The crisis that has rocked the diocese of Toulon in the south of France for many months is about to reach an almost definitive end. Priestly ordinations, suspended for many months at Rome’s request, will resume, but at the cost of a liturgical compromise that reflects persistent tensions for the faithful attached to the Traditional Mass.
The diocese of Toulon in the south of France is known as one of the most dynamic in the country and one of the biggest providers of vocations to the priesthood. For many months, it was under close surveillance by the Vatican for failures of discernment in the recruitment of seminarians and shortcomings in the management of the communities by the bishop, Msgr. Rey. Ordinations were suspended until a solution to the crisis could be found, with the appointment of a coadjutor bishop alongside Msgr. Rey to take over his pastoral duties, which were deemed to be partially lacking.
In the last months, earlier problems of episcopal dysfunction had been resolved, and ordinations resumed, but the case of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy was still pending. The young seminarians of this very dynamic community, which has the particularity of celebrating the traditional Mass in Latin, remained uncertain about their future.
For more than two years for one of them, one year for the other four, they had to wait for authorisation from Rome for their ordination to the diaconate and then to the priesthood. At issue were the community’s statutes, which stipulate that priests must celebrate Mass according to the so-called Tridentine Rite, Old Rite, or Vetus Ordo, i.e., the form of Mass codified by Pope Pius V in 1570 after the Council of Trent and which had been celebrated for centuries in the Catholic Church—colloquially referred to as the ‘Latin Mass.’
It would appear that an agreement has been reached, and the diocese of Toulon has announced the date of their ordination, scheduled for Sunday, December 1st, 2024, putting an end to a long and very trying period for these young candidates for the priesthood.
But the end of the crisis may only be apparent. Concerning the ordination Mass on December 1st, Msgr. Touvet is deliberately ambiguous. According to our information, confirmed by several sources, the Mass will indeed be celebrated according to the Vetus Ordo, but the sacrament of ordination will be conferred according to the modern missal—in contradiction, therefore, with the wishes of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy. Finally, it is not at all clear at this stage that young priests, once ordained, will be allowed to celebrate Mass in the Vetus Ordo.
This is a compromise, not to say an unsatisfactory liturgical tinkering. With this flawed choice, the Vatican through Msgr. Touvet intends to impose strict limits on the congregation in defiance of its statutes and the vocation of these young people who aspire to become priests and who have seen their vocation born and grow by being nourished by the traditional rite of the Catholic Church.
This is a questionable method that the Vatican is trying out here and there. The Dominican Sisters of Pontcallec, a teaching congregation attached to the traditional liturgy and also based in France, have just been the victims of an internal crisis and a similar semblance of regulation. At Rome’s request, they have put in place a clumsy mixture of the two liturgies.
A recent investigation by our colleagues at Renaissance Catholique reveals that the coadjutor bishop appointed by the Vatican to Msgr. Rey in Toulon is not deprived of hostile intentions towards the faithful who are attached to a traditional way of practising and intends to exercise close control over future priests in his diocese.
The coadjutor bishop wanted nine deacons to sign an undertaking not to celebrate Mass according to the Vetus Ordo. He also forbade them to include elements of the old rite in the new liturgy, i.e., to add signs of the cross or genuflections, or even to recite the canon in silence. He also asked them not to refuse to give communion in the hand. “Most of them reacted very negatively, denouncing an abuse of power,” analyses Renaissance catholique, which explains that Msgr. Touvet had to leave with his document unsigned. The seminarians were scandalised. What’s more, several new parish priests in the diocese received a letter at the start of the new school year explicitly asking them not to celebrate Mass exclusively with elements that would be too reminiscent of the Vetus Ordo, even though these elements are authorised in the new liturgy. If mixing missals is not a good thing, why encourage it at the occasion of the ordinations?
These facts are very worrying. A war is being waged not only against supporters of the traditional rite of the Mass, but also against conservatives in the broadest sense—regardless of the rite used.
