Pope wants traditional Masses in every parish, says Vatican cardinal
By Anna Arco
20 June 2008

Cardinal Castrillon celebrates Mass in the extraordinary form at Westminster Cathedral       Photo: LMS

The Pope wants the traditional Latin Mass offered in every Catholic parish in the world, a Vatican cardinal has said.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told journalists in London that seminarians everywhere should be trained to say Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, also called the Tridentine rite.

Cardinal Castrillon made the comments last Saturday, shortly before he became the first cardinal to celebrate the older High Mass in Westminster Cathedral for 39 years.

When asked by The Catholic Herald if the Pope wanted to see many ordinary parishes making provision for the traditional form, the cardinal said: "All the parishes. Not many - all the parishes, because this is a gift of God. He [the Pope] offers these riches, and it is very important for new generations to know the past of the Church. This kind of worship is so noble, so beautiful - the deepest theologians' way to express our faith.

"The worship, the music, the architecture, the painting, make a whole that is a treasure. The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church."

Cardinal Castrillon, president of the Ecclesia Dei commission, which is responsible for overseeing the application of Summorum Pontificum, the papal decree authorising the universal use of the traditional rite, said it was "absolute ignorance" to think that the Pope was trying to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s by encouraging such worship.

"The Fathers of the Council never celebrated a Mass other than the Gregorian [traditional] one. It [the Novus Ordo] came after the Council," he said. "The Holy Father, who is a theologian and who was in the preparation for the Council, is acting exactly in the way of the Council, offering with freedom the different kinds of celebration."

He added: "The Holy Father is not returning to the past; he is taking a treasure from the past to offer it alongside the rich celebration of the new rite."

He also said that Ecclesia Dei was writing to seminaries to ask that trainee priests are taught to understand the theology, philosophy and language of the Masses.

The cardinal said parishes should teach worshippers to "appreciate the power of the silence, the power of the sacred way in front of God, the deep theology, to discover how and why the priests represents the person of Christ and to pray with the priest".

In Summorum Pontificum, the Pope stated that Tridentine Masses should be made available in every parish where groups of the faithful desire it. He also said any priest could freely celebrate the Mass. He did not require all parishes to establish a Tridentine Mass schedule, but said that where "a group of faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition exists stably" the priest should "willingly accede" to their request to make the Mass available.

Cardinal Castrillon, visiting London at the invitation of the Latin Mass Society (LMS), said that a stable group could mean just three or four people not necessarily from the same parish.

His remarks have inflamed an already intense debate over the reintroduction of a form of worship widely suppressed for almost 40 years. In that time it has been a source of division in the Church. Some Catholics were so outraged that they formed schismatic traditional communities outside the Church. For others, the older Mass summed up all that was wrong with the pre-conciliar Church.

When Pope Benedict liberated the older Mass in July last year, many commentators argued that his main intention was to bring traditionalists back into the fold. But Cardinal Castrillon's comments imply that Benedict XVI wishes the old rite to be celebrated regularly in all churches so that it might enrich the celebration of Novus Ordo Masses and help to eradicate liturgical abuses.

Cardinal Castrillion, speaking to the LMS later, explained the broader practical applications of the Motu Proprio. He emphasised that the document had established a new "juridical reality".

While the re-introduction of the extraordinary from "must be done in harmony with both ecclesiastical law and ecclesiastical superiors" those superiors "must also recognise that these rights are now firmly established by the law of the Church by the Vicar of Christ himself", he said.

Priests and bishops, he said, "must do all that they can to provide this great liturgical treasure of the Church's tradition for the faithful".

The most pressing task, Cardinal Castrillion said, is to help those faithful who wanted Mass celebrated in the extraordinary form to avail themselves of the rights granted by the Motu Proprio "where it is most desired by the faithful and where their 'legitimate aspirations' have not yet been met".

He continued: "On the one hand no priest should be forced to celebrate according to the extraordinary form against his will. On the other hand those priests who do not wish to celebrate according to the 1962 Roman Missal should be generous in meeting the requests of the faithful who desire it."

In a passage clearly directed at bishops, the cardinal said two practical short-term provisions needed to be made. First, there needed to be a "centrally located church, convenient to the greatest number of faithful" where the "parish priest is willing to welcome these faithful from his own and surrounding parishes". Second, that "it is crucial that there be priests willing to celebrate according to the 1962 Roman Missal" in order to "provide this important pastoral service on a weekly Sunday basis".

He said that it was "particularly sad" when priests are "prohibited from celebrating the extraordinary form" as a result of "restrictive legislative measures".

Such measures "run counter to the Holy Father's intentions and thus the universal law of the Church", he said. But the cardinal also asked the LMS to remember that the 1962 Missal was "a living expression of Catholic worship". Therefore the faithful must also expect it to develop.

Citing recent changes to Holy Days of Obligation, Cardinal Castrillon asked the traditionalist faithful not to be opposed "in principle to the necessary adaptation which our Holy Father has called for" and called it a "sacrifice which I ask you to make with joy as a sign of your unity with the Catholic Church in your country".

He did, however, point out that transferred Holy Days could still be celebrated on their actual day, but that the obligation had been moved.

Later that day the cardinal celebrated the first Pontifical High Mass in the extraordinary form in the Cathedral since the 1960s. Some 1,500 people of all ages attended the celebration, including many young families.

None of the English or Welsh bishops attended, but Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor sent a message of welcome which was read out during the Mass. At least 36 priests from around the country sat in the choir.

The cardinal's address to the Latin Mass Society

The cardinal's homily