NIWA LIMBU
OCT. 8, 2026
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has said the Church experienced greater unity under Summorum Pontificum than under Traditionis Custodes, warning that restrictions on the traditional liturgy risk reopening old wounds
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has said the Church experienced greater unity under Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum than it does under Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes.
In an interview with French Catholic newspaper Tribune Chrétienne on October 8, the Archbishop of San Francisco said the restrictions placed on the traditional liturgy risk repeating wounds caused by the rapid liturgical changes that followed the Second Vatican Council.
“It’s very clear to me that there was more unity in the Church when we were living under Summorum Pontificum than we are now under Traditionis Custodes,” Archbishop Cordileone said.
He recalled the “liturgical wars” that followed the Council, when Catholics were judged and stereotyped according to their liturgical preferences. He said tensions continued into the 1990s before the situation began to “mellow” following the indult permitted under St John Paul II and then the publication of Summorum Pontificum.
Under Pope Benedict’s approach, Archbishop Cordileone said, Catholics attached to traditional worship and those preferring more contemporary forms could coexist peacefully without harsh judgement.
The Archbishop said Pope Benedict recognised that the Church had suffered a “profound wound” through the rupture experienced after the Council, including cases in which rapid and radical liturgical changes had damaged, and sometimes destroyed, Catholics’ faith.
Archbishop Cordileone also explained that Pope Benedict XVI’s proposal to recognise the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite was intended to facilitate what the former Pope called an “internal reconciliation” within the Church’s worship. His Grace said Benedict understood that genuine reconciliation could not be engineered by a committee of scholars drafting a new liturgy, but would have to develop organically through generations of Catholics worshipping according to both forms.
“It has to happen organically,” Archbishop Cordileone said. “Pope Benedict understood that this would take a long time, generations, maybe even centuries, with people worshiping with both forms of the Mass to come to a unified worship in the Church.”
His Grace said Benedict understood that the rapid changes which followed the Second Vatican Council had created a rupture that could not simply be resolved by imposing another reform from above.
“He understood the rupture that had taken place,” Archbishop Cordileone said. “He lived through it. He saw how the faith of Catholics was very seriously challenged, damaged. I’ve heard of cases even destroyed because of very quick, radical changes in the way the liturgy was carried out.”
Archbishop Cordileone warned that Catholics attached to the traditional form of worship had been “stigmatized and marginalized” within the Church, arguing that such treatment risked reopening the wounds Benedict had sought to heal.
“I think that foments division,” His Grace said. “Some people felt alienated from the Church. I fear that that might begin to happen again.”
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