this faculty as an opportunity to adopt freely the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and use it in a manner parallel to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Paul VI. In order to regulate this situation at the distance of many years, Benedict XVI intervened to address this state of affairs in the Church. Many priests and communities had “used with gratitude the possibility offered by the Motu proprio” of St. John Paul II. Underscoring that this development was not foreseeable in 1988, the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of 2007 intended to introduce “a clearer juridical regulation” in this area. In order to allow access to those, including young people, who when “they discover this liturgical form, feel attracted to it and find in it a form, particularly suited to them, to encounter the mystery of the most holy Eucharist”, Benedict XVI declared “the Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and newly edited by Blessed John XXIII, as a extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi”, granting a “more ample possibility for the use of the 1962 Missal”.

In making their decision they were confident that such a provision would not place in doubt one of the key measures of Vatican Council II or minimize in this way its authority: the Motu proprio recognized that, in its own right, “the Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite”. The recognition of the Missal promulgated by St. Pius V “as an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi” did not in any way underrate the liturgical reform, but was decreed with the desire to acknowledge the “insistent prayers of these faithful,” allowing them “to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass according to the editio typica of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as the extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church”. It comforted Benedict XVI in his discernment that many desired “to find the form of the sacred Liturgy dear to them,” “clearly accepted the binding character of Vatican Council II and were faithful to the Pope and to the Bishops”. What is more, he declared to be unfounded the fear of division in parish communities, because “the two forms of the use of the Roman Rite would enrich one another”. Thus, he invited the Bishops to set aside their doubts and fears, and to welcome the norms, “attentive that everything would proceed in peace and serenity,” with the promise that “it would be possible to find resolutions” in the event that “serious difficulties came to light” in the implementation of the norms “once the Motu proprio came into effect”.

With the passage of thirteen years, I instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to circulate a questionnaire to the Bishops regarding the implementation of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene. Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my Predecessors, who had intended “to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew”, has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.

At the same time, I am saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides. In common with Benedict XVI, I deplore the fact that “in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortions”. But I am nonetheless saddened that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the “true Church”. The path of the Church must be seen within the dynamic of Tradition “which originates from the Apostles and progresses in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit” (DV 8). A recent stage of this dynamic was constituted by Vatican Council II where the Catholic episcopate came together to listen and to discern the path for the Church indicated by the Holy Spirit. To doubt the Council is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers who exercised their collegial power in a solemn manner cum Petro et sub Petro in an ecumenical council, and, in the final analysis, to doubt the Holy Spirit himself who guides the Church.

The objective of the modification of the permission granted by my Predecessors is highlighted by the Second Vatican Council itself. From the vota submitted by the Bishops there emerged a great insistence on the full, conscious and active participation of the whole People of God in the liturgy, along lines already indicated by Pius XII in the encyclical Mediator Dei on the renewal of the liturgy. The constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium confirmed this appeal, by seeking “the renewal and advancement of the liturgy”,  and by indicating the principles that should guide the reform. In particular, it established that these principles concerned the Roman Rite, and other legitimate rites where applicable, and asked that “the rites be revised carefully in the light of sound tradition, and that they be given new vigor to meet present-day circumstances and needs”. On the basis of these principles a reform of the liturgy was undertaken, with its highest expression in the Roman Missal, published in editio typica by St. Paul VI and revised by St. John Paul II. It must therefore be maintained that the Roman Rite, adapted many times over the course of the centuries according to the needs of the day, not only be preserved but renewed “in faithful observance of the Tradition”. Whoever wishes to celebrate with devotion according to earlier forms of the liturgy can find in the reformed Roman Missal according to Vatican Council II all the elements of the Roman Rite, in particular the Roman Canon which constitutes one of its more distinctive elements.

A final reason for my decision is this: ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — “I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ” — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted. In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors. The distorted use that has been made of this faculty is contrary to the intentions that led to granting the freedom to celebrate the Mass with the Missale Romanum of 1962. Because “liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity”, they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church —the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion— affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only “with the body” but also “with the heart” is a condition for salvation.

Dear brothers in the Episcopate, Sacrosanctum Concilium explained that the Church, the “sacrament of unity,” is such because it is “the holy People gathered and governed under the authority of the Bishops”. Lumen gentium, while recalling that the Bishop of Rome is “the permanent and visible principle and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the multitude of the faithful,” states that you the Bishops are “the visible principle and foundation of the unity of your local Churches, in which and through which exists the one and only Catholic Church”.

Responding to your requests, I take the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs that precede the present Motu proprio, and declare that the liturgical books promulgated by the saintly Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, constitute the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite. I take comfort in this decision from the fact that, after the Council of Trent, St. Pius V also abrogated all the rites that could not claim a proven antiquity, establishing for the whole Latin Church a single Missale Romanum. For four centuries this Missale Romanum, promulgated by St. Pius V, was thus the principal expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite, and functioned to maintain the unity of the Church. Without denying the dignity and grandeur of this Rite, the Bishops gathered in ecumenical council asked that it be reformed; their intention was that “the faithful would not assist as strangers and silent spectators in the mystery of faith, but, with a full understanding of the rites and prayers, would participate in the sacred action consciously, piously, and actively”. St. Paul VI, recalling that the work of adaptation of the Roman Missal had already been initiated by Pius XII, declared that the revision of the Roman Missal, carried out in the light of ancient liturgical sources, had the goal of permitting the Church to raise up, in the variety of languages, “a single and identical prayer,” that expressed her unity. This unity I intend to re-establish throughout the Church of the Roman Rite.

Vatican Council II, when it described the catholicity of the People of God, recalled that “within the ecclesial communion” there exist the particular Churches which enjoy their proper traditions, without prejudice to the primacy of the Chair of Peter who presides over the universal communion of charity, guarantees the legitimate diversity and together ensures that the particular not only does not injure the universal but above all serves it”. While, in the exercise of my ministry in service of unity, I take the decision to suspend the faculty granted by my Predecessors, I ask you to share with me this burden as a form of participation in the solicitude for the whole Church proper to the Bishops. In the Motu proprio I have desired to affirm that it is up to the Bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the liturgical life of the Church of which he is the principle of unity, to regulate the liturgical celebrations. It is up to you to authorize in your Churches, as local Ordinaries, the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962, applying the norms of the present Motu proprio. It is up to you to proceed in such a way as to return to a unitary form of celebration, and to determine case by case the reality of the groups which celebrate with this Missale Romanum.

Indications about how to proceed in your dioceses are chiefly dictated by two principles: on the one hand, to provide for the good of those who are rooted in the previous form of celebration and need to return in due time to the Roman Rite promulgated by Saints Paul VI and John Paul II, and, on the other hand, to discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the “holy People of God.” At the same time, I ask you to be vigilant in ensuring that every liturgy be celebrated with decorum and fidelity to the liturgical books promulgated after Vatican Council II, without the eccentricities that can easily degenerate into abuses. Seminarians and new priests should be formed in the faithful observance of the prescriptions of the Missal and liturgical books, in which is reflected the liturgical reform willed by Vatican Council II.

Upon you I invoke the Spirit of the risen Lord, that he may make you strong and firm in your service to the People of God entrusted to you by the Lord, so that your care and vigilance express communion even in the unity of one, single Rite, in which is preserved the great richness of the Roman liturgical tradition. I pray for you. You pray for me.