Blase J. Cupich
Blase Joseph Cupich was born in 1949 in Omaha, Nebraska, and ordained a priest there in 1975. After serving as Bishop of Rapid City (1998) and Spokane (2010), he was appointed Archbishop of Chicago by Pope Francis in 2014 and created a cardinal in 2016.
Cupich is widely regarded as one of Pope Francis's foremost allies in the American hierarchy — appointed to the Dicasteries for Bishops and for Divine Worship, a leading defender of Amoris Laetitia, and identified with the progressive wing of the U.S. bishops. On the liturgy he has been among the most forceful advocates of restricting the older rite.
If Traditionis Custodes has a most zealous executor in the United States, it is the Archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal Cupich's December 2021 norms did not merely regulate the ancient Mass; they hemmed it in on every side. The old rite was forbidden on the first Sunday of every month, on Christmas, on the Sacred Triduum, on Easter, and on Pentecost — the very summits of the Christian year. Its Scripture was ordered read not from the 1962 books but in the modern vernacular translation. It was driven from ordinary parish churches. And every priest who wished to offer it had to apply in writing and pledge obedience to the new restrictions.
He has not hidden the conviction behind the rules. He calls the reformed liturgy the 'unique expression' of the Roman Rite, warns of a 'parallel church,' and tells the faithful that without the new Mass the Christian life is 'impoverished' — language that frames the inheritance of fifteen centuries not as a treasure to be guarded but as a danger to be contained.
We grant that he acts in obedience to the reigning pontiff, and within the authority of his office; he is no rebel. But the question this page asks is narrower and plainer: has he been a friend to the Mass of Ages and to the souls who love it? By his own decrees and his own words, the answer is no. He has made Chicago one of the hardest places in America to kneel at the old altar.