Dear Pope Leo,

We love you!!

We’ve given everything to follow Jesus and the Catholic Church. We’ve invested our whole lives to build up the Church, and given freely of our time, our talent, and our sometimes-scarce financial resources. We’re striving our best to raise our kids Catholic, and we’ve spent hours in adoration and evangelization to win our friends, colleagues, and family for Christ.

Please give us one concession of relaxing Traditionis Custodes and allowing the reforms under Summorum Pontificum.

While we have given everything, in this Church of synodality, is there a place for us?

It pains us to see bishops and cardinals who openly flaunt the Church's teachings not disciplined (or even elevated!), while our beautiful Tridentine Mass communities are systematically consolidated or outright suppressed. We feel like we are being pushed to the margins and told we are bad, dirty, and unwanted in the Church.

Over the years, we've been branded as heretics, apostates, schismatics, "right-wing/political", sedevacantists, and more. But we implore you to see that nothing could be further from the truth.

1. We fully recognize you, Pope Leo XIV, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, keeper of the keys, and successor to blessed Peter.
2. We fully recognize Vatican 2 as a valid ecumenical council, and we accept the Novus Ordo as a legitimate Mass.
3. We fully accept all of the Church's teachings and completely affirm the orthodoxy of everything taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
4. We do not care solely about the "smells and bells" of the liturgy (otherwise we would have become Orthodox), but fully believe in the Magisterium and that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus founded.

While Cardinal Roche's consistory document seems to imply a covert conspiracy to re-establish the Tridentine Rite (TLM) as the exclusive or dominant rite of the Latin Church, in reality, most TLM-admirers just don't want it to disappear off the face of the Earth altogether! For example, if there were only 56 animals left of an endangered species, governments would spend billions of dollars and scientists across the world would unite to save this species.

Certainly, no one would try to hunt it to extinction!

Yet this is, unfortunately, what is happening with the TLM. Today, there are only 56 TLM-approved parishes, down from 600+ pre-Traditionis Custodes. Most of these parishes did not shut down because of a lack of funds or interest. Instead, they have been artificially strangled by Traditionis Custodes.

While the argument commonly given is "we need 1 liturgical rite for unity in the Latin Church", we beg you to see that diversity (a common 21st-century goal) is actually our strength. Not a diversity in doctrine, of course, but a diversity in worship. For example, the Latin Church already has many liturgical rites, including Mozarabic, Braga, Zaire, Anglican-Use, and more, without even including the unique liturgical rites of the Eastern Catholic Churches!

As one mom in Charlotte wrote, "Uniformity is not unity, and it’s causing more division than we have ever felt."

Different people are attracted by and connect to different things, and the same holds true for the liturgy. It's not just the use of Latin that draws people in, but the different "liturgical dance" (chants, prayers, actions, vestments) to use a phrase coined by Bishop Barron that differentiates the Tridentine Mass from a Latin Novus Ordo, not to mention the more consistent use of traditional "dance props" like altar rails, patens, incense, etc. As numerous stories online show, the Traditional Latin Mass has a different way of connecting participants to the ancient and transcendent, which appeals to some audiences better than the Novus Ordo (NO).

This isn't to say we should exclusively have the TLM: you'll find countless stories online of people connecting better with the NO!

The broader point is a one-size-fits-all solution -- whether that be sola-TLM or sola-NO -- is precisely the wrong approach for the Latin Church. We need to cherish, love, celebrate, and promote both as part of our Catholic heritage, and research by Natalie Lindemann (Liturgy Matters, 2025) has shown that a dual approach of celebrating both the Tridentine Mass and Novus Ordo Mass at the same parish can help belief in the Real Presence!

You encouraged us young people to lead. We are begging you to hear our voice. Please look kindly upon us.

Albeit somewhat paradoxical, we urge you to consider that to bring about lasting, true unity in the Church, we need to emphasize diversity in worship and not suppress it. We urge you to consider that this diversity in worship is a strength of the Catholic ("Universal") Church, not a weakness.

We know you have the weight of the world on your shoulders right now (especially with the German bishops), and do not want to cause you any trouble. We will be praying for you, Papa Leo, and we hope you experience health and joy all the days of your life.

Love,

Your Faithful Followers

"Lex orandi, Lex credendi"