The previous paragraphs of this letter outlined, in brief, the history of the 1962 Missal, post-Vatican II. Last year, the CDF quizzed the world’s bishops on the situation in their dioceses 2007-20.
With the passage of thirteen years, I instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to circulate a questionnaire to the Bishops regarding the implementation of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Those questions are found here.
The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene. Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my Predecessors, who had intended “to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew”,* has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.
Only the CDF and the Holy Father have the results of the survey. What has emerged is that not every bishop received one. If fault must be levelled, I suppose the CDF is on the hook. Pope Francis directed that dicastery conduct the survey. I recall reading somewhere that in one nation only archbishops received the questions, not the other ordinaries. It seems simple enough that Rome would just send an email and a letter and a follow-up. I’m sure the CDF in the 1982-2005 era had the hotline to every bishop in the world–or something akin.
As it stands, much confusion on this point in the Catholic world today. TLM advocates complain the survey was rigged. Other critics think the results should be published. Maybe some archbishops on the ground blocked some of this survey, in at least one nation. Maybe the TLM isn’t a real thing outside of North America and Western Europe. But who knows, really.
* Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops on the occasion of the publication of the Apostolic Letter “Motu proprio data” Summorum Pontificum on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the reform of 1970, 7 july 2007: AAS 99 (2007) 797-798.
Here are the important links:
Catholic Sensibility 