The Pope has invited an opponent of his predecessor to celebrate mass in St Peter’s basilica next month as he tries to repair rifts in the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American, will preside over the traditional Latin mass, which Pope Francis restricted in the belief it was a magnet for traditionalist Catholics who opposed his liberal stance on gay people, divorcees and migrants.
“This is the first concrete indication of the attitude of Pope Leo XIV to the traditional mass and we are ecstatic to be welcomed into the most prestigious church in the world,” said Joseph Shaw, who heads FIUV, an association that promotes the Latin mass.
Pope Leo XIV in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican
ALESSIA GIULIANI/CATHOLIC PRESS PHOTO/SPLASH
Burke, 77, has championed the mass during which the priest speaks in Latin and faces the altar. It was largely replaced in the 1960s, after the Second Vatican Council, by the vernacular mass in which the priest faces the congregation. The Latin mass has remained a favourite of traditionalists and became a rallying cry for opponents of Francis after he restricted its use in 2021 and banned it from St Peter’s. He removed Burke from two key Vatican posts and criticised his anti-vaccine views.
Leo has taken steps since his election in May to bring liberals and conservatives together, including giving Burke an audience at the Vatican last month. Massimo Faggioli, a theologian at the Loyola Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, said: “This looks like a policy reversal by Leo and it will be much more complicated now to make the case for not celebrating the Latin mass in dioceses.”
Burke, left, with Cardinal George Pell in St. Peter’s basilica
AP PHOTO/GREGORIO BORGIA
Shaw said: “It has been brutal but now I am confident that things like the crazy ban on advertising Latin masses in parish newsletters will be abolished or not enforced.” Adherents of the Latin mass are a small minority in the Catholic Church but tend to attend mass every week, Shaw said. In the US, about 600 churches celebrate the mass.
Leo has also given an audience to a campaigner for the inclusion of gay Catholics in the Church, indicating he wants to mediate between the liberal and conservative wings of the Church. His efforts to reconcile with conservative Catholics have, however, caused controversy in Spain.
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Francis had stripped Opus Dei, the Catholic organisation that includes lay and clerical members, of the management of its shrine in Torreciudad, which generates more than €1 million a year. A local bishop, Ángel Pérez, who opposed Opus Dei, has failed to secure an audience with Leo while the new pope has received Fernando Ocáriz, leader of Opus Dei, El Pais reported.
On Monday Pérez threatened to resign if he is forced to accept a deal presented by a Vatican mediator that the bishop claims favours Opus Dei.