Liturgical Peace, Liturgical War: Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum and Its Critics

In 2007 Benedict XVI issued the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, lifting restrictions on the celebration of the pre-reform Catholic liturgy. In 2021, Pope Francis overturned his predecessor’s document, directly aligning himself with the critics of Benedict XVI’s decision. Dekert’s book disentagles the arguments of representative pro-reform critics of Summorum Pontificum, as well as the documents and discourse surrounding Traditionis Custodes.

Dekert evaluates these arguments in context, assessing the validity of the historical and anthropological claims supporting them, while questioning their underlying assumptions. He also analyzes the connections between the pro-reform discourse of liturgical experts and the Vatican’s liturgical policies since 2021. The core theoretical framework of his analysis is Roy A. Rappaport’s concept of the ＂obvious aspects of ritual,＂ which provides tools for a fresh perspective on the liturgical reform and the potential of Benedict XVI’s liturgical option in addressing the ongoing liturgical conflict within contemporary Catholicism. This approach reveals the deeply problematic nature and lack of clarity in the expert discourse and the recent papal liturgical legislation at historical, anthropological, logical, and doctrinal levels.

Tomasz Dekert is Assistant Professor at Jesuit University Ignatianum, Poland.