The document more than 100 cardinals received in Rome last week regarding Latin Mass restrictions has been met with critiques from the president of an international organization for the faithful with a devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass.  

Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote the two-page report that defends Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, which significantly restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, according to Rome-based Catholic journalist Diane Montagna. The document, focusing on the theme of liturgy, was given to participants at the Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals to consider, reflect on, and discuss. 

Three other reports, on other main themes of reflection for the consistory, were also given to the cardinals, as CatholicVote reported. 

After Montagna published the full text of Cardinal Roche’s report, Joseph Shaw, president of International Federation Una Voce — which is self-described as “the Catholic world association of faithful attached to the Traditional Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite” — published his response to its content. 

“Cardinal Roche’s text does not attempt to answer the objections raised by critics of Traditionis custodes,” Shaw wrote. “This text is not an attempt to enter into a debate, but as it were to ward off the debate just by insisting on a historical and theological story that would support the suppression of the Traditional Mass.”

“On those cardinals, probably the great majority, who don’t know very much about the history of the liturgy, this may well have the intended effect,” he added. “We must hope that before the cardinals offer their advice on this subject to Pope Leo, they have the chance to hear a full response.”

Shaw summarized Cardinal Roche’s argument into three points: one, that the liturgy has developed continually throughout the history of the Church; two, that the Second Vatican Council requested the reform of the liturgy; and three, that “liturgical unity is necessary for the unity of the Church,” a claim backed by citing examples from popes Pius V, Benedict XVI, and Francis — and Vatican II. 

The main point of the argument is the third point, Shaw argued. Cardinal Roche, in his report, quotes Pope Francis saying he wrote Traditionis custodes “so that the Church may lift up, in a variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity.”

The use of the phrase “one and the same prayer” comes from Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, Shaw noted. 

Pope Francis’ claim about why he penned Traditionis custodes raises the question “of the legitimate diversity of rites in the Church,” Shaw wrote. He asked about the Eastern Rites, various reformed Western rites such as the Ambrosian, Carthusian, and Mozarabic Rites, as well as more recent liturgical forms, such as the Ordinariate liturgy and the Congolese Rite. 

“In the quoted text Pope Francis implies that the Traditional Mass impedes in some way that possibility of lifting up one and the same prayer throughout the Church,” Shaw wrote. “At a literal level one can see why this might be so. But if there is an explanation for why this is true of this Rite and not true of all the others, we are not given it in this text.”

He noted that the post-conciliar Church has allowed for various religious rites and usages, because Vatican II “taught that these do not, in fact, compromise the unity of the Church.”

Vatican II actually urged the Eastern Churches that are in communion with the Pope to “‘return to their ancestral traditions’: in other words, they should put into reverse the process of ‘Latinisation’ which had seen a gradual convergence of their rites with those of the West,” he wrote, citing the Vatican II decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum. 

“As for the West itself, [the Vatican II dogmatic constitution] Sacrosanctum Concilium insists that ‘the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity’,” Shaw added.

What does this mean for Pope Paul VI’s words about the importance of sharing “one and the same prayer” as Cardinal Roche presented it? Shaw argued that “they have been both mistranslated and taken out of context.” 

On the Vatican website, the translation for Pope Paul VI’s apostolic constitution reads “one unique prayer,” he noted. 

“Since Latin had been defended by some as a guarantee of unity, Pope Paul is pointing out that despite the different languages henceforth to be used, the Mass is still the Mass: it is one unique prayer that unites the Church in spite of liturgical variety,” Shaw continued. “He is saying the precise opposite, in fact, of what he is presented as saying in Pope Francis’ quotation of him.”

Shaw described this presentation as a “slight [sic] of hand” in order to defend Traditionis custodes that is also used in other parts of Cardinal Roche’s report. Cardinal Roche argues that Vatican II’s reform had a precedent in the Council of Trent promoting “partial reform” and in other cases, but Shaw argued, “in none of these examples was there a whole-sale re-writing of liturgical texts.” 

“Instead -he continues,- in these ‘reforms’ texts found in one old missal were given priority over versions found in other missals which were regarded as less reliable.” 

“Similarly, the argument that the authority of the Second Vatican Council guarantees the output of the liturgical reformers ignores the fact that the Council didn’t mandate all the things the reformers did: such a thing would, of course, have been impracticable,” Shaw continued. “There is also the awkward fact that the reformers actually flouted some of the principles set down by the Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium.” 

The most poignant example of this is in Sacrosanctum Concilium’s paragraph 36.1: “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” 

Shaw’s organization International Federation Una Voce is a member of the Coetus Summorum Pontificum, which organizes an annual pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica. In October 2025, Cardinal Raymond Burke celebrated a Traditional Latin Mass at the Altar of the Throne, according to the National Catholic Register, for hundreds of the pilgrims in attendance. 

In a statement ahead of the pilgrimage, Shaw expressed gratitude to Pope Leo XIV for his response to the request for a Traditional Latin Mass at the basilica. 

“This celebration,” Shaw said, “symbolises the unity with the Holy Father so desired by Catholics attached to the ancient rite of Mass.”