Cardinal Roche Defends Traditionis Custodes: A Response

A "briefing" from Dr Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales (he's also President of Fœderatio Internationalis Una Voce).

From Rorate Cæli

By the Hon. Joseph Shaw, DPhil(Oxon), FRSA, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and President of Fœderatio Internationalis Una Voce

This is Dr Joseph Shaw's 'Briefing' to supporters of the Latin Mass Society. You can join the email list for these occasional briefings here.

At the recent Consistory of Cardinals in Rome, Arthur, Cardinal Roche, distributed a short text on the liturgy to those assembled, which is critical of the Traditional Mass. Readers can see my analysis of the arguments employed there on the FIUV website here. In this Bulletin I want to take a step back to consider its wider implications.

As I note in my analysis, this text does not respond to the criticisms that have been made of the official justification of Traditionis custodes, but simply reiterates this justification, at greater length. The argument is that liturgical pluralism undermines the unity of the Church. Critics have pointed out that the Church has always fostered a plurality of Rites and Usages, with Vatican II itself supporting this policy. Cardinal Roche’s text does nothing to address this. Is there a good kind of pluralism to be distinguished from a bad kind? Is there a difference between a pluralism of Rites (as in Eastern and Western) and pluralism within the Western Rite? Is there a difference between the pluralism represented by the Ordinariate or the (reformed) Ambrosian Rite of Milan, and the pluralism of Ordinary and Extraordinary Form, that we need to understand? There might be arguments along these lines, but no the defender of Traditionis custodes has made a serious attempt to set them out. They have just repeated the original claim, that pluralism is a problem, and in this text Cardinal Roche does so all over again.

What are we to make of this?