For the first time since 1970, a senior Vatican cardinal has celebrated a pre-Vatican II traditional Latin Mass in a Rome basilica.2,000 Catholics were present for the Mass at the Basilica of St Mary Major last Saturday which was seen as an effort to reach out to more traditional elements in the Church.
The Vatican said numerous faithful from various countries, taking advantage of the indult given by John Paul II in 1988 permitting them to use the Pius V rite, had asked to honour the Pope on the 25th anniversary of his election by celebrating Mass in this way in this basilica.
Catholics from the UK, the USA, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Australia flew in for the occasion. Cardinals, bishops and around 150 priests and seminarians attended. All recited the Rosary beforehand, on this, the feast of Mary Help of Christians.
Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, wearing full Roman vestments, celebrated the Tridentine Mass on the high altar.
Facing the congregation as the popes normally did in these major basilicas, he used Latin throughout except for the homily, which he delivered in Italian, wearing a mitre and holding the crozier.
“The rite of Pius V cannot be considered extinct,” said the cardinal in his homily, and he went on to say the Pope had expressed “his benevolent welcome to those faithful who, while recognising the legitimacy of the Roman rite as renewed according to the indications of the Second Vatican Council, remain attached to the preceding rite and find in it valid spiritual nourishment.”
The faithful received Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue, as laid down in the Pius V rite. Hymns were sung in Latin.
Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos is head of the Congregation for Clergy, but he presided in his capacity as president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, the Vatican body set up by the present Pope to facilitate the reconciliation of schismatic Lefebvrists, now grouped in the St Pius X Society.
Marigold Turner, who attended with 25 other members of the English Latin Mass Society, was clearly overjoyed. “I think it’s a wonderful celebration, it’s marvellous that it’s happened,” she told The Universe.
The previous morning, the English LMS appears to have made history when it became the first group since 1970 to celebrate a pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in a crypt of St Peter’s Basilica, Rome. Fr Andrew Southwell obtained permission from the Rome Vicariate to celebrate Mass in the chapel of Our Lady of Hungary.
