I think that we have to be careful not to go to extremes. First of all, no pope is superman and Jesus was not running for pope.
There are many important issues facing the new pope. He has to prioritize. While to the traditionalist the Extraordinary Form of the mass may seen like a priority, to a pope who takes the name Francis, it may not be on his top ten list of issues to deal with.
He is famous for not allowing anyone to call him Your Eminence, Your Excellency or chauffeur him around. He is Jorge or simply Father Jorge to the people of Buenos Aires.
He is very committed to the life of prayer, detachment from material things, and proclaiming the Gospel to the poorest of the poor.
He is committed to Christian unity with other Christians.
He loves his Jesuit order.
He is also very committed to the ideals of St. Francis of Assisi – commitment to preaching, penance, reform the Church from a triumphalist Church to a humble Church. It is very likely that he will focus on cleaning house inside the Vatican infrastructure.
I think he set the tone of his papacy with his greeting. The first thing that he asked the people to do was to pray with him, then pray for him. Both of these are gestures that the Seraphic Father did while he was superior general of our order.
His second gesture was his refusal to wear the typical red worn by popes as they come to the Loggia for their first blessing. It reflected his simplicity and the simplicity that he hopes to bring to the Church. We’ll be seeing less pomp and circumstance and greater simplicity.
His third gesture was walking past the papal limousine that was to take him to the hotel. Instead, he boarded the bus along with the other cardinals.
In addition, we must remember that the liturgical reform begun by Pope Benedict was not about imposing the EF on the Church. It was about cleaning the OF of the nonsense that people have inserted into it, so that it is what it’s meant to be, a prayer and act of worship. As an admirer of the Seraphic Father, I can see him continue this work.
Remember, St. Francis banned Gregorian Chant from his houses. The Tridentine Mass adopted by Trent and later tweaked by Pope Pius V, was originally celebrated by the Franciscans alone. No one else used it. Pope Pius inserted the Gregorian Chant and a few other details that were not there: prayers at the foot of the altar, a final Gospel, the preparation of the gifts at the offertory. When the Franciscans celebrated it, the mass did not have these components. There were few distinctions between the priest and the laity. The friars were not allowed to distinguish themselves as priests – those who were priests. Not all friars are priests.
After the reforms by Pope Pius V, the Franciscans never embraced these reforms and were not expected to do so. It was only later that some superiors insisted on adopting them. The adoption was never uniform to the entire Franciscan order.
The point that I’m making is not against the EF, but I’m trying to explain that if he is true to the vision of St. Francis, his focus will be in reforming the liturgy so that it is an act of worship, be it in the Ordinary or Extraordinary form. Rebuilding the Church is not about one form of the mass over the other, but about praying the mass as it should be prayed in any form and any rite.
I don’t know how true this is, but I heard that in using the EF in his diocese, his requirement was that it be celebrated as most Franciscan superiors insist that their friar priests do, using the current liturgical calendar and allowing non-ordained men or women read the epistle. I read this on some blog. You can’t always trust what you read on blogs.
