Beauty, truth, and unity: Why Pope Francis is so concerned with the liturgy

Pope Francis, on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, issued a letter to Catholics on the liturgy and the celebration of the Mass.

The letter was published just before the July 16 anniversary of his controversial motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which introduced new rules restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

In Desiderio Desideravi, Pope Francis did not change Church law, but said he wanted “to invite the whole Church to rediscover, to safeguard, and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration.”

“I want,” he wrote, “the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the Church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue.”

Why is this topic so important to Pope Francis? In a word, because he is concerned about unity, a liturgy expert said.

The pope is the guardian of unity in the Church, something which is threatened by liturgical in-fighting, Father Dominik Jurczak, a Dominican and expert in sacred liturgy, told CNA.

Jurczak is a lecturer at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Liturgy, “the Anselmianum,” and at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, “the Angelicum,” in Rome. He is also chairman of the International Liturgical Commission of the Dominican Order.