(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-LGBT Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago has suggested that the late Pope John Paul II would’ve supported the Vatican’s widely-criticized decision to greatly restrict the Traditional Latin Mass.
In an article for America Magazine this week, Cupich accused Catholics who are opposed to Francis’ crackdown on the more than 1,500-year-old liturgy of not only resisting the will of God, and of “undermining” the Holy See, but of pitting themselves against Francis’ Polish predecessor.
“Over my 50 years as a priest and 25 as a bishop, I have seen pockets of resistance to the council’s teachings and reforms, especially the refusal to accept the restoration of the liturgy,” Cupich began. “St. John Paul II challenged this resistance head on in his apostolic letter on the 25th anniversary of Vatican II’s ‘Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.’”
Cupich proceeded to argue that John Paul II recognized that “the most visible fruit of the whole work of the Council” was its “liturgical renewal,” and that Francis, like John Paul, believes that “the restoration of the liturgy [at Vatican II] was the result of the movement of the Holy Spirit,” and not an “imposition of an ideology on the church by any one person or group.”
Cupich then implied John Paul would’ve endorsed Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditions Custodes, as well as his rescript published last week that demands bishops obtain permission from the Dicastery for Divine Worship before allowing the celebration of the Latin Mass in their dioceses, a move that Fr. Gerald Murray has said deprives bishops of their rights under Canon Law.
“In those Roman documents, the successor of Peter, who is the guarantor of unity in the church, called bishops to assist all Roman Catholics to accept fully that the liturgical books promulgated by St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II are the unique expression of the lex orandi (the law of praying) of the Roman Rite,” wrote Cupich.
“If we bishops are serious about helping Catholics fully receive the teachings of the Second Vatican Council,” he continued, “then we have an obligation to promote, in union with the successor of Peter, the complete embrace of the council’s liturgical reforms. This is the reason Pope Francis has called all Catholics to accept Vatican II’s restoration of the liturgy as the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”
Cupich’s essay has since been republished in Italian by the Vatican’s daily newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, a strong indication that Francis fully intends to continue down the path of canceling the Latin liturgy. Liberal reporter Christopher White for the dissident National Catholic Reporter shared the article on Twitter.
The Vatican’s daily newspaper, @oss_romano, has republished Chicago Cardinal Cupich’s recent @americamag essay, which challenges US bishops ignoring Vatican restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass. pic.twitter.com/FXP935gHLu
— Christopher White (@cwwhiteNCR) March 1, 2023
Cupich was appointed by Pope Francis to the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in June 2022. He is also a member of the influential Dicastery for Bishops, which presents to the pope candidates for the Bishopric. He has been linked to disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was laicized after it was discovered he molested seminarians for decades. Cupich, along with retired Cardinal Donald Wuerl, current Washington D.C. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and other high-ranking liberal U.S. prelates like Cardinal Joseph Tobin of New Jersey are just a few of McCarrick’s most devoted proteges.
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski told LifeSiteNews that Cupich’s remarks show he’s being hypocritical in his approach.
“One hardly knows where to begin disentangling the mixture of half-truths and outright lies, but unfortunately we do not expect better from this particular prelate,” he said via email. “One must note initially the glaring absence of Benedict XVI [in his article], whom Cupich only recently had praised as a model for pastoral strategies.”
“Cupich’s lip service to ‘fidelity to the See of Peter’ rings hollow when we recall that he followed Summorum Pontificum with, at best, dragging feet, just like the bishops he now criticizes,” he continued. “I guess hyperpapalism is okay when the pope is a liberal, but not when he’s a conservative!”
One of the great ironies of Cupich’s essay is that for all his references to the need for Catholics to celebrate the “unique expression” of the Roman Rite, he himself has permitted, and even encouraged, a wide array of liturgical norms (and abuses) in the Chicago Archdiocese. At Old St. Pat’s Church in June 2022, a “married” homosexual couple delivered a sermon on the alleged merits of legalized sodomy. At Holy Family Catholic Community in the same month, parishioners broke out into song and dance as bubbles were blown in the air. Radical priest Fr. Michael Pfleger, meanwhile, conducts Protestant-like “worship services” at his South Side St. Sabina’s Church unabated.
What’s more, in November 2022, the music director at the Holy Name Cathedral physically attacked the leader of a Rosary rally in support of the Latin Mass on the steps outside the church. That altercation took place just months after Cupich banned the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) from publicly saying Latin Masses in the diocese.
Cupich’s autocratic approach pits him against neighboring Bishop Thomas Paprocki, who, though reluctantly went along with Cupich’s decision to limit the ability of the Canons Regular of St. John to say Latin Masses in the Diocese of Springfield, has expressed strong reservations with Francis’ latest rescript. Cupich has also put himself firmly to the left of fellow Vatican II cheerleader Bishop Robert Barron, who recently shocked Traditionalists by allowing the Society of St. Pius X to offer Masses at a college chapel in his Minnesota Diocese.
Cupich’s claim that the Novus Ordo Missae is a bright shining “fruit” of the Second Vatican Council also warrants a particular note of derision, as Latin Mass churches are bursting with young families, boast high weekly-attendance rates, and are experiencing a massive uptick in vocations. Diocesan parishes, on the other hand, are being shuttered at breakneck speed due to declining membership and a lack of priests to serve them. Cupich himself has had to sell off properties in recent months. That doesn’t sound like a “golden age” in church history, as Cupich recently asserted.
As a member of the Dicastery for Divine Worship alongside Cardinal Arthur Roche, Cupich should, you would think, be aware of the historical documents governing the Church’s liturgical life. Yet, by taking steps to relegate the Latin Mass to the dustbin of history, he, like others who have attempted to displace the traditional liturgy with what Archbishop Viganò has called “The Montinian Mass,” shows profound ignorance of — or perhaps disdain for — St. Pius V’s 1570 papal bull Quo Primum, which declared that the Roman Missal shall “remain always valid and retain its full force” and that “superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, [are not] obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us.” History will not be kind to His Eminence, nor to any pope or bishop that stifles the Latin Mass and the Traditional Catholic faith.