Summorum Pontificum
(English: 'Of the Supreme Pontiffs') is an apostolic letter of Pope Benedict XVI, issued in July 2007. This letter specifies the circumstances in which priests of the Latin Church could celebrate Mass according to what Benedict XVI called the "Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962" (the latest edition of the Roman Missal, in the form known as the Tridentine Mass or Traditional Latin Mass) and administer most of the sacraments in the form used before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. The document was dated 7 July 2007 and carried an effective date of 14 September 2007. Pope Benedict released an accompanying explanatory letter at the same time. It granted greater freedom for priests to use the Tridentine liturgy in its 1962 form, stating that all priests of the Latin Church may freely celebrate Mass with the 1962 Missal privately. It also provided that "in parishes where a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition stably exists, the parish priest should willingly accede to their requests to celebrate Holy Mass according to the rite of the 1962 Roman Missal" and should "ensure that the good of these members of the faithful is harmonised with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop". The Tridentine, Latin-language form of the was allowed for the celebration of all the seven sacraments (even if Holy Orders was not expressly mentioned). In the same article 9, it also allowed the Roman Breviary as revised under Pius X to clergymen ordained (deacons, priests, bishops). In July 2021, Pope Francis abrogated with the which established the new circumstances for celebration of the 1962 Roman Missal. Background The Roman Rite of Mass has undergone, especially in the early centuries, various developments. In response to , the 1963 document of the Second Vatican Council, it was systematically revised, leading to the publication, in 1970, of Pope Paul VI's revision of the Roman Missal, which some Traditionalist Catholics claimed constituted a rupture with what went before. Such concerns led French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to found a seminary and society of priests – the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) – dedicated to the exclusive celebration of sacraments according to the traditional Roman Rite, in 1970. Canonically suspended by the Holy See in 1976, Lefebvre continued negotiations with Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II over the following decade. While these negotiations did not produce a regularization of the SSPX, they did induce John Paul II to issue a decree in 1984, Quattuor Abhinc Annos, providing a limited permission, or indult, to celebrate the traditional Roman Rite. However, many traditionalists, frustrated with the unwillingness of most bishops to implement the indult in their dioceses, demanded what they called a universal indult whereby all priests would be allowed to use the former rite even publicly without seeking any specific authorisation. International monthly 30Days interviewed Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the body charged with overseeing