Letter to Bishops on Traditionis Custodes

1. Paragraph beginning “Most people understand”The faculty granted by the 1984 indult and confirmed in 1988 “was above all motivated by the desire to foster the healing of the schism” with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre.
2. Paragraph beginning “With the passage of thirteen years”After a questionnaire to the bishops, Francis writes that “the responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me”, and that this persuades him of the need to intervene.
3. Paragraph beginning “At the same time, I am saddened”He says that the use of the 1962 Missal is often linked to a rejection of the Council, and that “to doubt the Council is to doubt the intentions of those very Fathers”.
4. Paragraph beginning “Responding to your requests”He takes “the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs” that precede the motu proprio, and the books of Paul VI and John Paul II are “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite”.
5. Paragraph beginning “While, in the exercise of my ministry”It is for the bishops to authorize the 1962 Missal in their dioceses, and to “determine case by case the reality of the groups which celebrate with this Missale Romanum”.

The letter does not itself change the law: it gives the reasons for the motu proprio of the same date and describes the bishops’ role under it. It states that Francis is abrogating the earlier norms and permissions, asks that new personal parishes no longer be erected “tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need”, and asks that seminarians be “formed in the faithful observance of the prescriptions of the Missal and liturgical books”.

• What people say: The letter bans the 1962 Missal.

  What the text says: The letter says: “It is up to you to authorize in your Churches, as local Ordinaries, the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962”, applying the norms of the motu proprio. Paragraph beginning “While, in the exercise of my ministry”

• What people say: The letter says everyone who uses the 1962 Missal rejects the Council.

  What the text says: It says that the instrumental use of the 1962 Missal “is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself”. The word is “often”. Paragraph beginning “But I am nonetheless saddened”

• What people say: The letter sets no end to the use of the older Missal.

  What the text says: The letter says that those who are rooted in the previous form “need to return in due time to the Roman Rite promulgated by Saints Paul VI and John Paul II”, and it asks bishops to decide case by case. Paragraph beginning “Indications about how to proceed”

• “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”

  Paragraph beginning “Responding to your requests”

• “It is up to you to authorize in your Churches, as local Ordinaries, the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962”

  Paragraph beginning “While, in the exercise of my ministry”

• “to determine case by case the reality of the groups which celebrate with this Missale Romanum”

  Paragraph beginning “While, in the exercise of my ministry”