Summorum Pontificum

Summorum Pontificum Latin for 'Of the Supreme Pontiffs' Apostolic constitution of Pope Benedict XVI
Signature date	7 July 2007
Subject	Tridentine Mass
Text	In Latin In English
← De aliquibus mutationibus normis de electione Romani Pontificis   Quaerit semper →

Summorum Pontificum (English: 'Of the Supreme Pontiffs') is an apostolic letter of Pope Benedict XVI, issued in July 2007. This letter specifies the circumstances in which priests of the Latin Church could celebrate Mass according to what Benedict XVI called the "Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962" (the latest edition of the Roman Missal, in the form known as the Tridentine Mass or Traditional Latin Mass) and administer most of the sacraments in the form used before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council.

The document was dated 7 July 2007 and carried an effective date of 14 September 2007. Pope Benedict released an accompanying explanatory letter at the same time.^[1]

It granted greater freedom for priests to use the Tridentine liturgy in its 1962 form, stating that all priests of the Latin Church may freely celebrate Mass with the 1962 Missal privately. It also provided that "in parishes where a group of the faithful attached to the previous liturgical tradition stably exists, the parish priest should willingly accede to their requests to celebrate Holy Mass according to the rite of the 1962 Roman Missal" and should "ensure that the good of these members of the faithful is harmonised with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the governance of the bishop".

The Tridentine, Latin-language form of the Pontificale Romanum was allowed for the celebration of all the seven sacraments (even if Holy Orders was not expressly mentioned). In the same article 9, it also allowed the Roman Breviary as revised under Pius X to clergymen ordained (deacons, priests, bishops).

In July 2021, Pope Francis abrogated Summorum Pontificum with the motu proprio Traditionis custodes which established the new circumstances for celebration of the 1962 Roman Missal.^[2]