Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone: Putting an End to the Liturgy Wars

By Salvatore J. Cordileone, First Things, May 5, 2025

The memories are still vivid, even though it was a long time ago. Having been born in 1956, I’m just old enough to remember the confusing and tumultuous era of “the changes” that came after the Second Vatican Council, particularly regarding the Mass. One elderly couple in my neighborhood mused aloud to my teenaged self that it was like the father not being home and the children playing however they liked.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the full gamut of Church teaching, from morality to the exercise of authority to dogmatic truths of the faith, were doubted and even outright denied—and religious vocations plummeted. The old maxim lex orandi, lex credendi (to which some have added lex vivendi) proves itself true all the time. The era of the “liturgy wars” was not about rearranging ornamentation; at a time of confusion and dissent in all areas of Church life, it was foundational to all that happened.

We seemed at one point in the recent past to have come to a peaceful coexistence with what Pope Benedict referred to as the two forms of the Roman Rite, after he issued his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. However, after Traditionis Custodes and then the even more severe restrictions from the Dicastery for Divine Worship on the celebration of the Roman Rite according to the 1962 Missal, the liturgy wars have been revived. While liturgy was not a focus of the cardinals in the conclave that elected Pope Francis after the resignation of Pope Benedict, it will undoubtedly be a central focus in this upcoming one. ….

Continue reading >>>>>>>>>