ARLINGTON, Virginia (LifeSiteNews) — There are strings attached to the Vatican’s two-year extension for permission to offer the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Arlington in Virginia, with TLM parish churches required to offer the Novus Ordo in Latin once a month instead of the TLM.

The Diocese of Arlington revealed this condition in its website announcement that the Vatican had renewed permission for the offering of the TLM in three of its parish churches, which are not ordinarily “allowed” to offer the TLM per the requirements of Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.

The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments “suggested that once a month, in place of one of the Masses usually celebrated in the usus antiquior, Mass be celebrated in Latin using the Missale Romanum of 2008 (the Novus Ordo Missae),” the diocese announced. “Bishop Burbidge has accepted this proposal, which will solely pertain to the three parish churches listed above.”

These parish churches are Saint Rita Catholic Church, Saint John the Beloved Catholic Church, and Saint Anthony of Padua Mission Church. The TLM will also continue to be offered at five non-parish locations, listed on the Arlington Latin Mass Society website. It is important to note that these churches in the Arlington diocese are not permitted to advertise Latin Masses in their bulletins, per the Responsa ad Dubia that accompanies the instructions of Traditionis Custodes.

The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) also offers the TLM in the Diocese of Arlington at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in Linden.

In 2022, Bishop Michael Burbidge issued one of the most sweeping crackdowns on the Traditional Latin Mass in the U.S. after Traditionis Custodes, eliminating 13 TLMs in his diocese. In fact, the Diocese of Arlington has pointed out in its most recent announcement that “the Dicastery commended the diocese for how well it has implemented Traditionis Custodes.”

At the time, the restrictions were decried by Latin Mass attendees in the region as a tragedy and an affront to the TLM community.

“This announcement this morning was like a knife going through my heart,” Doug Koupash shared with LifeSiteNews after the 2022 decision. “I (worshipped at) the Latin Mass until I went to college. That’s when the Novus Ordo was in full bloom. And I remember the first time I went to the local church at my university in Iowa and they had the English and the guitars and the banjos … I was absolutely horrified. I was horrified. I left that church and did not go back.”

“So on and off I went to the church. I got married and went back to the Church again. I tried with the Novus Ordo Mass and there was nothing there. After a while, there was nothing in my heart. I couldn’t do it anymore. And I can’t go back to that. So I have some decisions to make,” said Koupash, who went on to struggle to speak through tears.

Even when offered in Latin, the Novus Ordo Missae is radically different from the TLM in its prayers and gestures, so much so that Thomistic theologian and liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski and others have argued that it is “a different rite.” The Novus Ordo has excised many prayers; watered-down existing prayers by, for example, cutting expressions of sorrow for sin and petitions for mercy; and it has made much less clear the nature of the Mass as Christ’s own sacrifice. Priests and theologians argue these Masses are thereby qualitatively different with respect to the worship they render to God, the faith formation of attendees, and even potentially the graces they produce.

Pope Benedict XVI clarified through his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum that the Latin Mass was never abolished and that no priest needs his bishop’s permission to offer it, stating, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

Following Traditionis Custodes, Cardinal Burke also affirmed that the traditional liturgy is not something that can be excluded from the “valid expression of the lex orandi.”

“It is a question of an objective reality of divine grace which cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority,” wrote the cardinal in 2021.

In accordance with this idea, Kwasniewski has written that priests must resist attempts to restrict the Latin Mass, including through Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying Responsa ad dubia “regardless of threats or penalties,” since obedience to these documents would undermine the very mission of the holy Catholic Church.

Kwasniewski made the point that “the traditional liturgical worship of the Church, her lex orandi (law of prayer),” is a “fundamental” “expression of her lex credendi, (law of belief), one that cannot be contradicted or abolished or heavily rewritten without rejecting the Spirit-led continuity of the Catholic Church as a whole.”

‘The traditional Mass belongs to the most intimate part of the common good in the Church. Restricting it, pushing it into ghettos, and ultimately planning its demise can have no legitimacy. This law is not a law of the Church because, as St. Thomas [Aquinas] says, a law against the common good is no valid law,’” he said in a speech during the 2021 Catholic Identity Conference.

True obedience “is always obedience to GOD, whether immediately or mediately,” explained Kwasniewski. Therefore, if any authority commands something contrary to God’s divine or natural law, “We must obey God rather than men,” as is declared in the Acts of the Apostles and affirmed by Pope Leo XIII.