(LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Athanasius Schneider said that a pope will someday celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in St. Peter’s Basilica again.
In an interview conducted in German with LifeSiteNews journalist Andreas Wailzer, Bishop Schneider discussed the importance of the Traditional Latin Mass and said he believes it has a bright future in the Catholic Church.
“This celebration of the Mass, I call it the Mass of the ages, is indestructible, and a pope cannot destroy it, no matter how hard he tries,” the bishop from Kazakhstan said.
“It will survive. Perhaps it will go underground for a short time, but it will survive in the catacombs.”
“And then one day, I am convinced – this is my personal opinion – a pope will celebrate the traditional Mass in Rome, in St. Peter’s Basilica, with the greatest solemnity,” the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana stated.
Bishop Schneider said that he would not call the TLM the “old Mass” but rather the “new Mass” since it is the “Mass of the youth” today and also the “Mass of the ages.”
He said that texts and rubrics of the traditional Mass go back at least to the fourth century and St. Ambrose.
“It is quite an age, one must say.”
Within its 2000-year history, the traditional Mass has always “grown so slowly,” without any rupture in the rite, even though small changes have been made over the centuries.
“Small, very small things can always be changed, but never drastically, rather very carefully,” he noted.
Asked by LifeSiteNews whether he thinks the TLM will become the norm in the Church again, he replied: “I would say that the current so-called New Mass must be reformed step by step so that it comes very close to the Mass of the ages, the traditional rite.”
“There will then be two smaller variants; that is my personal view for the future.”
“The Mass that we know now as the traditional Mass will remain as it is, without being changed, or perhaps some prefaces or sacred feasts could be added, but the order of the Mass will not be changed,” he continued.
“ The so-called ordinary Mass, which is normally celebrated as a rule, will be almost exactly what we know today as the traditional Mass.”
“Perhaps the difference will be that in this so-called ordinary form [..] the vernacular will be used more than in the other, traditional form, where almost everything is in Latin, […] and perhaps with some very minor rubric changes,” the bishop said.
“Archbishop Lefebvre once said that if he had to choose between celebrating the Novus Ordo, i.e., the new Mass, entirely in Latin or celebrating the traditional rite entirely in French, he would prefer to celebrate the traditional rite entirely in French rather than the Novus Ordo in Latin.”
”And he is right about that,” Schneider said.