Cardinal Arthur Roche, head of the Vatican’s liturgy department, has warned against the politicization of debates over different forms of the Mass and has stressed the church’s role as the one that makes and passes on tradition.
When it comes to the Traditional Latin Mass, “you touch this area, and everyone starts screaming. That should tell us something straight away,” Roche said, saying the often “hysterical” reactions to Pope Francis’s decision last year to tighten permissions for celebrating the pre-Vatican II liturgy are concerning.
Speaking to Crux, Roche referred to the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council that introduced the so-called Novus Ordo Mass, saying, “the church has decreed at its highest level of legislation, which is a council, an ecumenical council, it has decreed that the liturgy should be reformed, reformed for the present day so that it actually speaks as a vehicle of evangelization.”