Bishop Rob Mutsaerts challenges Cardinal Roche — and exposes a disturbing contradiction in Rome’s treatment of her own liturgical inheritance.
Cardinal Arthur Roche believes Catholics should not attend the traditional Roman Mass exclusively. Bishop Rob Mutsaerts has challenged the assumption behind that warning, asking why the Church honours ancient Eastern liturgies while treating attachment to her inherited Roman worship with such evident suspicion. Events in Toronto, the exceptional position of Campos, and the recently published Vatican correspondence concerning the Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage have brought the controversy into sharper focus. What is at stake extends beyond the accommodation of traditional Catholics. It concerns the relationship between ecclesiastical authority and received Tradition, the spiritual rights of the faithful, and the obligation of the Church to preserve and transmit the worship through which generations of Catholics were sanctified.
At Holy Family Parish in Toronto, Catholics attending the traditional Roman Mass at eleven o’clock on Sunday must now make different arrangements once a month. Their customary Mass is replaced on those Sundays by a celebration according to the postconciliar Missal. The parish already provides four Sunday Masses according to that Missal, so nobody can reasonably suggest that the change addresses a shortage of opportunities to attend the newer liturgy. Nor is the issue Latin, since the substituted celebration is itself conducted in that language. The arrangement was imposed as a condition of a two-year dispensation from Rome allowing the traditional Mass to continue in four parish churches. Neil MacCarthy, speaking for the Archdiocese of Toronto, explained its purpose with admirable candour: “to bring those who do not attend the Novus Ordo to begin to do so.”¹
A more revealing admission would be difficult to imagine. Here are Catholics who attend Mass regularly, presumably fulfil their Sunday obligation, receive the sacraments and seek to live according to the Faith. Their preferred liturgy is an inherited form of Catholic worship, whose prayers and ceremonies were familiar to generations of the faithful. Yet the authorities have deliberately interrupted its regular celebration in order to encourage attendance at another form. Whatever good intentions may lie behind the policy, the assumption is unmistakable. Exclusive attachment to the traditional Roman Mass is considered a circumstance requiring correction. One wonders what offence these Catholics have committed, and against which law.
The arrangement lends an uncomfortable practical significance to Cardinal Arthur Roche’s recent interview with Thomas Edwards for AdVaticanum. Asked whether Catholics who attend the older Roman liturgy should instead go to the reformed Mass, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship replied: “You should not be going to that Mass exclusively, I think.” The qualification is important. Roche expressed his judgement; he did not promulgate a new universal prohibition. Nevertheless, the distinction between personal opinion and administrative policy becomes less reassuring when the official expressing that opinion is responsible for administering the very restrictions under which the Toronto arrangement has been imposed. The Cardinal also described conversations with traditional Catholics who complain that Rome has treated them unkindly. He tells them that the Pope has allowed them to continue celebrating according to the earlier books, before asking, “What is your problem?”²
The answer should not be difficult to understand. Catholics who cherish the traditional Mass are increasingly expected to regard access to their inherited worship as an exceptional favour, grateful for whatever provision the authorities may allow and prepared to accept that its future belongs entirely to administrative discretion. Their wish to see that inheritance preserved within the ordinary life of the Church is interpreted as dissatisfaction with legitimate authority. Their attachment is scrutinised for evidence of opposition to the Second Vatican Council. And when they ask why the Mass of their forebears must survive under such peculiar conditions, they are invited to examine their own ecclesiastical loyalties.
Bishop Rob Mutsaerts, Auxiliary Bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, has now challenged this reasoning. In an article dated 24 October 2026 and subsequently circulated in English through Rorate Cæli, he addressed Roche’s warnings with a directness seldom encountered among contemporary bishops. The Church, he observed, rightly cherishes the diversity of her ancient liturgical traditions. A Catholic may attend the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, worship according to the Maronite or Armenian traditions, or participate in the sacred rites of other Eastern Catholic communities without anyone ordinarily supposing that such attachment threatens ecclesiastical unity. Yet a Catholic wishing to attend the inherited Roman Mass encounters an entirely different reception. Mutsaerts asked why the Church’s ancient liturgical traditions are recognised as treasures, with the increasingly conspicuous exception of Rome’s own.³
His intervention matters because the question is being asked by a bishop who understands the ecclesiological difficulties involved. Mutsaerts does not defend the denial of papal authority, the rejection of the validity of the reformed Mass or the assertion that the Catholic Church somehow ceased to exist after Vatican II. Those positions cannot simply be accommodated under the agreeable description of liturgical diversity. But neither can they reasonably be attributed to every Catholic who prefers the older Roman books. A man may recognise the Pope, profess the Catholic Faith, acknowledge the legitimate authority of the Church and nevertheless believe that the traditional Mass expresses the mystery of Eucharistic sacrifice with a fullness and coherence which he finds less evident in the reformed liturgy. Such a judgement may be disputed. It does not establish that he has abandoned Catholic communion.
There is a distinction here which ought scarcely to require defending. The Catholic character of a liturgical tradition cannot depend upon the personal opinions of everyone attending it. When a Byzantine Catholic expresses an erroneous theological view, nobody proposes suppressing the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom as a corrective. An Ambrosian Catholic who disputes his bishop’s instructions does not thereby bring the Ambrosian Rite into disrepute. One might reasonably expect the same discrimination between a liturgy and the misconduct of its adherents when dealing with the Roman tradition. Instead, the older Mass is repeatedly drawn into controversies concerning the opinions of particular individuals and organisations, as though the Church’s own worship were somehow responsible for the ecclesiastical difficulties of those presently defending it.
The Second Vatican Council explicitly recognised the equal dignity of legitimately acknowledged rites and expressed the Church’s wish to preserve and foster them. Catholic unity has never required complete ceremonial uniformity. The twenty-four Catholic Churches sui iuris, including the Latin Church and the twenty-three Eastern Catholic Churches, bear witness to that fact. There are, of course, important canonical differences between those Churches and the successive editions of the Roman Missal. The Eastern Churches possess their own ecclesiastical structures and liturgical patrimonies; the older Roman Missal belongs to the historical development of the Latin Church’s worship. Mutsaerts’ comparison does not establish an unrestricted right to celebrate every previous Roman liturgical book. It does, however, expose the weakness of treating attachment to the inherited Roman rite as though it were inherently prejudicial to ecclesiastical unity. The distinction in canonical circumstances is genuine; the presumption of spiritual disloyalty requires an entirely different justification.⁴
The traditional Roman Mass was Catholic long before the contemporary traditionalist movement appeared. Its prayers were not composed by the Society of Saint Pius X, its ceremonial was not devised by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, and its sacrificial theology was not invented to contest the reform of Paul VI. The liturgy which these communities preserve was received from the Church herself. Across centuries it formed priests, nourished religious houses, sustained families, accompanied missionaries into distant countries and furnished the prayers by which Catholics commended their dead to Almighty God. The saints did not attend it as an expression of resistance to the Second Vatican Council. They attended it because it was the worship of the Church. That historical fact cannot be made to disappear through the subsequent association of the older books with particular ecclesiastical controversies.
It follows that the defence of the traditional Mass ought not to depend chiefly upon establishing the good behaviour of its present congregations. Their fidelity is certainly relevant when considering matters of ecclesiastical discipline, and it is proper that traditional Catholics should be distinguished by charity, humility and obedience to the Faith. But the liturgy itself possesses a history and theological character which precede the contemporary movement. Even if an entire organisation dedicated to its preservation were found guilty of serious misconduct, that discovery would not alter the Catholic nature of the worship it had inherited. To make the legitimacy of the Roman liturgical tradition dependent upon the reputation of modern traditionalists would be to allow the conduct of the recipients to determine the worth of the inheritance.
Nuntiatoria has repeatedly examined this confusion. In The Reform Cannot Be the Rule of Faith, we distinguished the authority of the Second Vatican Council, the jurisdiction of Paul VI to promulgate a revised Missal, and the historical and theological merits of the reform subsequently introduced. The distinction is indispensable. A Catholic may recognise the authority of the Council, accept the legitimacy and validity of the reformed Mass, and still question whether particular alterations to the inherited liturgy were necessary, prudent or beneficial. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction establishes the authority to legislate. It does not guarantee that every exercise of legislative discretion produces the wisest possible result. Nor does the lawful promulgation of a reform settle every theological question concerning the rites which preceded it.⁵
Indeed, the Council’s own instructions remain an important part of the controversy. Sacrosanctum Concilium called for careful theological, historical and pastoral investigation before introducing changes. Innovations were to arise from existing forms through organic development, with the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requiring them. Latin was to be preserved in the Latin rites, and Gregorian chant retained its privileged position. The Council did not itself promulgate the Missal of Paul VI, nor did it prescribe every subsequent alteration introduced by the reformers. The widespread displacement of Latin, the near disappearance of chant from ordinary parish worship, the abandonment of traditional sanctuary arrangements and the extensive latitude subsequently afforded to liturgical composition and presentation cannot all be attributed indiscriminately to explicit conciliar mandates. It is therefore legitimate to examine the relationship between what the Council prescribed and what eventually became normal practice. Such examination should be informed by the documents themselves rather than by retrospective appeals to an undefined spirit of reform.⁶
Cardinal Roche has repeatedly invoked the authority of the Council when defending the postconciliar settlement. Yet the Council cannot become an absolute dividing line between a Catholic Church before 1965 and another afterwards. The Church which convened Vatican II was the same Church which had received the apostolic deposit, developed the Roman liturgical tradition, convened the Council of Trent and celebrated the sacred mysteries through centuries of Christian history. The authority of a council is exercised within that continuity. If the implementation of its decisions gives rise to legitimate theological questions, those questions cannot be resolved simply by invoking the authority which permitted the implementation. A discussion about the reform must eventually address the reform itself.
Pius XII’s Mediator Dei provides a valuable corrective to the assumption that liturgical development may be assessed principally according to the preferences of contemporary ecclesiastical government. The encyclical recognises the Church’s authority to regulate sacred worship and acknowledges the historical development of liturgical forms. It equally insists upon doctrinal integrity, reverence for the inherited worship of the Church and the dangers of imprudent innovation. Pius XII did not imagine the sacred liturgy as an assemblage of ceremonial choices which successive generations might reconstruct without regard for the theological language accumulated within it. The Church possesses authority over the human elements of her worship, but that authority is entrusted to her for the glory of God and the sanctification of souls. It carries obligations towards the inheritance which has been received.⁷
Those obligations become more intelligible when one considers what the traditional Roman Mass actually communicates. The prayers at the foot of the altar, the traditional Offertory, the Roman Canon, the repeated gestures of reverence towards the consecrated Species, the orientation of the priest and the profound silences surrounding the sacred action together express a coherent understanding of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Their meaning is cumulative. The celebrant approaches the altar conscious of his unworthiness; the offerings are prepared through prayers which anticipate the sacrificial oblation; the Canon proceeds with an extraordinary reserve; and the priest’s gestures continually testify to the reality of the Divine Victim present upon the altar. These things are neither incidental ornaments nor mere survivals of a particular historical culture. They form a liturgical language through which Catholic doctrine has been communicated for generations.
The Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the one Sacrifice of Calvary, offered sacramentally through the ministry of the ordained priest. The faithful participate most profoundly through their union with Christ’s self-oblation to the Father, rather than through the multiplication of outward functions. The reformed Missal continues to profess the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, and its valid celebration truly makes present the Body and Blood of Our Lord. But sacramental validity does not establish that every liturgical arrangement expresses Catholic Eucharistic theology with identical clarity or emphasis. A legitimate criticism of the reform may therefore concern the relative prominence given to sacrifice, propitiation, adoration, penitence and divine transcendence without thereby denying the validity of the newer rite. Those who dismiss such concerns as expressions of nostalgia have failed to engage with the theological substance of the argument.
Benedict XVI understood this when he accompanied Summorum Pontificum with his letter to the bishops in July 2007. His insistence that what earlier generations held sacred remains sacred for the Church was more than a courteous acknowledgement of traditionalist sensibilities. It was a judgement about Catholic continuity. The Church cannot plausibly maintain that worship which had nourished generations of her faithful had become intrinsically harmful merely because a subsequent liturgical settlement had been adopted. Benedict also insisted that priests belonging to traditional communities could not reject the newer books as a matter of principle while professing recognition of their legitimacy and holiness. That concern was ecclesiological. It addressed the principled repudiation of a legitimately promulgated rite, not the supposed obligation of every Catholic layperson to divide his attendance between successive editions of the Missal. Recognition of a rite’s legitimacy and personal attachment to its celebration are different matters.⁸
The distinction has been obscured by the practical consequences of Traditionis custodes. Francis’s legislation described the postconciliar books as the unique expression of the Roman Rite’s lex orandi and imposed substantial restrictions upon use of the 1962 Missal, particularly in parish churches. His accompanying letter envisaged those attached to the older liturgy eventually returning to the books promulgated by Paul VI and John Paul II. This was a marked departure from Benedict XVI’s attempt to secure a stable place for the older Missal within the Church’s liturgical life. It did not declare the traditional Mass invalid or prescribe a universal date for its extinction. Nevertheless, its intended direction was clear. Provision for the faithful attached to the older books was to be accompanied by a movement towards the postconciliar liturgical settlement.⁹
Toronto illustrates how that direction can become an identifiable pastoral policy. The Vatican dispensation of 5 December 2025 authorised continued celebration of the traditional Mass in four parish churches for two years, but required one monthly substitution in each affected church. Holy Family already possessed abundant provision for the reformed Mass. The particular celebration displaced was the one attended by Catholics who had chosen the inherited rite. The arrangement was intended to encourage them to change their practice. It therefore raises a question which cannot be answered by pointing to the lawful authority of those imposing it. The parishioners are entitled to know what spiritual deficiency their exclusive attachment is supposed to represent. If they recognise the Church’s authority, accept Catholic doctrine and fulfil their religious obligations, their preference for the traditional Mass cannot itself establish an ecclesiastical offence. The Church may legitimately regulate liturgical celebrations, but regulations directed towards changing the habits of the faithful should possess a discernible pastoral justification beyond securing conformity with an administrative preference.
The contrast with Campos is particularly revealing. In October, Nuntiatoria examined Bishop Fernando Arêas Rifan and the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney in Brazil. Established by the Holy See in 2002, the Administration possesses a recognised canonical structure in which the traditional Roman Mass remains the ordinary worship of its priests and faithful. Rifan confirmed in his recent interview that Traditionis custodes had not materially altered the liturgical life of his jurisdiction or its external apostolates. His circumstances are particular, and the Administration’s canonical provisions cannot automatically be extended to every diocese. Yet its existence demonstrates that Rome has already recognised a stable ecclesiastical arrangement in which attachment to the inherited Roman liturgy is entirely compatible with recognised communion and episcopal government. The traditional Mass can remain the normal worship of a Catholic community without that community being regarded as perpetually awaiting transition to another rite.¹⁰
The historical circumstances of Campos are instructive. Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer preserved the traditional Roman liturgy throughout his ministry, while, according to Rifan’s recollections, he did not forbid priests wishing to adopt the newer books from doing so. The traditional Mass remained established within the diocese without requiring the rejection of every subsequent liturgical development. Whatever judgements one makes about the later canonical controversies, the history demonstrates that preservation of inherited worship need not imply the denial of legitimate ecclesiastical authority. More importantly, the present status of the Personal Apostolic Administration establishes that Rome considers enduring traditional liturgical life compatible with communion in at least one recognised jurisdiction. The difference between Campos and Toronto is therefore principally one of juridical arrangements and disciplinary policy. It is difficult to maintain that exclusive attachment to the older rite is inherently prejudicial to unity when the Holy See itself recognises an ecclesiastical structure in which such attachment is normal.
The rights of the faithful deserve greater consideration than they have generally received in this debate. Canon 682 of the 1917 Code recognised the laity’s right to receive spiritual goods from the clergy, particularly those helps necessary for salvation, according to ecclesiastical discipline. The 1983 Code expresses related principles through canons 212–214, including the right to make spiritual needs known, to receive assistance from the Church’s spiritual goods and to worship according to the provisions governing legitimately approved rites. These rights remain subject to lawful ecclesiastical regulation, as canon 223 makes clear. They do not create an unconditional entitlement to demand a particular liturgy at any chosen place or hour. Yet they establish that the faithful possess genuine spiritual interests which ecclesiastical government must respect. A Catholic requesting access to the inherited Roman Mass is seeking a spiritual good received from the Church, and his request should be considered accordingly.¹¹
Nor does universal canon law require a Catholic periodically to attend the reformed Mass in order to demonstrate his loyalty. Canon 1248 §1 of the 1983 Code provides for fulfilment of the Sunday obligation through participation in Mass celebrated in a Catholic rite. It does not prescribe alternating attendance at different editions of the Roman Missal. This does not remove the restrictions governing where and by whom the older books may lawfully be used, but it makes the distinction between a legitimate liturgical preference and actual disobedience particularly important. A father who attends the traditional Mass each Sunday with his family may be doing precisely what the Church asks of him: worshipping Almighty God, fulfilling his religious obligations and raising his children in the practice of the Faith. His exclusive attachment supplies no sufficient basis for presuming that he is opposed to the Church.
The pastoral consequences of restricting access become more serious where Catholics seek sacramental assistance from clergy whose canonical circumstances are disputed. The cases of the Society of Saint Pius X and Old Roman apostolates require careful differentiation. The validity of a sacrament, the lawfulness of its celebration, the faculties required for its administration and the position of the faithful receiving it are distinct canonical questions. Neither the 1917 nor the 1983 Code permits these matters to be reduced to a general accusation of schism. Both legal traditions recognise principles concerning necessity, moral responsibility and the supply of jurisdiction in specified circumstances, although their application must always be established according to the facts and the particular sacrament. They do not confer a general exemption from ecclesiastical discipline. Equally, an irregular canonical position does not justify indiscriminate assertions concerning the invalidity of every sacramental act performed by the clergy involved.
The Holy See’s treatment of the Society of Saint Pius X demonstrates the importance of these distinctions. Pope Francis extended faculties for its priests to administer sacramental absolution validly and licitly, and subsequent provisions addressed the authorisation of marriages involving its faithful. These were pastoral measures intended to protect sacramental access and reassure consciences while the Society’s canonical position remained unresolved. Attendance at one of its chapels cannot therefore be treated automatically as formal adherence to schism. The same insistence upon careful individual assessment must govern discussion of the faithful who seek assistance from Old Roman clergy, without presuming that different bodies possess identical canonical status or faculties. The purpose of ecclesiastical law is the good of souls. Its distinctions exist to secure justice and protect sacramental life, not to furnish convenient accusations against Catholics whose religious circumstances may already be difficult.¹²
But the question of the faithful’s rights does not exhaust the obligation to preserve the Roman liturgical inheritance. That inheritance belongs to the Church irrespective of how many Catholics presently seek its celebration. Its significance extends to priests who must understand the liturgical history of their own rite, scholars examining the development of Catholic worship, religious communities preserving traditional observance and generations who have not yet been born. The Church cannot discharge her responsibility simply by providing a sufficient number of designated chapels for those currently attached to the older Mass. She must also consider how that worship is to be transmitted within the life of the Latin Church. An inheritance which survives only among a limited number of authorised communities may remain spiritually fruitful while becoming progressively unfamiliar to the wider Catholic population.
This is the danger which Nuntiatoria has previously described as traditionalist enclavism. Approved institutes and designated chapels may flourish, produce vocations and maintain an exemplary liturgical discipline. Such achievements deserve respect. Nevertheless, the arrangement may leave the inherited Roman liturgy increasingly detached from ordinary diocesan life. Seminarians may receive little serious formation in its history or ceremonies; parishioners may come to regard it as the peculiar practice of specialised communities; bishops may inherit dioceses in which the older rite survives only through exceptional permissions. What had once been the common worship of the Latin Church becomes, in practical terms, a minority religious custom. The survival of the enclave is then mistaken for the preservation of the inheritance itself.
The historical question reaches beyond the Missal of 1962. The Roman liturgical tradition developed through successive additions, revisions and codifications, and its inheritance cannot be confined to the final edition preceding the Council. The changes to Holy Week in the 1950s, for example, altered ceremonies whose earlier forms had been transmitted across centuries. The pre-1955 books preserve elements of the Roman tradition no longer present in the subsequent preconciliar settlement. Their continued study and celebration raise legitimate questions concerning organic development, historical continuity and the spiritual value of received ceremonial forms. Acknowledging these questions does not deny the competence of ecclesiastical authority to reform liturgical discipline. It recognises that the theological and historical significance of the Roman liturgy is larger than the particular editions presently contemplated by restrictive legislation. The Roman Canon, the traditional Offertory, the Divine Office, the ceremonies of Holy Week and the cycle of feasts and commemorations were not created by the contemporary traditionalist movement. They belong to a much longer Catholic history.
The October Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage to Rome supplied a particularly unhappy illustration of the present relationship between traditional Catholics and ecclesiastical government. The organisers had sought permission for a traditional pontifical Mass in St Peter’s Basilica on 24 October. That request was refused in August. They accepted the decision and arranged for Bishop Athanasius Schneider to celebrate Mass at St Mary Major instead. On 8 September, Abbé Claude Barthe wrote to the Secretariat of State seeking permission for the pilgrims to enter St Peter’s in procession, pray for Pope Leo XIV at the Confession and adore the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of the Chair. The basilica’s sacristy had reportedly indicated that one o’clock would be practicable, subject to approval. Archbishop Paolo Rudelli replied on 30 September that the request could not be granted. No reason was supplied.¹³
The publication of the correspondence on 28 October removed an important ambiguity. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni had suggested that the organisers should have submitted a specific request for prayer or Eucharistic adoration rather than merely seeking permission for a procession. The September letter demonstrates that both devotional purposes had been expressly stated. It remains possible that the authorities distinguished between processional entry and a separate gathering for prayer without a procession. The documents do not establish that every possible non-processional arrangement was refused, nor do they show that individual pilgrims were prohibited from entering the basilica privately. These distinctions matter, particularly when assessing allegations of deliberate hostility. But the correspondence confirms that the organisers made a specific devotional request and received an unexplained refusal. If the procession was objectionable, the published letters do not disclose an offer to accommodate the prayers without it. The circumstances deserve a fuller explanation than has yet been provided.¹⁴
The reception at St Mary Major offered a welcome contrast. The basilica authorities facilitated the pontifical Low Mass requested by the organisers, and the International Federation Una Voce subsequently expressed gratitude for their cooperation. Bishop Schneider preached of Holy Mother Church, the Chair of Peter and the obligation of Catholics to remain faithful to the ecclesiastical mother who nourishes them. He prayed for the repose of Pope Francis while appealing for liturgical peace and the restoration of the traditional Roman rite’s full use. His homily was an appeal for reconciliation within communion, delivered to Catholics who had travelled to Rome precisely because they recognised the significance of the Apostolic See. Their profession of the Creed in St Peter’s Square, after the organised procession could proceed no farther, supplied an image whose symbolism was difficult to ignore. They had come to honour Peter, not to repudiate his successor.¹⁵
The episode should not be inflated into accusations which the documentary record cannot sustain. Legitimate authorities possess the responsibility to regulate access to the papal basilicas, and practical circumstances may justify refusing particular arrangements. But ecclesiastical authority is exercised for a purpose, and that purpose includes the spiritual welfare of the faithful. An unexplained refusal of a devotional request may be lawful while remaining pastorally unfortunate. The distinction between possessing jurisdiction and exercising it prudently is indispensable. It applies to the governance of sacred buildings as surely as to the regulation of sacred rites. The faithful may reasonably expect their pastors to consider how administrative decisions are received, particularly when those decisions concern Catholics whose attachment to the inherited liturgy has already become the subject of prolonged controversy.
Cardinal Roche himself supplied a useful principle elsewhere in his October interview. Asked about a Belgian university Mass at which an Islamic chant had been introduced and a layman reportedly delivered the homily, he condemned the adaptations as misguided and contrary to the proper understanding of Eucharistic worship. He objected to making the liturgy conform to contemporary preferences rather than receiving it as the worship of God. His criticism was justified. The Mass is not the property of celebrants, organisers or congregations, available for reconstruction according to their preferences. Yet the principle has implications beyond the abuses of the postconciliar rite. If sacred worship must be received rather than invented, the Church must take seriously the inherited Roman liturgy which preceded the reform. Its texts and ceremonies are the fruit of centuries of ecclesiastical reception and transmission. They deserve more considered treatment than the assumption that subsequent legislation has rendered their continued preservation an exceptional pastoral concern.²
There is an important juridical difference between unauthorised liturgical experimentation and reform lawfully promulgated by competent authority. The former may constitute a direct violation of binding liturgical law, while the latter carries the authority of the legislator. But this distinction cannot decide every theological question concerning the reform itself. It cannot establish that every alteration was necessary, that every omission was prudent, or that the theological language of the inherited rite had become dispensable. Cardinal Roche is entitled to defend the reformed Missal and to uphold the legislation entrusted to his department. A serious defence of that legislation, however, must address the questions raised by its practical consequences. It cannot rest indefinitely upon the assertion that those who cherish the older liturgy have already received sufficient permission and ought therefore to be satisfied.
Mutsaerts also draws attention to the growing attraction of the traditional Mass among younger Catholics. Many of these men and women were born decades after the liturgical reform and have no childhood memory of the older rite. Their attachment is often the result of discovery. They encounter a form of worship whose sacred language, ritual discipline, orientation towards God and profound silences stand apart from the assumptions of contemporary culture. The attraction should not be romanticised. Traditional congregations are not exempt from the ordinary weaknesses of human nature, and the reformed Mass can be celebrated with great reverence and spiritual fruitfulness. Nevertheless, the experience of younger Catholics deserves attention, especially from pastors who have long regarded adaptation to modern culture as indispensable to evangelisation. Some of the faithful are evidently seeking precisely what the prevailing culture seldom offers: a sustained encounter with the transcendent, a disciplined school of prayer and a recognisable continuity with the worship of earlier generations. The Church ought to be interested in what their experience reveals.
The contemporary emphasis upon listening and accompaniment makes the treatment of traditional Catholics particularly difficult to explain. Their spiritual needs cannot be dismissed because they differ from those anticipated by current pastoral programmes. Nor are their opinions exempt from examination or correction. They may be challenged when they err, just as any other Catholics may be challenged. But a Church which repeatedly professes its willingness to listen should not appear strangely impatient when its own children ask for the preservation of inherited worship. There is an irony in an ecclesiastical culture prepared to accommodate an astonishing range of pastoral experiments while asking Catholics attached to the Roman Mass why they remain so reluctant to abandon exclusive attendance at it. The older liturgy is hardly an innovation requiring indulgent toleration. It is the developed worship of the Church whose authorities now regard its preservation as a problem requiring management.
Bishop Mutsaerts concludes by appealing for pastoral magnanimity. His proposal is reasonable: make room for the traditional liturgy where it is sincerely desired, maintain fidelity to ecclesiastical communion and correct abuses wherever they occur. Such an approach would relieve much unnecessary tension. Yet magnanimity, however welcome, cannot provide the final answer. A generous bishop may enlarge access to the traditional Mass; his successor may withdraw it. One pontificate may establish more secure provisions while another restricts them. A congregation may enjoy a flourishing liturgical life for years without knowing whether its children will receive the same inheritance. That uncertainty may be tolerated as a temporary disciplinary circumstance, but it is an inadequate foundation for the long-term transmission of Catholic worship. The future of the inherited Roman liturgy cannot depend entirely upon the personal sympathies of successive administrators.
The experience of Campos demonstrates that more enduring canonical arrangements are possible. Toronto shows how present permissions may be used to encourage Catholics to relinquish exclusive attachment to the older Mass. The correspondence concerning the Rome pilgrimage reveals how readily relations between traditional congregations and ecclesiastical authorities can deteriorate, even where the faithful are seeking permission for acts of prayer and devotion. Mutsaerts has now challenged the assumptions informing this approach from within the episcopate. Taken together, these developments demand an account of the Church’s liturgical inheritance more substantial than the language of accommodation.
Such an account must begin with the nature of ecclesiastical authority itself. Bishops do not create the Catholic Faith, nor does the Roman Pontiff possess the deposit of revelation as something which may be remodelled according to personal judgement. The Church receives what Christ entrusted to the Apostles. Her pastors are charged with preserving, teaching and transmitting that inheritance, exercising genuine jurisdiction for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The liturgy belongs within this supernatural responsibility. Its sacramental substance is of divine institution, while its ecclesiastical forms have developed under the authority of the Church. Those forms may lawfully be revised, but their accumulated history and theological significance impose obligations upon those entrusted with their governance. Custodianship is not proprietorship.
The traditional Roman Mass was never a temporary experiment conducted by the Church before she discovered a more suitable form of worship. It was the developed expression of Catholic faith across centuries, its prayers and ceremonies shaping the spiritual lives of priests, religious and laity. Its calendar ordered the Christian year; its solemnities celebrated the mysteries of redemption; its requiems accompanied the dead; its Divine Office sanctified the hours. The worship of the Church has undoubtedly developed, and legitimate reform remains possible. But historical development cannot be understood as a succession of discarded arrangements whose value expires whenever a new settlement receives official approval. The Church’s continuity requires a deeper account of how received worship is preserved through change.
Those who defend the traditional liturgy have corresponding obligations. Their attachment should produce reverence for the sacraments, fidelity to Catholic doctrine, charity towards other Catholics and respect for legitimate ecclesiastical authority. Bitterness, contempt and the habitual suspicion of every ecclesiastical superior are not fruits of authentic Tradition. The preservation of ceremonial forms is of little spiritual value if those forms cease to nourish the virtues for which they exist. Bishop Schneider’s prayer for the repose of Pope Francis while criticising the restrictions associated with his pontificate offered a particularly instructive example. One may dispute disciplinary decisions without denying the authority of the office from which they proceeded, and one may seek correction without abandoning the obligations of Catholic charity.
But charity also requires truthfulness about what has occurred. Cardinal Roche has not established that exclusive attendance at the traditional Roman Mass, by Catholics who accept the Faith and recognise legitimate ecclesiastical authority, constitutes an offence against communion. The canonical legislation contains no general obligation for such Catholics to attend the reformed Mass periodically. The Church’s own arrangements in Campos demonstrate that permanent attachment to the older liturgy can coexist with recognised ecclesiastical communion. The authorities may impose different disciplinary provisions in different circumstances, but the underlying theological question remains unanswered. Why should the inherited worship of the Roman Church be expected to retreat from ordinary Catholic life when its continued celebration is itself compatible with the profession of the Faith and the recognition of ecclesiastical authority?
The answer cannot consist merely in invoking jurisdiction. Jurisdiction establishes the power to govern; it does not render every decision prudent or proportionate. Nor does it remove the obligation to consider the spiritual needs of the faithful and the Church’s responsibility towards her own inheritance. Those responsibilities extend beyond the Catholics presently attending traditional chapels. They concern future priests, religious communities, families and generations who will know the Roman liturgical tradition only through what their predecessors have been willing to preserve. A Church which allows a substantial part of her liturgical inheritance to survive principally behind exceptional permissions risks leaving those generations with a diminished understanding of their own religious history.
Bishop Mutsaerts has done the Church a service by asking why Catholics attached to the traditional Roman Mass should be treated with a suspicion which is not ordinarily directed towards those preserving other ancient Catholic liturgies. His intervention deserves an answer grounded in ecclesiology, liturgical theology and canon law, rather than another appeal to the supposed ingratitude of traditional Catholics. The question is larger than the treatment of a minority. Even if every traditional congregation enjoyed secure provision tomorrow, the Church would still need to consider how the inheritance preserved within those congregations should be transmitted through her wider life.
A mother may correct her children, regulate their conduct and restrain what is genuinely harmful to the common household. But she should also recognise what she has placed in their hands. The Roman Mass was offered at her altars, preserved in her books, celebrated by her priests and cherished by her saints long before the present controversy arose. Its Catholic character was not created by the traditionalist movement, and its historical sanctity cannot be withdrawn by administrative preference. The Roman Mass is not a guest in its own Church. It belongs to the household. Those entrusted with that household must decide whether they intend merely to permit its survival or to honour their responsibility to hand it on.
The generations who received this inheritance have largely passed from the world. The generations who will inherit what remains are already here. They deserve more than an explanation of why the Church’s ancient worship has become an exception to the ordinary life of the Church which gave it to them.
¹ Paul Schratz, Traditional Mass Exception for Toronto Comes with a Condition, The Catholic Register, October 2026; Nuntiatoria, Toronto: Rome Gave Two Years — Who Ordered the Monthly Restrictions?, 18 September 2026.
² Thomas Edwards, Exclusive Interview: Cardinal Roche to Traditionalists: ‘You Are Edging Yourself Away from the Centre of Catholicism’, AdVaticanum, 13 October 2026.
³ Bishop Rob Mutsaerts, Threatening Like a Bully — Cardinal Roche and the Traditional Roman Liturgy, Rorate Cæli, October 2026.
⁴ Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 December 1963, nn. 3–4.
⁵ Nuntiatoria, The Reform Cannot Be the Rule of Faith, 16 October 2026; Tradition as Concession? Cardinal Roche, Traditionis Custodes, and the Crisis of Liturgical Continuity, 1 April 2026; Permission Without a Future, 31 July 2026.
⁶ Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 21–23, 36, 54, 116.
⁷ Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 20 November 1947, nn. 43–65.
⁸ Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops Accompanying Summorum Pontificum, 7 July 2007; Summorum Pontificum, 7 July 2007.
⁹ Francis, Traditionis Custodes, 16 July 2021, arts. 1–4; Letter to the Bishops Accompanying Traditionis Custodes, 16 July 2021.
¹⁰ Nuntiatoria, Bishop Rifan and the Campos Exception: Rome Can Protect Tradition. Why Does It Restrict It Elsewhere?, 23 October 2026; Congregation for Bishops, Animarum bonum, 18 January 2002, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 94 (2002), 305–308.
¹¹ Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), can. 682; Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), cc. 212–214, 223, can. 1248 §1.
¹² Francis, Misericordia et Misera, 20 November 2016, n. 12; Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Letter Concerning Faculties for Marriages of the Faithful of the Society of Saint Pius X, 27 March 2017; Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), can. 209; Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), cc. 144, 1323–1324.
¹³ Nuntiatoria, Tradition Behind the Fence, 24 October 2026; The Refusal Is Now in Writing, 26 October 2026.
¹⁴ Diane Montagna, Newly Published Letters Refute Vatican Claim That TLM Pilgrimage Failed to Specify Its Request, 28 October 2026; Edgar Beltrán, Vatican: TLM Procession Application Not Specific Enough, The Pillar, 26 October 2026; Nuntiatoria, The Prayer Was in the Letter, 29 October 2026.
¹⁵ Vatican Report, Ad Petri Sedem: FIUV Clarifies the Mass at St Mary Major, 26 October 2026; Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Homily at the Ad Petri Sedem Pilgrimage, Basilica of Saint Mary Major, 24 October 2026.
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