Websites devoted to Catholic subjects are riddled with assertions that the Millennial Roman rite of Holy Mass – which universally their authors refer to as the TLM, or ‘Traditional Latin Mass’ – is being suppressed around the world.  Anyone who has read the terms of Pius V’s bull Quo Primum (July 14^th, 1570), and understood the authority and effect of its words, recognises that assertion that celebration of the rite can be suppressed is so much nonsense. 

 

The Pope’s bull is reproduced on this website under the title Pius V’s Quo Primum and the reader is encouraged to study it in full.   Here are the critical passages:

1.   [B]esides other decrees of the sacred Council of Trent, there were stipulations for Us to revise and re-edit… the Missal and the Breviary.  With the Catechism published for the instruction of the faithful, by God’s help, and the Breviary… We deemed it necessary to give our immediate attention to what still remained to be done, namely, the re-editing of the Missal as soon as possible….         …..

 

4.   Let everyone everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church… and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal...  This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world… This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the church by Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years…              …..

 

6.   We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator, and all other persons or whatever ecclesiastical dignity… be they even cardinals of the Holy Roman Church… and order them in virtue of holy obedience to chant or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herewith laid down by Us and, hereafter, to discontinue and completely discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals… and let them not in celebrating Mass presume to introduce ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.

 

7.   Furthermore, by these presents, in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used.

 

8.   Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious… to be obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us: We likewise declare and ordain that no one, whosoever he be, is to be forced or coerced to alter this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remains always valid and retain its full force notwithstanding previous constitutions and decrees of the Holy See…            ……

 

12.   Therefore no one, whosoever he be, is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition; nor is he allowed temerariously to act against it.

 

Accordingly, should anyone presume to commit such an act, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul…

 

How did Quo Primum come to be Rejected?

The root (and facilitating) cause of the refusal to heed the bull’s mandate lies in the actions by popes, prelates, priests, religious and laity from the late 1950s to abandon the only philosophy endorsed by the Catholic Church, that of St Thomas Aquinas, in favour the errors of modern philosophy.[1]  The collective act of folly in which they engaged was cemented into place between 1962 and 1965 at the synod of bishops summoned by John XXIII and completed by his successor Paul VI and denominated, inaccurately, a ‘Second’ Vatican Council.  The abandonment of principle these Popes embraced has persisted in each of their successors down to, and including, Pope Leo XIV.

 

Their folly resulted in a loss of the critical intellectual facility of distinction, that act of the mind which recognises the variety of formalities in any material or immaterial thing.  There were grave consequences and among them a refusal to distinguish matters of faith from matters of mere discipline.  This is the failure in which Paul VI engaged when he ignored the clear terms of Quo Primum, and the views of his thirty-three predecessors over 400 years as to its correct interpretation and introduced a ‘new’ rite of Mass.  He refused to acknowledge that the manner in which Holy Mass is to be celebrated is not a mere matter of discipline but a matter of faith and irreformable.

 

Matters of Discipline, Matters of Faith

The ruling of a pope in a mere matter of discipline is open to alteration by his successors.  When in July 1773 Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuit Order, he engaged in a matter of discipline, for it does not concern the salvation of the faithful, save per accidens, whether the Jesuits exist or not.   It was open, then, 41 years later for his successor Pius VII to restore the Society.  When in 1963 Pope Paul VI altered the rules in relation to papal elections this did not stop his successor, John Paul II, from altering them again in 1996.  When Paul VI altered the rules in relation to the authority of bishops in their dioceses and the voting powers of the cardinals at papal elections, he engaged in matters of discipline which any of his successors may see fit to reverse.

 

It is otherwise, however, with rulings in faith or morals.  Such rulings are indelible, irreformable.  In 1854 in the bull Ineffabilis Deus Pius IX proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception.  In doing so he bound each of his successors irrevocably forever.  In 1896 in the bull Apostolicae Curae Pope Leo XIII ruled against the validity of Anglican orders.  He bound each of his successors forever.  In 1950 in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus Pius XII proclaimed the Dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.  He bound each of his successors forever.  When, in 1994, in his motu proprio Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II, using terminology laid down by Vatican I in the Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus guaranteeing its infallibility, ruled that it is not open to women to be admitted to the Sacrament of Holy Orders, he bound each of his successors forever.  In each case the Pope involved addressed a matter of faith.  In like fashion in 1570, when Pope Pius V addressed the celebration of the central mystery of the Catholic faith, the re-enactment of Our Blessed Lord’s Sacrifice on Calvary and canonised its form in the bull Quo Primum as he had been directed by the Council of Trent, he addressed a matter of faith.  He bound each of his successors irrevocably and forever.[2]    

 

Anyone who doubts the validity of what is here asserted should read the condemnation uttered by the Council of Trent in Canon xiii of its Seventh Session:

If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments may be contemned, or be omitted at pleasure by the ministers without sin, or be able to be changed by whomsoever pastor (any pastor whatsoever) of the churches, into other new rites: let him be anathema,

The expression “by any pastor whatsoever” (per quemcumque pastorem) used includes the pope!  It follows that when by his infelicitous action Paul VI introduced the novus ordo missae he incurred the anathema imposed by Trent and the condemnations invoked by Pius V.

 

Let us repeat: the abandonment of distinction indulged in by John XXIII and Paul VI has persisted in the thinking of each of their successors down to, and including the present incumbent, Pope Leo XIV.[3]  It is exemplified in the recent statements of the Pope whose simplistic content reflects a shallow modernist view of the Church’s theological truths.

 

Effects of the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei

A signal illustration of this failure of distinction appeared in the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei of Pope John Paul II in which he purported to charge Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the priests he and Bishop Antonio de Castro Meyer had consecrated as bishops on June 30^th, 1988, guilty of a schismatic act, and to assert that this act incurred the penalty of excommunication.  Why the conduct of the Archbishop was justified as necessary for the salvation of souls and the good of the Church has been dealt with in extenso elsewhere.[4]  Let the reader accompany the writer, rather, in a study of the document’s alleged provision of authority facilitating what the Pope referred to as “necessary measures to guarantee respect for [the] rightful aspirations” of the Catholic faithful who “feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition”.

 

Note the subjectivism of the Pope’s terminology!  There is no acknowledgement of the objective legal authority of the determination of the Council of Trent referred to or of that of the bull Quo Primum, nor of the legal entitlement of clergy and faithful as members of the Catholic Church to rely on the provisions Pius V had guaranteed irrevocably.[5]  Instead, the Pope offered a concession grounded in little more than deference to personal sentiment.  One might reasonably conclude that the chief motive for his doing so was concern within the Vatican over the loss of authority over faithful who refused Paul VI’s novel ‘Mass’.

 

There is more.  Since the motu proprio asserted as the ground of its authority an understanding of the Church’s tradition which contradicted the Church’s formally established teaching on the topic (set forth in Trent and Vatican I) in favour of the ersatz teaching of the synod’s bishops set forth in the document Dei Verbum n. 8, the motu proprio lacked ecclesial authority.

 

Notwithstanding these shortcomings it purported to establish a commission to facilitate—

“full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Mons. Lefebvre, who may wish to remain united to the Successor Peter in the Catholic Church, while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions, in the light of the Protocol signed on 5 May last by Cardinal Ratzinger and Mons. Lefebvre.”Here the Pope sought to divert from the Catholic Church which is of God, into the maws of the human entity invented by the bishops who attended the Vatican synod, the efforts of priests to comply with the Church’s legislation on the mode of offering Mass in the Roman rite.  This human entity, which Paul VI referred to as the Conciliar Church and John Paul identified (in his first encyclical) as the Church of the New Advent, is perhaps best titled (from its provenance and its malevolent effects) the Church of Vatican II.

 

The Ecclesia Dei Commission’s activities resulted in the formation of a number of societies which – showing that Almighty God can produce good even from evil – reflect much of the good work done by Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society of St Pius X in preparing for ordination, and ordaining, priests dedicated to the celebration of the Millennial Roman rite.  However, since the Commission was part of the Church of Vatican II, the facility accorded these societies came with a downside.  Each of them and their priestly members were constrained to admit the inadmissable, namely, that the teachings of the Vatican synod known as ‘the Second Vatican Council’ were a legitimate expression of the Catholic Church and capable of being interpreted in conformity with her teachings.

 

Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum

On his assumption of the Chair of St Peter as Pope Benedict XVI, the former head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Josef Cardinal Ratzinger moved to resolve the conflicts among the faithful over the issue.  On July 7^th, 2007, he issued the encyclical Summorum Pontificum which sought to remove the restrictions upon its celebration.  He said, and rightly, that the Millennial rite had never been officially abrogated and as a matter of principle is always permitted.  He emphasised that ‘the Tridentine Mass’ would not detract from ‘the Second Vatican Council’ but insisted that the novus ordo would still be the norm and no priest would be permitted to refuse to offer it. 

 

Although he adverted, by implication, to the Millennial Roman rite’s long-established authority, like John Paul before him, Benedict turned a blind eye to Quo Primum’s infallibly binding provisions.  As with Ecclesia Dei, then, Summorum Pontificum was grounded on the false premise that the current Pope may determine whether or not a priest may celebrate Mass in that rite.  No less than John Paul did Benedict rely on the ‘legitimacy’ of the Vatican synod held between 1962 and 1965 and its flawed understanding of the Catholic Church’s tradition.   No less than John Paul did he assume that the human entity that synod had produced, the Church of Vatican II, was identical with the Catholic Church.

 

The Effect of Quo Primum

Just as no pope, no cardinal, no bishop, could direct a priest or member of the faithful to reject the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception or of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or question the determination of Leo XIII on the invalidity of Anglican orders, or the ruling of John Paul II against the admission of women to the Sacrament of Order, neither could he direct a priest to refrain from celebrating Mass in the Millennial Roman rite canonised by St Pius V.  To put the issue in plain terms—

any priest of the Catholic Church is authorised by Quo Primum to ignore any directive given him by a superior which purports to prevent him offering Mass in the Millennial Roman rite even if that superior be the Pope himself.

 

Catholic Commentators contribute to the Scandal

In 1998 Dr Ralph McInerney, Professor of Mediaeval Studies and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, wrote a book entitled What went wrong with Vatican II.[6]  He took as a necessary premise that he was bound by the Council’s teachings.  Since it is impossible to conduct an objective study under such a limitation, it was inevitable that Dr McInerney would reach the conclusion that nothing was wrong with it.  This rendered the book’s title misleading and his effort offensive to human reason.   The present author’s scathing criticism of the work issued in 2009 is available for study.[7]

 

Dr McInerney’s effort is mentioned here because it provided a pattern which has been replicated by most modern Catholic (or allegedly Catholic) commentators and the websites they sponsor.  Even the best among them – allegedly well-formed philosophers or theologians – seem incapable of acknowledging the logical principle at stake and the necessary consequences of its application in the Church’s legislation exposed here.    

 

Finding a priest unaffected by the Abandonment of Catholic principle

Having persevered thus far, the reader might contend that it is all very well the writer reiterating the teaching of Pius V but in the atmosphere generated by ‘Vatican II’ today, where every ‘Catholic’ bishop accepts the distorted rendition of Catholic teaching uttered by that synod as Catholic teaching, it is practically impossible to find a priest who will head the warning given by the Council of Trent and the directives of Quo Primum.  Such priests are only be found in the Society founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, the Society of St Pius X, and not every diocese has within its bounds members of that Society.  For a great multitude of Catholics it is practically impossible to comply.

 

The late Fr Gregory Hesse resolved the issue.  God does not command the impossible.  The Third Commandment requires the faithful to keep holy the sabbath day—to sanctify Sunday.   It is the Church which requires us to do so by attending Holy Mass.  If she is unable to provide Mass in its proper, its only authorised, format because of the systematic evils committed by her popes and bishops, the faithful must find some other means of keeping Sunday holy.

 

If one is unable to attend, modern technology provides us with a surrogate in the form of real time videos of Mass in the Millennial Roman rite.  That, and recitation of prayers such as the Rosary, must suffice in this terrible time.

 

 

Michael Baker

October 7^th, 2025—Feast of the Holy Rosary

Note: this feast was instituted by Pius V to commemorate the victory of Catholic forces over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, a victory the Pope attributed to the recitation of the Holy Rosary by the Catholic faithful.