Here’s Why They Are Taking Away Your Traditional Latin Mass

The past week has been buzzing with rumors to the effect that Leo XIV has instructed the Dicastery for Divine Worship to issue “extensions” on the TLM whenever bishops ask for them. In this way, as Kevin Tierney explains, he has begun the practical repeal of Traditionis Custodes, however long its actual replacement with a better policy will take.

And yet… even if the rumor is true (the nuncio to Great Britain has affirmed it with a classic non-denial), it still means that the fate of the TLM is left entirely to the local bishop; legally the situation remains worse than it did under John Paul II’s 1988 indult. Nothing prevents anti-TLM bishops from continuing to shut it down, as we have seen most recently in Detroit, Charlotte, and Knoxville (to name only the most notorious). Worst of all, the vicious lies and theological errors underlying Traditionis Custodes—a document whose claims entail what a French author refers to as “latent schism”—remain official and operative.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

Very often people will ask, as I myself asked for years: “Why in the world would the Church’s leaders persecute some of the most faithful Catholics—those who form the TLM communities?”

The answer is not an agreeable one, but sometimes we must take bitter medicine in order to get well. Truth can be the bitterest of medicines. And of all the sicknesses in the Church, denial of reality is one of the most widespread and most unacknowledged. When this sickness is not diagnosed, the sufferer cannot take the steps he needs to take in regard to spiritual diet and exercise. ---More...