Pope Francis plans to restrict priests from celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass, according to the Italian website MessainLatino.
In a story about French priests facing expulsion from an archdiocese due to their refusal to concelebrate Mass, National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin reported Pope Francis aimed to limit the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form, aka the Traditional Latin Mass.
MessainLatino reported May 25 the Pope announced the upcoming decree, or motu proprio, during a closed-door session of the 74th general assembly of the Italian bishops' conference in Rome.
Francis told the bishops the new document would change Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, which made Traditional Latin Mass widely available.
The Register said Francis claimed Benedict's letter was meant only to meet the needs of the Society of St. Pius X, which severed its ties with Rome because of the Second Vatican Council.
Archbishop Roland Minnerath of Dijon, France, referenced an upcoming decree when he informed followers of his plans to expel the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) from the Basilica of Fontaine-lès-Dijon at the end of the summer.
"You will have a new motu proprio in the coming days or weeks," Minnerath was filmed telling a group of faithful who were protesting against the archbishop’s decision outside archdiocesan offices on June 26.
The Register said priests of the FSSP, founded as a society of apostolic life in 1988, celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, which had been celebrated universally until the 1970 liturgical reforms of Pope Paul VI.
Rev. Roch Perrel, the FSSP's superior in Dijon, told CNA that Minnerath made the decision to expel the order because FSSP’s priests fail to follow the practice promoted at the Second Vatican Council of two or more priests concelebrating at the altar.
"[Archbishop Minnerath] wanted to concelebrate the Chrism Mass during Holy Week, but we haven’t done it for years, as we have reservations about the new [Paul VI] Mass and we don’t celebrate at the same pace," Perrel said.
"The archbishop had first accepted [their refusal], although he didn’t like it, but now he is kicking us out for this motive, and in this sense, he is abusing his authority."
Perrel added that, according to Canon 902 of the Code of Canon Law, no one can be forced to concelebrate.
The archdiocese's media office recently told the Register that diocesan priests replacing the FSSP would be asked to celebrate both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Mass to allow "a permanent exchange between people of both rites."
The Register said an informed diocesan source noted Minnerath privately had been mentioning the new motu proprio for some time, and added the archbishop wouldn't speak so clearly about the decree if he wasn’t so sure of its contents.
Pentin wrote that the push toward mandating concelebration in the Church has been seen recently at the Vatican, where the Secretariat of State issued a directive suppressing individually celebrated Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica, drastically reducing the number of morning Masses.
Following an outcry by priests and laity, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of the basilica, loosened those rules but stressed that concelebrated Masses would now be the norm in the basilica, according to CNA.
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