Cardinal Cupich on Traditiones Custodes: Traditional Latin Mass ‘Impoverishes’ the Church

Cardinal Blase Cupich

CV NEWS FEED // In a recent column, the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, insisted that the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass as approved by the late Pope Benedict “impoverishes” the Church.

In his op-ed published last week on the Chicago Catholic, Cardinal Cupich tried to summarize the meeting Pope Francis had on February 6 with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship, of which Cupich is a member.

According to Cupich, the Pontiff  insisted that the purpose of Vatican II was 

to reform the Church in her fundamental dimensions: to make the Christian life of the faithful grow more and more every day; to adapt the institutions subject to change better to the needs of our time; to foster that which can contribute to the union of all believers in Christ; to reinvigorate that which serves to call all to the bosom of the Church. It is a task of spiritual, pastoral, ecumenical and missionary renewal.

“As Pope Francis observed: ‘It is like saying: Without liturgical reform, there is no reform of the Church,’” Cupich wrote.

“Why is the liturgical reform central in bringing about the reform of the church? Because the baptized are formed in and from the liturgy,” wrote the Chicago Cardinal.

“It is in this context that we come to appreciate Pope Francis’ clear teaching offered nearly three years ago,” wrote the Cardinal, insisting that “the liturgical books promulgated by St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the ‘lex orandi’ of the Roman Rite,” quoting Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.

Traditionis Custodes in effect dramatically limited the celebration of the Mass in what is known as the “extraordinary form,” or the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

“Absent our celebration of the reformed liturgy, we risk impoverishing the Christian way of life and the life of the entire church,”  Cupich claimed in his op-ed.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI granted universal authorization for the celebration of the TLM in all dioceses around the world with his Apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum.