Pope: "You Can Say Mass in Latin Right Now"

It makes little difference if Leo "understands" Trads. The NO is only one part of the irreverence and blasphemy infecting the Church today. We want Catholicism!

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders, MA

Every priest must buy a Latin Novus Ordo Missal immediately and begin saying the Novus Ordo in Latin.

For months since the feast of the apparition of St. Michael, his election day, Pope Leo has been indirectly addressing the New Iconoclasm, which is one of the non-negotiables of the Trad movement:

1. A traditionalist Catholic defends the Latin Mass (and the other monuments of our forefathers) against the New Iconoclasm occasioned by Vatican II

Pope Leo has acted agianst the New Iconoclasm indirectly by

1. celebrating Holy Mass (something Pope Francis did not do often)
2. chanting his Masses (Pope Francis did not sing)
3. celebrating with a great amount of the Roman tongue (Latin) inside and outside the Roman rite.

Many of our readers by now have seen multiple videos of the Pope’s flawless Latin chanting, which has lifted the heart of every Latin rite traditionalist worldwide.

Shortly after Pope Leo was elected Diane Montagna exposed the fact that the narrative surrounding the “new New” Iconoclasm of Pope Francis (Traditionis Custodes) is all lies.

We’ve reported on the fact that Cardinal Burke has spoken to His Holiness more than once. So even if, in his decades of priesthood in Peru, Pope Leo never thought much about the New Iconoclasm in terms of the ancient Roman Rite, Cardinal Burke, rest assured, has brought all of our concerns to his attention.

Probably as a result of those meetings, Cardinal Burke is now conspicuously celebrating the ancient Roman rite in St. Peter’s basilica with Pope Leo’s permission.

At the same time prominent bishops have spoken with their words or deeds (many with great force) for or against the rite of our forefathers.

Meanwhile, Pope Leo confirmed an exception to Traditionis Custodes for a diocese in Texas – a request that had been made to Rome before Pope Francis died.

And Pope Leo certainly would not have been unaware of the largest traditionalist event in Rome since he took office, the SSPX pilgrimage, which the Vatican newspeak tried to hush up, it seems.

Now, for the first time, we have a direct comment from Pope Leo about the ancient Roman rite and the New Iconoclasm. These comments come as part of a larger interview His Holiness gave to Elise Ann Allen at Crux.

We’re going to ignore the other issues for now and focus on what His Holiness said about the New Iconoclasm:

Regarding the study group on liturgy [for the Synod], what is being studied? How much of the reason for establishing this was related to divisions surrounding the Traditional Latin Mass, for example, or issues such as the new Amazonian rite?

My understanding of what the group came out of is primarily from issues that have to do with the inculturation of the liturgy. How to continue the process of making the liturgy more meaningful within a different culture, within a specific culture, in a specific place at any given time. I think that was the primary issue.

There is another issue, which is also another hot-button issue, which I have already received a number of requests and letters [about]: The question about, people always say ‘the Latin Mass.’ Well, you can say Mass in Latin right now. If it’s the Vatican II rite there’s no problem. Obviously, between the Tridentine Mass and the Vatican II Mass, the Mass of Paul VI, I’m not sure where that’s going to go. It’s obviously very complicated.

I do know that part of that issue, unfortunately, has become – again, part of a process of polarization – people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It’s become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate. I think sometimes the, say, ‘abuse’ of the liturgy from what we call the Vatican II Mass, was not helpful for people who were looking for a deeper experience of prayer, of contact with the mystery of faith that they seemed to find in the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. Again, we’ve become polarized, so that instead of being able to say, well, if we celebrate the Vatican II liturgy in a proper way, do you really find that much difference between this experience and that experience?

I have not had the chance to really sit down with a group of people who are advocating for the Tridentine rite. There’s an opportunity coming up soon, and I’m sure there will be occasions for that. But that is an issue that I think also, maybe with synodality, we have to sit down and talk about. It’s become the kind of issue that’s so polarized that people aren’t willing to listen to one another, oftentimes. I’ve heard bishops talk to me, they’ve talked to me about that, where they say, ‘we invited them to this and that and they just won’t even hear it’. They don’t even want to talk about it. That’s a problem in itself. It means we’re into ideology now, we’re no longer into the experience of church communion. That’s one of the issues on the agenda.

The Pope’s reference to “again, polarization” seems to go back to what he says earlier in this interview about the issue of the Sodomy agenda:

I confess, that’s on the back of my mind, because, as we’ve seen at the synod, any issue dealing with the LGBTQ questions is highly polarizing within the Church. For now, because of what I’ve already tried to demonstrate and live out in terms of my understanding of being pope at this time in history, I’m trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the church.

These comments (with another) seemed to imply that Pope Leo has been consciously departing from the ways of “making a Mess” from his predecessor.

But note what the Holy Father said: “I think sometimes the, say, ‘abuse’ of the liturgy from what we call the Vatican II Mass, was not helpful for people who were looking for a deeper experience of prayer, of contact with the mystery of faith that they seemed to find in the celebration of the Tridentine Mass.”

In these words, it seems, Pope Leo understands the traditionalist movement better than any other prelate I’ve heard (unless they are already leading and supporting the Trad movement like ++Burke or +Schneider). Remember when Bishop Barron talked to Shia LeBeouf and the Catholic convert actor tried to explain to him why he felt drawn to the ancient Roman Rite? Even though Bisop Barron had authored a preface on a book about the Latin Mass (Liturgy and Personality by Trad Godfather Dietrich von Hildebrand), no Trad felt that Bishop Barron had really grasped what was at stake with the Latin Mass.

Here, I feel like Pope Leo understands us. Even though he admits he’s never really talked to us. What a breath of fresh air! Amazing – is this the true universal pastor that cares about us for the first time in over a decade?

Should Trads be concerned that His Holiness seems to be promoting the Reform of the Reform, i.e. “reverent Novus Ordo”? No, I don’t think so. I think what he says is true. For many souls who are currently in the Trad movement attending a Latin Mass, they probably never attended the rumoured “Unicorn Novus Ordo”?

Why? Because the reverent Novus Ordo, in America and France and elsewhere, seems to be even more hard to find than the Latin Mass. (That’s certainly my experience, and I invite my readers to confirm or contest my assertion.) Many of these souls rarely have experienced such a thing, and I would bet that half of them would be fine with the reverent Novus Ordo because they are pious souls whose only care is the unum necessarium: a deeper experience of prayer. These are pious souls who are all about prayer, not polemical theological controversies – even though these are indeed important.

In any case, this is all good news, because Pope Leo is not standing and throwing stones at us. He has actually explicitly said he wants to listen, and he’s going to listen at an actual event sometime soon. I would guess he’s probably referring to the aforementioned Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage.

I feel good about this.

But let’s talk practical: every diocesan priest must buy a Latin Novus Ordo Missal immediately and begin saying the Novus Ordo in Latin. You heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, ladies and gentleman. No bishop can stop you now. (This, by the way, is how Pope Leo actually does it in Rome, using the Roman tongue.)

Hello, Cardinal Cupich, did you hear the news? We’re going to switch all our Masses to the Latin Novus Ordo, thank you very much. We’d love for you to come over and have coffee with us before we do the prayers of Eucharistic Reparation with our faces to the ground in penance for the crimes against His Eucharistic Heart. Please join us Your Eminence!