Cardinal Roche: Traditionalists are ‘quite clamorous’ small minority
March 06, 2025
» Continue to this story on Catholic Herald
CWN Editor's Note: “There is nothing wrong with attending the Mass celebrated with the 1962 missal,” the cardinal said. “What Pope Francis said in Traditionis Custodes is that it is not the norm. For very good reasons, the Church, through conciliar legislation, decided to move away from what had become an overly elaborate form of celebrating the Mass.”
Cardinal Roche went on to claim: “The numbers devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass are, in reality, quite small, but some of the groups are quite clamorous. They are more noticeable because they make their voices heard.” He said that Traditionalists might be surprised to learn that he regularly celebrates the Mass in Latin (usually the Novus Ordo).
Speaking more generally about liturgical matters, Cardinal Roche said that “the biggest challenge I have seen is a deep lack of formation regarding the liturgy in recent years, coupled with a growing tendency for individuals to believe they can worship in whatever manner they choose, rather than within the context of the Church.” Cardinal Arthur Roche, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, downplayed his opposition to the traditional Latin Mass in an interview with the Catholic Herald.
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Posted by: grateful1 -
Mar. 09, 2025 7:47 PM ET USA
I second Feedback's comment. And here I thought Francis had directed the hierarchy (indeed, ALL Catholics) to reach out to "the marginalized" and to "accompany" those on "the peripheries." Surely that definition encompasses faithful Catholics who love the Latin rite, which has been reverently participated in for centuries by most of the canonized saints, none of whom would have dismissed it (as Roche does) of being "an overly elaborate form of celebrating the Mass."
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Posted by: feedback -
Mar. 07, 2025 4:08 AM ET USA
This opinion doesn't exactly ooze of charity when it suggests that the faithful can be ignored in the Church if they are just a 'small minority.' The Cardinal is missing the point entirely: it's not about "overly elaborate form of celebrating the Mass," but it's about proper piety of the Latin Mass where the rubrics don't allow the "growing tendency for individuals to believe they can worship in whatever manner they choose." The Church needs to restrict liturgical abuses, and not the Latin Mass.
