Paix liturgique

It must be stated unequivocally that Traditionis Custodes sought to curb the growth of the traditional liturgy, specifically by preventing diocesan priests from celebrating it, since they were forced to request permission from Rome (at least if they believed they were obligated to respect this unjust law), a permission which was never granted.

In this resistance to the liturgical revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, what was ultimately at stake was the preservation or disappearance of the Tridentine liturgy within the parish and diocesan fabric. Certainly, I am far from suggesting that the traditional communities that were formed since that time to support this struggle—first and foremost the SSPX and its affiliated organizations, and then the Ecclesia Dei communities—are of little importance. On the contrary, they have played a vital role, and will continue to do so for a long time, in a suppletive way, attracting numerous vocations that, were it not for the crisis in the Church, would have been diocesan, and providing sacramental services to the faithful who have been left without them. But their ultimate goal must be the restoration of liturgical order in dioceses and parishes, a form of worship often relegated to the fringes.

It is important to remember that in France, when the reform took place, the 1917 Code of Canon Law was still in force, which granted parish priests immovability (a principle that virtually disappeared with the 1983 Code). Under this protection, there was no diocese without one or two parish priests who preserved the traditional Mass (four in the Diocese of Montauban!), generally rural and therefore far removed from episcopal administration. Depending on the circumstances, bishops either tolerated it or, conversely, pressured recalcitrant priests, sometimes initiating canonical proceedings that might even lead to removal, at the risk of the upheaval of the local population devoted to their pastors. This might then be followed by administrative recourses to the Congregation for the Clergy, with varying degrees of success for both priests and bishops.

During these decisive years for the survival of the traditional Latin Mass, one must add to that the strenuous militant commitment of other priests of the diocesan clergy: Father Georges de Nantes, from the Diocese of Grenoble, retired to Saint-Parres-les-Vaudes, in the Diocese of Troyes; Father Maurice Avril, from the clergy of Oran, based at Notre-Dame de Salérans, in the Hautes-Alpes; and Father Henri Mouraux, a priest from the Diocese of Nancy.

Also worth mentioning are other diocesan ecclesiastical figures in England, Germany, and Italy, such as Father Francesco Maria Putti, who retired to Velletri, in the Castelli Romani (founder of the bimonthly magazine “Si si no no”), the energetic Father Yves Normandin, of the Diocese of Montreal, and many others.

Beyond the parishes where the Tridentine Mass was still celebrated, unofficial chapels were organized in many places—the famous "garage Masses"—due to the sanctions imposed by bishops against some of these priests, who were forced to leave the churches where they had previously served. The Parisian case, although exceptional in its dimension, is a good example of what occurred in many other places. Monsignor François Ducaud-Bourget, a priest of the Diocese of Paris, began celebrating a supposedly "private" Sunday Tridentine Mass in 1969, first in the enormous and overcrowded chapel of the Laënnec Hospital, then in an improvised chapel set up on the Rue de la Cossonnerie, near Les Halles, and on Sundays in conference rooms rented for the occasion. And while Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was organizing his Society, whose growth was greatly stimulated by his suspension a divinis in 1976, the occupation of the Church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet took place, led by Monsignor Ducaud-Bourget, along with a small group of diocesan priests, now unemployed due to the crisis, together with their parishioners. On Sunday, February 26, 1977, they entered the church, expelled the parish priest, and remained there, as none of the political figures of the time who were aware of the events wished to displease the Catholic electorate that was largely in favour of allowing the traditionalist tendency to exist and be expressed. (A similar incident occurred ten years later in the Diocese of Versailles. There, at the end of Palm Sunday Mass on April 12, 1987, celebrated in front of the parish church of Port-Marly, which had been barricaded to prevent the celebration of Mass inside, the concrete wall blocking the church entrance was torn down with a wooden plank used as a battering ram, in full view of the police: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIUrJp-IyUU).

These priests now have their successors in the present generation of vocations moving toward Holy Orders — unfortunately, in small number. They are perfectly in tune with the young Catholics “who love the Latin Mass” and, in general, with a Catholicism that has become—one might say, reduced to being—identitarian. The six deacons of the Missionaries of Mercy community, who chose to remain in this diocesan community of Fréjus-Toulon and who have been heroically awaiting ordination according to the traditional rite for several years, along with permission to celebrate the entire traditional liturgy, are a symbol of this new and promising generation.

It is also for all these priests that the participants in the Parisian vigils pray their rosary in Paris: at 10 rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, Monday to Friday, from 1:00 to 1:30 p.m. in Saint-Georges de La Villette, at number 114 on Simón Bolívar Avenue, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:00 p.m.; and in front of Notre-Dame du Travail, on Sundays at 6:15 p.m.