TLM Restrictions and Reality
Summorum Pontificum worked in practice. Did it work in theory?
When Pope Francis issued Traditionis custodes in 2021, he felt compelled to act because he sensed, in his own words, a threat to the unity of the Church presented by the Latin Mass. This threat caused him to abrogate the law of his predecessor regarding the basis on how priests could celebrate the Latin Mass. The difficulties Francis has faced since then are well known. Implementation of his will has been spotty at best, with malicious compliance being far more common than enthusiastic support. While theological debates dominate the question of the Latin Mass, I think it is best to analyze the failure of TC from different grounds: that of the failure of the Pope to deal with reality.
When somebody brings reality into a debate, it is normally from the assumption that “reality” is just whatever they happen to believe. I want to avoid that here. Instead, I think reality is a world which allows a variety of conclusions, but those conclusions are based on defensible assumptions about the world in which we live. To give an example, right now the presidential election in the United States between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris can be described as a tossup. You can make a realistic case for either winning the presidency. What you cannot say is that reality points towards a Jill Stein (the Green Party candidate) being president. As of this writing, there is no way you can make an argument they could win 270 electoral votes. (Nor is she trying to win 270 electoral votes.) When we talk in this piece about “reality” we aren’t saying whether something is true or false, but rather how reasonable this assumption is. That assumption will be that the way the Church in 2021 faced a crisis of unity that required the de facto abolition of the Latin Mass. (The accompanying letter to bishops said that only with one expression of the Roman Rite could this crisis of unity be averted.)
The first question determining reality is who or what determines that reality. In our political discussion above, the US President is decided by the electoral college, so any discussion regarding a realistic shot at being President is going to be determined by looking at polls of various states, and drawing inferences from how those states will look based on national polling. When it comes to matters of ecclesial unity, how is such a crisis best determined? I would submit (and TC agrees) that this judgement comes from the assessment of the local bishop. Writers such as Michael Lofton and Andrew Likoudis state that since the Pope has determined such a crisis exists, one must “assent” to such a crisis existing. Is this how Catholicism works? I am skeptical. The Pope has supreme and immediate jurisdiction over matters of Church law and governance, but his powers of assessment are subject to the same limitations as any powerful man, and can be wrong.
How many bishops have said the situation the Pope describes existed in their diocese? On the contrary, individuals like Cardinal Nichols in the United Kingdom went to great lengths to point out that, even though he was complying with portions of the decree (dispensing the rest), he had made clear the description the Holy Father offered didn’t exist in his diocese. While you can find those bishops who have publicly defended the decree, none of them offer any concrete examples of where this situation existed in the Churches they govern. Some could say this is a matter of “protecting the reputation” of individuals and parishes. Yet it could just as easily be because none exist. They weren’t lacking tools before with Summorum Pontificum for problematic parishes.
If the first reason for TC is dubious (a grave threat to Church unity existing on the ground), the second is even more dubious. That proposition is Summorum Pontificum was unworkable on the ground level. This proposition stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Traditional Latin Mass was celebrated from 2006-2021. While you had parishes which were dedicated solely to the TLM and its structures, most parishes were “dual use”, in which the Novus Ordo and TLM were celebrated in the same parish. This was the overwhelming preference in the United States (where over 700 such regular masses regularly occurred), and the common occurrence in Europe. This makes sense as the stated goal of Summorum Pontificum at its promulgation was that of “mutual enrichment” of the two liturgical celebrations. In these parishes peace was the order of the day. While parishes dedicated to the TLM might be accused of being siloed from the diocese, this was often only because for most Catholics (even in today’s fragmented age), the parish is how you experience the diocese. To the extent Summorum Pontificum didn’t “work” it was often because mutual enrichment was abandoned, with bishops wanting to force those attached to the TLM to adopt arbitrary positions to satisfy the arbitrary demands of prelates. For example, I do not see how forcing someone to concelebrate will prove he accepts Vatican II, but it will likely make him far less trusting and familial towards his bishop or the episcopacy as an institution.
What happens when you try to impose a situation reality doesn’t call for? If there is no order to obey, people will just ignore it. Even with an order, you will encounter resistance, with some deciding they will force the hand of the lawgiver. Others will comply, but only to the minimum they are required to, and nothing more. Others will comply, but find creative ways to reinterpret that decree, and wait for higher authorities to explicitly tell them otherwise. One could see this as far back as Diocletians persecution of Christians back in the 4th century, a policy that was virtually non-existent in the West under Constantius (the father of Constantine) despite being official Roman law. One can see this in any culture where there is an imperial system of rule. The sovereign has near limitless authority on paper, sharply limited authority in practice.
If Rome ever wants to institute further restrictions (and I believe they still very much want to), they will need to do what they failed to do last time. Indeed, I think this accounting is a major reason the rumored document remains just a rumored document and not Church law, Rome is at least a little more sensitive to failure post Fiducia supplicans. There is a world in which Traditionis custodes makes sense as a pragmatic and necessary action. Unfortunately for Rome, that world is mostly the world of academia and theorycrafting. Meanwhile, Summorum Pontificum worked in reality, even if it didn’t work in theory. Faced with the tension of reality and theory, those concerned with governance will normally choose reality. Hopefully Rome will do the same.
I don’t understand the way you divide reality from theory. In particular you say “SP worked in reality even if it did not work in theory.”
Economists who argue for free markets are faced with the criticism that free markets work well according to theory but not in practice (reality?). Likewise free market economists argue that a socialist system might sound good in theory, but does not work in practice. (Actually both systems in theory try to achieve the same allocation of resources.). So many things, work in theory but not in practice. If it does work in theory I doubt it can work in practice.
Make the NO the only way we can celebrate the mass, then the issue becomes a matter of form than of substance. For it to be the main reason for glibalizing NO mass is rather shallow and imperious, simply because one can do.