Pope Francis and Pope Benedict

“Father Spadaro also asked the pope in the interview about the need of some of the faithful to return to the Latin language and the old form of the liturgy. “Pope Benedict made a correct and generous gesture by accommodating a certain mentality of different groups and individuals, who were nostalgic and who had wandered away.” So spoke Pope Francis about the Vatican’s rapprochement withe Fraternity of St. Pius X. during the prior pontificate. “But that is an exception. For that reason we speak of the ‘Extraordinary’ form of the rite. It is not the ‘ordinary’ form.” one must implement the Second Vatican Council and the constitution on the liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium according to their sense. In the past it was especially the prefect of the congregation of the Liturgy, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who proposed a ‘Reform of the Reform” and therefore also the reintroduction of a common orientation of all the faithful in prayer as it was before the Council. Addressing this in the interview with Fr. Spadaro, the pope put it this way:”to speak of a Reform of the Reform is an error.”

SOURCE

(My Translation) This is a summary, in the German language Vatican Radio, of an interview of Pope Francis with Fr. Spadaro SJ. The new interview is contained in a book collecting the sermons of Bergoglio as a bishop in Argentina. At the rollout of the book in Rome today Archbishop Cupich of course was present. The writer of the above paragraph, Pope Francis and Fr. Spadaro combine here to make a perhaps record number of factual errors, derogatory insinuations and false juxtapositions in a single paragraph. But Bergoglio’s attitude towards both Traditionalists and liturgical “conservatives” is abundantly clear!

La Croix provides more details of the same interview:

(Pope Francis) “I try to understand what is behind those who are too young to have lived the pre-conciliar liturgy yet who nevertheless want it.” “At times I find myself facing very rigid people, facing an attitude of rigidity. And I ask myself: why so much rigidity?” he continued, indicating that such rigidity hides “always something: insecurity or even something else.”….. For Pope Francis, “Rigid traditionalism isn’t good.”

(My Translation)

But what are we to make of this passage – also very recent:

“(Seewald) The reintroduction of the old mass is frequently interpreted as an accommodation to the Fraternity of Pius X.

(Pope Benedict) That is just utterly untrue! It was important for me that the Church itself would be spiritually at one with her own past. That that which previously was sacred, is not now false. ….As I said, my intention was not tactical in nature but concerned the substance of the matter itself.”

(my Translation) Benedict XVI (with Peter Seewald). Letzte Gespraeche at 231-32 (Droemer Verlag, Munich 2016)