IN THE NEWS: LEAKED VATICAN DOCS UNDERMINE FRANCIS ON LATIN MASS

Francis said he was cracking down on the spread of the old liturgy because Benedict’s decision in 2007 to relax restrictions had become a source of division in the church. Francis said at the time he was responding to “the wishes expressed” by bishops around the world who had responded to the Vatican survey, as well as the Vatican doctrine office’s own opinion.

“The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene,” Francis wrote at the time. Benedict’s relaxation had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division,” he said.

The documents posted online, however, paint a different picture. They suggest the majority of bishops who responded to the Vatican survey had a generally favorable view of Benedict’s reform and warned that suppressing or weakening it would lead traditionalist Catholics to leave the church and join schismatic groups. They warned any changes “would seriously damage the life of the church, as it would recreate the tensions that the document had helped to resolve.

More at”https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/vatican-leaked-documents/2025/07/03/id/1217446/