Preconciliar rites after the Second Vatican Council

[28] In June 1971, Pope Paul VI gave bishops permission to grant faculties to elderly or infirm priests to celebrate the older Roman Rite Mass without a congregation.

[29] Later that year, Cardinal John Heenan presented Paul VI with a petition signed by 57 scholars, intellectuals, and artists living in England, requesting permission to continue the use of the older Mass.

[5] In the 1984 letter Quattuor abhinc annos, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments under Pope John Paul II extended to the entire Latin Church the indult for bishops to authorize celebrations of the preconciliar Roman Rite Mass under certain conditions.

[6] In 1988, Pope John Paul II issued motu proprio the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei in which he urged a "wide and generous application" of the indult already given.

Days after the letter's promulgation, John Paul II instituted the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter to minister in the preconciliar Roman Rite exclusively.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued motu proprio the apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum in which he introduced the terminology of "extraordinary form" to describe the preconciliar liturgy.

On 14 June 2008, Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos told a London press conference that Pope Benedict wanted every parish to offer both the old and the new forms for Sunday Mass.

[32] On March 25, 2020 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two decrees giving new Eucharistic prefaces and provision for the optional celebration of more recent saints in the Tridentine form.

In his 2007 letter Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI permitted priests to fulfill their canonical obligation of prayer (their "divine office") using the preconciliar Roman Breviary instead of the postconciliar Liturgy of the Hours.

[36] The number of preconciliar Roman Rite Masses celebrated by diocesan clergy grew significantly after the release of Summorum Pontificum.

The Society of Saint Pius X, a group of traditionalist clergy, grew out of resistance to the postconciliar liturgical changes, and continues to use the preconciliar Roman Rite exclusively.