Timeline: Leo XIV and the Latin Mass

During a 25–28 September visit to France that took him to Paris, Lourdes and Metz, Leo XIV pressed for unity and dialogue with France's traditionalist Catholics, many of them attached to the older Latin liturgy, Religion News Service reported. The Vatican estimated about 800,000 people at his open-air Mass in Paris, according to Al Jazeera.

At Vespers with French clergy and religious in Notre-Dame Cathedral on the first day of his visit to France, Leo XIV urged that the liturgy be celebrated "with dignity and decorum" (InfoVaticana's rendering) and asked his listeners to place communion with the Successor of Peter and with the Church above personal preferences for the sake of unity. LifeSiteNews suggested the passage could be read as a reference to the SSPX and the traditional Latin Mass; an UnHerd column later argued that Leo treats the old rite as a personal preference rather than a source of renewal.

The letter, dated 29 June 2026 and sent for a conference at Mount Angel Abbey, Oregon (14–19 August), urged those preparing liturgies, especially priests, to respect the rites promulgated by Paul VI and John Paul II. Commentators linked it to Cardinal Roche's July interview.

In an interview published by The Tablet on 29 July, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship was widely reported as saying Leo XIV would not change Traditionis custodes or return to Summorum Pontificum. Traditionalist outlets responded critically.

On the eve of the ceremony, Leo XIV appealed to the Society to turn back, warning that the consecrations would deprive its faithful of the licit, and in some cases even valid, reception of the sacraments. In the letter, dated 29 June and addressed to superior general Davide Pagliarani, he wrote that "to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity"; Pagliarani replied within hours asking for time for discernment.

Pope Leo XIV met privately with sociologists Stephen Cranney and Stephen Bullivant, authors of a forthcoming Oxford University Press study of U.S. Latin Mass Catholics. The Holy See confirmed the audience without describing its content.

In a message signed on his behalf by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and sent to the French bishops' spring plenary assembly in Lourdes, Leo XIV asked them to seek concrete solutions to include Catholics attached to the traditional Latin Mass generously while preserving communion. The Catholic Herald read it as a signal of openness rather than a formal change in the law.

Pope Leo XIV received the superior general of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in a private audience at the Fraternity's request, during the apostolic visitation begun in 2024; the Fraternity called the meeting cordial.

Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, told the bishops of England and Wales on 13 November that Leo XIV would not repeal Francis's limits on celebrating the traditional Latin Mass, but would grant renewable two-year dispensations to bishops who request them, according to Catholic News Service's report of the leaked remarks.

Leo XIV personally granted Cardinal Raymond Burke permission to celebrate Mass in the older form in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Altar of the Chair, for the annual Ad Petri Sedem (Summorum Pontificum) pilgrimage on 25 October 2025.

The Holy See confirmed the audience without describing its content. Christian Marquant of Paix Liturgique later said Burke used it to deliver a letter from some 70 traditionalist groups asking for a traditional Mass in St. Peter's; Leo gave permission, and Burke celebrated it there on 25 October.

On 8 May 2025, the second day of a conclave of 133 cardinal electors, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected on the fourth ballot and took the name Leo XIV. Born in Chicago in 1955, an Augustinian who spent years as a missionary in Peru and had led the Dicastery for Bishops since 2023, he became the first pope from the United States.

The motu proprio declared the reformed liturgical books "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite", made the 1962 Missal subject to the diocesan bishop's authorisation, barred new groups, and abrogated earlier norms not in conformity. Francis's accompanying letter cited a 2020 consultation of bishops.