Last month a Vatican investigation into abuse and unauthorised exorcism allegations recommended Christchurch's Catholic bishop Michael Gielen ban the Order from performing Mass in the diocese.

The Vatican recommended that he direct them to move out of the diocese.

The Sons' leaders vow to fight Gielen's decision. They will take their argument to the Church's equivalent of the Supreme Court if necessary.

Leaders deny wrongdoing

The Sons of The Most Holy Redeemer deny any wrongdoing.

Although the Vatican's findings are secret, the consequences are serious for the Order.

The investigation itself - called an apostolic visitation - is a measure rarely taken.

Bishop accused of breaching Canon law

The Sons say Gielen's actions broke Canon law by ordering its professed priests and brothers to leave the diocese. Not all professed members were accused of abuse.

Their canon lawyer has formally presented their petition to Gielen, asking him to revoke his decision.

If that fails they say they will escalate their request to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life - the Dicastery that made the recommendations to Gielen in the first place.

Failing that, they will take their complaint to the Sacred Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which the Sons describe as the Supreme Court of the Catholic Church.

Bishop considering response

A spokesperson for Gielen said that while he could have ignored the Vatican's recommendations, he chose to follow them.

They said Gielen would respond to the Sons' petition in the next few weeks.

The Order is still in the diocese, allegedly celebrating private Masses that "uninvited" members of the public attend.

Gielen gave the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer 90 days (until early October) to leave the diocese.

They may move to another diocese in New Zealand but first need that diocesan bishop's permission.

The Sons say they won't consider that option until legal action has ended.

To depart would mean leaving a community of dedicated supporters - and property with a collective rateable value of $4.5 million.

It is possible the group would refuse to follow Gielen's directive, but The Press says that could trigger further action from the Church.

The Son's community is concerned they might end up being "effectively deported" if no one else takes them in.

Sons' gatherings continue

Meanwhile, the Press reports that there are Sunday gatherings at the Sons' Rutland St property.

A source told The Press there was a Mass last week, but it is unclear if it was the old Latin Rite Mass.

The group's spokesperson said the Sons were cooperating with the Bishop. However, they could not rule out that parishioners were attending Mass there.

He said the Mass at the property was considered private but that, when uninvited people arrived, they were not asked to leave.

The spokesperson said "We're living in a grey area right now".

Source

• The Press
• CathNews NZ

The pope, on February 20, ordered the Dicastery for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (DDWDS) to publish a rescript that says bishops must get Vatican approval before they allow priests in their dioceses to celebrate the Old Latin Mass.

The new rescript and a DDWDS letter to bishops in December 2021 were issued to help clarify and properly implement Traditionis custodes, the "motu proprio" Francis published in July 2021.

That text reversed Summorum Pontificum, a "motu proprio" from 2007 in which Benedict XVI invented the novel idea that there could actually be "two forms of the one Roman Rite" — one called extraordinary (pre-Vatican II) and the other ordinary (post-Vatican II). This theo-linguistical sleight of hand basically allowed for the perpetuation of a rite that had been completely re-ordered and reformed.

Stomping on the authority of local bishops?

When Traditionis custodes came out, traditionalists were furious with the current pope and now they are even angrier with him over the new rescript.

They and certain commentators who continue to look for any opportunity to discredit him have accused Francis of stomping on the rightful authority that local bishops have to regulate the liturgy in their respective dioceses.

Such accusations have no merit whatsoever.

In fact, it was Benedict XVI who took such authority away from the bishops when he issued Summorum Pontificum, which stipulated that a priest required "no permission from the Apostolic See or his own ordinary" to celebrate in the Tridentine Rite.

Moreover, the late pope put the now-defunct Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" in charge of regulating — and, it turned out, "promoting" — use of the Old Rite everywhere throughout the world.

This commission was established in 1988 to facilitate a return of traditionalists who had followed the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre into schism.

Thankfully, Pope Francis disbanded the "Ecclesia Dei" Commission in 2019.

Andrea Grillo, professor at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute at Sant'Anselmo in Rome, went even further to debunk the ideas that Francis had curtailed the authority of local bishops.

He noted that such authority is to regulate the Church's liturgy (ritual) in their territories.

But that ritual is only the current reformed Mass. Traditionis custodes, Grillo explained, abolished the fictitious ritual dualism of the so-called extraordinary and ordinary forms.

"The Council Fathers perceived the urgent need for a reform"

Thus, there is only one rite.

Anything that deviates from that — which is what the Tridentine Mass does — is an exception and that is why it must be approved by the Apostolic See.

Its use should also be rare, as Paul VI (and most bishops at Vatican II) envisioned when the late pope begrudgingly conceded to requests immediately following the liturgical reform that elderly priests be allowed to continue celebrating with the last (1962) edition of the unreformed Roman Rite.

The bishops who attended Vatican Council II voted overwhelmingly in support of the constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, which begins with these words:

This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever-increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. The Council, therefore, sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy (SC, 1).

Cardinal Arthur Roche, the DDWDS prefect, reiterated this in his December 2021 letter to bishops around the world.

"One fact is undeniable," he said.

"The Council Fathers perceived the urgent need for a reform so that the truth of the faith as celebrated might appear ever more in all its beauty, and the People of God might grow in full, active, conscious participation in the liturgical celebration," the cardinal stated, making specific reference to Sacrosanctum Concilium, 14.

Not all the bishops — indeed not all Catholics — were pleased with how the liturgical reform turned out in the end.

But no one could have imagined that 50 years later, a Roman Pontiff would allow a tiny group of people — Catholics with fundamental disagreements over the general thrust of Vatican II and even specific reforms stemming from it — to live in a parallel liturgical (and ecclesiological) universe within the Church, and even allow them to promote its further spread.

Thankfully, another Roman Pontiff has moved to phase out this anomaly completely. Because, pure and simple, it was never the intention of Vatican Council II that it exist in the first place.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

His new apostolic letter, Traditionis Custodes, in which Francis communicates "the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs that precede the present [document] and declare that the liturgical books promulgated by the saintly Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II … constitute the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite" is the ecclesial equivalent of ripping off the Band-aid in one pull.

It was also the only real option.

Four years ago, on the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic letter granting greater access to the Tridentine rite, I noted that it was clear the pope's hopes had not been realized. I wrote:

There are those who have made the extraordinary form the symbol of an ecclesial agenda that certainly runs counter to much of what Vatican II achieved. If you spot a bishop who likes to don the cappa magna, or a seminarian with a biretta, you can bet that they likely are inclined toward a triumphalist view of the church and a more rigid theological stance than the council required.

I also noted that Benedict:

totally failed to perceive the potential for the development of websites with a kind of cult following, sites that are ostensibly devoted to the extraordinary form of the Mass but that also serve as a conduit for a crimped, theologically unsophisticated form of Catholicism, combined with right-wing political agitprop. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf and Church Militant and Rorate Caeli all traffic in this nasty brew.

It turns out that I was not the only one who perceived that the situation had miscarried.

A priest who was close to Benedict told me that when the pope issued Summorum Pontificum, "he never intended to start a movement, still less an ideology!"

But that is what happened.

Francis, in his letter accompanying the new document, issued motu proprio (on his own initiative) on July 16, notes that at the time of the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, he asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to send out a questionnaire to the world's bishops about the implementation of the document.

Having gotten the replies, the pope felt moved to make the decisive step to greatly restrict the celebration of the old rite and to again leave it to the local bishop to decide when and where it may be celebrated.

If you doubt that the pope really understands the nature of the problem, look to Article 4 of the new letter. It states:

"Priests ordained after the publication of the present Motu Proprio, who wish to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962, should submit a formal request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before granting this authorization." Seminarians who are asking older priests to teach them how to say the old rite need to be more focused on improving their bedside manner for hospital visits.

Two passages in Francis' letter to the bishops accompanying the new motu proprio stand forth. The first points to the way some exploited the pastoral solicitude of Benedict and St. Pope John Paul II:

Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my Predecessors, who had intended "to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew," has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.

It is not given to any of us, including popes, to look into the future. Benedict was not wrong to hope that people would accept his gracious indult and not abuse it, but the hope proved wrong. They did abuse it.

The second passage from Francis' letter that stands out for its doctrinal clarity is this

In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors. The distorted use that has been made of this faculty is contrary to the intentions that led to granting the freedom to celebrate the Mass with the Missale Romanum of 1962. Because "liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity," they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church — the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion — affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only "with the body" but also "with the heart" is a condition for salvation.

These words, it seems to me, put the pope's theological finger on the problem exactly: Aficionados of the old rite like to talk about how that rite uniquely conveys the sense that each Mass is a part of the one eternal sacrifice of Christ, and the thanksgiving to which the Eucharist is our response, but then they insist on their right to have a private Mass. Continue reading

• Sean Michael Winters writes for NCRonline