This is actually a curiosity when you consider that Francis and his followers want to restrict the venerable Latin Mass more and more.
After all, this Mass was the only form of the Roman rite for 1,500 years until Pope Paul VI installed a new Mass in 1969. But is a pope even allowed to do that? Or, to put it another way: is the Pope the master of the Holy Mass?
I would like to answer this question with a clear NO, even if the current “prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith” claims that the Pope can decide whatever he wants. But Cardinal Fernández is known for his quirky views, and especially for the fact that they are often not Catholic. Another curiosity during a pontificate in which the fatal impression is created that the Pope can approve today what was forbidden until yesterday by divine law and Church tradition.
But NO, he cannot.
And in the history of the Church, up to Pope Benedict XVI, no one would have had the absurd idea of claiming the opposite.
But back to the question: Why is the Pope not the master of the Holy Mass? One could answer that because only Jesus Christ is, and that is certainly true. However, although HE instituted the Holy Mass, we know that he did not give it a ritual form. This only developed in the course of the first centuries. The result was the rite of the Latin Mass, the essence of which goes back to the Apostles and the early Church.
In other words, the rite of the Holy Mass was never “made,” not even by St. Pius V, who republished the missal after the Council of Trent in 1570. Instead, this rite has grown historically under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it is only for this reason that it is forever beyond human control – even that of a pope.
No pope would ever have dared to “invent” a new Mass rite or ban the previous one until the unbelievable happened under Paul VI and later under Francis: one actually introduced a new Mass – with disastrous consequences – while the other treated the Latin Mass as if it were “toxic” and imposed nonsensical restrictions and prohibitions on it.
But this is precisely where the limits of papal power are exceeded: The Pope can no more invent a new Mass than he can invent a new Gospel, and Francis can no more ban the old Mass than he can ban one of the books of Holy Scripture!
For this reason, no one has to obey the madness that is currently happening in the Church: No priest can be forced to celebrate Paul VI’s Mass, and no one can be forbidden to celebrate the Latin Mass. Incidentally, Pius V laid down the latter “for all times,” and that also means for ours.
Let me put it this way: only the Latin Mass is the Mass as the Roman Church has known it from its beginnings. In contrast, the Mass of Paul VI is, to put it casually, only a strong dilution that also has Protestant ingredients. Paul VI is said to have regretted its introduction – far too late.
If Francis believes that he can now also impose a highly problematic “Amazonian” rite on the Church, he is following in the dubious tradition of Paul VI, i.e., in the tradition of a pope who was the first to touch the sacrosanct. That hardly makes it any better and certainly does not justify it. On the contrary! A rite for Amazonia with pagan elements would be just another error of the many errors of this pontificate, and it is another outrage against the Holy Mass. Above all, however, it is an indicator of the current decadence of Church leaders, who are increasingly losing sight of their Lord Jesus Christ.
Whoever thinks that they have to adapt the celebration of Christ’s universal sacrifice of salvation to regional or even pagan customs has absolutely no understanding of the Mass, and this applies to a cardinal prefect as much as to a pope. Let us be sure: only what has always been Catholic is Catholic, and this is particularly evident in the Holy Mass. Francis cannot change that.