An Interview with Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos by Gianni Cardinale

30Days asks the Colombian Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, president since 2000 of the Pontifical Commission «Ecclesia Dei» (as well as Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1996 to 2006), to illustrate the more important points in the motu proprio Summorum pontificum.

Your Eminence, what is the significance of this motu proprio that liberalizes the use of the so-called Missal of Saint Pius V?

DARÍO CASTRILLÓN HOYOS: When, after Vatican Council II, there were changes in the liturgy, substantial groups of laity and also of churchmen felt uneasy because they were strongly attached to the liturgy in force for centuries. I am thinking of the priests who for fifty years had celebrated the so-call mass of Saint Pius V and who suddenly found themselves having to celebrate another, I am thinking of the faithful for generations accustomed to the old rite, I am also thinking of children like the altar boys who suddenly found themselves lost in serving mass with the Novus ordo. So there was uneasiness at various levels. For some it was also of a theological nature, people who retained that the old rite expressed the sense of the sacrifice better than the one brought in. Others, not least for cultural reasons, were nostalgic for the Gregorian and the great polyphonies that were a treasure of the Latin Church. To aggravate everything there was the fact that those who felt the uneasiness blamed the changes on the Council, when in reality the Council itself had neither asked nor foreseen the details of the changes. The Mass that the Council Fathers celebrated was the Mass of Saint Pius V. The Council had not asked for the creation of a new rite, but a greater use of the vernacular and greater participation by the congregation. [my emphasis]

greed, that was the air one breathed forty years ago. But today the generation that showed that unease no longer exists. Not just that: clergy and people have grown accustomed to the Novus ordo, and in the great majority of the cases are very comfortable…

CASTRILLÓN HOYOS: Exactly, in the great majority, even if many amongst them don’t know what went missing with the abandonment of the old rite. But not everybody has grown used to the new rite. Curiously even in the new generations, both of clerics and laity, interest and respect for the earlier rite seems to be blooming. And they are priests and ordinary faithful who sometimes have nothing to do with the so-called Lefebvrians. These are facts about the Church, to which pastors cannot remain deaf. That is why Benedict XVI, who is a great theologian with a deep liturgical sensibility, has decided to promulgate the motu proprio.