The prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said in an interview that aversion to Latin and Gregorian chant within some sectors of the Church will pass away with the generation of 1968.
Nico Spuntoni asked Cardinal Robert Sarah, “Your Eminence, do you believe there is an aversion to Latin and Gregorian chant in certain parts of the Church?” Cardinal Sarah replied:
It strikes me as an aversion confined to a few self-referential cultural circles—more a matter of psychology than of substance—and I think it’s simply a generational issue: once the ’68 generation has passed, these baseless, one-sided positions, which diminish the very cultural stature of Latin Catholicism, will pass with it.
Cardinal Sarah also called for the repeal of Pope Francis’s restrictions on the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass.
“Access to ritual forms recognized and in use for centuries can never be artificially restricted by decree,” he said. “If a rite ceased to serve the faith, it would die out on its own; but if it preserves and nurtures the faith, may we never limit it—because in doing so we would be restricting the preservation and spread of the faith itself.”