I can’t imagine that Pope Leo would find fault with what Cardinal Ratzinger stated in such commonsense language in 1988. Can you imagine such a thing?
"Certainly there is a mentality of narrow views that isolate Vatican II and which has provoked this opposition. There are many accounts of it which give the impression that, from Vatican II onward, everything has been changed, and that what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II.
The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.
This idea is made stronger by things that are now happening. That which previously was considered most holy -- the form in which the liturgy was handed down -- suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited.
...All this leads a great number of people to ask themselves if the Church of today is really the same as that of yesterday, or if they have changed it for something else without telling people."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, address to Chilean episcopal conference, 1988
And then there is this from 1986:
"Pope John Paul II, in 1986, asked a commission of nine cardinals two questions. Firstly, did Pope Paul VI, or any other competent authority, legally forbid the widespread celebration of the Tridentine Mass in the present day?
The answer given by eight of the cardinals in 1986 was that, no, the Mass of Saint Pius V has never been suppressed. I can say this; I was one of the cardinals."
There was another question, very interesting. Can any bishop forbid a priest in good standing from celebrating a Tridentine Mass again? The nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass. We have not official publication, and I think that the Pope would never establish an official prohibition ... because of the words of Pius V, who said this was a Mass forever."
-- Cardinal Alfons Stickler, Prefect of the Vatican Archives
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