In a stunning interview, Cardinal Archbishop Arthur Roche, the man the Vatican has placed in charge of extinguishing the Traditional Latin Mass that Benedict XVI in 2007 had widely permitted, admitted in an interview with the BBC that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his radical traditionalist followers are right — that the faith once delivered to the saints has been abolished and substituted by the Church in the 1960s.

“The theology of the Church has changed,” argued Roche. “Whereas before the priest represented, at a distance, all the people — they were channeled through this person who alone was celebrating the Mass.” Now, however, Roche stated that “it is not only the priest who celebrates the liturgy but also those who are baptized with him, and that is an enormous statement to make.” …

Roche and the Vatican agree with progressives who view the old Mass as unsuited to a Church that has a new theology. And so they agree with radical traditionalists, and the Lefebvrites, that the purpose of the new Mass was to impose a new religion upon the Church.