Tridentine Mass - Present Regulations

Present Regulations

The regulations set out in Summorum Pontificum provide that:

• In Masses celebrated "without the people", every Latin Rite priest may use either the 1962 Roman Missal or that of Paul VI except during the Easter Triduum (when Masses without participation by the people are no longer allowed). Celebrations of Mass in this form (formerly referred to as "private Masses") may, as before, be attended by laypeople who ask to be admitted.
• In parish Masses, where there is a stable group of laypeople who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the parish priest should willingly accept their requests to be allowed to celebrate the Mass according to the 1962 Missal, and should ensure that their welfare harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392 of the Code of Canon Law, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the Church.
  • Mass may be celebrated using the 1962 Missal on working days, while on Sundays and feast days one such celebration may be held.
  • For priests and laypeople who request it, the parish priest should allow celebrations of the Tridentine rite on special occasions such as weddings, funerals, and pilgrimages.
• Communities belonging to institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life which wish to use the 1962 Missal for conventual or "community" celebration in their oratories may do so.

With letter 13/2007 of 20 January 2010 the Pontifical Council Ecclesia Dei responded positively to a question whether a parish priest (pastor) or another priest may on his own initiative publicly celebrate the extraordinary form, along with the customary regular use of the new form, "so that the faithful, both young and old, can familiarize themselves with the old rites and benefit from their perceptible beauty and transcendence". Although the Council accompanied this response with the observation that a stable group of the faithful attached to the older form has a right to assist at Mass in the extraordinary form, a website that published the response interpreted it as not requiring the existence of such a stable group.