EXCLUSIVE: Official Vatican Report Exposes Major Cracks in Foundation of Traditionis Custodes
Previously undisclosed documents raise serious questions about the stated rationale for Pope Francis’ 2021 decree restricting the Traditional Latin Mass.
VATICAN CITY, July 1, 2025 — New evidence has come to light that exposes major cracks in the foundation of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’ 2021 decree that restricted the traditional Roman liturgy.
This journalist has obtained the Vatican’s overall assessment of the consultation of bishops that was said to have “prompted” Pope Francis to revoke Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter liberalizing the vetus ordo, more commonly known as the “Traditional Latin Mass” and sacraments.
The previously undisclosed text, which forms a crucial part of the official report by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on its 2020 consultation of bishops concerning Summorum Pontificum, reveals that “the majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire stated that making legislative changes to Summorum Pontificum would cause more harm than good.”
The overall assessment directly contradicts, therefore, the stated rationale for imposing Traditionis Custodes and raises serious questions about its credibility.
When, on July 16, 2021, Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes, he said the responses to the questionnaire “reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me and persuades me of the need to intervene.”
“Regrettably,” he said in an accompanying letter to the world’s bishops, “the pastoral objective of my Predecessors … has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI … was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”
He told the bishops that he was “constrained” by their “requests” to revoke not only Summorum Pontificum but “all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs” that preceded his new decree.
However, what the Vatican’s overall assessment reveals is that the “gaps”, “divergences”, and “disagreements” stem more from a level of nescience, prejudice and resistance of a minority of bishops to Summorum Pontificum than from any problems originating from adherents to the traditional Roman liturgy.
Conversely, the official CDF report states that “the majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire, and who have generously and intelligently implemented Summorum Pontificum, ultimately express satisfaction with it.” It adds that “in places where the clergy have closely cooperated with the bishop, the situation has become completely pacified.”
The overall assessment, which can be viewed at the end of this article in the original Italian and in an English translation, also confirms the contention I reported in October 2021: That Traditionis Custodes magnified and projected as a major problem what was merely ancillary in the official CDF report…
(All the documents can be found here):
https://dianemontagna.substack.com/p/exclusive-official-vatican-report
