Vatican warns against ‘exceptional’ becoming ‘ordinary’ at St. Peter's

[Stone]

Vatican warns against ‘exceptional’ becoming ‘ordinary’ while easing some Mass restrictions at St. Peter’s

Concelebration or 'commmunal celebration' should be the norm, the Basilica's Archpriest stressed, while hinting at more access for traditional or private Masses.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M.

ROME, June 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica issued a Note today regarding the recent restrictions on the celebration of Mass there, heavily promoting concelebration as the desired norm for the Church while also hinting at a slight easing of the severe ban on the traditional and private Masses. 

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M., who was appointed to the post by Pope Francis on February 20, wrote in relation to the March 12 Note from the Vatican Secretariat of State detailing new restrictions of “individual” or private Masses, as well as further restrictions for the Traditional Latin Mass. 

Cardinal Gambetti wrote that his own Note should be “useful in understanding the guidelines” issued in the March letter “and in choosing how and when to celebrate the Eucharist in the first part of the morning.”


March 12 directives, and cessation of private Masses

Under the March 12 restrictions, which came into effect March 22, priests were required to participate in “concelebrated” Masses between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. at just two altars. Individual Masses would be considered exceptions to the rule and were “suppressed.” 

Groups who were traveling with a bishop or priest were “assured” of a Mass offered by their accompanying cleric, but only in the Crypt instead of the main Basilica.

Furthermore, priests wishing to celebrate the Extraordinary Form would be given four time slots, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., and only at the Clementine Chapel of the Crypt. That letter bore the stamp of the Secretariat but was not signed.

Reporting on the directive at the time, Vatican journalist Diane Montagna wrote, 

“Effectively, what today’s letter appears to suggest is that (1) at least for the foreseeable future, in the main body of St. Peter’s Basilica, priests and faithful will only experience the Holy Mass concelebrated in the Novus Ordo; and (2) the Extraordinary Form [Tridentine Mass] will go underground.”

Gambetti’s promotion of concelebration

Now, Gambetti has sought to offer clarification about the brief letter circulated in March and caused an outcry among lay Catholics and members of the College of Cardinals. He wrote that the directives were “inspired” by two principles: “to order the celebrations from the point of view of their temporal scansion and quality; to accommodate and integrate particular and legitimate wishes of the faithful, as far as possible.”

He noted that some exceptions would be made in regard to the place of the liturgical celebration, with priests allowed to offer Mass at different altars than the ones prescribed on the occasion of a saint’s feast or memory if his remains are kept in the Basilica. 

Gambetti also wrote that the restrictions outlined in March were in relation to the specific time slot between 7-9 a.m.

The purpose of the ban on private Masses, Gambetti revealed, was to ensure that concelebration became more widely used and to “recall the meaning and value of Eucharistic concelebration.” He selectively quoted from the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC), noting the lines promoting concelebration but leaving out prescriptions for the times when concelebration would be allowed, as well as the stipulation that a priest would “always retain his right to celebrate Mass individually,” though not while a concelebrated Mass was occurring in the same church. 

Appealing once more to Sacrosanctum Concilium, Gambetti further stated that a “communal celebration” of sacrifice of the Mass was to “be preferred, as far as possible, to individual and almost private celebration.”

The 55-year-old cardinal also referenced the celebration of the laity, a theme heavily promoted in the Second Vatican Council’s documents, writing that greater fruit from the sacrament is drawn “from participation in the same action.”

“In the Mass concelebrated by several priests, there is no diminution of the value and fruits of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but rather a full exaltation of them,” he stated. “When possible, it is more than appropriate for priests to concelebrate, also in view of the fact that there is a regular alternation of presidency for the concelebrations that ordinarily take place in St. Peter’s Basilica.”

Meanwhile, Gambetti revealed why the laity were also directed to take part in the concelebrated Masses rather than seeking a private Mass, declaring that the concelebrated Mass was “an expression of fraternity” rather than “of particularisms that do not reflect the sense of ecclesial communion manifested by the Eucharistic celebration.”


Moderate easing of Mass restrictions

The second part of Gambetti’s Note contained some welcome news for clerics and laity seeking to attend Mass in the Vatican, with the cardinal noting the Church stipulates “that exceptions to the situations in which concelebration is recommended are those cases in which the benefit of the faithful does not require or advise otherwise.”

He revealed that he had already received requests from groups with “special and legitimate needs” that would be allowed in the 7-9 a.m. slot “as far as possible.” 

In line with this, the cardinal noted the “pastoral value” of the Mass as celebrated in line “with the existing Rites,” and highlighted the “importance of understanding the language in the liturgy,” an issue that would lead to additional Masses for those who did not understand the Italian of the concelebrated Masses. 

This could be accommodated due to the size of St. Peter’s, which could cater for such Masses taking place “without overlapping with the concelebration taking place in the main liturgical places.” 

Cardinal Gambetti revealed also that he was aware that between 7 and 9 a.m. the congregational size in the Basilica was “numerically limited.”

With regard to individual Masses, or private Masses, Gambetti wrote that such requests would “be discerned on a case-by-case basis.” However, the cardinal was careful not to allow too much freedom in this phrase, adding that “everything should take place in an atmosphere of recollection and decorum, and taking care to ensure that what is exceptional does not become ordinary, distorting the intentions and meaning of the [Conciliar] Magisterium.”


Traditional Mass permissions

Gambetti also addressed the issue of the relegation of the traditional liturgy to the crypt, an action that led to Montagna previously describing the Latin Mass as having to go underground.

In a somewhat different tone than the March directive, Gambetti’s words hinted at easier accessibility to the Extraordinary Form, at least in theory.

“For celebrations with the Missale Romanum of 1962, everything possible must be done to fulfil the wishes of the faithful and priests as laid down in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum,” he wrote.

There was no further detail about precisely what would be done to fulfill such wishes, and careful analysis of the text might suggest that allowance of the traditional liturgy could also be included in the warning Gambetti makes later when he writes against the “exceptional” becoming the “ordinary.” 

“I am confident that the path that has been embarked upon can encourage every priest and every member of the faithful to experience celebrations in Saint Peter’s in a way that is ever more ordered to goodness, beauty and truth,” closed the cardinal’s text.


Concelebration remains the new normal at the Vatican

Despite this note from the Archpriest of St. Peter’s, it appears that the availability of Masses, and the freedom of clerics to offer Masses, either privately or publicly, remains significantly curtailed compared with the period before March 22. Of particular note is Gambetti’s firm preference for concelebration, as heavily promoted by the Second Vatican Council, as the more proper way to offer Mass. 

Yet shortly after the restrictions were originally announced in March, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, slated the directives, saying that “nobody can be forced to concelebrate, because the normal form of the holy Mass is one priest is celebrating, representing Christ.”

He was supported by Cardinal Robert Sarah, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments who presented the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope Pius XII on the graces reduced through concelebration, noting that “there is at least the serious possibility that, by forcing priests to concelebrate and thus reducing the number of Masses celebrated, there will be a decrease in the gift of grace given to the Church and to the world.”

In addition to the move away from individual Masses (even with a congregation) to concelebration, Cardinal Gambetti has also maintained the Vatican’s March 12 attack on private Masses, maintaining that it is more fitting for the congregation to be present at Mass in order to celebrate as a community. Such a concept was condemned by Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei, in which he described how erroneous the positioned presented below is:

“They assert that the people are possessed of a true priestly power, while the priest acts only in virtue of an office committed to him by the community. Wherefore they look on the eucharistic sacrifice as a ‘concelebration’ in the literal meaning of that term and consider it more fitting that priests should ‘concelebrate’ with the people present than that they should offer the sacrifice privately when the people are absent.”

It remains to be seen whether Gambetti’s clarifying Note will indeed lead to the “goodness, beauty and truth” that he wishes the Mass to be ordered to.

[Emphasis mine.]

[Stone]

A few reminders, for context: 

• The concelebration of Mass as we know it today was introduced into the Latin Rite by the Second Vatican Council (Sacrosantum Concilium 57), though not for this kind of case. It has been claimed that it is an ancient practice, but this is controversial; there is certainly no precedent before the 1960s of priests being allowed to celebrate with each other, as opposed to with the Pope or a bishop. Already by 1967, however, this is being presented as the preferred option “whenever pastoral needs or other reasonable motives do not prevent it” (Instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium). From then on, a priest who doesn’t have a public Mass to say and wants to celebrate on his own, rather than tag along at a concelebrated Mass, has been under suspicion for old-fashioned attitudes. - Vatican coerces priests to concelebrate by prohibiting private Masses at St. Peter’s basilica
  

• According to the Thomistic school, of which Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange may be taken as representative, Christ the Eternal High Priest from Heaven actually offers each Mass offered through His priestly instruments on earth. The question with regard to concelebration would be, then: Does our Lord offer one hundred times when one hundred priests concelebrate, or only once? He offers only once, using the hundred concelebrants simultaneously as His instruments in effecting a single Transubstantiation and therefore a single enacting of the Sacrifice. It is like the difference between starting a single fire with one hundred matches or starting a hundred fires with as many matches: in the former case, those many matches function, essentially, as a single fire-starter, but in the latter case, they function as many fire-starters. If the Lord’s purpose in coming to earth was to set fire to it, as He Himself declared (cf. Lk 12:49), would we not want His ministers to be igniting many distinct fires every day? Celebration vs. Concelebration: Theological Considerations
  

• For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value, or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist. The post-conciliar liturgical norms forbid the erection of more altars in the same church and prescribe that during the celebration of a Mass at the main altar, other Masses should not be celebrated at the side altars. The Montinian Missale Romanum even provides a specific rite for the Missa sine populo, in which the greetings are omitted — for example, the Dominus vobiscum or the Orate, fratres — as if, in addition to those present, the Heavenly Court and the souls in purgatory were not also assisting at the Eucharistic Sacrifice. When a priest presents himself in any sacristy in the world asking to be able to celebrate the Mass — I am not saying in the Tridentine Rite, but also in the reformed one — he invariably hears the answer that he can join the previously scheduled concelebration, and in any case he is looked upon with suspicion if he asks to be able to celebrate without having some of the faithful present. It is useless to object that celebrating a private Mass is the right of every priest: The conciliar mens knows how to go far beyond the letter of the law in order to apply the spirit of Vatican II with tetragonal coherence, manifesting its true nature.
  
  On the other hand, the reformed Mass was modified in order to attenuate, silence, or explicitly deny those Catholic dogmas that constitute an obstacle to ecumenical dialogue: speaking of the four purposes of the Mass is considered scandalous, because this doctrine disturbs those who deny the latreutic, propitiatory, thanksgiving, and impetratory value of the Holy Sacrifice, as defined by the Council of Trent.
  
  For the Modernists, nothing is more detestable than the simultaneous celebration of several Masses, just as celebration coram Sanctissimo (that is, in front of the tabernacle placed over the altar) is intolerable. The Holy Mass, for them, is a supper, a convivial feast, and not a sacrifice: For this reason the altar is replaced with a table and the tabernacle is no longer present over the altar, moved to “a place that is more suitable for prayer and recollection”; for this reason the celebrant faces the people and not God. - Abp. Viganò weighs in on ‘scandalous’ prohibition of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica
  

[Stone]

The whole of Archbishop Viganò's commentary on the first prohibition of private Masses in March of 2021 is so strong, I am copying it here again: 

Abp.  weighs in on ‘scandalous’ prohibition of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica

‘For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value,
or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist.’

April 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — On March 12, by means of an ordinance issued without signature, protocol number, or addressee, the First Section of the Secretariat of State forbade the celebration of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, beginning on the First Sunday of Passiontide. In the following days, Cardinals Raymond L. Burke, Gerhard L. Müller, Walter Brandmüller, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen expressed their justified bewilderment at this decision, which due to the irregular form in which it was drawn up leaves one to conclude that is an explicit order of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Catholic doctrine teaches us the value of the Holy Mass, the glory it offers to the Most Holy Trinity, and the power of the Holy Sacrifice for both the living and dead. We also know that the value and efficacy of the Holy Mass does not depend on the number of faithful who assist at it nor on the worthiness of the celebrant, but rather on the unbloody reiteration of the same Sacrifice of the Cross through the work of the priest-celebrant, who acts in persona Christi and in the name of the entire Holy Church: suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis, ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui; ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiae suae sanctae.

The scandalous decision of an anonymous functionary of the Secretariat of State, easily identified as the unmentionable Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, unfortunately simply makes explicit what is already the practice in dioceses all over the world: For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value, or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist. The post-conciliar liturgical norms forbid the erection of more altars in the same church and prescribe that during the celebration of a Mass at the main altar, other Masses should not be celebrated at the side altars. The Montinian Missale Romanum even provides a specific rite for the Missa sine populo, in which the greetings are omitted — for example, the Dominus vobiscum or the Orate, fratres — as if, in addition to those present, the Heavenly Court and the souls in purgatory were not also assisting at the Eucharistic Sacrifice. When a priest presents himself in any sacristy in the world asking to be able to celebrate the Mass — I am not saying in the Tridentine Rite, but also in the reformed one — he invariably hears the answer that he can join the previously scheduled concelebration, and in any case he is looked upon with suspicion if he asks to be able to celebrate without having some of the faithful present. It is useless to object that celebrating a private Mass is the right of every priest: The conciliar mens knows how to go far beyond the letter of the law in order to apply the spirit of Vatican II with tetragonal coherence, manifesting its true nature.

On the other hand, the reformed [Novus Ordo] Mass was modified in order to attenuate, silence, or explicitly deny those Catholic dogmas that constitute an obstacle to ecumenical dialogue: speaking of the four purposes of the Mass is considered scandalous, because this doctrine disturbs those who deny the latreutic, propitiatory, thanksgiving, and impetratory value of the Holy Sacrifice, as defined by the Council of Trent.

For the Modernists, nothing is more detestable than the simultaneous celebration of several Masses, just as celebration coram Sanctissimo (that is, in front of the tabernacle placed over the altar) is intolerable. The Holy Mass, for them, is a supper, a convivial feast, and not a sacrifice: For this reason the altar is replaced with a table and the tabernacle is no longer present over the altar, moved to “a place that is more suitable for prayer and recollection”; for this reason the celebrant faces the people and not God.

The ordinance of the Secretariat of State, beyond the disrespect towards the Canons of the Basilica and the hypocritical sleight-of-hand of the absence of a signature or protocol number, represents only the latest confirmation of a fact that evidently does not want to be either admitted or opposed by those who, albeit with good intentions, insist on considering individual actions without wanting to frame them in the broader context of the so-called “post-council,” in the light of which even the most insignificant changes acquire a disturbing coherence and demonstrate the subversive value of Vatican II. While it is true that on paper Vatican II reaffirms the value of the private Mass — as His Eminence Cardinal Burke recalls in his recent statement — in reality it has made private Mass the prerogative of “nostalgics” who are doomed to extinction or to eccentric groups of the faithful. The condescending air with which liturgists pontificate on these themes is indicative of an intolerance for anything Catholic that has survived in the tortured ecclesial body. In coherence with this position, Bergoglio can deny the title of Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix to Mary Most Holy with impunity, with the sole intent of pleasing Lutherans, who say that “papists” idolatrize a woman and deny that Jesus Christ is the One Mediator.

Prohibiting private Masses at Saint Peter’s today legitimizes the abuses in the other Basilicas and churches of the world, where this ban has already been in force for decades even though it has never been explicitly formulated. And it is even more significant that this abuse is imposed by means of an apparently official act, in which the authority of the Secretariat of State is meant to silence with reverential fear those who wish to remain Catholic despite the efforts of the present Hierarchy to the contrary. But in the past, prior to Benedict XVI, anyone who wanted to celebrate Holy Mass at Saint Peter’s did not have an easy life and was expelled from the temple like an excommunicated vitandus if he simply dared to celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin, to say nothing of the Tridentine Rite.

Of course, for the neomodernists, private Masses can be prohibited, and they will also seek to abrogate the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, because — as “Max Beans,” one of the most zealous sycophants of Santa Marta, recently admitted — the Tridentine liturgy presupposes a doctrine which is intrinsically opposed to “conciliar theology.” But if we come to the point of the scandal of the prohibition of private Masses in Saint Peter’s, we owe it also to the modus operandi of the Innovators, who proceed step-by-step in the liturgical, doctrinal, and moral fields, applying the principles of the “Overton Window.” Let’s acknowledge it: These indecorous winks at heretics and schismatics are in line with a strategy aimed at non-Catholic sects which finds its true completion in the broader strategy aimed at non-Christian religions and today’s reigning neopagan ideologies. This is the only way to understand this deliberate will to indulge the enemies of Christ in order to please the world and its prince.

It is from this perspective that one should understand the projection of animals on the facade of the Vatican Basilica; the entrance of the pachamama idol carried on the shoulders of bishops and clergy; the offering dedicated to Mother Earth placed on the altar of the Confession during a Mass presided over by Bergoglio; the desertion of the papal altar by the one who refuses the title of Vicar of Christ; the suppression of liturgical celebrations under the pretext of the pandemic and their replacement with ceremonies that recall the cult of personality of communist regimes; Saint Peter’s Square completely immersed in darkness so as to align itself with the new rites of globalist ecologism. This modern golden calf awaits the return of a Moses who descends from Sinai and restores Catholics in the True Faith after driving out the new idolaters, the followers of the Aaron of Santa Marta. And let no one dare to speak of mercy or love: Nothing is more distant from Charity than the attitude of he who, representing the authority of God on earth, abuses it in order to confirm in error the souls whom Christ has entrusted to him with the order to feed them. The pastor who leaves the sheepfold open and encourages the sheep to come out of it, sending them into the jaws of ravenous wolves, is a mercenary and an ally of the Evil One, and will have to render an account to the Supreme Pastor.

In the face of this umpteenth scandal, we may note with dismay the timid and complicit silence of the prelates: Where are the other cardinals, where is the archpriest emeritus of the Basilica, where is Cardinal Re, who for years, like me, celebrated his private Mass each morning in Saint Peter’s? Why are they now silent in the face of so much abuse?

As also happens in the civil sphere on the occasion of the pandemic and the violation of natural rights by the temporal authority, so also in the ecclesiastical sphere the dictatorship needs subjects without backbone or ideals in order to impose itself. In other times, the Vatican Basilica would have been besieged by priests, the first victims of this hateful tyranny that has the audacity to pass itself off as democratic and synodal. God forbid that the hell on earth which is establishing itself in the name of globalism is nothing but the consequence of the indolence and timidity, or rather the betrayal, of many, too many, clergy and laity.

The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is drawing near to Her Passion, in order to complete in Her own members the sufferings of Her Head. May these days that separate us from the Resurrection of Our Redeemer spur us on to prayer, penance, and sacrifice, so that we can unite ourselves to the Blessed Passion of Our Lord in a spirit of expiation and reparation, according to the doctrine of the Communion of Saints which permits us, in the bond of true Charity, to do good to our enemies and beg God for the conversion of sinners: even those whom Providence has inflicted upon us as temporal and ecclesiastical Superiors.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

31 March 2021
Feria Quarta Hebdomadae Sanctae

[Emphasis mine.]