The Traditional Mass – the Standard of Freedom.

Paix Liturgique, Letter 746 (May 19, 2020)

(The decision by the highest French court of appeal in administrative law lifting restrictions on the celebration of Mass that had been imposed because of the coronavirus) prompts Paix Liturgique to make a few reflections:

It is because the faithful of the “extraordinary form” liturgy have requested it that the bishops of France, like Msgr. Aupetit, archbishop of Paris and Msgr. de Moulins Beaufort, president of the episcopal conference, will enjoy earlier than anticipated the right to celebrate Mass in the midst of their people. So it is: the initiative didn’t come from the bishops, or even from the “ordinary-form” Catholic associations, but from Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass – and also from that “bad boy” Jean-Frédéric Poisson. 1) In doing so, these Catholics never lost sight of the fact that they were not asking for “permission,” but were simply utilizing the procedural rules in force in France to loosen the vice-like grip of an illegitimate secular legislation

In asserting the freedom of the Mass, these Catholics of the Traditional Mass had been long used to a struggle that has continued for more than 50 years. De facto prohibited after the promulgation of the liturgical reform which followed the Second Vatican Council, the Tridentine Mass continued despite everything. It was celebrated by a substantial number of priests, which was subsequently multiplied because of the work of Msgr. Lefebvre and of the “recognition” which it was finally accorded by the Roman authorities. These Catholics have defended the freedom of that Mass with their feet (and frequently, with their cars, by driving many kilometers to attend it)and have paid with their person and their own money to defend the priests who celebrated it.  All this without any “disobedience” but, on the contrary, in total submission to the obligation on every Catholic  to confess one’s faith. A faith which, from the point of view of the liturgy, is expressed by the true religious Credo which is the Traditional Mass – in contrast to the new Mass which seriously blurs the expression of the sacramental sacrifice, of eucharistic adoration, of divine transcendence and of the sacerdotal hierarchy.

In the present circumstances of an eclipse of divine worship which will have lasted more than two months, a certain number of priests saw to it that the sacraments were still administered and the Mass said, under conditions the media called “clandestine.” These priests are in the majority “Traditionalist” priests, but also priests of parishes which are predominantly strongly “classic” and close to the Traditionalist world. They did this at the request and with the support of the faithful who regularly attend the Tridentine Mass. Very modestly, that can be explained by the strong theological understanding of the holy sacrifice of the Mass instilled in them by the liturgy which they practiced and which they knew so well.

The consequences of the health crisis will assuredly be most painful for the Church, especially in France. Such a resignation from their duties by the majority of the pastors, such an abandonment of the faithful involving the most precious good of all, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, cannot have anything but disastrous consequences. Much worse than the terrible economic and social crisis, which is brewing,  is the aggravated religious crisis which we are going to enter. Religion, especially in France, but also in Italy, Germany, and in many other places, will be even more marginalized. What is even more terrible, she has voluntarily accepted to let herself be marginalized. Let’s not at all pretend that the Traditional Mass is going to “pull the chestnuts out of the fire”; but we think that it’s possible that it will play even more a role as the last resort for a Catholicism in accelerated decomposition. The living expression of the centuries-old faith of the Church, it is in particular able to express that the religion of Christ is called to be that of the whole society. It is, in itself, and, one must hope, in the convictions of those who are attached to it, totally the opposite of a marginal and “locked down” act. It is destined to be, it wants to be, the celebration by Christ the King of the worship offered individually and in a body by the members of the terrestrial city on the road towards the celestial one.

Paix Liturgique (Thanks also to Le Forum Catholique)

Translated by Stuart Chessman

1. Jean-Frédéric Poisson is a Christian French politician whose “offenses” include speaking out once in favor of Donald Trump.