Issued with immediate effect on July 16, Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis custodes (“Guardians of the tradition”) underlined that it is each bishop’s “exclusive competence” to authorize the use of the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese.
In a letter to the world’s bishops explaining his decision, the pope said he felt compelled to act because the use of the 1962 Missal was “often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church.’”
Traditionis custodes made significant changes to Summorum Pontificum, a 2007 apostolic letter acknowledging the right of all priests to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962.
The Mass said using the 1962 Missal is known variously as the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Tridentine Mass, and the Traditional Latin Mass.
Pope John Paul II wrote the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei in 1988, after Lefebvre ordained four bishops without the permission of the Holy See. Lefebvre, who based the SSPX in Écône, Switzerland, was excommunicated along with the four bishops.
Benedict lifted the excommunication of the four illegitimately consecrated bishops in 2009, years after Lefebvre’s death, as part of his attempt to bring the Society back into full unity with the Catholic Church. The SSPX continues to have a canonically irregular status.
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