Senior American journalist and Vatican correspondent Diane Montagna reported July 1 that she has obtained the Vatican’s overall assessment of bishops’ responses to a 2020 questionnaire, the results of which were cited as the basis for Pope Francis’ 2021 apostolic letter, Traditionis Custodes, significantly restricting the Traditional Latin Mass.
According to Montagna, the Vatican assessment indicates that the foundations for Traditionis Custodes had “major cracks.” She said the majority of bishops responding to the questionnaire reported satisfaction with the current Latin Mass situation and said that making changes to it “would cause more harm than good.”
Montagna posted PDFs of the alleged Vatican assessment and her article about it to her Substack. Montagna’s X post announcing her report has been viewed 1 million times since she posted it July 1. The publication comes just before Pope Leo begins his summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo July 6, which suspends his usual schedule of papal activities and meetings.
Promulgated in 2021, Traditionis Custodes reversed widespread ability for priests to celebrate the Latin Mass granted in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum. The change came after Pope Francis asked the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) to conduct a questionnaire for bishops about the implementation of Summorum Pontificum in their dioceses.
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