Leaked Report Grows: New Book Blows Hole in Traditionis Custodes Narrative

Diane Montagna reports on a new Italian book that further corroborates her recent publication of a Vatican report on the Traditional Latin Mass. Here is an AI-produced summary of Miss Montagna’s Substack piece.¹

• The book is titled The Liturgy Is Not a Show: The Questionnaire to Bishops on the Old Rite — A Weapon of Mass Destruction? and is co-authored by Don Nicola Bux (former consultor to the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith and Divine Worship) and Saverio Gaeta (former editor at the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano).
• This book was originally scheduled for an October 2025 release but was published early after the authors saw Montagna’s July 1 report, which had already leaked key sections of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) official report on its 2020 survey of bishops regarding Summorum Pontificum.
• The book contains the sections Montagna had previously published: the “Overall Assessment” of the survey results and a collection of quotes (“Florilegium“) from bishops’ responses. It also includes a previously undisclosed section: the CDF’s detailed summaries on the implementation of Summorum Pontificum continent by continent and country by country.
• This newly revealed section provides specific data. For example, it notes that 65% of U.S. dioceses responded to the survey, with 62% of those bishops reporting that the Extraordinary Form (EF) met a genuine pastoral need and led to a fruitful faith life for attendees.
• In contrast, the report noted extremely low participation from South American dioceses, which the CDF officials suggested might be due to the widespread presence of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in the region.
• In Africa, where the EF was less common, the responses from regions that did celebrate it were overwhelmingly positive, citing benefits like silence, meditation, and a deepening of faith.
• The summary for France showed a high response rate, with 87 of 95 jurisdictions replying. A significant number of French bishops (42%) requested mutual enrichment between the two forms of the Roman Rite, while 13% suggested that the peaceful balance achieved by Summorum Pontificum should not be changed.
• With the release of this new book, almost the entire second part of the CDF’s official report on the 2020 survey of bishops has now been made public, challenging the official rationale given for the restrictions in Traditionis Custodes.

Read Diane Montagna’s original report at her Substack… 

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