VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A prominent Vatican cardinal said it would be “desirable” for Pope Leo XIV to “open” the door to the traditional Latin Mass that Pope Francis moved to close via his stringent restrictions.
Speaking to Austrian website kath.net, Cardinal Kurt Koch opined on the question of liturgy and on relations between Christians under Pope Leo XIV.
Though admitting he has not spoken to Leo about this question, Koch presented his own thoughts and hopes for the future of the traditional Mass under the new Pope:
Personally, I would appreciate it if we could find a good way forward here. Pope Benedict XVI has shown a helpful way by believing that something that has been practiced for centuries cannot simply be banned. That convinced me.
Pope Francis has chosen a very restrictive path in this regard. It would certainly be desirable to open the now closed door more again.
The late pope famously ushered in sweeping restrictions on the traditional Mass via his July 2021 document Traditionis Custodes that were then bolstered by a series of documents from Cardinal Arthur Roche, the Vatican’s liturgy chief.
Since then, further rumors surfaced last summer suggesting that Francis was ready to implement even harsher restrictions on the Mass, something that never came to pass although the document was reportedly merely waiting for the pope’s approval.
Many prelates and laity have decried the restrictions as unjust and harmful for the Church. Commenting on Traditionis Custodes shortly after its release, Cardinal Raymond Burke called it a “severe and revolutionary action of the Holy Father.”
Most recently, Burke revealed that he has already spoken to Pope Leo XIV about the future of the traditional Mass, hoping that the pope will follow the permissive example of Benedict XVI.
Koch, 75, has served as prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity since 2010 and is a member of the unofficial part of the Vatican Curia seen as more aligned with Pope Benedict XVI. Koch’s long tenure at the dicastery marks him as the longest serving curial head and he has become a mainstay in the Vatican’s ecumenical relations with various bodies.
In the early days of Benedict’s reign, Koch was part of a small group of prelates invited to discuss the wider permission for the traditional Mass with the Vatican Secretary of State and Benedict. The June 2007 meeting included figures such as then-Archbishop Raymond Burke, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and Cardinal Camillo Ruini. It came just days before the July 7, 2007, promulgation of Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum, widening provisions for the traditional Mass.
Koch has more recently confused proponents of the traditional Mass by advocating for a liturgy that amalgamates the Novus Ordo Missae and the old rite of the Mass. Interviewed in 2020, he opined that “in the future there will be a reconciliation of the two forms, so that at some point we will have only one form as a synthesis instead of two different ones.”
Commenting on this at the time, Dr. Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society, called the cardinal’s comments “particularly puzzling, as there are far more than two liturgical forms in the Church.”
Recalling the variety of liturgies in the Catholic Church, such as the many Eastern Rites often forgotten by those solely accustomed to the Novus Ordo, Shaw further warned that “imposing liturgical uniformity on the Church would be an ecumenical disaster.”
For Koch to make such comments now regarding Francis’ handling of the traditional Mass is notable because – albeit in the guarded language of Vatican diplomacy – it highlights the widespread consternation felt by many over Francis’ Latin Mass restrictions, even by those who were not personally attached to the old rite.
Leo’s calmer approach to ecclesial questions has given some hope that the American pope will indeed follow a more permissive approach to the liturgy. However, given his style of avoiding controversy, it seems unlikely that he will be as strident in liberating the traditional Mass as Francis was in restricting it.
As yet, Leo has remained mostly quiet on the question of liturgy. But after laudatory comments he gave for the Eastern liturgy in the earliest days of his reign, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski told LifeSiteNews that the pope “shows that he is sensitive to the language of symbolism and beauty, and especially to the normative value of tradition.”
Anticipation about major appointments or documents from Leo has been steadily building, but such developments are not expected to materialize until autumn.
In the meantime, restrictions on the traditional Mass have continued apace in certain U.S. dioceses but so also have more prelates taken to speaking out in defense of the Mass – thus appearing to force the issue into the wider public eye of the Church once again.
