Essay: “The Catholic mass par excellence, the perfect expression of the lex credendi, was now banned precisely because of the reforms promoted by an Ecumenical Council of the Holy Church?”

From Pius XII to Paul VI to Cardinal Roche: The Difference One Word Can Make - Article by Paolo Pasqualucci

The current Catholic hierarchy, starting with the Pope, often refers to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as the basis for the “reforms” it continues to carry out in the constitution of the Church (with synodality), in doctrine (with the ecumenical Declaration of Abu Dhabi), in Christian morality (with unprecedented concessions - liturgical and otherwise - to irregular couples of all kinds) and to justify its constant fight against the ancient rite of the Mass, also known as the “traditional Mass”, whose total disappearance it obviously wishes, so numerous are the restrictions and prohibitions now applied to its celebration.

In fact, Pope Francis' stranglehold on this holy Mass, with the motu proprio Traditionis custodes of July 16, 2021, is justified by invoking “the decrees of the Council”: “The liturgical books promulgated by the holy popes Paul VI and John Paul II, in accordance with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, are the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman rite” (TC art. 1).

As he explained in an interview published on February 24, 2022 in the English Catholic weekly The Tablet (taken up by Jeanne Smits on her blog on February 26, 2022, Le blog de Jeanne Smits : Mgr Arthur Roche sur “Traditionis custodes” : a new interview confirming the change in the “lex credendi”), Cardinal Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery of Divine Worship, said that the motu proprio Traditionis custodes was intended to implement the conciliar constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the liturgy.

The Pope's intention was thus to “bring unity” to the Church, putting an end to the idea that there were not two different Churches with two different liturgies. There were not two different forms (“ordinary” and “extraordinary”) of the same rite, according to the thesis elaborated by Benedict XVI, but two different rites emanating from two different Churches, i.e. two rites expressing two different leges credendi.

This intention made their coexistence impossible. But we must ask ourselves how we could have arrived at such a situation? A situation which implies the prohibition of the ancient Roman rite of Mass, which was celebrated for many centuries by the Popes as a rite whose canon, according to an opinion piously upheld by them, dated back to apostolic times, even to Blessed Peter himself? The Catholic mass par excellence, the perfect expression of the lex credendi, was now banned precisely because of the reforms promoted by an Ecumenical Council of the Holy Church?

It's a paradoxical situation, to say the least, and, on closer inspection, an untenable one, which in itself already explains why Catholicism has been struggling in a frightening crisis since the Council: the basis of the whole liturgical reform operation was precisely the Council itself, which, Cardinal Roche expressly stated, had created a new conception of the Church and therefore a new lex credendi.

Read the rest: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/07/from-pius-xii-to-paul-vi-to-cardinal.html