ROME — Pope Francis is urging the Catholic faithful to stop exploiting the old Latin Mass for ideological reasons and to start discovering the beauty of the new liturgy that grew from the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Francis wrote a letter to rank-and-file Catholics as part of his long-term effort to crack down on the spread of the traditional rite and those who support it. He called on the faithful to “abandon our polemics” over the liturgy, which he said risked the unity of the Catholic Church.
