Traditionis custodes: Vatican further tightens restrictions on Traditional Latin Mass

The Vatican issued Saturday further strict guidelines on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, in response to questions about the motu proprio Traditionis custodes.

The explanatory document, which bans confirmations and ordinations according to pre-Vatican II Roman Missals, was published Dec. 18 with Pope Francis’ approval, the Vatican’s liturgy office said.

Traditionis custodes is a July 16 motu proprio in which Pope Francis placed sweeping restrictions on the celebration of Mass using the 1962 Roman Missal, known variously as the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, the Tridentine Mass, and the Traditional Latin Mass.

His predecessor Benedict XVI had issued a 2007 apostolic letter called Summorum Pontificum, which acknowledged the right of all priests to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962, which is in Latin.

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Vatican office responsible for matters related to the sacred liturgy, said it had received “several requests for clarification” on the correct application of Traditionis custodes.

The congregation published Dec. 18 a “responsa ad dubia” (“answers to doubts”), with one-word replies — either “negative” or “afffirmative” — to 11 specific questions, followed by brief explanations.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the liturgy congregation, also wrote a letter to the presidents of bishops’ conferences, in which he said that the primary aim of the new restrictions was to foster ecclesial communion.

Ecclesial communion, he said, is expressed by recognizing that the liturgical books promulgated in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council are “the unique expression” of the prayer of the Roman Rite.

“This is the direction in which we wish to move, and this is the meaning of the responses we publish here,” Roche said.

In one of the responses, the Divine Worship congregation said that according to Traditionis custodes, sacraments cannot be celebrated using the Rituale Romanum and the Pontificale Romanum, liturgical books promulgated prior to the Vatican II reforms.

The Pontificale Romanum contains the rites and ceremonies usually performed by bishops and the Rituale Romanum is one of the official ritual books used by a priest or deacon for rites not found in the Roman Missal, which is used for Mass.

The Vatican congregation clarified that a diocesan bishop can authorize the use of the 1952 edition of the Rituale Romanum, but not the Pontificale Romanum, “only to those canonically erected personal parishes which, according to the provisions of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, celebrate using the Missale Romanum [Roman Missal] of 1962.”