Tridentine Mass every Sunday?

by Michael Shackleton · Published April 3, 2011 · Updated October 9, 2017

The local parish has the Tridentine Mass on three mornings per week in place of the normal Ordo, forcing daily Mass-goers to endure it. It is also celebrated on two Sundays a month in place of the normal Mass. Is this what the Holy Father intended in permitting the old rite? We’re told the local priest would eventually like the Tridentine Mass every Sunday at the normal times. Your comments, please. Rosemary Beukes

In July, 2007 Pope Benedict published his motu propriu Summorum pontificum. Put broadly, his purpose was to bring back to the Church individuals and groups who had felt alienated by the newer liturgy and to place at the Church’s disposal all the treasures of the Latin liturgy that for centuries had nourished the spiritual life of so many.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, then head of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which handles the care of traditionalist Catholics, explained that permitting the older usage is not a matter of going backwards, of returning to the times before the 1970 reform.

The pope had no intention of reinstating the ancient rite. So he distinguished between the two liturgical usages of the same Roman Rite, namely the extraordinary and the ordinary.

The extraordinary is the traditional so-called Tridentine Mass as promulgated by John XXIII (1962). The ordinary is the modern liturgy approved by Paul VI (1970), presented in the spoken language of the faithful, which remains the norm wherever the Roman Rite is used.

Pope Benedict instructed that in Masses celebrated without the people, any priest can use the Tridentine Mass on any day except some days of Holy Week. Faithful who ask to be admitted to such celebrations may attend.

In parishes where a stable group of faithful who adhere to the traditional Mass ask for it to be celebrated, the parish priest should willingly accommodate them. This would include other sacraments, such as baptism and marriage.

In January 2010 the same Commission added that a parish priest may at any time use the ancient rite publicly so that the faithful, young and old, can become familiar with the old rites and benefit from their evident beauty and transcendence.

This means, when the need arises, the parish priest may decide to celebrate public Masses in the extraordinary form even at scheduled Sunday times. He may not habitually replace the ordinary liturgy (1970) with the extraordinary liturgy (1962), because Pope Benedict has made it clear that the extraordinary liturgy is the exception, not the norm.