For Pope Francis, the liturgy both defied easy definition, and yet could also be encapsulated in just a couple of sentences: “It is an act that founds the whole Christian experience and, therefore, prayer, too, is an event, it is a happening, it is presence, it is encounter. It is an encounter with Christ,” the pontiff told listeners during a 2021 general audience.
While the liturgical legacy of Pope Francis, who died April 21 at age 88, may have flown under the radar for many, several experts told OSV News his 12-year papacy made a definite impact.
“Pope Francis had a great love for liturgical prayer,” said Father Andrew Menke, executive director of the secretariat for the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, or ICEL. “To see him at Mass was to see someone genuinely praying from the heart, and entering into the mystery being celebrated.”
Msgr. Kevin Irwin, a research professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington and a leading liturgy commentator who wrote “Pope Francis and the Liturgy” (Paulist Press), noted Pope Francis’s liturgical tastes were also quite unadorned.
“His celebration of the liturgy was as simple as a papal liturgy can be,” said Msgr. Irwin, alluding to the inclusion of additional ceremonial elements and specific prayers when the pope celebrates Mass.
On Feb. 28, writing from his Gemelli hospital room in Rome during his final illness, Pope Francis sent a message to professors and students at Rome’s Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm saying dioceses should encourage “a liturgical style that expresses the following of Jesus, avoiding unnecessary pageantry or prominence.”
Still, Father Menke believes liturgy didn’t necessarily define Pope Francis’s 12-year papacy in the way other issues did.
“I don’t think liturgical questions were a major priority of his pontificate,” he said. “We won’t think of his liturgical legacy in the same way we’ll remember his love for the poor and for people on the margins of the Church and society.”
Father Menke nonetheless acknowledged the ongoing controversy surrounding Francis’s “Traditionis Custodes” (“Guardians of the Tradition”) – a 2021 apostolic letter dramatically curtailing the previous permissions of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for celebration of Mass in Latin according to the 1962 Roman Missal, commonly called the traditional Latin Mass. Those restrictions, Father Menke said, have been a challenge to many Catholics.
A key component of Pope Francis’s liturgical bequest, Father Menke proposed, revolves around the inheritance of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent liturgical reform that led to the Mass celebrated in local languages.
“In terms of his liturgical legacy, I think he’ll be remembered as a pope who wanted to affirm and strengthen the liturgical reform initiated at the Second Vatican Council,” said Father Menke. “We’re over 50 years distant from the beginning of those changes, and most of us simply take them for granted, or forget the principles behind the reform.”
That’s an outcome Pope Francis perhaps wanted to avoid when he penned “Desiderio Desideravi,” his 2022 apostolic letter “on the liturgical formation of the people of God,” noting that Catholics need to better understand – through “serious and dynamic liturgical formation” – the liturgical reform of Vatican II and its goal of “full, conscious, active, and fruitful celebration” of the Mass.
The apostolic letter “contains many ideas about what participation means, the importance of catechesis, and ongoing formation in the liturgy,” Msgr. Irwin said. “It is up to bishops’ conferences to take up this challenge. The bishops of France, Germany and Japan, among many others, have done so. Not yet here in the U.S.A.”
Father John Baldovin, a Jesuit like Pope Francis and a professor of historical and liturgical theology at Boston College, agreed with Father Menke’s emphasis of Vatican II in Pope Francis’s liturgical outlook.
“It’s important to realize that in some ways, Pope Francis is the first post-Vatican II pope; he’s the first pope to have been ordained a priest after Vatican II,” Father Baldovin said. “So that’s a big part of his legacy.”
Pope Francis additionally expanded the universal liturgical calendar of the Roman rite with both obligatory and optional memorials and other remembrances of a wide diversity of saints, as well as the Blessed Mother.
The feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutt (Sept. 5) was added, as were the feasts of Our Lady of Loreto (Dec. 10), St. Faustina Kowalska (Oct. 5) and St. Paul VI (May 29).
St. Martha already appeared on the calendar, but her sister and brother, St. Mary and St. Lazarus of Bethany, were added to a new July 29 celebration for all three. St. Mary Magdalene – also already on the calendar – had her commemoration (July 22) elevated to the rank of feast due to her role as “Apostolorum Apostola” (“Apostle of the Apostles”).
A new memorial celebration – Mary, Mother of the Church, commemorated on the Monday following Pentecost Sunday – was created in 2018.
And 21 Christian martyrs who were not Catholic – Coptic Orthodox migrant workers in Libya murdered by ISIS terrorists in 2015 – were inducted into the Roman Martyrology.
“In some respects,” Father Menke said, “this is simply a continuation of something that popes have done for centuries. That is, in adding celebrations to the liturgical calendar, popes emphasize to the Church new models of sanctity who have a particular relevance in current times.”
“But,” he noted, referring to the Coptic martyrs, “the novelty of recognizing the sainthood of non-Catholics is certainly interesting, and something that could have important ecumenical implications. Time will tell whether this will become a wider trend with future popes.”
Pope Francis also oversaw granting greater translation authority to various national bishops’ conferences; liturgical adaptations for Catholics of Indigenous cultures; and a special Mass and prayers for use “In Time of Pandemic.” He advised shorter homilies for priests, and authorized and encouraged the formal institution of lay men and women to the ministry of acolyte, lector and catechist – while the roles are a common sight worldwide, institution to these lay ministries recognizes a specific way of living out their baptism in their communities.
He also bridged liturgical traditions, as with the Catholic Church’s personal ordinariates for the Anglican tradition – commonly called the “Anglican ordinariate” for short – authorizing the only use of the Roman Missal in traditional English.
Established by Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus,” the personal ordinariates are effectively Catholic dioceses with Anglican traditions. Thanks to Pope Francis’s approval of their liturgical books over the course of his pontificate, they celebrate the Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, sacraments and other liturgies in traditional English, shaped by Anglican traditions that are now fully at home in the Catholic Church.
“Pope Francis always valued and promoted the personal ordinariates since 2013,” said Hans-Jürgen Feulner, a professor of liturgical studies and sacramental theology at the University of Vienna specializing in Anglican and Eastern liturgies. He said a major sign of his support was also his “appointing two bishops, Bishop Steven Lopes for the U.S.A. and Canada (2016) and Bishop David Waller (2024) for England, Wales and Scotland.”
The ordinariates’ “Divine Worship” liturgical books authorized by Pope Francis “represent a momentous development in the history of Catholic worship,” Feulner added, “as for the first time, the Catholic Church has officially recognized and approved a collection of liturgical texts developed outside the bounds of her visible communion.”
Nor were the pontiff’s efforts limited to the Western Church.
“Pope Francis had a tremendous impact upon the everyday life of Eastern Catholic Churches,” Father Mark Morozowich, a Ukrainian Catholic mitred archpriest and director of the Bishop Basil Lostern Center for Ukrainian Church Studies at Catholic University, told OSV News.
“He strengthened the episcopal synods that govern Eastern Catholics, as well as striving to encourage the bishops to live their liturgical lives to its fullness,” Father Morozowich added.
Pope Francis supported the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church’s synodal decision – in the face of resistance by some priests and laity – to have a uniform mode of celebrating their form of the Mass, known as the Holy Qurbana, which involved the priest facing the people during the Liturgy of the Word, and then having the priest and people face the East together, part of the Church’s ancient tradition, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
“He ardently strove to bring unity to Eastern Christianity, and help to encourage Eastern Catholics to serve in their role as people who are building bridges and helping to serve Christian unity,” Father Morozowich said.
Pope Francis was also fond of founding new “days” for the Church to celebrate – among them, Sunday of the Word of God (Third Sunday in Ordinary Time on the Roman Calendar); World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Sept. 1); World Day for Grandparents and Elderly (fourth Sunday of July, near the July 26 liturgical memorial of Jesus’ grandparents Sts. Joachim and Anne); and the World Children’s Day (May).
Father Menke said that while the Vatican has in recent decades promoted a number of special observances like these, he feels they don’t often receive the attention they deserve.
“In choosing these particular themes for our attention and prayer, I think Pope Francis wanted to make the Church more conscious of people and issues that are too often forgotten,” he said.
“I’d say that that’s consistent with the overall theme of his pontificate.”
