Question 165 – If we go to an underground Latin Mass, are we going against the authority of the Church?

Transcript:

I think the Pope does not have the power to abolish the traditional Mass. Why? Because it is a property and a treasure of the entire Church, from all the saints, the Church of all ages. This Mass is not the Tridentine Mass at all because it's the same Mass – we have texts before the Council of Trent exactly the same order of Mass, and there were no changes after the council in the order of Mass.

There was a new missal, but it was not a new order of the Mass. Therefore, because of the venerable age and constant perennial use of this order of Mass, there were many saints and generations of Catholics and almost all Catholic nations; the Pope has no power to simply abolish this, as the Pope would not have the power, let us say, to abolish the Apostolic Creed and to substitute it with a new formula, prohibiting at the same time the use of the Apostolic Creed. Likewise, we can apply this to the order of Mass.

This is a formula of venerable old use. A priest, by good conscience, even if the Pope would prohibit the traditional Mass, can continue to celebrate the Mass because he will be obeying the Holy Mother Church. This is a greater obedience than to do wrong obedience – to the order of a Pope which evidently damages the spiritual good of the Church. We cannot obey, it would be false obedience to cooperate in something which is evidently damaging the spiritual good of the souls and of the entire Church.

Pope Francis is not eternal, he only has a short time. His pontificate is also limited by time and by his own personal limitations, and so we have to look at this issue through the lens of 2000 years of all the other Popes, saints, and so on.

In my opinion, a priest can celebrate [the traditional Mass] secretly or clandestinely and in a prudent way while still praying for the Pope, of course, loving him even though he cannot obey him in this concrete case, praying for his bishop, loving his bishop in a supernatural way, and of course, submitting maybe to another priest in good standing or another Bishop, an emeritus Bishop and so on. In my opinion, it would only be a temporary and short measure.

Then the faithful, of course, can fulfill their Sunday obligation by a Mass celebrated in this way, a secret Mass. But I repeat, the Pope – Francis has to be mentioned, and the Bishop of the Diocese has to be mentioned without unnecessary polemics against the Pope and the bishop, but we have to pray for them that God may illuminate them and that they will come back and treasure again the traditional Mass.