The document is expected to be published within the next few weeks. Known as a motu proprio, signifying that it is the Pope’s personal initiative, it reflects Benedict XVI’s thinking on the subject since long before he was elected pontiff.

While, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he repeatedly expressed sympathy for those Catholics who felt nostalgia for the traditional Latin rite which dated back to the Middle Ages, although when it came to discipline he took stern action against the ultra-conservative Catholic splinter group led by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and for whom the use of the ...