A public dispute over the Traditional Latin Mass has intensified after Pope Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh sharply criticized Cardinal Robert Sarah for condemning restrictions placed on Catholics attached to the older liturgy.
According to LifeSiteNews, Ivereigh accused the retired Guinean cardinal of using “incendiary, belligerent language” after Sarah argued that the Church should not treat Catholics devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass as though they were opponents.
The controversy followed comments Sarah made during a late-August interview with the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
“We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another; this is a shortsighted and entirely ideological stance and, therefore, neither pastoral nor Christian,” Sarah said, according to LifeSiteNews. “It is harmful and destructive to the Church.”
Ivereigh responded publicly on Sept. 1.
“What ‘war’? This incendiary, belligerent language of Sarah directed at the papacy is unbecoming of a cardinal,” Ivereigh wrote in a social media post quoted by LifeSiteNews. “He may be over 80, deprived of all posts and responsibilities, and desperate for attention. But the vow he took still stands.”
Sarah, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, had been discussing the restrictions introduced under Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.
The document significantly restricted celebrations of the older Roman liturgy after Pope Benedict XVI had expanded access to it through Summorum Pontificum in 2007.
Sarah argued that Benedict’s approach had benefited the Church beyond communities specifically devoted to the older Mass.
According to LifeSiteNews, the cardinal said Benedict’s decision had a “positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form.”
Many priests, Sarah added, “testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”
Sarah also criticized the decision to reverse Benedict’s approach while the pope emeritus was still alive.
“Traditionis Custodes nullified that approach while the pope emeritus was still alive,” Sarah said. “That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful.”
Despite those criticisms, Sarah spoke warmly about Benedict himself, describing the late pontiff as “a man as gentle as a lamb” who “allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer.”
The cardinal’s argument goes beyond his preference for a particular liturgical form. He questioned whether a rite deeply rooted in the Church’s history should be deliberately restricted when it continues to nourish the faith of Catholics.
“Access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted,” Sarah said, according to LifeSiteNews. “If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it.”
Sarah has repeatedly appealed for an end to conflict surrounding Catholic liturgy.
In another August interview with the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, he described the existence of a “war” over the liturgy as a serious problem for the Church.
“It is a drama, indeed a true and proper sin, that on an essential theme such as the liturgy there should be a kind of war,” Sarah said. “The liturgy is the source of the Church’s communion, and it is unthinkable that on liturgical themes there should be such opposition and such fierce confrontations.”
He instead called for a return to what he described as Benedict XVI’s “balanced, pastoral and theologically well-founded position,” under which the older and newer forms of the Roman liturgy could coexist.
According to LifeSiteNews, Ivereigh’s criticism of Sarah quickly drew pushback online, with commenters arguing that the cardinal’s remarks were directed at restrictions affecting traditional Catholics rather than constituting a personal attack on the papacy.
The exchange highlights a debate that has continued within the Church since the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes: how ecclesial unity should be pursued while responding pastorally to Catholics whose spiritual lives remain deeply connected to the Church’s older liturgical tradition.
Sarah has previously expressed doubts about efforts to prevent Catholics from worshiping according to a liturgy celebrated for centuries.
“I don’t know what authority we have to prevent a liturgy that has been celebrated for centuries,” Sarah said on a previous occasion quoted by LifeSiteNews. “Pope Benedict said that what was sacred in the past remains sacred today.”
The latest controversy demonstrates that the debate over the Traditional Latin Mass remains about more than liturgical preference. It continues to raise questions about pastoral care, ecclesial unity, authority and the place of the Church’s liturgical inheritance in Catholic life.
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