Vatican document leak reignites Latin Mass debate

The Catholic Herald • July 3, 2025

Documents have emerged, in what appears a leak at the Vatican, which indicate that the majority of Catholic bishops did not support the move by Pope Francis to restrict the Latin Mass.

The texts from the Vatican’s doctrine office were posted online on Tuesday by the Vatican correspondent Diane Montagna, who has followed the Latin Mass dispute since Traditionis Custodes, the apostolic letter issued motu proprio by Pope Francis in 2021 that restricted the celebration of the Tridentine Mass of the Roman Rite. It reversed Pope Benedict XVI’s previous permission for the Latin Mass to be celebrated.

The Associated Press reports that the Vatican’s spokesman and prefect of the doctrine office hadn’t responded when asked on Wednesday, 2 July, to confirm the documents’ authenticity or to make any comments about the development.

The news wire reports that the documents show that the majority of Catholic bishops who responded to a 2020 Vatican survey about the Latin Mass expressed general satisfaction with it, and that they also warned that restricting it would do more harm than good.

The documents, if authentic, could add pressure on Pope Leo XIV to take action on Traditionis Custodes.

Pope Leo, since the start of his pontificate, has spoken about the need for unity and reconciliation in the Church, while many conservatives and traditionalists have pointed to the Latin Mass dispute as an area that requires urgent resolution, notes the AP.

It relates the words of Pope Francis in 2021 regarding Traditionis Custodes, when he stated that he was responding to “the wishes expressed” by bishops around the world who had responded to the Vatican survey, and to the Vatican doctrine office’s own opinion.

“The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene,” Francis wrote at the time, while arguing that Benedict’s permission had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division”.

The documents posted online indicate otherwise, the AP notes. They suggest that the majority of bishops who responded to the Vatican survey had a generally favourable view of Benedict’s reform and warned that suppressing or weakening it would lead traditionalist Catholics to leave the Church and join schismatic groups.

They warned that any change “would seriously damage the life of the Church, as it would recreate the tensions that [Benedict’s reform] had helped to resolve”.

The documents include a five-page “overall assessment” of the survey findings, written by the Vatican’s doctrine office, as well as a seven-page compilation of quotes from individual bishops or bishops’ conferences, the AP reports.

It notes that negative and neutral opinions on the use of the Latin Mass were expressed in the documents, and that some bishops considered Benedict’s reform “inappropriate” and “disturbing” and hence in need of suppression.

But the Vatican’s own assessment noted that the majority of bishops who responded expressed satisfaction, citing the rise in religious vocations in traditionalist communities and how young Catholics in particular were drawn to the “sacredness, seriousness and solemnity of the liturgy”.

The new documents have “comforted traditionalists who felt attacked and abandoned by Francis”, states the AP.

Joseph Shaw, director of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, told the AP in an email: “The new revelations confirms that Pope Francis restricted the Traditional Mass at the request of only a minority of bishops, and against the advice of the dicastery in charge of the subject.

“The majority view of the bishops, that restricting the TLM would cause more harm than good, has sadly been proved correct.”

He added that Leo should address the issue “urgently”.

Photo: Pope Francis attends the weekly general audience in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on 29 December 2021. (Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images.)