The United States contains a “significant” number of groups seeking to “gag” the reforms of the Catholic Church initiated by the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis said in a new interview.
“In the European Church I see more renewal in the spontaneous things that are emerging: movements, groups, new bishops who remember that there is a Council behind them,” said Francis in a conversation with the editors of Jesuit journals of Europe.
“Restorationism has come to gag the Council,” he continued. “The number of groups of ‘restorers’ — for example, in the United States there are many — is significant.”
The conversation between the pope and the editors took place on May 19 and a transcript of the encounter was published in the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica on June 14.
Over the last year, Pope Francis has instituted a number of reforms meant to serve as a correction to Catholics who have rejected the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
Among the reforms of Vatican II, which took place from 1962-1965, was the approval of the translation of the liturgy from Latin into vernacular languages, in an effort to make the Mass more accessible and involve greater participation of the laity.