The liturgy is at the center of Catholic culture wars for a reason: The stakes are high. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote in 1997, “the Church stands and falls with the liturgy…. The true celebration of the sacred liturgy is the center of any renewal of the Church whatever.” It is therefore not unexpected that Catholics will have strong, and sometimes divergent, opinions about the ars celebrandi, especially in the wake of the Second Vatican Council’s reform of the liturgy.

But it need not, indeed should not, be this way. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity of the faithful within the mystical body of Christ. That the Mass is often a site of contestation is a wound in the church’s communion and an obstacle to its mission of evangelization.

The strongest response in recent years to liturgical divisions came in 2021 with Pope Francis’ motu proprio “Traditiones Custodes,” which curtailed use of the pre-Vatican II missal and rolled back permissions Pope Benedict XVI had broadened for what is often called the traditional Latin Mass. But both Francis and Pope Leo XIV have also drawn attention to the need for greater visible unity and care in the celebration of the Roman rite according to the current missal.

In a series of catechetical instruction on Vatican II’s “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” (“Sacrosanctum Concilium”), delivered at his weekly general audiences, Leo urged priests “to always uphold that respect for the texts and regulations of the liturgy which springs from an inner attitude of openness and trust in God, manifesting humility before His greatness and sincere fidelity to ecclesial communion.” He reiterated that call in a letter on June 29 to Cardinal Arthur Roche, the head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, saying, “In order to promote the dignified celebration of the sacred mysteries, we must emphasize the need for fidelity to the approved texts and instructions.”

In this Leo echoes his predecessor. While Pope Francis was known for chastising “rigid priests,” he did not consider improvising the words of the Mass to be a remedy for rigidity. In “Desiderio Desideravi,” an apostolic letter in 2022 on liturgical formation, Francis wrote that “every aspect of the celebration [of the Mass] must be carefully tended to (space, time, gestures, words, objects, vestments, song, music…) and every rubric must be observed.” 

It is true that the prevalence of liturgical abuse at the average post-Vatican II Mass has been cynically exaggerated by some, who use such aberrations to explain why a small but vocal minority of Catholics remain attached to the traditional Latin Mass. There is a veritable cottage industry dedicated to decrying “irreverent” liturgies, as if any departure from the rubrics, whether major or trivial, contributes to discrediting Vatican II’s liturgical reform itself. But even if Catholics do encounter a Mass distorted by disregard for the rubrics, finding a reverently celebrated Mass in the ordinary form is certainly easier and more practical than trying to ensure the pre-Vatican II Mass is available as a regular option for all Catholics everywhere.

While the worst cases are blessedly rare, many Catholics have experienced liturgies where the priest, often with good intentions, does not stick to the script. They may change the words of the eucharistic prayer in an attempt to honor pastoral needs; eliminate titles like Lord or Father as a way to minimize gender exclusivity; or delegate to laypeople, in the name of inclusion, actions that are properly reserved for the priest. Or they may simply give an “opening address” as Mass begins, commenting on the readings, events of the day, the weather or last night’s football game in an attempt to make Mass “personal” and “relatable.”

Catholics should consider why both Popes Leo and Francis have called such deviations a problem. While neutralizing critics of the post-Vatican II Mass may be a welcome side effect of better liturgical discipline, the popes have a deeper reason to call for fidelity to the rubrics. 

First, the celebration of the Eucharist is the fullest opportunity for Catholics to worship and encounter the living Christ. Pope Francis went so far as to say that deviating from the words and gestures provided by the church amounts to “robbing from the assembly what is owed to it; namely, the paschal mystery celebrated according to the ritual that the Church sets down.” When people in the pews know and receive what they expect, they are less likely to be distracted and better able to enter into the mystery that is at the heart of the Mass. 

However well-meaning the priest is in departing from the rubrics, the fact remains that it is a decision only he can make and that often draws attention to him. There is a word for that: clericalism.

The editors

Second, however well-meaning the priest is in departing from the rubrics, the fact remains that it is a decision only he can make and that often draws attention to him. There is a word for that: clericalism. In departing from the universal norm that belongs to us all, such priests betray the humility that Pope Leo says is essential for our ecclesial communion. To prevent “the subjectivisms that are the fruit of individual tastes dominating,” Francis wrote in “Desiderio Desideravi,” priests must be open to and in harmony with the Holy Spirit acting in each celebration.

Finally, there is Leo’s chief concern: unity. “Liturgical services are not private functions,” he writes, “but are celebrations of the Church, which is the ‘sacrament of unity.’” Most Catholics have experienced the profound sense of awe and peace that comes from realizing that millions of people around the world are hearing and saying the same words, though in many different tongues, every Sunday. That unity also has a cosmic dimension: In his catechesis, Leo says that when the liturgy “is inhabited by the Holy Spirit, it introduces us into the life of Christ, it makes us His Body and, in all its dimensions, it represents a sign of the unity of the entire human race in Christ.”

In cautioning against liturgical abuses “in certain sectors of the church” following the council, Pope Leo is not trying to correct something Vatican II got wrong but rather trying to lift up the council’s authentic reform of the liturgy. 

In his final catechesis in the series on “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Pope Leo quoted St. Paul VI’s description of the liturgy as “the primary source of that divine exchange in which the life of God is communicated to us.” It is that conviction, Leo said, that drove the council to recognize the need to make the liturgy “more accessible to all the faithful.”

The Mass invites “full active participation of all God’s holy people.” The church expresses itself most fully when this happens. The rubrics of the Mass are not dead letters but the means by which the texts and rites “express more clearly the holy things which they signify.” So let us “say the black, and do the red” and trust that when the priest and the holy people of God together pray the church’s liturgy with fidelity to the church’s norms, God pours out an “abundance of graces.”

Read more: