SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM: AND THE BEAT GOES ON

On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI decreed that the traditional liturgy of the Roman rite was to be officially available to all the Church’s faithful alongside the new liturgy of Blessed Pope Paul VI.

This week, a major gathering to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum --Benedict XVI’s decree -- will take place in Rome.

Organized annually by the Italian National Committee of Summorum Pontificum, this year’s special anniversary “pilgrimage of the Populus Summorum Pontificum” will be attended by a roll call which includes Cardinals Robert Sarah, Raymond Burke, Gerhard Müller, and the Prefect of the Pontifical Household, Archbishop Georg Gänswein (perhaps representing Benedict XVI who may or may not be able to attend personally).

The focal point of the September 14-17 pilgrimage will be a procession of pilgrims through the streets of Rome in the morning of September16, culminating in a solemn Pontifical Mass at 11 a.m. at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter's Basilica.

The four-day event will also include a conference on September 14 at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (my alma mater) on the theme "The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Benedict XVI: A Renewed Youth for the Church.” 

Speakers will include Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and Cardinal Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“Our goal is to illustrate how much the ‘treasures of the past’ can, and must be, a font of renewal for the whole Church in times of crisis,” explained Guillaume Ferluc, the event’s organizer.

I suspect that we know the “crisis” to which Mr. Ferluc is referring, that is, the crisis which Pope Francis’ Pontificate is creating among the conservative reactionaries within the Church.

Just last week, the Holy Father issued a motu proprio allowing local Conferences of Bishops to exercise greater authority and discretion in translating the prayers used in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy.


A week earlier, Pope Francis is quoted as having stated that the "liturgical reform of Vatican II is irreversible".

At the risk of being cynical, I suggest that the Pope’s timing of his statement and his motu proprio was in direct relationship to the fiasco which will take place in Rome this week among the Church’s disaffected conservatives who will interpret the Pope’s actions as just another brutal slap in their faces.

They should.  They deserve it.