Last May 19, Francis met in the Vatican with the European editors of Jesuit publications. They interviewed him for his thoughts about current events. One recurrent theme in Francis’ remarks singled out what he termed “the” problem facing his church today—not “a problem” but “the problem”—which he identified as “the restorationists” whom he identified as those who continue to adhere to the Council of Trent rather than to the Second Vatican Council. It is both astonishing and revealing that Francis considers “restorationists” (i.e. traditionalists) to be “the problem” facing his church. For Francis, “the problem” is not his enthroning and worshiping the pagan idol Pachamama, not his on-going appointments of LGBTQIA+ cardinals, not his justification of giving the communion wafer to those openly living in adultery, not his heresies nor his blasphemies, not his Vatican bank scandals and investing in the production of pornographic films, not the rampant child abuse which has corrupted tens of thousands of clergy and their child victims, the hundreds of millions of dollars of the people’s donations paid out in hush money, then in legal settlements—for Francis, none of these is “the problem” facing the church of which he is the Supreme Pontiff. 

The “restorationists” are those who adhere to the Council of Trent rather than to Vatican II. Thus he (1) acknowledges the contradiction between the two, and (2) proves Cardinal Ottaviani right when the Cardinal warned in 1969 (Ottaviani Intervention) that the New Mass abandons the teaching of the Council of Trent: “It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever. With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus faced with a most tragic alternative.” Thus Cardinal Ottaviani wrote prophetically about the New Mass in 1969!