The Man Behind Traditiones Custodes

Cardinal Roche Is Sad and Worried

January 19, 2026 — by elwanderer

Those who move through the Dicastery for Divine Worship say that in recent days Cardinal Roche has been seen with his head down; they find him sad and worried. And with good reason. His career as a bishop—now close to fading into the shadows of age—will have been a trail of failures. His episcopate in Leeds was disastrous, in many respects, including financially. That is why—and this is no secret—the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales asked Pope Benedict in 2012 to find him another post where he could do no harm to souls or to bank accounts. And good old Ratzinger could think of nothing better than to place him as Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, thereby making him the natural successor to Cardinal Robert Sarah. (Moral: to be a good ruler, it is not enough to be wise and pious.)

Roche’s failures as prefect were spectacular. The first of them was precisely Traditionis custodes. He was the one responsible for convincing Pope Francis to publish that ill-fated document, on a subject that did not interest the Argentine pontiff and that plunged him into one of the most significant avoidable and self-inflicted crises of his pontificate. Not only did it gain nothing, it plunged the Church into a permanent state of division, conflict, and sadness. The pax liturgica achieved with Summorum pontificum was inexplicably shattered by an unnecessary and mendacious document, since—documents in hand, as Nicola Bux and Saverio Gaeta have shown in their book La liturgia non è uno spettacolo: Il questionario ai vescovi sul rito antico: arma di distruzione di Messa?—the statistical reasons used to justify TC were grossly manipulated.

Worse still, by late 2022 it was known with certainty that Roche, Archbishop Viola (the dicastery’s secretary), and some adviser from Sant’Anselmo (Andrea Grillo?) were preparing a new document which, in the form of an apostolic constitution, would brutally restrict the traditional liturgy, taking particular aim at the so-called “Ecclesia Dei institutes.” Pope Francis, at the audience he granted Roche on February 20, 2023—as we reported here—not only did not sign any apostolic constitution but sent the cardinal packing, giving him only a rescript that scarcely altered the existing situation.

And now, with the change of leadership in Rome, and with the liturgical question once again in play under a Pope who wants to give it a definitive solution, who is not opposed to the traditional liturgy, and who wishes to return to that pax liturgica that would close a significant wound in the Church, Roche comes out with a document riddled with more holes than a Gruyère cheese. We will not repeat here the gross errors in the document signed by the cardinal—errors for which he now wanders like a lost soul through the silent corridors of his dicastery. They have been thoroughly dissected by theologians and experts whose opinions can be easily found on the usual websites. Curiously, as far as I know, it was defended by no progressive. Not even Andrea Grillo raised his voice this time.

On the tactical side as well, the blunder was colossal. Roche handed that very weak text to the cardinals before the topics to be addressed at the Consistory had even been decided. In other words, he showed his hand before the play that will ultimately take place next June. The cardinals will be fully informed of the unbearable lightness of Roche’s arguments, and in the coming months their inboxes will receive—respectfully and reverently—the opinions of their faithful on the matter, along with refutations of the arguments put forward by the prefect.

Finally, I add one striking aspect. These figures, so open to new ideas and diverse theologies, when it comes to the traditional liturgy become more orthodox than the most recalcitrant reactionary, invoking like geese the worn-out theological principle lex orandi, lex credendi. They invoke it and interpret it to suit themselves, deceiving in many cases those who lack the historical perspective to interpret it—that is, the majority of bishops and cardinals.

No one doubts the importance of unity in the faith. It is a fundamental principle of the Catholic Church that distinguishes it from other Christian denominations. Nor does anyone doubt that this unity is expressed in worship. But the deceptive argument lies in assuming that unity of faith is necessarily tied to unity of worship. To assume that is absurd. The Church has 24 rites, completely different from one another, and no one would think that a Chaldean from Iraq, a Copt from Egypt, or a Byzantine from Romania has a faith different from that of a Roman from Madrid or Bogotá. All share the one faith in Jesus Christ, and yet their worship—or lex orandi—is different.

Even if we focus on the West, Roche’s argument collapses under its own weight. If any Catholic of faith attends a Mass celebrated with the reformed Missal of Paul VI in Buenos Aires, he will find it quite different from the one he attends while on vacation in Mar del Plata, or Mendoza, or Paris, or New York. More still, if he goes to another church in his own city, the Mass will very likely change—and quite a bit—because we know that the novus ordo encourages improvisation and creativity on the part of celebrating priests. What unity in the lex orandi, then, is Cardinal Roche talking about?

More than that: it would be hard to find two historical periods in the Church in which unity of faith was pursued more vigorously than the 13th and 16th centuries. And yet any Catholic living in a European city of the time—say Lyon or Milan—if he attended Mass at his parish, it would be celebrated in the Lyonese or Ambrosian rite; if he went to the Franciscan convent twenty meters away, it would be celebrated in the Roman rite; if he walked two blocks to the Dominicans, he would find a Mass in the Dominican rite; a few steps further on, the Carmelites (of the Ancient Observance) would celebrate it in the Carmelite rite; and if he decided to make a retreat and went to a Carthusian monastery, the monks there would celebrate in the Carthusian rite. That is, within a radius of just a few kilometers, he would encounter five different forms of lex orandi without any harm to the lex credendi. And this situation endured well into the twentieth century.

As I said in a previous post, we cannot suppose that the cardinal prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship is unaware of these historical circumstances. My doubt is whether we can suppose that he wishes to deceive the faithful and his brother cardinals. And if that were the case, I would advise His Eminence to put more effort into his tricks and lies.