Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: Concerns, calls for clarification on the implementation of "Summorum Pontificum"

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Monday, February 21, 2011

Concerns, calls for clarification on the implementation of "Summorum Pontificum"

From Robert Moynihan's most recent "Inside the Vatican" newsflash:

Will the Vatican soon issue a document calling for some restrictions on the use of the old rite of the Mass?

The internet, especially in traditional Catholic circles, is abuzz with reports that this may be about to happen.

But for the moment, these reports are based only on rumors.

Officially, no one yet knows the content of the upcoming Vatican Instruction to give guidelines for the implementation of Summorum Pontificum -- the dramatic and controversial July 7, 2007 papal motu proprio in which Benedict XVI, after long hesitation, granted wider use of the old, pre-Vatican II liturgy, also known as the Tridentine liturgy or the Latin Mass.

The upcoming document is indeed being prepared; that much is certain.

It is said to bear the date of February 22 -- just four days from now.

But it is not likely to be made public on February 22, but some days or weeks later, as often happens with Roman documents, and the document can even be rewritten during that time, after the date it is signed. ...

Second, and "much, much, more serious and insidious" says Rorate Coeli, is the report that "the Instruction, in its current draft, will explicitly prevent Bishops from using the Traditional Rite of Holy Orders."

In other words, bishops will not be able freely to ordain their seminarians using the old rite.

They will be able to celebrate all of the other sacraments -- baptism, confirmation, etc. -- according to the old rite, but not holy orders, unless they receive ask permission first from Rome.

There will be two exceptions, according to the leaked information, when bishops may use the old rite in priestly ordination ceremonies.

The first involves those institutes (the Ecclesia Dei institutes) and particular Churches dedicated exclusively to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

The other exception is that the Bishop that desires to ordain a certain seminarian in the ancient Rite will have to ask prior permission to Rome (to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei), which will then evaluate if said permission should be granted or not.