Trad-Liberalism and Catholic Integralism
Debate on the New Rituals of the Sacraments
Father Laurent Spriet has published a highly incensed review of my book,Les Sept Sacrements d’hier à aujourd’hui[1] (The Seven Sacraments from Yesterday to Today), in the January 2026 issue of La Nef, in which he detects the stench of Luther’s free inquiry, followed by a video (“Les sept sacrements d’hier et d’aujourd’hui”, abbé Barthe : critique par l’abbé Laurent Spriet) in which he condemns my book as “evil and pernicious” and my ecclesial position as “untenable”.
Father Spriet takes the precaution of saying that he has nothing against me personally. Not only do I return the compliment, but I would add that I greatly appreciated the courageous, yet sadly futile efforts he made in the past with the aim of introducing a section dedicated to the traditional Mass into the seminary in Lyon: one of the ways to restore the traditional liturgy is indeed to inject it as much as possible into official ecclesiastical structures.
My entire aim in this little book on the new rituals of the sacraments involves highlighting another aspect of the liturgical restoration that needs to be promoted: it seeks to provide elements of reflection to those who defend the traditional liturgy in theory and in practice, that is, to diocesan priests or to those belonging to traditional communities, who celebrate it as ‘specialists’, so to speak, as well as to the faithful who are attached to it in order to preserve their faith and that of their children, all of whom have kept it alive for half a century. For those who fully embrace this defense, it can only be comprehensive, simply because a liturgy is a coherent whole. St. Thomas explains that all the sacraments form a complete body in which each one is ordered to the Eucharist, which contains the author of the sacraments: baptism and penance to receive it, marriage to develop the union of the Mystical Body, Holy Orders to consecrate it, and so on. If, therefore, the ritual of the Eucharist has been wounded, it is only natural that the other sacraments have been wounded as well.
The liberal deficiency of the new liturgy
I do not claim that everything in the new rituals is bad (and in particular I do not dispute their validity, even if their extreme malleability means that in some cases one may wonder whether the indecent manner in which they are interpreted does not show that the celebrant has no intention of doing the will of the Church). “Grace seeps or trickles through the rubble of the ruined liturgy,” Mauriac said somewhere in his Bloc-Notes. The upheaval has affected each of them to varying degrees, and all of them, like the new Mass, suffer from a diminution of meaning. Thus, the flaw of the new missal is that it expresses more weakly, in comparison with the missal it claimed to replace, the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, but also the specificity of the hierarchical priesthood, the transcendence of the action that takes place within this rite, and the adoration which is due to the Real Presence. Similarly, the new baptismal ritual, taken as a whole, weakens the notion of Christ’s struggle against the devil who enslaves the soul due to the original sin that defiles it; the new ritual of the anointing of the sick devalues the sacramentum extremæ unctionis into a celebration for the elderly. There is no negation, but a weakening ‒ and this alone is highly detrimental ‒ of the foundations of dogma. Admittedly, to varying degrees: while the new ritual of marriage lapses into overly verbose formulas and eliminates the great consecratory blessing of the bride, the new ritual of ordination impoverishes the very symbolism of the ceremony concerning priests and eliminates the crown of the minor orders and the subdiaconate.
The liturgical reform was total, crafting the Mass, all the sacraments, and all the sacramentals from ancient elements but with a new approach. It must be acknowledged that this immense upheaval, carried out in a few years, was hardly a great success: the new liturgy did not fill the churches, or at the very least did not prevent them from emptying. On the contrary, the ancient liturgy that it sought to replace, and which has survived in many places, attracts the young faithful, generates vocations, and positively shines through its pilgrimages. It might be objected that these considerations apply mainly to the West. Yet it was in Rome that this great mutation in the manner of worship occurred, in the heart of this Western society in which ultra-liberalism triumphed at the very time when the great demolition-reconstruction of the Roman liturgy was being carried out.
Paul VI’s reform thus appeared to critical analysts and to the faithful ‒ “they have changed our Mass!”, “they have changed our religion!”‒ as pandering to the spirit of the times: there was a more immanent tone to the ceremonies (facing the people, use of the vernacular, elimination of overly traditional symbolism); a diminishing of the hierarchical distinction between ministers of worship and lay faithful; a withering of the forms of respect for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; a subduing of the reminders of the great truths (death and judgment) and of the “harsh” dogmas (the Mass as a sacramental sacrifice, original sin preventing the soul from attaining the beatific vision).
The rite, intended to be immutable, was replaced by a canvas to which each person could add their own touch according to their personal charism and piety. From now on, “it is up to the community to create its own liturgy and not to receive it from traditions that have become incomprehensible: the community represents itself and celebrates itself,” as Cardinal Ratzinger said[2]. The “spirit” of Vatican II, from which this renovated rite proceeded, was diametrically opposed to that of the great reforms of the Church, known as the “Gregorian Reform” or the Tridentine Counter-Reformation, with their demanding restoration of discipline, of piety, and of the formation of the clergy, as well as of the rigor of religious life. The themes highlighted by those who reformed the liturgy according to the spirit of the Council, (balancing the “table of the Word” and the “table of the Eucharist”; promoting the active participation of the laity; restoring concelebration and communion from the chalice), were at odds with what had been inherited from the past in terms of style, spirituality, and theological underpinnings. These mutations had a flavor of liberal Catholicism in its latest incarnation, the Nouvelle Théologie denounced by Pius XII. This liberal Catholicism believed it could make certain concessions to modernity, (the embracing of modern freedom, the blurring of differences between denominations, the watering down of beliefs that that had become unpalatable), while nurturing the hope ‒ always dashed ‒ of being acknowledged as having a home in the modern world. The ritual transformations thus represented a kind of “inculturation”, albeit moderate, mediocre,as one might have said in the seventeenth century. And yet the culture one was drawing closer to was, in fact, a non-culture.
This phenomenon of a reform which I would qualify as being liberal, is accompanied by another: a subordinate liberal Catholicism, secondary to the reformist Catholicism, which has developed among certain traditionalists, and which could be qualified as Trad-Liberalism. The great concern of Father Spriet ‒ who certainly attributes far too much influence to me ‒ is that my “integralist” discourse on the new liturgy in general, and on the reformed sacraments in particular, might exasperate the ecclesiastical authorities and conceal the good will of certain traditionalists who, in the hope – always dashed – of being granted some recognition, are prepared to make certain concessions, which they adorn with the Ratzingerian expression of “reform of the reform”, which for them means reform of the traditional rite, something that the term itself contradicts, as I will explain later.
The lack of authority of the new liturgy
Is it disobedience when there are no grounds to obey? Is it disobedience not to submit to a law that manifestly does not serve the common good?
Unlike previous councils, Vatican II sought neither condemnation nor dogmatization. The development of a new form of teaching in which it placed itself, authentic teaching (Lumen Gentium, n° 25 § 1) or “pastoral” teaching, is like a skillful masterstroke: it introduces novelties, which devalue tradition, and simultaneously enables itself to be in tune with the times. This type of teaching allows for the expression of very new doctrines (the “sincere reverence” with which the Church regards other religions, Nostra Aetate, n° 2 § 2), while at the same time nullifying the authority of the previous magisterium, without having to actually contradict it, since we remain within the “pastoral” sphere, all in a manner that fits in with a modern intellectual freedom that rejects all dogmatization, except that of freedom itself.
It is only natural that the liturgical reform has given rise to a new rule of worship, variable and barely binding, constantly opening up numerous options and leaving maximum leeway for interpretation by celebrants[3]. The norm of worship reflects the norm of faith and vice versa: lex orandi, lex credendi. Or more precisely, the absence of norms in the strict sense: it is no longer really a question of a lex with this form of worship, which contemptuously rejects the ancient ritualism and avoids “rigidity” as much as possible, thereby corresponding to a poorly defined, weakened message (like the “weak thought” of modernity).
The choice is therefore to obey either the sense of the faith or that which is not a law, in that it does not imply any obligation of obedience. In any case, those who, from the moment the new missal was published, expressed the harshest criticism, did indeed consider it as being legitimately open to criticism. The subtitle given by the publisher to my book, Bref examen critique des nouveaux rituels (Short Critical Study of the New Rituals), implicitly refers to the Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci of June 5, 1969, published two months after the promulgation of Paul VI’s missal. It was accompanied by an entreaty signed by the two cardinals and addressed to the pope, the terms of which are well known: “The Novus Ordo Missæ ‒ considering the new elements susceptible to widely different interpretations which are implied or taken for granted ‒ represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent […]. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place ‒ if it subsists at all ‒ could well turn into a certainty the suspicion, already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound forever.” Would Father Spriet assert that the brief book signed by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci is “evil and pernicious”?
Many other critiques have appeared since then, those of numerous priests who have continued to celebrate in the ancient forms, those, quite well-known, of Archbishop Lefebvre, as well as those of the contributors to the magazine Itinéraires, including Father Calmel, Father Dulac, Louis Salleron[4], etc. And today, those of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who has written the preface to my book, which echoes the tone of the letter signed by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci: “The introduction of novelties in an academic and abstract, and therefore anti-traditional manner into the sacramental rites had been considered as at least dubious from the time of the Church Fathers until the Second Vatican Council. [… Innovations, improvisations, breaks with the rites of the previous era], all this was carried out in an incomprehensible manner during the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council, with the approval of the Holy See. The rites of the sacraments of the post-conciliar reform depart strikingly from the constant and essential qualities of the Church’s liturgy, as inspired by the Apostles, faithfully developed according to the same sense by the Church Fathers, and carefully protected for centuries by the Roman Pontiffs. Among the characteristics of the ritual of the “new sacraments” which contrast with the liturgy of all time, the following elements can be noted: the diminution of sacredness, the systematic weakening of biblical symbolism and typology, especially the link with the types of Divine worship of the Old Covenant (such an attitude was typical of the ancient Christian Gnostics and partly also of Martin Luther), an overly academic and artificial tone, novelties invented with improvisations, anthropocentrism, a neo-Pelagian tendency (the obvious weakening of the doctrine of original sin and the weakening of the prayers of repentance and propitiation) associated with a naturalistic tendency (the weakening of the awareness of the existence and the action of evil spirits, hence an almost systematic omission of exorcisms).” Would Father Spriet assert that Bishop Schneider’s remarks are “evil and pernicious”?
In order to make me fall in line, Father Spriet quotes Mediator Dei, Pius XII’s great encyclical on the liturgy from 1947, explaining that the human aspects of the liturgy depend on the authority of the pope. I fully agree and would even add this other quote from this encyclical: “The temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics, deserve severe reproof.” Is it not deliberately, however, that Father Spriet habitually celebrates a Mass that Pope Paul VI replaced with another? He certainly judges, as I do, and as Pope Benedict XVI did in Summorum Pontificum, that the changes decided by Paul VI were not binding, at least not sufficiently binding so as to abolish the previous Mass.
Pius XII’s premonition
However, there is another very interesting passage in Pius XII’s encyclical: “The same reasoning holds in the case of some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately. The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. […] Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. […] Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.”
It would be an aberration to apply this condemnation to those who today reject the novelties introduced after the Council. This denunciation of the search for rites with “a savor and aroma of antiquity”, in contempt of rites subsequently introduced, was aimed at the tendency evident in a number of authors belonging to the Liturgical Movement, who advocated a return to the practices of late antiquity over the contributions of the early Middle Ages. Thus, the Jesuit Josef Andreas Jungmann, who would become one of the most prominent reformers after Vatican II, stated in The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, in 1948, that the Offertory, which before the seventh century consisted in a prayer over the offerings, had subsequently undergone “serious alterations” through the addition of a series of “private prayers” on the part of the priest. These “private prayers” elucidated so clearly the meaning of the Eucharistic sacrifice and its propitiatory value for the living and the dead that they were considered by Jungmann and his followers to be a “duplicate” or “duplication” of the canon. They were to be ruthlessly suppressed by the reform.
They were archaeologically minded modernizers, which is not contradictory. As Pius XII said, the return to the sources they sought for was justified as being better suited to “later times and new situations”. Yet it is clear, from what Pius XII taught to the contrary, that these “private prayers”, the subject of criticism by Jungmann, Mærtens, Bruylants, Bouyer and others, but which had flourished from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, are to be considered as being worthy of “reverence and respect” as they “owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit”.
Benedict XVI stopped midstream
Unlike Marcel Lefebvre, who criticized the substance of the liturgical reform, Joseph Ratzinger mainly criticized the violent way in which it had been carried out. But it is appropriate in this case to say, as in legal procedure but with a broader meaning, that “form prevails over substance” and that the two detractors of the reform, the archbishop and the cardinal, were not so far apart in their views. All the more so that Joseph Ratzinger also extolled the treasure represented by the ancient rite: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.”[5]
On his initiative, the circular letter Quattuor abhinc annos, from the Congregation for Divine Worship, known as the “indult” of October 3, 1984, was promulgated, followed by the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, of July 2, 1988, and finally, when he became Benedict XVI, the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, of July 7, 2007, which recognized the right to celebrate the traditional liturgy.
Let us note in passing that it is wrong to invoke the traditional coexistence of various rites in the Church to justify the provisions of 2007. While there have always been distinct liturgical rites in the Church corresponding to various geographical, ethnic, or cultural areas, there has never been a legal coexistence of two successive states of the same rite for the same subjects. Admittedly, the bull Quo primum of 1570 authorized the survival, alongside the Roman Missal, of customs that could prove two hundred years of existence, but as rites of a particular cathedral or collegiate church. However, the survival of the ancient rite noted by Summorum Pontificum was not that of a particular Church or a group of particular Churches, but virtually of the entire Roman Church. The latter now had two rites, two “forms of the same rite”, as the text kindly put it. In a sense, the missal promulgated by Quo primum itself benefited from the exception of antiquity provided for in this very bull… Summorum Pontificum was certainly a text intended to bring about liturgical peace, but it was also part of Ratzinger’s grand project to set guidelines for the Council. The moderate conciliarist that Joseph Ratzinger had become hoped that one of the effects of liberalizing the ancient liturgy would be to “enrich” and correct the new liturgy, through emulation and contact[6]. He was aiming for this process known as the “reform of the reform”, which seems to have been first mentioned by Cardinal Decourtray, Archbishop of Lyon. Reform of the liturgical reform, not reform of the traditional rite. Very recently, Bishop Schneider has taken up the theme once again: the new Ordo cannot continue in its current state.[7]
This project falls into the category of what is commonly referred to in politics as a transitional stage (such as the “democratic transition” in Spain after Franco’s death), which presupposes a desire to move from one regime, one political state, or in this instance, from one ecclesial state to another. In this case, it is a transition from the “regime” of Paul VI’s liturgy to the “regime” of the Tridentine liturgy, through gradual steps, so as to facilitate the change. This scenario entails the ordinary celebration in parishes gradually becoming traditional (turning the altar around, reintroducing the traditional offertory, etc.). It can be implemented on an ad hoc basis by a particular priest, but it is only fully conceivable if applied as part of an overall program by a pope or a group of bishops committed to a program of ecclesial restoration.[8] Interesting in this regard, although unsuccessful, was the attempt by Cardinal Sarah, then Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, who, at a congress of the Sacra Liturgia association held in London in April 2016, had called for a massive return to the ad Orientem celebration, suggesting that priests who wished to do so should begin celebrating in this manner on the first Sunday of Advent 2016. But he was immediately contradicted by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Nichols, and by a statement from the director of the Vatican Press Office on July 11, 2016, explaining that “no new liturgical directives were being planned.” The cardinal himself never implemented his directive in Masses according to the Missal of Paul VI. Benedict XVI himself, although he spoke of a “reform of the reform”, did not really take steps to implement it, except by distributing Communion on the tongue during his own Masses and by celebrating in a more careful manner, with beautiful vestments.
In short, he stopped midstream.
Restoring the traditional lex orandi in its entirety
The fact remains that Benedict XVI, especially through Summorum Pontificum, greatly encouraged the celebration of the ancient liturgy. However, whether we like it or not, the celebration of the pre-conciliar lex orandi corresponds to an equally pre-conciliar lex credendi. Benedict XVI had thus, unintentionally or perhaps partly intentionally, laid a mine under the edifice of Vatican II and, first of all, its liturgy.
I have described ‒ in a somewhat polemical manner, I must confess, but legitimate self-defense permitted me to do so ‒ the partisans of compromise as favoring a kind of Trad-Liberalism, as opposed to what could be qualified as Catholic Integralism, by taking up a characterization attributed to Catholics engaged in the fight against modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century.These Integral Catholics, of various sensibilities and institutional affiliations, have as their ultimate goal ‒ from the point of view of the lex orandi and, as a result, of the lex credendi ‒ a return to the traditional liturgy as the norm.
The accomplishment of this return presupposes pastors, a pope, and, before that, bishops willing to bring about this return, but also a favorable context. It would undoubtedly be overly optimistic to say that this context fully exists today, but we can nevertheless see the beginnings of it, as shown, among other things, by the polls published by the newspaper La Croix, which note the significant number of priests who desire liturgical peace and the growth in the number of faithful “who love the Latin Mass”.
For, indeed, what has become patent is the fatigue with the new liturgy[9], born of a clumsy fabrication by “experts”, as one of them, Louis Bouyer, acknowledged after coming to his senses, or of a reworking by “professors”, to quote Joseph Ratzinger: “Nothing like this has ever happened in this form before; it is contrary to the very nature of liturgical evolution.”[10] This manufactured liturgy will never become a tradition, even if, over the past half-century, it has become a habit, one that will nevertheless be difficult to uproot.
On the other hand, the eternal youthfulness of the traditional liturgy and its missionary capabilities must be acknowledged. The proliferation of places of worship where the traditional Mass is celebrated, which will continue, must be accompanied by “all that goes with it”, according to the established expression, namely, traditional catechism and sacraments.
The reception of the sacraments, which marks a full Christian community life ‒ baptism, marriage, confirmation ‒ is of supreme importance. “Although the end be last in the order of execution, yet it is first in the order of the agent’s intention,” says the scholastic adage[11]. The end is nothing other than the restoration of the liturgy in its entirety, as the backbone of an ecclesial restoration. Those who, following the sense of the faith, defend the Tridentine Mass and sacraments together, whether they be priests, young people preparing for marriage, or parents requesting baptism and confirmation for their children, are working, with God’s help, toward this ecclesial restoration.
Fr. Claude Barthe
[1] Les Sept Sacrements d’hier à aujourd’hui. Bref examen critique des nouveaux rituels, avec une préface de Mgr Athanasius Schneider, Contretemps, 2025. (Soon to be published in English by Os Justi Press.)
[2] A New Song for the Lord, Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today, New York, Crossroad Publishing, 1996. (Un chant nouveau pour le Seigneur, La Foi dans Le Christ et la Liturgie aujourd’hui, Paris, Desclée, 1995, p. 49.)
[3] Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, had made this connection between the pastoral teaching of the Council and the new liturgy in another way, noting that both the Council and the new liturgy are wrongly considered to be more than dogmas: “The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of ‘super-dogma’ which takes away the importance of all the rest. This idea is made stronger by things that are now happening. That which previously was considered most holy ‒ the form in which the liturgy was handed down ‒ suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited.” (Address by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, given in Santiago to the Chilean bishops, on July 13, 1988.)
[4] Might I add my own: La messe de Vatican II. Dossier historique, Via Romana, 2018?
[5] Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007.
[6] In the letter of July 7, 2007, accompanying the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI explained that the enrichment of the old rite by the new one would concern two points: “new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal.” The Ecclesia Dei Commission had prepared the addition of four new prefaces ad libitum taken from ancient sources and the extension to the universal Church of three others existing in particular missals. They were promulgated by the decree Quo magis of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on February 22, 2020. The Commission had also prepared a list of new saints, who could be commemorated ad libitum, but this was not followed up.
[7] Bishop Schneider’s Warning: “Novus Ordo cannot continue as is”, The John-Henry Westen Show, broadcast by LSNTV on January 13, 2026.
[8] See my short book: La messe à l’endroit. Un nouveau mouvement liturgique, Éditions de L’Homme Nouveau, 2010.
[9] Evident, in particular, by its lack of fruitfulness. For instance: the question of the closure of the inter-diocesan seminary in Toulouse is currently being raised. With the inter-diocesan seminary in Bordeaux having closed its doors in 2021, there would be no seminary left for all the dioceses of the Southwest and Occitania, with the exception of the somewhat non-conformist (and therefore still existing) diocesan seminary in Bayonne.
[10] La célébration de La Foi: Essai sur la théologie du culte divin, Téqui, 1985, p. 84.
[11] Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica, Ia IIæ, q 1, a 1, ad 1.