Pope Fight! Roman Catholics are Freaking Out After Francis Reverses Benedict
Pope Francis has brought the wrath of hard-right Roman Catholics on his head after cracking down on the celebration of the Old Latin Mass, reversing one of Pope Benedict’s signature decisions and resulting in traditionalist Catholics decrying it as an attack on the liturgy and on the church itself.
Decreeing that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum was abrogated and rendered null and void, Francis has effectively curb-stomped the former pope’s major degree by forbidding any priest from saying the Latin Mass unless they get a special dispensation from their bishop beforehand, effective immediately.
This complete repudiation of another pope’s teaching so soon after being issued hasn’t been seen or heard of in hundreds of years, and just goes to show you never really can tell what a pope is saying is true or not, as another pontiff down the line might just deem it heresy or out of order.
In a move that has left Roman Catholic apologists sputtering and pulling out their hair, Francis explains that he’s doing this for the sake of unity, an action that was the result of reviewing a 2020 survey from the bishops “that reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene.”
In short, he found that some of the priests were using the Summorum Pontificum as a justification to freely have LatinsServices, given that it grants permission to do so. Benedict’s apostolic letter had relaxed the rules for priests and gave them the right to say mass using the 1962 Roman Missal, which is Pre-Vatican II.
The vast majority of clergy who would even want to have mass in Latin is the traditionalist faction who believed that Vatican II was a mistake and resulted in false doctrines creeping into the church. As a result, they have formed groups within the diocese based on this shared desire for the Latin mass and its associated theological implications.
By cutting out the Latin mass and canceling out Benedict’s message, Francis hopes to disrupt these groups and squash the Sedevacantist resurgency.
Of all the things to be mad at Francis about, this strikes us as being the least of his many evils. Given that he occupies the seat of the antichrist, we would list his willingness to give pro-abortion Joe Biden communion, endorsing civil unions for gay couples, Hating on anti-maskers and those urging caution at taking the COVID vaccine, and releasing his most outrageously blasphemous statement to be far more offensive.
I
About Author
As someone on twitter was lamenting this and how much more connected to Jesus they felt during Latin mass, one twitter pundit responded with “yes, if there was anything Jesus was known for, it was his love of pageantry.” LOL. I’m still laughing about that, and I’ve enjoyed formal liturgy myself.
No dog in this race, but I guess people should be able to go to whatever type of service they like. But it’s true that the “rad trads” (radical traditionalists) were drawn to the Latin mass and they seemed to be a very far right, insular, almost cult like group. At least that’s what it looks like from reading the comments on some Catholic blogs, some expressing open disdain for the pope, magisterium, and other Catholics who attend more modern services in the vernacular language, saying that those folks are not real Catholics and promoting themselves as the small remnant of True Believers. Doesn’t matter to me, but I can see where the RCC hierarchy would clamp down on that.
Fun fact – the Latin mass is officially called the Tridentine Mass, and was imposed on all the churches after the council of Trent in 1570, the same council where where they anathematized the reformers. So the pope giveth and the pope taketh away. The rad trads seem to believe the Latin mass goes back to the earliest church but it doesn’t; it’s from the high Renaissance era, and so completely looks like it. I do think the sort of over-the-top pageantry of this liturgy is definitely what many are drawn to and are sad to see tossed.