Scottish archbishop discourages use of extraordinary form

A Scottish archbishop has told his priests that there is “no requirement or indeed encouragement for any of us to promote the so-called extraordinary form” of the Mass—despite the clear Vatican call for wide use of the traditional liturgy.

“I venture to suggest that there is no call for it, or pastoral reason to change what has become the settled practice of the archdiocese,” Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow said in a letter to his priests. He added that most Catholics would find the Novus Ordo Mass less “mysterious” than the extraordinary form.

Archbishop Conti’s letter appeared less than a month after publication of a new Vatican Instruction urging wider acceptance of the traditional liturgy. Universae Ecclesiae, following up on and clarifying the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, indicated that priests in good standing do not need the permission of their diocesan bishops in order to celebrate Mass in the extraordinary form.