Pope Leo Returns From Summer Vacation to Emerging Crisis Over Role of ‘Unstoppable’ Latin Mass and Threats of Further Schism

The declaration by the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, last week that the Traditional Latin Mass is “unstoppable” puts in sharp relief an emerging crisis in Pope Leo XIV’s reign that is transpiring over sacred liturgical bedrock. Archbishop Cordileone, who supports the Latin Mass, warns that if the Vatican does not legitimize the yearning for the older Mass, then its adherents “will then go to these other groups that are not in full communion with the See of Rome” — such as the schismatic Society of St. Pius X. The SSPX is the arch-conservative group that was excommunicated last month by Pope Leo in a dramatic doctrinal showdown. The SSPX, which champions the Latin Mass, insisted on consecrating four bishops despite the Vatican’s express prohibition on committing a “schismatic act.” He warned that “to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity.” The SSPX defied his command and called the punishment — the most severe contemplated by canon law — “objectively unjust and invalid.” The older form of worship, is also known as the Tridentine Mass because it was codified at the Council of Trent under Pope St. Pius in 1570. It incorporated even older traditions marked by Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century of the common era. In1969 the Latin Mass was replaced by Pope Paul VI with a vernacular edition, Novus Ordo, sometimes called the “Ordinary Form.”Catholic Bishop of the Society of Saint Pius X Alfonso de Galarreta on July 1, 2026 at Econe, Switzerland. Harold Cunningham/Getty ImagesThe Ordinary Form was installed pursuant to the reforms enacted by the Second Vatican Council, which was convened by Pope John Paul XXIII at St. Peter’s Basilica to modernize the Church through a process known as aggiornamento, meaning “bringing up to date” That included the liturgy. The SSPX was founded in opposition to these reforms. Religion News Services likens the SSPX “inseparable from the traditional Latin Mass.” The SSPX claims some 25,000 people attend its chapels in America. Recent popes have struggled with how to handle the enduring appeal of the Old Form. In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI handed down a decree, Summorum Pontificum, that allowed the faithful to attend Latin Mass without the prior approval of their bishop. In 2021, though, Pope Francis restored Vatican control over where and when the ancient rite could be celebrated in a pivot widely seen as a crackdown on conservatives. Last week the prince of the Church responsible for liturgy, Cardinal Arthur Roche, declared that the liturgical question is “a very complex area. And it’s a very important area because the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. But no, Pope Leo is not going to change Traditionis Custodes, and he’s not going back to Summorum Pontificum.” The current Vicar of Christ is aligning with his predecessor rather than the pontiff who resigned in 2013.A 2025 Pew Research Center Study found that roughly one million people say that they attend the Latin Mass weekly. That’s two percent of Catholics worldwide. Thirteen percent of American Catholics say they have attended a Latin Mass at least once in the past five years.Some signs suggest that Pope Leo is exploring a kind of detente with adherents of the Latin Mass. Last month he appointed Archbishop Aordileone to the Supreme Tribunal of the Vatican’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. In October, he allowed Cardinal Raymond Burke, possibly the Church’s most powerful conservative, to celebrate Mass in the Old Rite at St. Peter’s Basilica.Pope Leo, though, seems to share some of Pope Francis’s suspicion that the Latin Mass is being used as a fig leaf to foment rebellion on other fronts. The current Bishop of Rome contended in an interview last year that “people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It’s become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate.” He also reckoned that the situation is “obviously very complicated.”While the Latin Mass has become a totem of traditionalists, it could also be finding resonance among younger Catholics. A poll of 1779 Catholics between the ages of 18 and 39 found that 98 percent of those who prefer the Old Rite worship Mass weekly, versus a quarter of all Catholics of the same age range. Other reporting suggests that Gen Z Catholics — and converts — are increasingly attracted to the Church, in whatever language it prays.One devotee of the Latin Mass, Peter Kwasniewski, wrote on X last week that it “stirred up my wonder, multiplied my questions, slaked a contemplative thirst that I hardly knew existed, plunged me into one of the greatest sources of theology and spirituality — suddenly many things I had read from the great saints began to make sense, because I was reconnected with the rite they worshiped in.”

Pope Leo Returns From Summer Vacation to Emerging Crisis Over Role of ‘Unstoppable’ Latin Mass and Threats of Further Schism

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