In recent years, members of the traditionalist movement have begun to turn the annual diocesan Chrism Mass into a sort of battleground. During Holy Week, in dioceses around the world, bishops gather with their priests to celebrate Mass and to bless the Holy Oils to be used throughout the diocese in the year to come. For priests who typically celebrate Mass according to the 1962 Missal, the decision to join with their bishops and brother priests in this annual celebration — whether as groups or individuals — has increasingly become a litmus test for their obedience to legitimate Church authority and their acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent liturgical reforms.

The question of priestly participation in the Chrism Mass received added attention last week following a report that the pope discussed the issue during a private meeting. On Thursday, February 29, Fr. Andrzej Komorowski, Superior General of the traditionalist Fraternal Society of St. Peter (FSSP), along with two other FSSP officials, met with Pope Francis at the Vatican. On Friday, the fraternity published a press release reporting on the audience. The release describes the meeting in a positive light, emphasizing a 2022 decree exempting the FSSP from the requirements of Traditionis Custodes:

The meeting was an opportunity for them to express their deep gratitude to the Holy Father for the decree of February 11, 2022, by which the Pope confirmed the liturgical specificity of the Fraternity of St. Peter, but also to share with him the difficulties encountered in its application. The Pope was very understanding and invited the Fraternity of St. Peter to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more fully through its own proper charism. Fr. Komorowski informed the Holy Father that the decree of February 11, 2022 had been given on the very day of the Fraternity of St. Peter’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Holy Father hailed this coincidence as a providential sign.

This press release, however, appears to have been preceded by an internal memo circulated within the FSSP on Thursday that was accidentally posted on the internet by a journalist and then withdrawn — but not before it was downloaded by some internet users. At the top of the memo is the statement, “To the members of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (not for distribution outside the FSSP).” The memo begins with two paragraphs that are nearly identical to those in the press release, but with an additional paragraph:

The Pope was very understanding regarding the difficulties encountered in various dioceses, particularly in France. He rejoiced at the fruitfulness of the Fraternity of St. Peter in terms of vocations and was deeply impressed by the vitality of our Houses of Formation. He invited the Fraternity of St. Peter to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more through its own proper charism and the efforts of each of its members, expressing his wish – while respecting the freedom of each individual priest – for the concelebration of the Chrism Mass, or at least for the presence and Eucharistic Communion of priests at this ceremony. He encouraged continued communication with the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The audience lasted around 25 minutes.

The memo concludes by noting that the “official public press release with photos” was forthcoming.

This redacted paragraph, which is worded very carefully, points to a much bigger story and a key sticking point in the division between radical traditionalists and the Catholic Church. The pope’s wish for the priests of the FSSP to take part in “the concelebration of the Chrism Mass, or at least for the presence and Eucharistic Communion of priests at this ceremony” has very important theological and ecclesial implications.

Some might interpret the pope’s desire for members of the FSSP to concelebrate the Chrism Mass as a petty matter of liturgical minutiae, or even an attempt to deny the canonical right of priests to not concelebrate any particular liturgy. Practically speaking, however, a traditionalist priest’s refusal to concelebrate the Chrism Mass with his local bishop and his brother priests suggests that he may subscribe to problematic theological positions and heterodox views on Church doctrine.

What is Concelebration?

Before going any further, it might be worth discussing what concelebration is, as well as its history. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines it simply: “Concelebration is the rite by which several priests say Mass together, all consecrating the same bread and wine.”

This practice is quite common today in the Latin Church, from papal Masses where hundreds of priests and bishops join together with the pope in the Eucharistic prayer; to dozens of priests in communion with their bishop at the ordination of a new priest or deacon; to a single visiting priest concelebrating at a parish with the pastor. Priests of religious orders typically concelebrate together as a community, and parishes with the luxury of multiple priests will see their priests concelebrate on Holy Thursday, the Easter Vigil, and other important celebrations. A personal example is the funerals of my parents and sister. My brother is a priest, and this meant that many of his fellow priests were present and joined him in concelebrating each of their funeral Masses.

Concelebration in the Roman Rite comes with an elaborate set of rubrics and rules, spelled out in great detail in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM). In the seven years I worked at the USCCB, I had the opportunity to see the “choreography of concelebration” up close at daily Mass in the intimate chapel there. Many days there would be a single priest celebrant, although often he would be joined by one or two concelebrants from among the other priests on staff, in order to “get in” their celebration of Mass for the day. Other times a bishop would be in town and serve as the main celebrant for the daily noon Mass. Multiple times a year, a group of a dozen or more bishops would be in the building for a committee meeting, and they would concelebrate the noon Mass together.

After watching these concelebrated Masses several times from just a few feet away, the detailed rubrics of the ritual became clear: this is when they stand up, this is when the zucchettos (skullcaps) come off, this is when they start muttering the prayers along with the main celebrant, this is when they raise their hands, this is when they take the host, this is when they consume the host, this is when they drink from the chalice. I came to appreciate concelebration as a beautiful expression of the Church’s unity, in communion with each other and with the universal Church, partaking as one in the One Sacrifice. This is even more profoundly demonstrated when bishops — the Successors of the Apostles — celebrate the Eucharist as a single body.

Although concelebration has been common in the Churches of the East since ancient times, it fell out of use in the Latin Church for many centuries, with the exception of newly ordained priests at their Mass of ordination and newly consecrated bishops at their Mass of consecration. But the Vatican II document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, called for this to change. Sacrosanctum Concilium said that the concelebrated Mass is where “the unity of the priesthood is appropriately manifested” (SC 57.1). The document called for rites of concelebration to be drawn up and offered some suggestions for occasions where concelebration would be opportune.

A later Vatican II document, Presbyterorum Ordinis, the Council’s Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, emphasizes the doctrine that priests, together with bishops, participate in the same priesthood and ministry of Christ. Stressing the importance of ecclesial unity, the Council fathers noted, “At times in an excellent manner they manifest this communion in liturgical concelebration as joined with the bishop when they celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice” (no. 7).

In a 1965 letter to the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences, Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, who served as the president of the Vatican’s Consilium overseeing the liturgical reform, praised the restoration of wide use of concelebration. He wrote, “Among the different forms of eucharistic celebration, one is of particular value, namely, concelebration.” He explained that concelebration is to be understood “as the manifestation of the unity between sacrifice and priesthood, of the unity of the entire people of God in the sacred service, and, finally, of the increase in true charity, fruit of the eucharist, among those who celebrate this unique sacrifice” (Source: Documents on the Liturgy, 1963-1979, Liturgical Press: 1982, pp. 119-120).

The GIRM stresses that there are times when concelebration is strongly recommended, stating that “to be held in particularly high regard is that concelebration in which the priests of any given diocese concelebrate with their own bishop at a stational Mass, especially on the more solemn days of the liturgical year, at the ordination Mass of a new bishop of the diocese or of his coadjutor or auxiliary, at the chrism Mass, at the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, at celebrations of the founder Saint of a local church or the patron of the diocese, on anniversaries of the bishop, and, lastly, on the occasion of a Synod or a pastoral visitation.”

Perhaps the most dramatic example of concelebration in modern history was La misa unica (the “One Mass”) concelebrated by St. Oscar Romero on March 20, 1977 at the Cathedral in San Salvador. Eight days after the violent martyrdom of three men who have since been beatified — Fr. Rutilio Grande, Manuel Solórzano, and Nelson Rutilio Lemus — Archbishop Romero ordered that only one Mass would be celebrated in his archdiocese. He was joined by all his priests, and thousands upon thousands of faithful filled and surrounded the cathedral in a sign of Christian unity.

Objections to Concelebration

First, it is important to note that since liturgical concelebration is an ancient tradition in the Church, has been celebrated continuously in the Eastern Churches (both Catholic and Orthodox), and was done in the West in specific situations, most traditionalists do not oppose it in principle, nor do they deny the validity of concelebrated Masses. Many of them do, however, oppose the increase in concelebrated Masses, often for dubious reasons.

It would be fair to classify the Church’s promotion of concelebration as a separate issue from the overall liturgical reform. In his biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, SSPX Bishop Bernard Tissier De Mallerais noted that “At least once Archbishop Lefebvre himself concelebrated facing the people on December 26, 1966, in the novitiate at Baarle-Naussau in the Low Countries” (de Mallerais. Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography. Angelus Press, 2004. PDF edition, p. 404). In 1966, the Missal of St. Paul VI had not yet been promulgated, so it is likely that an adaptation of the 1962 Missal was used at this concelebrated Mass.

Contrary to the Church’s praise and support for concelebration over the past six decades, and despite traditionalist acceptance of concelebration in principle, many pundits nevertheless express negative attitudes about the practice. Blogger Fr. John Zuhldorf has crudely opined that concelebration should be “safe, legal, and rare” — the same slogan used to describe the Clinton-era Democratic Party’s position on abortion. Many other traditionalist bloggers have repeated this mantra.

Others, like traditionalist writer Peter Kwasniewski, have taken a more Pelagian position on the practice of concelebration, arguing that the priest-to-Mass ratio is quantitatively correlated to the amount of God’s grace that is dispersed, and that “two Masses are always greater in power than one.” One comes away from this essay with the impression that the author sees grace as something to be earned and collected, like video game points or power-ups, rather than an unmerited and gratuitous gift of God. Needless to say, the article also ignores the authoritative teachings of the Church that encourage and praise the practice of concelebration.

It is worth noting that traditionalists aren’t the only Catholics who are troubled by the practice of concelebration. Many progressive Catholics are “concelebration skeptics” as well. Fr. Anthony Ruff described their position in 2012 on PrayTell: “Progressives are skeptical because the liturgy only needs one presider, because concelebration clericalizes the liturgy and overemphasizes ordained ministry, because priests should get over the idea that they have to get in ‘their’ Mass each day, because priests too can attend Mass as members of the assembly.”

Some feminists and other progressive Catholics believe that a sanctuary filled with men is offensive and an expression of a sexist patriarchy. Anecdotally, I’ve heard women express the notion that, “If women can’t be up there, then there shouldn’t be more than one man.” A religious priest once told me that some of the members of his community refuse to concelebrate until women can be ordained priests as well.

Concelebrating the Chrism Mass

The Chrism Mass, as mentioned above, is a solemn liturgical celebration held in each diocese on Holy Thursday (or earlier in Holy Week if necessary). At the Chrism Mass, the bishop blesses the sacred oils for use in the diocese throughout the year. Also at this liturgy, the priests who are present renew their priestly promises.

The rubrics for the Chrism Mass in the Roman Missal state, “this Mass, which the bishop concelebrates with his presbyterate, should be, as it were, a manifestation of the priests’ communion with their bishop. Accordingly it is desirable that all the priests participate in it, insofar as is possible, and during it receive communion even under both kinds. To signify the unity of the presbyterate of the diocese, the priests who concelebrate with the bishop should be from different regions of the diocese.”

Although there are situations where a priest may not be able to participate in the Chrism Mass, it is clear that the Church considers their presence to be normative and beneficial to the Church. The aforementioned Pelagians need not worry, either — since there is only one Chrism Mass in the diocese each year, concelebrating it does not cost any grace points at all. In fact (according to this logic), it can only add to the overall grace “total.”

Nevertheless, many traditionalist priests have refused to concelebrate the Chrism Mass. In 2022, the French archdiocese of Dijon expelled the FSSP over its priests’ refusal to concelebrate the Chrism Mass. The Tablet reported that a statement from the archbishop said, “The priests appointed by the Fraternity have refused to accept this gesture of priestly and sacramental communion. Such an attitude is indicative of a conception of their ministry that we do not share. The Old Rite should not create a parallel community.” The Tablet also noted that the FSSP agreed to concelebrate as a condition of their admittance to the archdiocese in 1998.

More recently, two traditionalist priests in the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, were suspended from ministry for publicly espousing opposition to the liturgical reforms. In a letter to the faithful, Covington Bishop John C. Iffert wrote that the priests “had preached in the parish that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as celebrated in the current Roman Catholic liturgy, is ‘irrelevant,’ preserves ‘literally nothing of the old,’ and that the reform of the liturgy was motivated by hatred towards traditional Catholics and the ancient liturgies of Rome.” One of the priests, Fr. Shannon Collins, told Catholic Family News that his “unwillingness to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Missae with the local Ordinary during Holy Week” disappointed the bishop.

Opponents of Chrism Mass concelebration have argued that Canon 902 in the Code of Canon Law gives priests the freedom to refuse to concelebrate. The canon states, “Unless the benefit of Christ’s faithful requires or suggests otherwise, priests may concelebrate the Eucharist; they are, however, fully entitled to celebrate the Eucharist individually, but not while a concelebration is taking place in the same church or oratory.” Even Pope Francis, in expressing his hope that FSSP priests concelebrate the Chrism Mass, makes clear that he is doing so “while respecting the freedom of each individual priest.” But the request that traditionalist priests concelebrate the Chrism Mass is not about legal loopholes. Pope Francis isn’t even demanding it. But for a traditionalist priest to refuse to take part in the Chrism Mass sends a message — and not a good one.

This issue speaks to much deeper problems in the traditionalist community than canonical exemptions or liturgical preferences. One only needs to read traditionalist websites and listen to traditionalist influencers to understand that the real issues are ecclesial communion and the possibility of schism.

Traditionalists Concelebrating

Let’s be clear about what Pope Francis is requesting. According to the FSSP memo, the pope “invited the Fraternity of St. Peter to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more through its own proper charism and the efforts of each of its members, expressing his wish – while respecting the freedom of each individual priest – for the concelebration of the Chrism Mass, or at least for the presence and Eucharistic Communion of priests at this ceremony.” Francis has requested that FSSP priests concelebrate the Chrism Mass, or — if they cannot bring themselves to do so — to attend the Chrism Mass and to receive the Eucharist.

It should be noted that the 1988 decree signed by Pope St. John Paul II erecting the FSSP states, “In order that the necessary unity of the Church might be better fostered, the members of the priestly Fraternity of St. Peter are with particular diligence to seek communion with the bishop and diocesan priests.” Unfortunately, the reality in many places is that FSSP priests are disconnected from the life of the other local clergy and often have as little contact with the bishop as possible. Participating in the Chrism Mass through concelebration and the communal renewal of priestly vows seems to be the least an FSSP priest could do to seek greater communion with them.

Let’s not forget that in promulgating Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI believed that allowing the Tridentine rite and the reformed liturgy to coexist would foster mutual enrichment between the two forms of the Roman Rite. He did not see it as a one-way street. In his letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum, he wrote, “Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.”

Unfortunately, some have rebelled against Pope Benedict’s unifying vision, instead opting for a radical rejection of ecclesial authority and the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council. The enraged responses of militant traditionalists to the notion of concelebrating the Chrism Mass have been very fierce. Some, like Fr. Zuhlsdorf, have resorted to blasphemy, likening concelebration at the Eucharistic Liturgy to “forcing a pinch of incense to the genius (divine guiding spirit) of the Emperor Domitian.”

In 2022, Peter Kwasniewski advanced an anti-concelebration position as a part of what seems to be his wholesale rejection of liturgical reform and ecclesial authority, writing that concelebration “is, in short, another fabrication of the liturgical innovators. It therefore deserves to be avoided for exactly the same reasons for which traditional clergy refuse to use the new missal, the other new sacramental rites, the new liturgy of the hours, the new ‘book of blessings,’ the new pontifical ceremonies, and so forth.” Naturally he finds the positions of a dissident priest to be acceptable: “For a priest to make use, essentially for political reasons only, of a rite of which he internally disapproves and which he will find in practice disedifying and distressing, is a true example of ‘politicizing the Eucharist,’ making of the holiest and highest mystery of the Church a punchcard, a token, a litmus test.” One wonders why such a man would be a Catholic priest in the first place.

The truth is that a priest’s refusal to concelebrate the Chrism Mass is clearly a sign of a much more serious problem — schism. If history is any indication, such priests have a tendency to reject the authority of their bishops, the teachings of Vatican II, and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform. Such positions suggest that the priest is likely unfit for ministry in the Catholic Church until he repudiates his errors. If a substantial number of the priests of the FSSP refuse, in principle, to concelebrate the Chrism Mass, the fraternity has failed in its mandate to seek unity and communion with the wider Church. Pope Francis has offered them the opportunity to prove that isn’t the case.

Finally, let us not forget the December 2021 Responsa ad Dubia issued by the Dicastery for Divine Worship and approved by Pope Francis, which dealt with this issue at length:

To the proposed question:

If a Priest who has been granted the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962 does not recognise the validity and legitimacy of concelebration – refusing to concelebrate, in particular, at the Chrism Mass – can he continue to benefit from this concession?

The answer is:

Negative.

However, before revoking the concession to use the Missale Romanum of 1962, the Bishop should take care to establish a fraternal dialogue with the Priest, to ascertain that this attitude does not exclude the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs, and to accompany him towards an understanding of the value of concelebration, particularly at the Chrism Mass.

Explanatory note.

Art. 3 § 1 of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes requires the diocesan Bishop to ascertain that the groups requesting to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962 “do not deny the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs”.

St Paul forcefully reminds the community of Corinth to live in unity as a necessary condition to be able to participate at the Eucharistic table (cf. 1 Cor 11,17-34).

In the Letter sent to the Bishops of the whole world to accompany the text of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, the Holy Father says: “Because ‘liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity’ (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 26), they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church — the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion — affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only ‘with the body’ but also ‘with the heart’ is a condition for salvation (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 14)”.

The explicit choice not to take part in concelebration, particularly at the Chrism Mass, seems to express a lack of acceptance of the liturgical reform and a lack of ecclesial communion with the Bishop, both of which are necessary requirements in order to benefit from the concession to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962.

However, before revoking the concession to use the Missale Romanum of 1962, the Bishop should offer the Priest the necessary time for a sincere discussion on the deeper motivations that lead him not to recognise the value of concelebration, in particular in the Mass presided over by the Bishop. He should invite him to express, in the eloquent gesture of concelebration, that ecclesial communion which is a necessary condition for being able to participate at the table of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Traditionis custodes

Art. 3. Episcopus, in dioecesibus ubi adhuc unus vel plures coetus celebrant secundum Missale antecedens instaurationem anni 1970:

[…]

• 3. constituat, in loco statuto, dies quibus celebrationes eucharisticae secundum Missale Romanum a sancto Ioanne XXIII anno 1962 promulgatum permittuntur. His in celebrationibus, lectiones proclamentur lingua vernacula, adhibitis Sacrae Scripturae translationibus ad usum liturgicum ab unaquaque Conferentia Episcoporum approbatis;

[English]

Art. 3. The bishop of the diocese in which until now there exist one or more groups that celebrate according to the Missal antecedent to the reform of 1970:

3. to establish at the designated locations the days on which eucharistic celebrations are permitted using the Roman Missal promulgated by Saint John XXIII in 1962. [7]In these celebrations the readings are proclaimed in the vernacular language, using translations of the Sacred Scripture approved for liturgical use by the respective Episcopal Conferences;

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Image: “Chrism Mass” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Catholic Church (England and Wales)