The reactions to the papal decree “Traditionis custodes” (guardians of tradition) on the de facto ban on the so-called Tridentine mass rite on Friday ranged from decisive rejection to enthusiastic approval over the weekend.

Traditionalist Catholics in the United States were particularly critical of Francis' motu proprio.

Matthias Rüb

Political correspondent for Italy, the Vatican, Albania and Malta based in Rome.

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The Rorate Caeli portal speaks of the “declaration of war by a vengeful Pope and angry Jesuits”.

The influential portal calls out to traditionalist priests and bishops in America and elsewhere to ignore the decree and continue to celebrate mass according to the ancient Latin rite.

"Characterized by hardness"

In Rome, the American cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, former President of the Vatican Supreme Court, expressed his regret that the decree and the accompanying letter from the Pope were "marked by harshness".

Burke also criticized the fact that the decree was put into effect with immediate effect, although it would have required a more detailed analysis to enforce it in practice.

The Freiburg dogmatics professor Helmut Hoping said on Cologne Cathedral Radio that the Pope's claim that the Vatican's survey at bishops' conferences around the world on experiences with the use of the old Mass rite in the dioceses had predominantly yielded negative responses, cannot be checked because the result of the survey has not been published.

Praise for "courageous step"

In Rome, the Franciscan biographer Austen Ivereigh praised the Pope's Friday decree as a “courageous step and prophetic act”. In an article in the Jesuit magazine America, it is said that the participation in the mass in the old rite led many believers to "arrogance and arrogance" towards those who had the mass according to the new rite according to the decisions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) celebrated.

With his decree, Pope Francis severely restricts the use of the “extraordinary rite” and effectively bans mass from the parish churches according to the old ritual. All previous regulations, especially those of his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI, which allowed the use of the new ordinary and old extraordinary rites to coexist, will be repealed with immediate effect with Francis' new decree.