Cardinal Sarah: Plans to ‘abolish’ Latin Mass would be ‘diabolical’

Cardinal Robert Sarah has blasted efforts from the Vatican to ‘abolish’ the Traditional Latin Mass, describing the move as a ‘diabolical project’ that breaks with 1,600 years of tradition.

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Michael Haynes, Snr. Vatican Correspondent

MILAN (LifeSiteNews) — Any attempt to “abolish” the traditional Mass would be a “diabolical project” that “seeks to break with the Church of Christ,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah this week.

“In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but not rupture,” noted Sarah at an event Monday.

Drawing from Pope Benedict XVI’s now famous remark, Sarah made it his own, stating that “what was holy for previous generations remains holy and great for us, and cannot suddenly be forbidden or even judged harmful. It is good for all of us to preserve the riches that have grown in the faith and prayer of the Church and to give them their rightful place.”

Sarah – who served as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) from 2014-2021 – expanded his harsh criticism of any attempt to abolish the traditional Mass (Latin Mass) by warning that it would be a rejection of Church history.

He stated:

Hence the plan to definitively abolish the traditional Tridentine Mass, a rite that dates back to St. Gregory the Great, a liturgy that is 1,600 years old, a Mass celebrated by so many saints: St. Padre Pio, St. Philip Neri, St. John Mary Vianney: the Curé of Ars, St Francis. de Sales, St. Josemaria Escrivá, etc. And all the way back to Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) and even to Pope Damasus (366-384).
This project, if it is true, seems to me to be an insult to the history of the Church and to Sacred Tradition, a diabolical project that seeks to break with the Church of Christ, the apostles and the saints.

The cardinal’s comments came at a book launch held in Milan by Italian Catholic media outlet La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana. Addressing the conference, Sarah did not limit himself to the theme of his book, Does God exist?, but dealt with a wide-ranging field of subjects relating to the Catholic Church and spirituality.

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