VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis demoted a Roman Curia appointee after learning the cleric had offered the Traditional Latin Mass for pilgrims.
Before Father Tait Cameron Schroeder was able to fulfill his May 7 appointment as office head of the Disciplinary Section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), he was bumped out of the position by the order of Pope Francis, according to sources for Catholic News Agency (CNA) and the Italian MessaInLatino blog.
According to MessaInLatino, after the U.S. nunciature informed the Vatican that Schroeder had occasionally offered the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) for groups of pilgrims, the priest was forced to resign from the post he had just received while remaining in the dicastery (formerly the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, CDF), where he had already been working since 2018.
This report was confirmed by a CNA source, who added that Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the DDF, had personally executed the order, “apologizing and hinting that the decision came from above — in other words, Pope Francis personally,” the news outlet shared.
Moreover, Schroeder’s Latin Masses were reportedly offered only before the publishing of Traditionis Custodes, which aimed at curtailing Latin Masses by requiring that priests obtain the express permission of their bishop before offering a TLM.
Schroeder, a canon lawyer from the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, is said to have been originally promoted for his skill in handling clerical sex abuse cases. “But for Francis, ideology counts, not competence,” Gloria.tv remarked.
CNA observed that decisions like Schroeder’s demotion shed light on the “criteria that may underlie” Roman Curia appointment choices. Along with recent promotions such as that of the staunch anti-traditionalist Cardinal Arthur Roche and TLM opponent Cardinal Blase Cupich to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW), this case seems to indicate Pope Francis’ desire to purge Vatican leadership of clerics with any affinity for the TLM.
This would entirely align with Francis’ own attempts to sharply restrict the Traditional Latin Mass through his motu proprio, despite Pope Benedict XVI’s affirmation in Summorum Pontificum that priests do not need the permission of their bishops to offer the Traditional Latin Mass, since this Mass was “never abrogated.”
“What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote.
After the Vatican released the Responsa ad Dubia, which only intensified restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments after Traditionis Custodes, attorney Chris Ferrara of the Thomas More Society declared that the Responsa indicated a clear plan “to eradicate the traditional Latin liturgy in the Church.”