Italian liturgist Andrea Grillo, professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm and one of the names most associated with the defense of Traditionis custodes, has responded harshly to the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone. In an article published on the Italian portal SettimanaNews titled «Cordileone: nostalgic and schismatic archbishop?», Grillo maintains that the American prelate employs, «without realizing it», schismatic arguments.
What Cordileone said
The origin of the controversy is the interview Cordileone granted to Tribune Chrétienne, which InfoVaticana reported on last October 10. In it, the archbishop stated that «there was more unity in the Church with Summorum Pontificum» than under the current regime. According to Grillo’s own summary, Cordileone also maintained that young people seek the immutable values of Catholicism and that dialogue with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X should be a way to overcome tensions.
«A schismatic interpretation of unity»
Grillo rejects that reading. In his view, the periodization proposed by Cordileone—liturgical wars, pacification with the indults and with Summorum Pontificum, and a return to conflict with Traditionis custodes—comes from Lefebvre. The liturgist maintains that with Benedict XVI’s motu proprio «Lefebvre’s project is assumed as the rule of the Church» and that the period of greatest conflict was precisely the one from 2007 to 2021.
«It is, in all respects, a schismatic interpretation of unity», Grillo writes, describing Cordileone as «an archbishop who uses, without realizing it, schismatic arguments with a smile on his face». The liturgist also calls the claim of greater unity under Summorum Pontificum «false» and «irresponsible», and defends that the only path to unity is the unica lex orandi of the Novus Ordo established by Traditionis custodes.
A week of high liturgical tension
Grillo’s response comes in a week marked by debate over the traditional liturgy. The Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arthur Roche, stated in an interview that Leo XIV will not change Traditionis custodes nor return to Summorum Pontificum, while Bishop Athanasius Schneider argued in The Catholic Herald that one cannot continue with the Novus Ordo nor with the ambiguities of Vatican II.
The accusations of schism made by Grillo are, in any case, a personal assessment by the author and not a pronouncement by any ecclesiastical authority.