Cardinal Roche: ‘Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes‘
July 31, 2026
The prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said in an interview that Pope Leo is “not going to change” Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s 2021 apostolic letter restricting the celebration of the extraordinary form of the Mass, nor restore the provisions of Pope Benedict’s 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum.
“Well, let me say, first of all, it’s a very complex area,” said Cardinal Arthur Roche. “And it’s a very important area because the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity: it’s the place where we should all be able to be together to celebrate Mass. So if it begins to divide us, there’s something seriously amiss. But no, Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes, and he’s not going back to Summorum Pontificum.”
Cardinal Roche added:
What Vatican II did was to say that the Church needs to be more missionary than it had been. And that to prepare people to be missionary, the very central core of the life of the Church, which is the Eucharist, has to nourish people in a different way. The abundant diet of Scripture that is now given through the celebration of the Mass and the sacraments is something that wasn’t available to use before, but it is now ...
In fact, when the Mass is being celebrated, because the baptized people are a priestly people, they too are celebrating with the priest.
Reflecting on the criticism he has received, Cardinal Roche asked rhetorically, “Can you honestly say you are Catholic when you write such hateful things about people, and about the Church? No!”
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