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Fans of the Latin Mass are in Rome on their annual pilgrimage at present.
At the conference last Thursday marking the 10th anniversary of Benedict’s decree liberalizing use of the Latin Mass, the meeting organizer, the Rev. Vincenzo Nuara, didn’t even mention Pope Francis in his opening remarks.
Among those at the conference was Cardinal Robert Sarah.
In his address, entitled “Silence and the Primacy of God in the Sacred Liturgy,” he delivered a powerful message of continuity with Benedict’s programme of liturgical renewal, including a prominent role for the ancient Roman liturgy.
The front-row participants at the conference honoring retired Pope Benedict and his 2007 decree included Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leading critic of the current pope whom Francis removed as the Vatican’s supreme court judge in 2014; and Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, recently axed by Francis as the Vatican’s doctrine chief.
Sarah, who was appointed by Francis as head of the Vatican’s liturgy office but has been sidelined by his deputy, was also among those in the front row.
The pilgrims’ attachment to the Latin mass defies Pope Francis’s recent affirmation with “magisterial authority” that the reforms of the 1960s allowing for Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin were “irreversible.”.
His views on the Latin Mass are very different from his predecessor’s. Where Benedict passed a law allowing greater use of the Latin Mass, Francis has the opposite view.
In fact, rather than follow word-for-word the Latin translations, within the past fortnight or so Francis has given local bishops conferences authority to oversee the Latin Mass translations.
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