One of the most debated questions since the publication of Traditionis custodes, promulgated by Francis on July 16, 2021, is whether bishops can use concelebration of the Chrism Mass in the reformed rite as proof of communion for priests linked to the 1962 missal. The short answer is that Rome did not issue a universal obligation expressed in those terms, but it did offer bishops a disciplinary criterion that, in practice, has served in no few places as a tool to detect resistance, measure adherence, and, where appropriate, withdraw permissions.
The so-called Responsa ad dubia on Traditionis custodes were not presented publicly by a cardinal, a group of bishops, or a episcopal conference identified by name. The official text of the Holy See itself says only that "some questions" had arrived "from various quarters" and "with greater frequency," and that, after having examined them and informed the Roman Pontiff, the most recurring responses were published. In other words: the Holy See did not make public the identity of those who formulated these doubts. The document is dated December 4, 2021, but was published by the Holy See Press Office on December 18, 2021. Later, a rescriptum ex audientia of February 20, 2023, disseminated on February 21, further reinforced its practical authority by confirming that dispensations regarding the use of parish churches and the erection of personal parishes remained reserved to the Dicastery for Divine Worship.
The key to the matter lies in one of those responses. The official text of the dicastery expressly addresses the case of priests to whom it is granted to celebrate with the 1962 missal, but who according to the dicastery "do not recognize the validity and legitimacy of concelebration" and for this reason refuse to concelebrate the Chrism Mass with the bishop on Holy Thursday. The response is negative and adds that, before revoking that permission, the bishop must engage in fraternal dialogue and accompany the priest toward an understanding of the value of concelebration, "particularly in the Chrism Mass." The official text can be read on the Vatican page: "Responsa ad dubia on certain provisions of the Apostolic Letter Traditionis custodes". There, in substance, is the foundation that many bishops have wielded thereafter.
The formulation is not trivial. Rome did not merely recall that the Chrism Mass expresses the unity of the presbyterate with the bishop, something known for decades, but it actually linked the refusal to concelebrate with a deeper suspicion: the possible non-acceptance of the legitimacy of the liturgical reform and of the magisterium after the Council. Media of very different sensibilities understood the scope of the response this way. America Magazine, for example, summarized then that, according to the Vatican, the refusal to concelebrate the Chrism Mass could lead to withdrawal of permission to celebrate traditional liturgy. From a more critical canonical perspective, vaticanist Edward Pentin would later recall in the National Catholic Register that, apart from a few cases provided for by liturgical law, requiring concelebration affects the freedom of priests recognized in canon 902.
The clearest and best documented case in France was that of Dijon. Even before the Responsa, a head-on collision had already occurred there between Archbishop Roland Minnerath and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. In June 2021, CNA/EWTN reported that the fraternity's priests would be removed from Fontaine-lès-Dijon after years of tensions. Father Hubert Perrel explained then that the archbishop wanted them to concelebrate the Chrism Mass during Holy Week, something they had not done for years because of their charism and their way of living the liturgy. The same idea reappeared later in the National Catholic Register, which directly cited this dispute over chrism concelebration as one of the triggers of the conflict. It was no longer a theoretical discussion about rubrics or liturgical sensibility, but a concrete disciplinary collision between a diocesan ordinary and an institute born precisely under the protection of Ecclesia Dei.
Dijon was not an isolated episode nor a mere local extravagance. In 2024, the same National Catholic Register revisited this precedent and presented it already as a consolidated example of the new praxis: Archbishop Minnerath, the article said, expelled members of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter because they did not want to concelebrate masses, "specifically the Chrism Mass in the ordinary form," and had not done so for years. The importance of this point lies in showing how the concelebration of the Chrism Mass has ceased to be perceived in certain episcopal circles as a recommendable gesture to become, in practice, a disciplinary frontier between the priest considered fully aligned and the priest under suspicion.
Shortly afterward came another decisive piece of information, this time from Rome and with clearly more general scope. Following Francis's audience with members of the French episcopate on April 21, 2022, several media outlets reported that the Pope had insisted that all priests accept concelebration, at least in the Chrism Mass. The formulation was attributed to the Archbishop of Reims and President of the French Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Éric de Moulins-Beaufort. It was reported, among others, by Famille Chrétienne, which cited this papal insistence as part of the message conveyed to French bishops. Although it was not a normative document with legislative force, it did have an evident effect: it confirmed that the Roman line did not see the question as a secondary detail, but as a relevant sign of visible communion.
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, for its part, obtained in February 2022 a singular papal decree that confirmed for its members the use of the 1962 liturgical books, in their own churches or oratories and, outside them, with the consent of the ordinary of the place. The text can be consulted on the fraternity's own website: "Decree of Pope Francis confirming the use of the 1962 liturgical books". That decree was presented by the fraternity as a confirmation of its charism, but it did not entirely resolve the question of concelebration. In fact, precisely because the Pope reaffirmed their right to use the 1962 books without repealing the general architecture of Traditionis custodes, the tension remained open between the recognition of a proper liturgical identity and episcopal pressure for that identity to manifest itself as compatible with certain gestures of the reformed rite, especially in the diocesan framework.
That tension has continued to surface. In 2025, the Valence conflict brought the question back to the foreground. The National Catholic Register reported that Bishop François Durand withdrew the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter from its apostolate in Valence and Montélimar, and stressed that one of the points of friction was the FSSP's refusal to concelebrate, "including the Chrism Mass." According to that information, for diocesan authorities such refusal was a sign of lack of ecclesial communion. Once again the same pattern appears: the Chrism Mass ceases to be simply a great annual celebration of diocesan clergy and functions as visible proof of adherence to the post-conciliar liturgical and ecclesial framework.
From a strictly legal perspective, exaggerations must be avoided. There is no universal law that says, with that very literality, that "priests of communities ex Ecclesia Dei are obliged to concelebrate the Novus Ordo in the Chrism Mass under penalty of automatically losing their ministries." That would be inaccurate. What does exist is something more complex and, in a certain sense, more effective: a chain of texts and decisions that has allowed bishops to interpret the refusal to concelebrate as an indication of a supposed deeper doctrinal or ecclesiological problem. First came Traditionis custodes; then, the Responsa of December 2021, with its explicit reference to the Chrism Mass; later, the disciplinary reinforcement of the rescriptum of February 2023. On that basis, several ordinaries have acted very harshly by taking advantage of the framework to seek suspects.
The real debate, therefore, does not revolve solely around a rubric or presbyteral courtesy toward the bishop. What is being discussed is whether the ecclesial communion of a traditional priest can legitimately be measured through a liturgical act that for him is not accidental, but problematic for reasons of liturgical conscience, history of his institute, and understanding of priesthood. The more restrictive bishops answer yes, because the Chrism Mass sacramentally expresses the unity of the presbyterate and because whoever rejects even that minimal gesture places himself, in fact, in an anomalous ecclesial position. The sectors more closely linked to tradition answer that this requirement transforms a sign of communion into an ideological test, and that the pressure to concelebrate the Novus Ordo precisely in the Chrism Mass has ended up operating as a detector of "rebels" within the traditional clergy.
This explains why the expression does not sound disproportionate to many of those affected. In light of the Roman texts and the cases of Dijon and Valence, it can be maintained with foundation that the concelebration of the Chrism Mass has been used in certain dioceses as a touchstone to separate traditional priests considered integrable from those considered recalcitrant.
