VATICAN CITY — Traditionalist Catholics who felt abandoned after Pope Francis restricted the old Latin Mass rejoiced Saturday as they prepared to celebrate the traditional liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica with the explicit approval of Pope Leo XIV.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, the American conservative figure, was to celebrate the ancient mass for pilgrims on Saturday during his Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome. Another cardinal, Matteo Zuppi of Italy, held a packed vespers service for them on Friday night.

For many traditionalists, the moment was a tangible sign that León might be more sympathetic to their plight, after feeling rejected by Francis and his 2021 crackdown on the ancient liturgy.

Francis had taken action after the spread of the ancient liturgy, especially in the United States, coincided with the rise of religiously inspired political conservatism and the decline of church attendance in more progressive parishes.

“I have a lot of hope,” said Rubén Peretó Rivas, a professor of medieval philosophy at Argentina’s National University of Cuyo and organizer of the pilgrimage. “The first signs of Pope Leo are those of dialogue and listening, truly listening to everyone.”

The latest rounds in the liturgical wars date back to the Second Vatican Council, the meetings of the 1960s that modernized the church. Among the reforms was the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular, instead of Latin, with the priest facing the faithful in the pews instead of the altar.

In the following decades, the old Latin mass was still available but not widespread. Also in those years, the Vatican was grappling with the growth of a schismatic group that rejected the reforms of Vatican II and celebrated the Mass in Latin exclusively, the Society of Saint Pius X.

Pope Benedict XVI, as a cardinal and later as pontiff, attempted to heal the schism and bring the SSPX group back under the wing of Rome, fearing the expansion of a parallel pre-Vatican II church.

In 2007, Benedict relaxed restrictions on celebrating the ancient Latin Mass as part of his general outreach to traditionalists.

“What previous generations considered sacred remains sacred and great for us too,” Benedict XVI wrote at the time.

In one of the most controversial acts of his pontificate, Francis revoked Benedict’s 2007 reform in 2021 and restored restrictions on the celebration of the old mass. Francis said that its dissemination had become a source of division in the Church and was exploited by Catholics opposed to Vatican II.

Under Francis’ restrictions, bishops must petition Rome if, for example, a newly ordained priest wants to celebrate the ancient rite. The Holy See must give its approval if a bishop wants to designate an additional parish church for masses, forcing some celebrations to take place in remote church halls.

However, rather than healing divisions, Francis’s crackdown appeared to drive a further wedge.

“We are orphans,” said Christian Marquant, a French organizer of the pilgrimage.

Leo, the first American pope in history, was elected with broad consensus among cardinals and has said his goal is unity and reconciliation in the church. Many conservatives and traditionalists urged him to heal the liturgical divisions that pervaded especially the Latin Mass.

After Leo’s election, Marquant wrote a letter to him on behalf of some 70 traditionalist groups asking, among other things, permission to celebrate a mass according to the ancient rite in St. Peter’s Basilica during the traditionalists’ annual pilgrimage to Rome.

Burke, who had an audience with Leo on August 22, gave him the letter. Leo telephoned the archpriest of St. Peter, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, and gave him permission, Marquant said.

Francis had also allowed Latin masses to be celebrated in the basilica even immediately after his 2021 crackdown, but only by low-ranking priests. In 2023 and 2024, traditionalists could not find anyone willing to approach Francis for permission and no Mass was celebrated, Marquant said.

In July, leaked Vatican documents undermined Francis’ stated reason for imposing the restrictions in the first place: Francis had said he was responding to “the expressed wishes” of bishops around the world who had responded to a 2020 Vatican survey, as well as the Vatican’s doctrine office’s own opinion.

But the documents suggested that most Catholic bishops who responded to the survey had expressed general satisfaction with the old Latin Mass and warned that restricting it “would do more harm than good.”

James Rodio, a psychiatrist and father of three, has attended the traditional Latin Mass with his family for nearly three decades in Cleveland, Ohio.

“I was surprised by the reverence, the beauty and the symbolism of the action and the gesture and, of course, also the content,” he said in a telephone interview.

Although Rodio had always had access to a traditional Mass in Cleveland, he and other parishioners felt “frustration” with Francis’ repression and the restrictions he imposed.

“Behind everything there was sadness” and the feeling that Francisco did not understand them, he said. “How could an organization have an approach for 16 or 17 centuries and then say it was no longer valid?”

Rodio said he and his fellow parishioners are optimistic about Leo and hope it will allow more parishes to offer the traditional liturgy. While Rodio would appreciate something explicit, Leo doesn’t need to overthrow Francis outright: he can simply order the Vatican’s liturgy office to generously approve individual bishops’ requests as they come in.

In recent weeks, the Cleveland diocese received a two-year extension to continue allowing the Latin Mass in two diocesan churches.

“I think Leo can try to do a lot by not doing a lot publicly,” Rodio said.

__

Associated Press religion coverage is supported through AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.