Pope Leo Delivers on the Latin Mass. "Habemus Papam"
by Gavin Ashenden
Sir Jacob was willing to be ‘frank’ (an apt pun to use when discussing Francis.) “We hold back any criticism of the papacy out of respect to the current holy father, as we must and should,” he said, “but history is another matter. We are allowed indeed we must be honest and frank when we look at history.”
And indeed, Pope Francis is history.
Treating his papacy as history we reflected on how Pope Francis with his attachment to ambiguity, had the ideal gifts for a perhaps a university chaplain. But this was less suited to the office of the pope. The fostering, or perhaps more excruciatingly, the festering of ambiguity was one of the most damaging aspects of the mess he set out to create.
But quite as damaging as the ambiguity was the spirit of revenge he appeared to be driven by, against some unknown infraction in the past, when he set out to decimate the Mass of the Ages. Not only was there no excuse for it, but as Diane Montagna revealed in her scoops in Rome, he fabricated such an excuse by pretending his bishops supported his campaign of restriction, when they did not.
The pain, misery, and rejection endured by the Latin Mass communities has been off the scale. They have seemingly endured it with dignified fortitude, turning their dis-ease into deeper commitment to the liturgy, and their pain into prayer.
But everything depended on what Pope Leo would do about this initiative of his predecessor. It was not just an injustice but a repudiation of what Catholicism is; and the fact that such a repudiation should be at the hands of its foremost pastor and defender added to the scale of the tragedy.
Many of us thought it likely that pope Leo would move slowly and carefully. No good is done to the broken crockery if you move so swiftly that in acting you break some more.
We knew that as the autumn unfolds, so would his strategy. The progressive activists have been trying to infiltrate the new regime and besmirch the reputation of the pope by boxing him into fabricated photo ops to give further energy to their fictitious claims that Pope Leo sympathised with their fractious and schismatic cause.
The lesson for commentators is perhaps don’t pay attention to photo ops. The Left love them and manufacture them all the time; don’t pay any attention to words that the over-committed put in his mouth without hearing them directly from him oneself; do instead watch what he does, and reflect on why he has done it.
And so this morning, the Times of London ran a significant piece headlined “Pope Leo opens the door to Latin Mass and Opus Dei in bid to heal rifts.”
The Catholic world has been on the edge of its seat, on tip toes, holding its breath, suffering palpitations for months now, as hope and despair jostle in response to a variety of media reports.
Would Pope Leo 14th mend the damage done by his predecessor?
Yesterday, I enjoyed a frank, focussed and fearless conversation with Sir Jacob Rees Mogg on a podcast. We came to discuss the papacy. True to form, with manners, protocol and Catholic sensibilities to the fore, Sir Jacob paid his respects to Pope Leo as we reflected on the issues. But then we turned to Pope Francis.
Cardinal Burke has been invited to celebrate the Latin Mass within the Vatican by Pope Leo. The signals this sends out are unmistakeable. But they are two-fold. The first is that Pope Francis’ repudiation of the TLM is to be discontinued. And the second is that the process will be more gradual than swift, but that’s the direction that Pope Leo is taking the Church.
Massimo Faggioli, a theologian at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, said with some degree of diplomatic understatement:
“This looks like a policy reversal by Leo and it will be much more complicated now to make the case for not celebrating the Latin Mass in dioceses.”
For complicated read ‘impossible’.
So why the gradual move?
Almost certainly because Pope Leo is an accomplished diplomat and is setting out to reverse the policies of his predecessor in a way that does minimum damage to the office of the papacy.
It does no good to the respect of the papal office for one pope to set about the task of implementing a new regime by destroying the old one. Politicians do that. It is the strategy of power brokers. Pastors work with more subtlety and less confrontation. The Christian way is one of gracious correction leaving as much dignity intact possible.
Having sent out this signal to the whole church, including all the diocesan bishops and archbishops, Pope Leo is creating a reset.
During the rather brutal dismembering of the Latin Mass community in the diocese of Charlotte, the bishop, one of Pope Francis’ last appointments, was circumspect enough to realise that the new papacy might not back the continued campaign of vilification and abuse that the closing down of the TLM required. He said, “if Rome changes the rules and the policy we will adjust accordingly.” His political antennae were more acutely tuned that his spiritual antennae.
And here is that signal. It could hardly be more explicit. Bishops in their dioceses across the world will see it and understand it. Cardinal Burke is celebrating the Latin Mass in the heart of the Vatican. The direction is set. Catholics can breathe again. They have a pope who will both guard the faith and be a pastor.
Let us pray for the pope.
