The book published today by the journalist Elise Ann Allen, which includes an interview with Pope Leo XIV, collects a passage in which the Pontiff explains the focus of the study group on the liturgy—centered on inculturation—and announces that he will soon have a meeting to listen to defenders of the Tridentine rite. Below, the complete question and answer as they appear in the interview.
Question:
Regarding the study group on the liturgy, what is being studied? To what extent was the reason for establishing this related to the divisions around the traditional Latin Mass, for example, or to issues like the new Amazonian rite?
Response of Pope Leo XIV:
My understanding of what motivated the creation of the group is mainly from the issues related to the inculturation of the liturgy. That is, how to continue the process that seeks to make the liturgy more meaningful within a different culture, within a specific culture, in a specific place, at a given time. I think that was the main theme. There is another theme, which is also controversial, and on which I have already received several requests and letters: the issue of how people always mention [returning to] the Latin Mass. Well, you can say Mass in Latin right now. If it’s the Vatican II rite, there’s no problem. Obviously, between the Tridentine Mass and the Vatican II Mass, the Mass of Paul VI, I’m not sure where that’s going to go. It’s evidently very complicated.
*I know that part of that problem, unfortunately, has made—again, part of a polarization process—that some use the liturgy as an excuse to promote other issues. It has become a political tool. I think that sometimes the, let’s say, «abuse» of the liturgy of what we call the Vatican II Mass was not helpful for people seeking a deeper experience of prayer, of contact with the mystery of faith, which they seemed to find in the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. Once again, we have polarized, so that [we pose it] instead of being able to say: «Well, if we celebrate the Vatican II liturgy in an appropriate way, do you really find that much difference between this experience and that experience?». *
I have not had the opportunity to really sit down with a group of people who advocate for the Tridentine rite. Soon an opportunity will present itself, and I’m sure there will be occasions to address it. But that is a topic that I think we also, perhaps with synodality, have to sit down and talk about. It has become the kind of topic that is so polarized that people, often, are not willing to listen to each other. I have heard bishops talk to me about it, and they tell me: «We invite them to this and that and they simply don’t want to listen». They don’t even want to talk about it. That is a problem in itself. It means that now we are in ideology, we are no longer in the experience of the communion of the Church. That is one of the topics on the agenda.