The text Card. Roche gave the other Cardinals about the TLM, ‘Traditionis custodes’ and “unity” during the recent consistory: an examination of “The Roche Report”

When Leo called the consistory, there were several proposed agenda items.  Fr. McTeigue aptly describes what happened.

[T[hey were going to talk about lots of things and then they talked about not as many things as the things they were supposed to talk about. And they did a lot of listening, but not very much talking. And maybe things will get accomplished. But what really stood out was Pope Leo saying, “You know what we need? You know what we really, really need? You know what’s going to fix everything? We’re going to have a new catechesis on the Second Vatican Council. Isn’t that exciting?

That’s going to do it!  More formation!  We’re saved!

If you have to keep talking about formation about what the Council really said… after 60 years… maybe there’s something not quite right with the subject rather than the method.

One of the things they were going to talk about, but didn’t, was liturgy.  I’m sure the issue of the TLM was lurking in the background.  They didn’t talk about it, in the end.  Which, come to think about who would have been doing the talking, maybe it was better that way.  However, speaking of lurking – maybe panicking – in the background, Card. Roche preemptively gave the cardinal participants his own paper on the TLM.   Diana Montagna got it and put it on her Substack.

Shall we have a look?  Let’s call it the “Roche Report” in juxtaposition to the famous “Ratzinger Report”

First, here in bare bones is what he wrote:

Roche situates the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reform within a long history of what he thinks is organic liturgical development, arguing that reform is intrinsic to the Church’s life and fidelity to Tradition. Drawing on Sacrosanctum Concilium, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis, he maintains that authentic tradition and legitimate progress are inseparable: without reform tradition ossifies, while progress without tradition becomes destructive novelty. He says that the Council’s reform, grounded in theological, historical, and pastoral study, sought fuller participation in the Paschal Mystery as the foundation for ecclesial unity and missionary renewal. He attributes failures in implementation to inadequate formation, not to the reform itself. Roche concludes that ecclesial unity requires exclusive use of the reformed liturgical books promulgated after Vatican II. The 1962 Missal is permitted only as a limited concession, since the post-Conciliar rites alone express the Roman Rite’s lex orandi.

Ehem.

Here’s Roche’s full English text – The Roche Report – which he distributed.  I transcribed it from the images posted by Diane. HERE  That’s the untouched text.  There might be a few typos or oddos.

Now let’s look closer.  My emphases and comments.

EXTRAORDINARY CONSISTORY (January 7-8, 2026)

Liturgy: careful theological, historical, and pastoral reflection “that sound tradition may be retained, and yet the way remain open to legitimate progress” (SC 23).

LITURGY

Card. Arthur Roche

1. In the life of the Church, the Liturgy has always undergone reforms. From the Didache to the Traditio Apostolica; from the use of Greek to that of Latin; from the libelli precum to the Sacramentaries and the Ordines; from the Pontificals to the Franco-Germanic reforms: from the Liturgia secundum usum romance curiae to the Tridentine reform; from the partial post-Tridentine reforms to the general reform of the Second Vatican Council. The history of the Liturgy, we might say, is the history of its continuous ‘reforming’ in a process of organic development. [A rather sweeping conclusion.  He has conflated two categories.  Historical development was very slow, unselfconscious and received rather than engineered.  This is not at all the same as deliberate, programmatic reconstruction undertaken during and after the Council. The mere fact that the liturgy has changed over time does not establish that every form of change is of the same species or legitimacy. Organic growth and manufactured reform are not interchangeable categories.  Roche has started with smoke and mirrors.  The rest will eventually devolve into use of force.]

2. Saint Pius V, in facing the reform of the liturgical books in observance of the mandate of the Council of Trent (cf. Session XXV, General Decree, chap. XXI), was moved by the will to preserve the unity of the Church. The bull Quo primum (14 July 1570), with which was promulgated the Roman Missal, affirms that “as in the Church of God there is only one way of reciting the psalms, so there ought to be only one rite for celebrating the Mass” (cum unum in Ecclesia Dei psallendi modum, unum Missae celebrandae ritum esse maxime deceat).  [The invocation of St. Pius V is funny. Quo primum was not an act of creative reform in any way comparable to the post-Conciliar reform.  It was a juridical consolidation intended to protect the Roman Rite from doctrinal corruption and local, arbitrary variants during upheavals of the Protestant Revolt. Its logic was conservative and preservative, not reconstructive. To cite it in support of a radical reworking of rites, prayers, and calendar is to misunderstand its intent.  He is not, perhaps, as clever as he thinks.]

3. The need to reform the Liturgy is strictly tied to the ritual component, through which — per rites et preces (SC 48) — we participate in the paschal mystery: the rite is in itself characterised by cultural elements that change in time and places.  [And…?]

4. Besides, since “Tradition is not the transmission of things or words, a collection of dead things” but “the living river that links us to the origins, the living river in which the origins are ever present” (BENEDICT XVI General Audience, 26 April 2006), we can certainly affirm that the reform of the Liturgy wanted by the Second Vatican Council is not only in full syntony with the true meaning of Tradition, but constitutes a singular way of putting itself at the service of the Tradition, because the latter is like a great river that leads us to the gates of eternity. (ibid.). [Another cleverboots citation: the Pope who issued Summorum.  Roche leans on Benedict’s image of tradition as a “living river.”   However, he interprets this metaphor in a way that detaches the river from its banks.  If tradition is defined primarily as movement, then resistance to change can always be dismissed as stagnation. What is missing is a serious account of material continuity. The actual preservation of texts, gestures, ritual structures, and theological emphases that constituted the Roman Rite for centuries. A river that no longer follows its historic course, or whose source has been reengineered, is not simply “living”.  It is redirected.]

5. In this dynamic vision, “maintaining solid tradition” and “opening the way to legitimate progress” (SC 23) cannot be understood as two separable actions: without a “legitimate progress” the tradition would be reduced to a “collection of dead things” not always all healthy; without the “sound tradition” progress risks becoming a pathological search for novelty, that cannot generate life, like a river whose path is blocked separating it from its sources. [The repeated appeal to Sacrosanctum Concilium 23 creates an appearance of balance, but the equilibrium is asserted rather than demonstrated. The decisive question is not whether tradition and progress should coexist in principle, but whether the reforms enacted after the Council meet the Council’s own criteria. (HINT: THEY DON’T.) Massive textual excisions, the creation of new Eucharistic Prayers, the effective abandonment of Latin, the reorientation of the priest, and the near-total replacement of the historic offertory prayers represent qualitative ruptures, not incremental progress. These changes effected what one can legitimately argue is a different rite of Mass.]

6. In the discourse to the participants in the Plenary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (8 February 2024), Pope Francis expressed himself thus:

“Sixty years on from the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the words we read in its introduction, with which the Fathers declared the Council’s purpose, do not cease to enthuse. [Whom do they enthuse, again?  Frankly, I think most young people today have very little interest in Vatican II and those a little older are weary of having it shoveled down our throats.  And, think about watching Francis at Mass or anything liturgical other than the Pachamama Garden Rite: would you describe him as “enthused” by liturgy?] They are objectives that describe a precise desire to reform the Church in her fundamental dimensions: to make the Christian life of the faithful grow more and more every day; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; [NB] to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; [So, change liturgy to reach out to Protestants?  That’s exactly what happened in the 60’s.  How has it worked?] to reinvigorate that which serves to call all to the bosom of the Church (cf. SC I). [Here I wish to remind the reader that it was Benedict XVI who brought large numbers of Anglicans into union with Rome via Anglicanorum coetibus, a project which required a careful harmonizing of Anglican elements in liturgy.  And that Pope, a Pope of true Christian unity who didn’t say things like “God wills different religions” issued Summorum Pontificum.  Just sayin’.] It is a task of spiritual, pastoral, ecumenical, and missionary renewal. And in order to accomplish it, the Council Fathers knew where they had to begin, they knew there were particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy” (Ibid.). It is like saying: without liturgical reform, there is no reform of the Church.”  [It’s like saying WHAT I HAVE BEEN WRITING FOR DECADES.  And I have been right: the key is preservation of tradition not compelled conformity.  We are our rites!  ]

7. The liturgical Reform was elaborated on the basis of “accurate theological, historical and pastoral investigation” (SC 23). [Yeah.. everything but common sense, not to mention neglect of what the Council Father’s in fact voted for!] Its scope was to render more full the participation in the celebration of the Paschal Mystery for a renewal of the Church, the People of God, the Mystical Body of Christ (see LG chapters I-II), perfecting the faithful in unity with God and among themselves (cf. SC 48). [How’s that going?] Only from the salvific experience of the celebration of Easter, the Church rediscovers and relaunches the missionary mandate of the Risen Lord (cf. Mt 28, 19-20) and becomes in a world torn by discord, a leaven of unity. [Now he is becoming unctuous.  He’s heard Pope Leo emphasize “unity”, so now he works it in.  There’s another term for this, too.]

8. We ought to also recognize that the application of the Reform suffered and continues to suffer from a lack of formation, and this urgency of addressing, beginning with Seminars to “bring to life the kind of formation of the faithful and ministry of pastors that will have their summit and source in the liturgy (Instruction Inter oecumenici, 26 September 1964, 5)  [Here’s what they always return to: the claim that the failures of the reform are due primarily to inadequate formation functions as a catch-all defense that insulates the reform from falsification. After more than half a century, across continents and generations, the persistence of liturgical instability, doctrinal flattening, and loss of the sense of the sacred suggests structural problems rather than merely pedagogical ones. A reform that requires perfect formation to avoid collapse, yet consistently produces dysfunction even among the well-trained, speaks for itself.  You can’t get around the results.  One the other hand, what was with the massive growth of the TLM after Summorum?  Hmmm.]

9. The primary good of the unity of the Church is not achieved by freezing division but by finding ourselves in the sharing of what cannot but be shared, as Pope Francis said in Desiderio desideravi 61: [Roche repeatedly identifies unity with exclusive adherence to the postconciliar books, treating the older Roman Rite as, at best, a tolerated anomaly. This reverses the traditional Catholic understanding of unity, which historically accommodated multiple rites and usages within doctrinal communion. The assertion that unity can be achieved only by suppressing a venerable liturgical form ignores the Church’s own lived experience prior to the twentieth century and reduces unity to ritual monoculture.]

“We are called continually to rediscover the richness of the general principles exposed in the first numbers of Sacrosanctum Concilium, grasping the intimate bond between this first of the Council’s constitutions and all the others. For this reason we cannot go back to that ritual form which the Council fathers, cum Petro at sub Petro, felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and following their conscience as pastors, the principles from which was born the reform. [Gratis asseritur… You know… if you take a road and you realize it is not taking you to a good place, is it better blithely to keep going or to go back and make a course correction?] The holy pontiffs St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, approving the reformed liturgical books ex decreto Sacrosancti OEcumenici Concilii Vaticani II, have guaranteed the fidelity of the reform of the Council. For this reason I wrote Traditionis custodes, so that the Church may lift up, in the variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity. [Cf. Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum (3 April 1969) in AAS 61 (1969) 222]. As I have already written, I intend that this unity be re-established in the whole Church of the Roman Rite.” [Good, persuasive arguments and lack of adherence to the facts about what happened after the Council leaves only one course of action for those obsessed more with eliminating the past than authentic ecclesial communion: FORCE.]

10. The use of liturgical books that the Council sought to reform was, from St. John Paul II to Francis, a concession that in no way envisaged their promotion. [“[B]y virtue of my Apostolic Authority I decree the following: … c) moreover, respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.” – St. John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei adfflicta, 6.] Pope Francis—while granting, in accordance with Traditionis Custodes, the use of the 1962 Missale Romanum—pointed the way to unity in the use of the liturgical books promulgated by the holy Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, in accordance with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite. [The conclusion rests heavily on Traditionis custodes, presented as the necessary juridical expression of ecclesial unity. Yet its credibility is weakened by the unresolved question of its foundation.  Thank again to Diane Montagna and testimonies from bishops indicate that the document’s justification, namely, widespread episcopal concern over rejection of the Council, was based on a selective or tendentious reading of the survey responses. If the diagnostic premise is flawed, the resulting legislative remedy cannot claim moral or pastoral inevitability. Put another way, purgamentum init, exit purgamentum.]

11. Pope Francis summarised the issue as follows (Desiderio desideravi 31):

“[…] If the liturgy is ‘the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed, and at the same time the font from which all her power flows,’ (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 10), well then, we can understand what is at stake in the liturgical question. It would be trivial to read the tensions, unfortunately present around the celebration, as a simple divergence between different tastes concerning a particular ritual form. The problematic is primarily ecclesiological. I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do no — and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium, a document that expresses the reality of the Liturgy intimately joined to the vision of Church so admirably described in Lumen gentium […]”.  [Oh, dear. This paragraph turns on an equivocation: it identifies assent to an ecumenical council with assent to every reform later attributed to it. SC 10 defines the liturgy as the Church’s “summit and source”. It does not render all post-Conciliar implementations irreformable! The argument therefore moves illegitimately from a doctrinal principle to a historically contingent outcome. By recasting the dispute as “primarily ecclesiological,” the text again misstates the issue. The question is neither aesthetic preference nor rejection of Vatican II, but whether the reform as enacted conforms to the Council’s own criteria (e.g., organic continuity, restraint in change, and fidelity to received forms). The claim that the reformed books necessarily embody the ecclesiology of Lumen gentium is asserted, not demonstrated. Councils articulate principles but their application proceeds through fallible human judgment. To deny this is to collapse council, reform, and implementation into a single, untouchable act of authority.  Finally, the suggestion that one cannot affirm the Council while questioning the reform is a category error. Catholic tradition has always permitted critical evaluation of disciplinary reforms in order to safeguard Tradition itself. Fidelity to Vatican II requires discernment, not uncritical acceptance of every post-Conciliar product.]

Rome, 8.01.2026

The The Roche Report’s claim that the Novus Ordo represents organic development stands in tension with the judgment of one of the most significant theological voices of the twentieth century, Joseph Ratzinger, who described the post-Conciliar liturgy as “a fabrication, a banal product of the moment”.  This critique arose from a concern that the reform replaced a received rite with a constructed one, assembled by committees and justified ex post facto by appeals to history and pastoral need. A rite produced in this manner cannot easily be squared with the Church’s prior understanding of liturgical tradition as something received, not made.

Roche attempts a coherent and compelling narrative.  However, its coherence depends on redefining key terms such as reform, tradition, unity, and legitimacy, in ways that predetermine the outcome. When examined critically, the evidence before our eyes viewed with the lens of common sense suggests that the liturgical crisis cannot be reduced to failures of formation or implementation. Rather, the scope, method, and assumptions of the reform itself remain on the table. If these foundational questions are not addressed, appeals to authority and unity risk functioning less as instruments of communion than as mechanisms for foreclosing legitimate theological and historical debate.

All they are left with, really, is dezinformatsiya and sheer force.