Spanish Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela is taking a hard line on what he sees as decades of liturgical drift, saying the post-Vatican II changes helped turn too many Masses into something unrecognizable. In his view, the problem is not minor sloppiness but a deeper loss of reverence that has affected faith, discipline, and even the way people understand the sacrament itself.
In a recent interview with El Debate, the archbishop emeritus of Madrid argued that the reforms meant to renew Catholic worship were often carried out in ways that encouraged abuse. He said those excesses created a climate where the liturgy no longer felt sacred, and where the faithful were left confused by what they were seeing at the altar.
Rouco Varela did not soften his language. He said that in many places, especially during the turbulent 1970s, the changes went so far off course that they became a “parody” of the liturgy rather than a proper celebration of it.
“A liturgical reform was carried out at Vatican II, which, in many and widespread cases, turned into a parody of the liturgy,” he told the newspaper.
He went further, saying the damage reached beyond appearances. In his telling, the disorder touched “the very truth of the sacrament, the conscience of the faithful, and even the very aesthetic sensibility of humanity,” which is why so many Catholics later gravitated back toward older forms of worship.
“And, of course, when the parody reaches such a profound level that it affects the very truth of the sacrament, the conscience of the faithful, and even the very aesthetic sensibility of humanity — in the face of the almost anarchic indiscipline of the liturgy in many cases and in many parts of the Church during the 1970s — it led groups of the faithful to return once again to the tradition that predated the Second Vatican Council reform,” he added.
That concern ties directly into his broader support for restoring Summorum Pontificum, the document associated with wider access to the traditional Latin Mass. For Rouco Varela, the appeal of that older form was not nostalgia. It was a reaction to confusion and a way for believers to reconnect with something they felt had been pushed aside.
The cardinal also warned that bad liturgical habits can split Catholics into camps. Some respond by retreating into extremes, and he suggested that the chaos after the council helped drive that reaction by making ordinary worship look less like worship and more like improvisation.
He then described what he remembered from the period after the reforms, and the picture he painted was stark. In seminaries and religious houses, he said, the Eucharist was treated casually, with celebrations moving away from any sense of solemnity or order.
“There was all sorts of behavior, and, what was worse, in houses of formation — for men and women religious, in seminaries … Celebrating the Eucharist in the living room at a low table,” Rouco Varela said. “Sitting or squatting, bringing wine from the fridge, bread of who-knows-what, and then each person saying whatever came to mind … Almost the only thing that could be reduced to theological truth (was) the words of consecration.”
“In other words, we moved from the celebration of the Eucharist instituted by the Lord — the sacrament of his sacrificial and sacrificed presence on the cross that nourishes our souls; his flesh and blood; the presence of the Divine in the midst of your life and your history — to a sort of game among buddies or friends, nothing more. There is an infinite distance between the two,” he added.
His comments land in a Church still wrestling with questions about reverence, authority, and what worship should look like in public life. Across the globe, debates over abuse, experimentation, and the treatment of sacred space have not gone away, and they continue to fuel sharp disagreements among Catholics who want very different things from the liturgy.
What stands out in Rouco Varela’s remarks is the insistence that ritual is not decoration, and that careless worship can leave lasting scars. He is arguing that once the sacred is treated casually, people notice, and the fallout does not stay in the sanctuary.
