Speaking to the internet portal "Lifesitenews", which is critical of the Pope, the Vatican's chief diplomat rejected rumours on Tuesday that he had been involved in an even more restrictive document on limiting the Traditional Latin Mass.
These were completely unfounded.
"I can only be sad that false news is being circulated, but my protection is the Lord," Parolin wrote in his response to the portal.
Rumours were already circulating in traditionalist circles in June that Parolin was working together with Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Nuncio in France, and Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, on a new document with further restrictions on the celebration of the liturgy according to the books in force in 1962.
However, there was no conclusive evidence for this.
In this context, American American cultural workers and British celebrities appealed to Pope Francis to reconsider further, even stricter restrictions, as the traditional Latin mass form is not about an escape from modernity, but about the inspiration that artists draw from the liturgy for new works.
High-ranking representatives of the Vatican described these rumours shortly afterwards in the French newspaper "La Croix" as "gossip" and "completely unfounded".
Vatican has contributed to speculation
However, various decisions and statements from the Vatican have contributed to speculation about such a document.
Firstly, at the beginning of August the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass at the end of a pilgrimage in Spain was was banned. Then it became known that a traditionalist community in France had banned its seminarians not be allowed to ordain its seminarians for the time being because the Vatican feared that the newly ordained would later no longer be able to celebrate the pre-conciliar liturgy as stipulated in the statutes of their order.
Pope Francis had already announced this in 2021 with the motu proprio "Traditiones custodes"
Pope Francis had already reversed his predecessor Benedict XVI's liberalisation of the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass.
In doing so, the head of the Church new and, above all, stricter conditions which were subsequently tightened by the responsible liturgical dicastery.