Time for this squalid, futile war against the traditional Mass to end unless Pope Leo is content, as well he may be, to be an asterisk in the history of the Church:
*Pope Leo XIV-See Pope Francis.
Like Lepers
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Not being content with an asterisk would be the one thing that might change the mind of a lackey to the lavender mafia.
(If that were so.)
MVGA
Removing the Lavender Mafia is the only way to make the Vatican great again.
Until then it’s redemptive suffering for the crew.
Make it count.
Lepers, indeed. The maniacs are, for the moment, in full control.
Granted, this is just my reading of the tea leaves, but it seems to me that Pope Leo is headed toward doing away with the TLM and replacing that with the NO in Latin. All his public comments are in support of the Latin NO.
Now, I’m not a fan of the TLM, so I would not be impacted by this at all, but I know that having this happen would devastate a lot of people. We’ll see what develops, but my thought is why would a USA bishop suppress the TLM in their diocese if it’s going to be reversed in a year? I think they know what way Pope Leo is going, and because of that, are not afraid of their suppression.
Granted, this is just my reading of the tea leaves, but it seems to me that Pope Leo is headed toward doing away with the TLM and replacing that with the NO in Latin. All his public comments are in support of the Latin NO.
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He does that, and he’ll improve on Francis performance as a recruiter for SSPX. (I would not put it past him).
If Francis the Sequel does this then he will finish the schism Francis the Peronist started.
The traditionalists going into schism might be the desired result of all this … A “big tent” is one thing, but can trads and German synodalists coexist in the same church? I mean, one group would have to be wrong. Maybe Rome would rather jettison the Traditionalists (and those pesky dogmas they cling to) in order to keep the modernists, hedonists and communists?
I think they know what way Pope Leo is going,
I don’t know if Pope Leo knows what way he will be going a year from now. I am beginning to think he is not a strong willed man and tends to go with what he perceives to be the flow. If TLM advocates make a mess, in the words of Francis, who knows which way he will jump.
When we were talking about the first five things we wanted the new Holy Father to do, I said that I didn’t want him rushing into the Latin Mass issue. I want a solution, and that could take a while to create. It’s been less than six months.
I want a solution, and that could take a while to create. It’s been less than six months.
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It can be done in one day and should be done in one day.
SP under BXVI was a solution (imperfect as it was) that brought actual peace and actual unity. Reimplementing it would be a similar potential solution, albeit one that would invalidate TC, which became (since he chose to make it so) a key component of Francis’ legacy.
But to my mind, that is not Leo’s fault and so he shouldn’t feel bound to respect it any more than Francis did BXVI on this issue, especially since SC is grounded in theology and ecclesiology, whereas TC is predicated on many dubious assertions. He has even been given cover by revelations about the data surrounding its purported necessity to make overturning TC even easier or at least within a rationale about effectiveness or necessity. That is, he wouldn’t even have to directly contradict Francis. Granted, any movement away form TC creates the disaster of papacy by ouroborus, but it (and many other such things of a similar nature) has to dealt with eventually, and making messes always makes things more difficult to clean up than does not making them in the first place.
I don’t envy the position he’s in, but he chose to take it on and bears its weight and responsibility, much as we do to pray for him.
apropos: https://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2025/10/16/united-we-stand-kneel-chant/
He’s not in a difficult position. He just does not want to do it.
TC is based on lies and Bergoglio’s hatred of the TLM’s adherents. The Missa.l.of Paul VI was based on the lies of Annibale Bugnini. This has been documented. If this missal was so great then why as Bugnini not canonized but dispatched to Teheran?
Like the Democrat Party, the Vatican insiders are more comfortable with their fantasies, fallacies and lies than reality.
Jason: I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds Amy Wellborn interesting.
She used to write a satisfactory column for Our Sunday Visitor. She had twenty years ago an engaging blog because she was adept at picking topics and moderating discussions. Ultimately, controversies were not to her taste and she shut it down. Sort of disconcerting that one of her children is now forty and I think he may be the second born.
ST. DAMIEN OF MOLOKAI
send us some help to our colony.
..and please pray for us.
I don’t understand the complications around approving TLM. Let them have their Mass what’s the big deal. It doesn’t take anything away from any “factional” group in the Church. It’s really a no brainer. It’s gotten to a point where Pope Leo needs to put this one to bed and move on to more pressing issue in the Church. There are MORE important issues than whether the TLM is allowed or not.
Ingrates in capital letters. Ingrates for their life, Ingrates for their Faith. Ingrates for their salvation as they deny and censor other peoples’, their neighbors’ love of the TLM. Ingrates. Nine lepers who were too lazy to thank God for their healing.
The complications include the status of the various “independent” groups, the jurisdictions of the bishops, the approved texts for the Mass and other sacraments, and the lack of permanence of any particular pope’s solution.
The complications include the status of the various “independent” groups, the jurisdictions of the bishops, the approved texts for the Mass and other sacraments, and the lack of permanence of any particular pope’s solution.
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None of those are impediments.
Impediments to what, another stalemate that lasts seven years or so?
Impediments to what,
Impediments to running TC through the shredder. It can be done today without problem … other than hurting the feelings of a few tyrannical, modernist, sadistic ideologues.
Pinky he isn’t approving a Mass that has suddenly popped onto the scene whereby he has to review it. It’s been around for a very long time, longer than the NO. He just has to issue a directive to the Bishops that it is a valid Mass that cannot be suppressed. It’s as simple as that. And if a person doesn’t like it, then they don’t have to attend it. Attend the NO. If he does it this way I don’t see how anyone should be “offended”. Too much nonsense about a non-issue
SP, for all its flaws, was probably the best possible “good faith” solution, in that it minimally imposed anything, made generous allowance for other things for those so inclined, while grounding much of it in the aspirations of the faithful and the lowest possible level of subsidiarity.
His idea of mutual enrichment wasn’t, to my mind, a program with a specific end goal (although he might have had an idea of something particular), but I think he wanted to let the situation resolve itself as peacefully and organically as possible, with people who shared the same faith and worshipped in the same parish rubbing elbows with each other, which, while always providing some level of conflict, was also not an abstraction but could be worked out concretely in the day to day and week to week lives of parishes, as happened in many places. No doubt in some places this worked better than in others; there are no one-size fits all solutions in this vale of tears. But it could potentially have brought about a non-ideological resolution borne out of the Church’s own self in continuity with its past, as he mentioned as part of the rationale for SP. (Dr. Kwasniewski’s book of essays on this–From Benedict’s Peace to Francis’ War–is a great read)
I think that hopeful movement, unfortunately, got broken and cannot be repaired as easily by simply restoring SP, even though in justice it still should be. The amount of distrust and ill will and the like that TC engendered is scandalous, especially as it clustered around the *unpleasantness* of 2020 and all that entailed which still hasn’t been recovered from. And the back and forth dynamic of “Ok, now you can have this, raise money for altar rails” and “No, you can’t have this now and we’re removing altar rails you sacrificed for”–each buttressed with the language of “unity” and “obedience”–just creates a toxic culture in which no one can trust any one. You have people who moved their families to be near to what they saw as a lifeline for their faith, only to have it snatched away because they are suspected of being schizzy for finding meaning in the thing that the previous pope said was good and true and beautiful and lawful for them to have. For even if it was reimplemented, how do you then trust the bishop who enforced TC? How do you give to your new TLM parish, knowing that it might be just as suddenly removed? And when this is compounded with the host of other theological and practical issues (what happens when the next pandemic rolls around?), I don’t know how any organization survives this, absent a miracle.
I think that any largely top-down solutions are probably now outside of the scope of possibility, and even SP itself was not implemented as legislated by a sizable number of bishops. There might be a St. Gregory the Great level pope to come who through the sheer power of his gravitas and holiness can inspire great renewal–and who knows, maybe Leo will end up being that, we must pray–but even then there is so much healing on the individual and parish and diocesan levels that it will likely be a generational or multi-generational project.
Sirach 2:1-5
Jason, I believe you’ve put your finger on a sore spot that has otherwise been overlooked: we TLM-goers were sure that if we were good parishioners and contributed to the building fund and volunteered for the parish school fundraisers and joined the Knights of Columbus chapter and made ourselves part of the parish outside our TLM, then we’d be accepted and even embraced.
My former parish had six Sunday Masses, and a Saturday vigil Mass. of those seven Masses, two were TLMs— yet those two TLMs accounted for almost 70% of the total Sunday collection. We tried to be good parishioners.
And now we know that, even though we might do all that, we were despised all along.
I honestly hope that TC is abrogated. It’s unjust and based on lies and ignorance and bigotry. But even if my old parish— where I’d been going for almost 30 years— even if my old parish reinstated a TLM I doubt I’d ever attend, nor ever darken its door again.
The way our bishop cancelled our parish TLMs was brutal and a clear display of contempt— especially clear when you consider how bishops generally don’t get where they are by being bad at either PR or working a crowd. And my parish priests were little help and no consolation- probably because they were under orders from their boss. Most extraordinary was the indifference of my fellow parishioners who attend the Novus Ordo Masses. These were people who I’d volunteered with, lectored at their Masses, etc. I actually overheard one Susan-from-the-parish council type remark “well finally! They’ve had fifty years to get with the program.” If my parish was so glad to see us go, then it’s understandable that I hesitate to ever return.
So no, I don’t think simply reinstating Summorum Pontificum will fix things. Our bishops have made a spectacle of their contempt for us TLM-goers, and TC just gave them the cover to do something they’ve always wanted anyway. At least now I see how things truly are.
Clinton it’s completely unjust and unfair how you were treated.
I hope though that you attended the NO if the TLM was made unavailable. At the end of the day it’s about the Eucharist. You need the Eucharist. Don’t deny yourself of Gods precious Body and Blood.