Pope 'planning to loosen Latin Mass restrictions'

In a concession to ultraconservatives, Pope Benedict XVI plans to loosen restrictions on the old Latin Mass, used by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries until the modernising reforms of the 1960s, a Vatican official said.

The pope’s decision is expected to be made public soon, part of Benedict’s efforts to woo back Catholics who joined a rebel archbishop to protest the reforms.

The pope’s intent is to “help overcome the schism and help bring (the ultraconservatives) back to the church”, said the official.

It was not immediately clear when the pope will make his decision public, but the official said it was expected soon.

The 16th-century Tridentine Mass was swept away by the so-called New Mass that followed the 1962-to-1965 Second Vatican Council.

The reforms called for Mass to be said in local languages, for the priest to face the congregation and not the altar with his back to worshippers and for the use of lay readers.

To celebrate the old Latin Mass now, a priest must obtain permission from the local bishop.

The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the Swiss-based Society of St Pius X in 1969 in opposition to the Vatican II reforms.

In addition to his objection to the change in the Mass, Lefebvre denounced the Vatican’s openings to other religions as a “horrible apostasy” that put Catholicism on an equal footing with other faiths.

The French prelate said the reforms have led to ”neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies”.

The Vatican excommunicated Lefebvre in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without Rome’s consent.

Benedict has indicated he wants relations with the St Pius X group to be normalised. He met last year with the current head of the society, Bishop Bernard Fellay.

Several top Vatican officials have publicly supported a change on grounds that all Catholics, not just members of St Pius X, should have access to the old Mass.

The general secretary of St Pius X, Arnaud Selegny, declined to comment before seeing the document.

The issue of the Mass will only be one of the points in the papal document that will reach out to the ultraconservatives, the Vatican official said.

Benedict has already taken a concrete step in that direction. In September he approved an institute for French priests who left the movement.

The small group based in Bordeaux, made up of five priests and some seminarians, is allowed to celebrate the old-style Latin Mass in exchange for their recognition of the pope’s authority.