The Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols told traditionalists that if they denigrate the ordinary form of the Mass they risk alienating themselves from the Church.

Archbishop Nichols issued his warning in a message to the Latin Mass Society (LMS) as it was making final preparations for its latest training conference for priests to learn how to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.

He told them that the old and new forms should feature at the conference and participants should celebrate both “wholeheartedly”.

“The view that the ordinary form of the Mass, in itself, is in some way deficient finds no place here. Indeed anyone who holds such a view does not come under the generous provision of ‘Summorum Pontificum’.

Such a person is inexorably distancing themselves from the Church, wrote Archbishop Nichols in a foreword to a booklet given to priests who attended the August conference at London Colney.