According to PerMariam, Pope Francis had an order to ban the Latin Mass on his desk in the Summer of 2024 but did not sign due to outpouring of support by laypeople.

A friend of Pope Francis’ has claimed that the Pope told him that a document – much rumored about during the summer – to implement new restrictions on the Latin Mass does exist, and Francis only did not sign it due to a conversation the two had. 

Papal confidante’s alleged role 

With the matter having gone quiet, veteran Vatican journalist Dr. Robert Moynihan revealed during a recent Inside the Vatican interview that a friend he introduce to the Pope allegedly played a key role in preventing the document from publication.

Speaking in a November 7 podcast, Moynihan stated:

I’ve a friend who is Russian Orthodox, I introduced him to Pope Francis some years ago more than ten years ago. They exchanged numbers. 

I’ve always told him that we are very desirous of keeping a space in the church … for the old liturgy, which was similar in many ways to the Byzantine liturgy. He has appreciated this because he too is [Russian] Orthodox. 

I said “tell the Pope that when you’re communicating with him because there are rumors that he may want to actually abolish the old liturgy, in a way that Joseph Ratzinger suggested was not even possible to do.”

He said he communicated with the Pope this past summer and told him that there were so many good, young people in America and other countries who love the old liturgy and they didn’t love it as a kind of sign of their anger against him, but simply because they love Jesus. They wanted to draw close to Him and the liturgy did that. And it was very similar to the way that simple people in Russia drew to the liturgy in the 1600’s, when the Old Believers were condemned because they wanted to keep the same, old liturgy and not the reformed liturgy in the 1660’s in Russia. 

So this Russian told the Pope these things and the ope said to him “I’ve got the text on my desk. They’ve told me that I should sign, but since you’ve told me all this, I won’t sign.”