It seems that Pope Francis can’t go a single week without saying something ridiculously controversial that infuriates and frustrates the members of the Catholic Church of which he is the chief shepherd under Jesus. At least according to Catholic theology. The pope continued his crusade against the Traditional Latin Mass by saying that young Catholic priests who like it have a “mental imbalance.” Not sure how liking the original liturgy of the Church means a person has mental problems. Weird thing to say, right?
“From a sociological point of view, it is interesting to consider the phenomenon of traditionalism, this ‘backwardism’ that regularly returns each century, this reference to a supposed perfect age that each time is another age,” Pope Francis said according to LifeSiteNews.
The comments can be found in his new memoir, “Hope,” which hit bookstore shelves on Tuesday. In the book, Pope Francis continues his heavy-handed criticism of young Catholics who are devoted to attending the Latin Mass, referring to them as “rigid.”
“It has now been ruled that the possibility of celebrating Mass in Latin, following the missal prior to the Second Vatican Council, must be expressly authorized by the Dicastery for Divine Worship, who will allow it only in special cases,” said Francis, alluding to his 2021 document Traditionis Custodes.
NEW: In Pope Francis' new memoir 'Hope' he excoriates devotees of Latin Mass for practicing “'backwardism' that regularly returns each century.”
Says he restricted Latin Mass for “reason that it is unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology.” pic.twitter.com/OxUjC4x3qC
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) January 14, 2025
The motive for ushering in such sweeping restrictions on the ancient liturgy was “for the reason that it is unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology,” said Francis. Commenting further on the rapidly growing phenomena of young Catholics flocking to the traditional Mass – such as at the Chartres pilgrimage – Francis added: “It is curious to see this fascination for what is not understood, for what appears somewhat hidden, and seems also at times to interest the younger generations.”
The 88-year-old pontiff then accused those who are devoted to the Latin Mass of only being enamored with the external appearances of the Mass rather than the content of the liturgy or the practice of Catholic devotion.
This rigidity is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation, which then is none other than an ecclesiastic version of individualism. Not a return to the sacred but to quite the opposite, to sectarian worldliness.
And it seems Pope Francis wasn’t done hammering on young Catholics because he kept on going, suggesting that the devotion to the Latin Mass could potentially reveal those who interested in it could be suffering from a “mental imbalance.”
“These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.”
He referenced four occasions in Italy and Paraguay on which “the papacy has had to intervene on this problem,” namely a diocese accepting seminarians who had already been “sent away from other seminaries.”
“When this happens there is generally something wrong, something that leads people to hide their own personality in closed or sectarian environments,” the pontiff wrote in his memoir.
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Similarly unimpressed with the Pontiff’s remarks, Dr. Joseph Shaw commented that “Pope Francis relies on rather antiquated stereotypes to understand the traditionalist phenomenon: I believe that his notion of ‘rigidity’ derives from the idea of an ‘authoritarian personality’ popular in the 1970s, but developed in the 1940s.”
“Underlying this is a reluctance to accept that history has moved on: today, interest in tradition is not a clinging to what is familiar and safe, but the ultimate rebellion against the establishment,” Shaw, who serves as Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and President of Una Voce International, went on to say concerning the pope’s remarks.
“By the same token,” he continued, “the people spending the largest sums on vestments today are not traditionalists, but those who have access to the institutional Church’s resources, as recently seen in the re-opening of Notre Dame in Paris.”
Kind of a strange thing to say to a Church that desperately needs young families, wouldn’t you say?