ROME — Peter Seewald, close friend and collaborator of Pope Benedict XVI, said Thursday that Benedict was “stabbed in the heart” by Pope Francis’ attacks on the traditional Latin Mass.

Seewald, a German journalist who worked with Joseph Ratzinger — the future Benedict XVI — for over 25 years, said that Pope Francis has done his best to eradicate the legacy of his immediate predecessor in every way possible.

Francis’ words at the requiem Mass for Benedict XVI “were as cold as the whole ceremony, which had to be brief so as not to honor his predecessor too much,” Seewald told La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana.

Pope Francis “seems to have an aversion to the westernized traditions of the Catholic Church,” said Seewald. “As a South American and a Jesuit, he has erased much of what was precious and dear to Ratzinger.”

“Suffice it to recall the ban on the Tridentine Mass. Benedict had built a small bridge to a largely forgotten treasure island, which until then had only been accessible through difficult terrain,” Benedict’s biographer added.

“It was a matter close to the German Pope’s heart and there was really no reason to tear down this bridge again. It was obviously a demonstration of the new power,” he said, regarding Francis’ harsh restrictions on the celebration of the Latin Mass.

“The subsequent purge of staff completed the picture. Many people who supported Ratzinger’s course and Catholic doctrine were guillotined,” he noted.

Seewald stated that according to his sources, the pope’s claim that the majority of bishops had voted in favor of repealing Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum in a worldwide poll is simply “not true.”

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