Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in private, according to the head of the Society of St Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay.Speaking at a gathering in Brazil this month, Bishop Fellay also claimed that an unnamed Italian bishop had threatened to resign if the Pope ever celebrated the traditional Latin Mass in public.
According to Fellay, the Holy Father’s secretary, Mgr Georg Gänswein, also uses the 1962 Missal; Father Z suggests that the Pope may sometimes serve Mass for him (in the older form, he implies, though this isn’t clear).
The rumours that Benedict XVI says the old Mass in his own chapel have been circulating for a long time; just last week, a senior Westminster priest with strong links to the Vatican told me he had reason to believe them.
But Fellay is on the record here and I don’t think he would make such a claim unless he knew it to be true.
This cheers me up.
I’ve deliberately stuck the word “Tridentine” in the headline to this post because, although it’s been largely superseded by “Extraordinary Form”, I want to remind all those English liberals who are hastily reinventing themselves as fans of the Holy Father that he profoundly loves the Mass they spent decades sneering at – and indeed celebrated it publicly when he was head of the CDF.
As for the bishop who’ll resign if the Pope celebrates the old Mass in public, I think he should just go anyway, don’t you?
SIC: TCUK