Former secretary to Benedict XVI urges Pope Leo XIV to revisit ‘Traditionis Custodes,’ citing pastoral need, Benedict’s vision, and ‘Summorum Pontificum.’
Pope Benedict XVI’s longtime personal secretary has said now may be the opportune moment for Pope Leo XIV to lift restrictions on the traditional Roman rite.
Former head of the papal household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, told Nico Spuntoni of the Italian daily Il Giornale July 7 that he had “read with interest” the appeal of Il Giornale’s director to abolish restrictions on the pre-reformed rite that Pope Francis instituted in 2021 with his papal decree Traditionis Custodes, adding that he hoped for a “decision in this direction.”
Now serving as apostolic nuncio to the Baltic States, Archbishop Gänswein recalled witnessing Benedict XVI’s “pain in his heart” upon reading the text of his successor’s decree. “I believe this is the kairos [opportune moment],” he said, “to lift those restrictions and move beyond the setback represented by that text.”
The interview coincided with the 19th anniversary of Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which liberalized the use of the pre-1970 Roman rite. Archbishop Gänswein said its aim was to “grant full rights to a rite that had never been abolished,”
