Cardinal Sarah: "For Priests, the Ancient Mass Is the One That Helps Them Celebrate Better"
The denunciation of liturgical abuses is one of the signature themes of Cardinal Robert Sarah, former Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship. The cardinal has returned to the subject in his latest book, Il Cantico dell'Agnello: Musica sacra e liturgia celeste (The Song of the Lamb: Sacred Music and the Heavenly Liturgy), co-authored with Peter Cater and published by Cantagalli.
Your Eminence, in your view, does an aversion to Latin and Gregorian chant exist in certain sectors of the Church?
It strikes me as an aversion belonging to self-referential cultural circles — more psychological than genuinely grounded — and I think it is purely a generational problem. When the generation of 1968 passes on, so too will these unfounded one-sidednesses that diminish the very cultural stature of Latin Catholicism.
Benedict XVI was convinced that the extraordinary form — the so-called Latin Mass — could positively influence those celebrations in the ordinary form that lacked a sense of the sacred. Was he right?
Among the effects of the liberalization of the extraordinary form was a positive influence — I would even say a corrective influence — on the possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form. Such abuses are gravely wrong acts, though we can never identify them with the ordinary form itself. Many priests testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them to celebrate better. I believe that in Benedict XVI's intention there was also a profoundly humble and democratic attitude: to guarantee the widest possible diffusion of the ancient form in order to allow the People of God, over the course of decades, to choose which form corresponded more fully to the living of the faith. But all of this was cut short by Traditionis Custodes, while the Pope Emeritus was still alive.
What is your judgment of that?
It did not strike me as a wise or respectful choice. But Benedict, gentle as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated and in doing so offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer, the better to identify himself with the pain of Christ for his Church and to purify it.
What do you think of the calls to abrogate the restrictions?
Access to ritual forms that have been recognized and have existed for centuries can never be artificially limited by decrees. If a rite were not serving the faith, it would die of its own accord; if on the contrary it safeguards and promotes the faith, let us not allow it to be restricted — because in restricting it, we would be restricting the preservation and diffusion of the faith itself.
What would you say to the many faithful drawn to the ancient liturgy who perhaps have to travel long distances to find a Mass?
I can only admire this great expression of love for God. The phenomenon is experiencing growing diffusion. If the hierarchy is truly capable of reading the signs of the times today — and not those of 1968, continuing to arrive late — then spaces of fraternal and serene dialogue can be opened. As a Church, we cannot wage war on those who participate devoutly at Mass simply because they prefer one form over another. It is a myopic and entirely ideological attitude — and therefore neither pastoral nor Christian. It is harmful and destructive for the Church.
