Leo XIV and the Tridentine Mass: A Meeting Promised, But What Future?
The recent announcement by Pope Leo XIV, given in an interview with journalist Elise Ann Allen, that he intends to meet with Catholics attached to the Tridentine Mass has stirred both cautious hope and sober suspicion. While the Holy Father acknowledged petitions for the traditional liturgy, he placed the matter within the broader framework of inculturation and synodality—concepts that have historically been used to justify novelty rather than defend tradition.
The Pope explained that the liturgical study group he established was primarily motivated by questions of inculturation: how to adapt the liturgy to different cultures and epochs. Only secondarily, he admitted, had he received requests concerning the Tridentine rite. He further suggested that since the post-Vatican II liturgy can be celebrated in Latin, many concerns about tradition are misplaced. The deeper issue, he argued, is polarization, with liturgy being used as a “political tool.”
This framing betrays a familiar mischaracterization. For the faithful devoted to the Mass of Ages, the question is not one of “nostalgia” or of external politics, but of doctrine, continuity, and reverence. The usus antiquior is not simply an aesthetic preference but the organically developed expression of Catholic faith. As Dom Prosper Guéranger wrote in the nineteenth century, “The liturgy is Tradition itself, at its highest degree of power and solemnity”¹ — and thus cannot be reduced to a cultural adaptation or an optional style.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre made the same point when he declared that the Novus Ordo represents “a new religion,” not because of malice on the part of all who use it, but because its doctrinal orientation diverges from the perennial magisterium by suppressing sacrificial and propitiatory elements.² Likewise, contemporary commentators such as Dr. Peter Kwasniewski argue that the traditional liturgy “does not simply communicate the faith but safeguards it”³ — its very stability acts as a bulwark against modernist reinterpretation.
The promise of a papal audience with defenders of the Tridentine rite must therefore be received soberly. After the brutal suppression of Summorum Pontificum under Traditionis Custodes (2021) and the Responsa ad Dubia which followed, many communities have faced persecution, marginalisation, or dissolution.⁴ To “listen” without addressing the injustices inflicted on these faithful would be to add insult to injury. The faithful do not ask for indulgence, but for the recognition of their right to Tradition, a right grounded in divine law and in the immemorial custom of the Roman Church.
The Council of Trent warned explicitly that the ceremonies and rites of the Church cannot be discarded at the whim of pastors without detriment to the faith.⁵ To portray resistance as ideology is to invert reality: the true ideological rupture lies in those who abandoned what was handed down, replacing it with experimental forms under the pretext of pastoral necessity. The faithful attached to the old Mass are not schismatics but Catholics clinging to the faith of their fathers. Their perseverance testifies to love of Christ and fidelity to His Church, not to factionalism.
If Pope Leo XIV truly wishes to heal divisions, he must go beyond synodal listening sessions. He must act as guardian of Tradition, restoring to the Church the freedom Benedict XVI once recognized: that the traditional Mass was “never abrogated.”⁶ Only then can dialogue proceed on the firm ground of truth rather than the shifting sands of ideology.
Footnotes
- Dom Prosper Guéranger, Institutions Liturgiques (1840–1851).
- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics (1986), ch. 8.
- Peter Kwasniewski, Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright (Angelico Press, 2020), p. 35.
- Pope Francis, Traditionis Custodes (2021); Congregation for Divine Worship, Responsa ad Dubia (2021).
- Council of Trent, Session XXII, Canon 7.
- Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum (2007), Art. 1.
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