Rome, Jul 3 (AP) Leaked documents seemingly undermining Pope Francis’ stated reason for restricting the old Latin Mass provided an incomplete reconstruction of the evidence that informed his 2021 decision to crack down on the spread of the ancient liturgy, the Vatican said Thursday.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni declined to explicitly confirm the authenticity of the documents, which were posted online this week by a Vatican reporter. But he said they “presumably” were part of one of the documents forming the basis of Francis’ decision.

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“As such, it provides a very partial and incomplete reconstruction of the decision-making process,” Bruni told reporters. adding that successive confidential reports and consultations were taken into consideration.

The publication of the documents this week revived the debate in the Catholic Church over the Latin Mass, suggesting that whoever leaked them aimed to put pressure on Pope Leo XIV to address the dispute just as his pontificate is getting under way.

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Leo has said his aim is unity and reconciliation in the church, and many conservatives and traditionalists have urged him to heal the liturgical divisions that spread over the Latin Mass, especially in the United States, during Francis’ 12-year papacy.

In one of his most controversial acts, Francis in 2021 reversed Pope Benedict XVI’s signature liturgical legacy and restricted access for ordinary Catholics to the old Latin Mass. The ancient liturgy was celebrated around the world before the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular, with the priest facing the pews.

Francis said he was cracking down on the spread of the old liturgy because Benedict’s decision in 2007 to relax restrictions on its celebration had become a source of division in the church. Francis said he was responding to “the wishes expressed” by bishops around the world who had responded to a Vatican survey, as well as the Vatican doctrine office’s own opinion.

“The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene,” Francis wrote at the time.

Benedict’s relaxation had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division,” he said.

The documents posted online, however, paint a different picture. They suggest the majority of bishops who responded to the Vatican survey had a generally favorable view of Benedict’s reform. They warned that suppressing or weakening it would “do more harm than good” and lead traditionalist Catholics to leave the church and join schismatic groups.

The documents include a five-page “overall assessment” of the survey findings, written by the Vatican’s doctrine office, as well as a seven-page compilation of quotes from individual bishops or bishops’ conferences. There is no letterhead or signature on the documentation, and it’s not clear if its author cherry-picked the quotes.

The documents contain some negative and neutral opinions and say some bishops considered Benedict’s reform “inappropriate, disturbing,” dangerous and worthy of suppression.

But the Vatican’s own assessment said the majority of bishops who responded expressed satisfaction. It cited the rise in religious vocations in traditionalist communities and said young Catholics in particular were drawn to the “sacredness, seriousness and solemnity of the liturgy.”

The documentation was prepared by the Vatican department that handled traditionalist communities and its authors may have been more sympathetic to their plight. That said, even the office’s retired head backed Francis when he published the 2021 crackdown.

The new documents have comforted traditionalists who felt attacked and abandoned by Francis.

“The new revelations confirms that Pope Francis restricted the Traditional Mass at the request of only a minority of bishops, and against the advice of the dicastery in charge of the subject,” said Joseph Shaw, of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. In an email, he said Leo should address the issue “urgently.”

One way Leo can do so is by merely instructing the Vatican to more freely grant exemptions to bishops to allow Latin Masses to be celebrated in diocesan parishes.

Such permission was recently granted to the diocese of San Angelo, Texas, according to the Rev. Ryan Rojo, the diocesan seminarian director. In a June 27 post on X, he thanked Leo and the Vatican liturgy office for extending permission for another two years. (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Police were examining a suspicious package sent to the Israeli Embassy in Denmark’s capital, authorities said Thursday. Danish public broadcaster DR showed photos of several police and emergency vehicles near the embassy in Copenhagen, including what they reported was a hazmat emergency response team vehicle. Several police officers, heavily armed soldiers and men in dark green hazmat suits and gas masks were shown standing behind a cordoned-off area near a white building in the Hellerup neighborhood in north Copenhagen.

Copenhagen police wrote on X that “we are present at the Israeli Embassy, where we are investigating a shipment received.” They added that “we currently have no further information.” Police also said that they blocked off roads near the embassy.

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Anders Frederiksen, duty chief at the Copenhagen Police, told Danish daily Ekstra Bladet that “ordinary citizens in the area should not be worried.” He added that the investigation was taking place inside the embassy building after employees there alerted police.

Frederiksen declined to comment on the contents of the suspicious shipment.

A spokesperson reached by phone at the press department of the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen said that he couldn’t comment on the situation.

Security officials in many European countries have increased surveillance and protection of Israeli and Jewish institutions after a 12-day war broke out between Israel and Iran in June.

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Last week, security officers arrested a man in the Danish city of Aarhus on suspicion of gathering information on Jewish locations and individuals in Germany for Iranian intelligence.

German federal prosecutors said the man was tasked by an Iranian intelligence service early this year with gathering information on “Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals” in Berlin. They didn’t elaborate.

He spied on three properties in June, “presumably in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets,” prosecutors said.

German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said that “if this suspicion is confirmed, we are dealing with an outrageous operation,” adding in a statement that “the protection of Jewish life has the highest priority for the German government.”