Liturgical Double Standards and the Hermeneutic of Rupture

An analysis of how one of the worst enemies of the TLM uses 'interpretation' of Papal texts to undermine the Liturgical Tradition of the Church.

From Catholic World Report

By James Baresel, MA

In 2007, Bishop Arthur Roche obstructed the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. Now, as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, is he misusing and even abusing Traditionis Custodes?

Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum in 2007, the then Bishop of Leeds issued an “interpretation” which did its best to reduce the motu proprio to meaninglessness and obstruct its implementation. Examples include:

1. Insisting that parish pastors could only introduce the Tridentine Mass if a “stable group” of their faithful from within their own parish, not from various parts of the diocese, requested it.
2. Stating that the bishop had the authority to determine if a priest was “qualified” to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.
3. Strongly implying that the “stable group” had to consist of people who already attended to the Tridentine Mass rather than people who wished to begin attending it.
4. Strongly implying that priests would not be authorized to “binate” (celebrate two Masses on one weekday) if one of those Masses would be celebrated using the Tridentine Missal.

That bishop was undoubtedly among those that the then Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship had in mind when condemning “interpretive documents that inexplicably aim to limit the Motu Proprio of the pope” and insisting such bishops allowed themselves “to be used as instruments of the devil.”

Later, the Vatican instruction Universae Ecclesiae corrected the first two points by stating that  “a group can also be composed of persons coming from different parishes or dioceses, who gather together in a specific parish church or in an oratory or chapel for this purpose,” that “every Catholic priest who is not impeded by Canon Law is to be considered qualified for the celebration of the Holy Mass in the forma extraordinaria” and that “the faculty to celebrate sine populo (or with the participation of only one minister) in the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite is given by the Motu Proprio to all priests…therefore, priests, by provision of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, do not require any special permission from their Ordinaries or superiors.” Permission would be needed from parish pastors, shrine rectors, etc. for public Masses, but not from the diocesan bishop.

Furthermore, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos—who as president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission was charged with overseeing use of the Tridentine Mass and who certainly knew the mind of Benedict XVI—informally corrected point #3 during a press conference, stating that “The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church.”

Fourteen years later, the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales issued a canonical interpretation of Traditionis Custodes, which either is legally correct or else misinterprets that motu proprio almost into meaninglessness in the same way the former Bishop of Leeds misinterpreted Summorum Pontificum. Within months the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship wrote to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, condemning the Latin Mass Society interpretation as being at odds with the intentions of the pope.

Now that might seem all very well, good and consistent. But there is just one tiny problem. In 2007 the Bishop of Leeds was Arthur Roche. In 2021 the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments was the same Arthur Roche. Few will be surprised by that now standard double standard, but there is even more to the issue.

As canonist J.D. Flynn has recently analyzed in The Pillar, Arthur Roche—now a cardinal—has contacted at least on bishop to insist that dispensing parishes from Traditionis Custodes is reserved to the Holy See despite the fact that such a claim is not contained in the motu proprio, and despite the fact that, according to canon law, bishops have that dispensing power unless the law regulating a particular matter explicitly states otherwise.

From any perspective, this is a serious problem. As past facts make clear, there are only two possibilities. Either Roche can in no way, shape, or form be relied upon to accurately understand a church legal document or the intentions of a pope—or he deliberately undermined the law of one pope in order to restrict the Tridentine Mass and now insists upon firm adherence to the law of another pope in order to accomplish that same purpose.

An even greater problem (which I analyzed at some length in an article for Inside the Vatican last year) is that Cardinal Roche has explicitly argued the Missal of Paul VI is based on a theology incompatible with that of the Tridentine Mass—argued, in other words, for the “hermeneutic of rupture.” On this basis he believes “accepting Vatican II and the Missal of Paul VI” means favoring elimination of the Tridentine Mass.

One implication is obvious. Most Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass accept both of the basic points required by the Church’s theology: 1) That the Missal of Paul VI is an authentic and legitimate rite of the Church and that both it and the council’s call for changes to liturgical discipline are in accord with Catholic doctrine. 2) That these were purely disciplinary decisions, in no way required by Catholic theology, justifiable only on grounds of pastoral prudence and, in principle, subject to complete reversal.

According to Cardinal Roche’s logic, such Catholics “reject the Missal of Paul VI” and must be denied permission to use the Tridentine Mass, or be allowed to have it only while being “catechized” into preferring the Paul VI Mass (which is as absurd as “catechizing” a Dominican into preferring the spirituality of the Franciscans or a Jesuit into preferring that of the Benedictines). The same thinking explains why his December 2021 response to the dubia contradicts Canon 212, insisting men ordained to the priesthood after Traditionis Custodes was issued must be actively committed to Pope Francis’s legislation rather than maintain their right to favor reversal.

It is time to admit double standards regarding obedience and belief in the hermeneutic of rupture were prominent in the history of liturgical “reform.” Early in the twentieth century, the Dialogue Mass (in which the congregation makes the responses), use of vernacular languages, and Mass facing the people were introduced without authorization. At the time, Germany’s Archbishop Conrad Grober warned that those introducing the Dialogue Mass did not just want freedom for Catholics who pray best that way, but sought to impose it.

In the 1950s, Annibale Bugnini was hiding liturgical abuses from Rome so they could be popularized and eventually sanctioned. Less than two decades later, he obtained sanction for them and was enforcing conformity. Readers may be familiar with Father Louis Bouyer’s account of how Pope Paul VI and the members of the commission charged with liturgical reform were united in opposition to some of Bugnini’s proposals. And how Bugnini pushed them through by telling the pope that they were what the commission wanted, while telling the commission members that they were what the pope wanted.

Less well-known is the fact that Pope Paul VI insisted his liturgical reform was purely disciplinary and motivated by pastoral considerations, while based on the exact same theology as the Tridentine Mass. But Bugnini himself intended a changed theology in a “hermeneutic of rupture.”

Two points must be seriously analyzed by moral theologians and canonists. First: What can be done—and what disobedience is justified—when faced with superiors who act in disobedient and lawless ways until such time as they can use law and obedience to serve their agenda? Second: For a law to be binding, it must be rational and just. But something grounded in and intended to enforce the hermeneutic of rupture evidently has an unjust and irrational purpose. What obedience is due in such circumstances?