'The Persecution Has Started' in the Wake of Traditionis Custodes

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The Persecution Has Started: English Monastery Stops Celebrating (Tridentine) Roman Mass

gloria.tv (slightly adapted) | July 17, 2021


Following Francis' Traditionis Custodes and instructions from Clifton Bishop Declan Lang, 71, England, the two Glastonbury Benedictines end celebrating the Roman Rite.

Father Bede Rowe announced on his blog on July 17 that Saturday's 12.30pm Roman Mass at Glastonbury will be the last there.

Screenshot July 17, 2021

Until now, the community, which was erected by Bishop Lang in August 2019, sang the Divine Office and the Conventual Mass according to the Roman Rite, which St Benedict already knew. The monks also serve Novus Ordo parishes. They are based in a presbytery and are thus at the mercy of the diocese.

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Little Rock bishop limits Traditional Latin Mass to two parishes administered by FSSP

Bishop Anthony B Taylor

CNA | Jul 17, 2021

The celebration of Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Little Rock, which covers the entirety of the state of Arkansas, will now be limited to two parishes administered by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), the bishop said Friday.

“The public celebration of the Latin Mass in Arkansas is to occur only in the two personal parishes entrusted to the FSSP,” Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock wrote July 16.

Taylor’s decision comes in response to a new motu proprio from Pope Francis entitled Traditionis custodes, released Friday and effective immediately, which states that it is each bishop’s “exclusive competence” to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese.

Taylor said the new restrictions "do not apply" to two of the diocese' personal parishes, which are administered by the FSSP; however, the Traditional Latin Mass will cease to be celebrated in "regular parish churches" in the diocese.

Since the document’s release, other bishops have said that they will either do nothing and leave the Latin Mass schedule as-is in their dioceses, or that they will make a decision about what to do in response to the apostolic letter after prayerful reflection and study.

For Taylor’s part, he explained that the FSSP “accepts the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform of Vatican II,” and thus will be permitted to continue offering the Latin Mass in the diocese. The FSSP administers the personal parishes of St. John the Baptist in Cabot and Our Lady of Sorrows in Springdale.

However, the three other diocesan parishes where the Latin Mass was regularly celebrated—Holy Redeemer Church in El Dorado, St. Michael Church in Cherokee Village, and St. Peter the Fisherman Church in Mountain Home—will no longer be allowed to publicly celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, Taylor said.

Previously, Latin Mass was available in four of the diocese’s eight deaneries; this move means it is now available in just two. St. John the Baptist and Our Lady of Sorrows, the two FSSP parishes, are a three-hour drive from each other, according to Google Maps.

Other parishes will not be designated for the Latin Mass, Taylor said, noting that the new document cautions him “not to establish any additional personal parishes for the celebration of the Latin Mass going forward.”

Taylor explained that non-FSSP priests would be permitted to celebrate the Latin Mass in private, and that per Traditionis custodes, they must request permission from the bishop to do so.

In the letter, Taylor noted that the Novus Ordo Mass may be celebrated in any language, including Latin. Hymns and other music in Latin is always permissible, but “elements of the traditional Latin Mass are not to be grafted on to the ‘Novus Ordo’ Mass, regardless of whether it is celebrated in Latin or the vernacular.”

It is unclear if this “element” includes the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, which was traditionally recited after Low Masses as part of the Leonine Prayers, but is sometimes said after Novus Ordo Masses. Pope Francis has promoted the St. Michael prayer throughout his papacy.

The new document sets out the responsibilities of bishops whose dioceses already have one or more groups that offer Mass in the extraordinary form, mandating that bishops determine that these groups do not deny the validity of Vatican II and the Magisterium.

Bishops are instructed to “designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather for the eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes).

It also imposes new requirements for newly ordained priests wishing to celebrate the Extraordinary Form, and instructs bishops to verify that already-established parishes that celebrate the Extraordinary Form “are effective for their spiritual growth and to determine whether or not to retain them.”

It further instructs bishops to “take care not to authorize the establishment of new groups” that celebrate the Extraordinary Form.

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For Him A Roman Chasuble Is a "Crime": Traditionis Custodes Turns Bishop Into Tinpot Dictator

Mayagüez Bishop Ángel Ríos Matos, 64, Porto Rico, published on July 17 a narrow-minded and legalistic decree (below) trying to "prohibit" the Roman Rite by invoking Francis’ Traditionis Custodes.

Appointed a bishop in May 2020, Ríos alleges that there are currently no groups in his diocese who ask for the Roman Rite and thus "forbids" its celebration in his diocese. No priest and no place shall be designed for it.

He further orders that “every priest” in his diocese must preside the Novus Ordo “even when celebrating in private and without people.”

Finally, he "forbids" the usage of Roman chasubles, linen tablecloths, chalice covers, maniples, birettas and other typical Roman Rite features. Evidently, Ríos suffers from feelings of omnipotence, a syndrome often caused by an episcopal consecration.

Therefore, the decree cannot be taken seriously all the more that it a cautionary example of rigidity which Francis has so often slammed.

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First Country "Banishes" Roman Mass

gloria.tv | July 20, 2021


Costa Rica's Bishops’ Conference (pictured) decreed in a joint letter that all Roman [Tridentine] Masses are "forbidden" throughout the country's eight dioceses, InfoVaticana.com reports (July 20).

The letter - which can safely be ignored - is signed by the presiding Bishop José Manuel Gerrita Herrera of Ciudad Quesada. It claims that there has „never been a group“ of traditional faithful in the country. This statement makes the bishops look like Japan's war government which passed anti-Jewish laws although there were no Jews in the country.

However, the statement of the tragic-comical prelates is untrue. There were several diocesan Roman Masses in Costa Rica although the bishops never gave up persecuting them.

In Alajuela Diocese, a group called Summorum Pontificum was erected in 2018. Their bylaws were signed by the diocesan chancellor. The group was allowed in order to damage Pius X. Now, this apostolate is handed over to them.

The Costa Rica bishops are known for their incompetence and poor performance to the point that in their country Catholicism went from of 99% before Vatican II to being a minority faith today. Between 2010 and now alone, the proportion of Catholics fell from 57% to 47%.

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DC cardinal rescinds permission for Latin Mass at National Shrine that would ‘be at odds with the restrictions’
Cardinal Wilton Gregory cited new Traditional Mass restrictions as justification for canceling of an already scheduled liturgy to be celebrated by an archbishop.


Archbishop Wilton Gregory

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews - slightly adapted) – Hot on the heels of the Pope’s bombshell motu proprio restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has revoked his permission for an upcoming Pontifical High Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The special Mass was planned for August 14, the vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and had already been postponed from the year before, owing to lockdown restrictions, meaning the Mass had originally been planned for a considerable amount of time.

The Mass was to be celebrated by Archbishop Thomas E. Gullickson, a retired American prelate who had served as papal nuncio for almost two decades, having been appointed first to various Caribbean Island nations in 2001, then to the Ukraine in 2011 and, most recently, to Switzerland and Lichtenstein in 2015, eventually having his resignation accepted by the Pope in December 2020.

Rorate Caeli reported that the Paulus Institute, a group dedicated to the traditional Roman Rite of the Church and which organized the event, had made final preparations with the chancery in Washington, including setting up rehearsals for the event and arranging for EWTN to broadcast the liturgy live.

However, in the wake of Pope Francis promulgating Traditionis Custodes, the latest motu proprio in which the TLM is severely restricted, Gregory had ordered that Gullickson submit a formal request to celebrate the Mass using the 1962 missal of John XXIII, despite prior permissions being granted before the motu proprio’s release.

On Tuesday, Gullickson received notice from Gregory informing him that he was denied permission to celebrate the Mass according to the older missal of the Sacred Liturgy due to tensions with the Pope’s instructions regarding the promulgation of the TLM.

“We must write that the Pontifical Solemn Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite may not take place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on August 14, the Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” a statement from The Paulus Institute board of directors reads.

Continuing, the group explained that, on Tuesday, “[a] letter from His Eminence Wilton Cardinal Gregory was received by His Excellency Archbishop Gullickson, our intended celebrant. The decision of His Eminence is that the Mass ‘would seem … to be at odds with the restrictions’ of Pope Francis placed upon liturgical celebrations using the 1962 Roman Missal, and is not opportune at this time for permission.”

The directors expressed regret that the ancient Roman Rite will not be permitted to be celebrated at the shrine and defended the patrimony of the usus antiquior. “This is the Mass rooted in Apostolic Tradition, the Mass of saints and sinners, kings, queens and paupers, and doctors and virgins of the Church, and our own ancestors. It is the oldest, most venerable extant anaphora in the Church, East and West, recognizable by the Eastern and Orthodox with their Divine Liturgy.”

“The Shrine is the most appropriate church in the United States for this Mass,” the traditionalist group explained, adding that the national shrine is “not a diocesan church but our national church, and furthermore, the church of our bishops, any of whom may say Mass here without permission.”

“It is moreover the church of all American Catholics, who built this majestic edifice and have a right to this enactment of the essence of our Catholic faith in the lex orandi–lex credendi of our Catholic heritage.”

Though themselves dismayed, The Paulus Institute directors asked the faithful to respond “with controlled reactions of strength, substance, and opposition, without polemics and inflammatory or coarse words, which The Paulus Institute rejects.” Instead, the group insisted that the faithful must pray “for the Roman Catholic Church and her leaders, that they may tend to ALL of their flock, including those who worship at the traditional Latin Mass.”

LifeSiteNews spoke with theologian and liturgical expert Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who explained that, with the release of Traditionis Custodes, there is no new reason for Gregory to have stepped in to halt the Mass.

“By no stretch of imagination would this pontifical Mass at a national shrine violate any of the requirements of the new motu proprio,” Kwasniewski stated. “The cancellation is therefore rather a demonstration of sycophantic zeal that thinks nothing of marginalizing and dispiriting Catholics for the sake of playing politics.”

Kwasniewski further lamented the late stage at which the Mass has been canceled, complaining that, on a pastoral level, Gregory has exhibited a very poor exercise of judgment.

“By canceling a pontifical Mass to be offered by a retired papal nuncio and archbishop, and doing so only a few weeks before an event for which many had been busy planning and working for the past year, Cardinal Gregory shows a lack of the most elementary courtesy, respect, hospitality, charity, and pastoral sensitivity.”

“It's disgraceful and I think everyone can see that plainly enough,” he said.

Before denying Gullickson this week, Gregory had produced a letter for priests in his archdiocese that granted those who had been celebrating the TLM permission to continue doing so unimpeded while saying he would “prayerfully reflect” on the Pope’s instructions “to ensure we understand fully the Holy Father's intentions and consider carefully how they are realized in the Archdiocese of Washington.”

“In the interim, I hereby grant the faculty to those who celebrate the Mass using the liturgical books issued before 1970 to continue to do so this weekend and in the days to come, until further guidance is forthcoming,” the cardinal’s letter stated. 

While restricting the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy according to the pre-1970 missal, Gregory has maintained a position of permission for pro-abortion, pro-homosexual “marriage” U.S. President Joe Biden to receive Holy Communion. The cardinal’s decision to continue distributing the Blessed Sacrament to the president contradicts the Code of Canon Law (can. 915), which states that Catholics who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”

Referring to his relationship with Biden, Gregory told the Catholic News Service in November, as he was preparing to be made a cardinal, “I hope it’s a real dialogue, because I think that’s the mantra of Pope Francis — that we should be a church in dialogue, even with those with whom we have some serious disagreements.”

The cardinal noted how Biden had received Communion during his eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama, confirming that he is “not going to veer from that.”

“On my part, it’s a matter of the responsibility that I have as the archbishop to be engaged and to be in dialogue with him, even in those areas where we obviously have some differences,” Gregory said.

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In a ‘statement of rupture,’ US seminary in Rome bans Latin Mass after Pope’s directive

The seminary rector, Fr. Peter Harman, who was accused of having engaged in homosexual activities, signed the memo banning the traditional liturgy.

Sep 1, 2021
ROME (LifeSiteNews) – In a moved dubbed as undermining the Catholic Church’s credibility, the rector of the Pontifical North American College cancelled all instructions and celebrations of the traditional Latin Mass in light of the Pope’s recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes. 

Tradition-friendly website Rorate Caeli posted a picture of the memo, dated August 31, and signed by the “Rector,” Father Peter Harman, of the U.S. Catholic seminary in Rome. 

Harman noted first how the North American College, or the NAC as it is commonly known, had responded to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 document Summorum Pontificum, which described the Novus Ordo as the “ordinary expression” of the lex orandi and stated the rite of 1962 (Latin Mass) was “never abrogated” and was “an extraordinary form.” As a result, the seminary “began official training in the ‘Extraordinary Form’” and made celebrations of the traditional Mass part of the “regular rotation of special Masses on Saturdays.” 

In addition, the NAC provided “liturgical supplies” for priests to celebrate the ancient liturgy of the Church.

However, such a practice will now change in light of Pope Francis’s recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which was described as a “severe and revolutionary action” by Cardinal Raymond Burke.

Francis described the Novus Ordo as the “unique” and only expression of the lex orandi, prompting Fr. Harman to write that “the College remains consistent with what the Holy Father has asked of us.”

As such, he set out the new practices for the seminary college based on receiving “canonical counsel.” “Because permission from one’s diocesan bishop to celebrate according to the Missale Romanum 1962 is not sufficient for priest faculty or student priests to celebrate according to the Missale Romanum 1962 outside of their respective dioceses, there will no longer be ‘Extraordinary Form’ training taking place, nor celebrations according to the Missale Romanum 1962. This includes the student-led ones which were done generally on Saturday mornings in the past.”

In place of the traditional Mass usually held on Saturdays at 12:30 p.m., Harman stipulated that the Novus Ordo would be celebrated in Latin. 

“Consequently, Saturday afternoons at the 12:30 Mass, other than on Travel Permitted Weekends, during vacations, and during exam periods, there will be a rotation of the celebration of Mass in this order: Mass in Latin (Novus Ordo), Mass in Spanish, Mass in Spanish, Mass in Latin (Novus Ordo), Mass in Spanish.”

Fr. Harman’s directive generated a firm response from Rorate Caeli: “This is a very important piece of the puzzle of the systemic cultural genocide Francis is imposing on Traditional Catholics. Our only options are to resist or to die and disappear.”

Popular online blogger and writer Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, known as “Father Z,” also weighed in on the decision, describing the matter: “The craven faculty of the North American College (U.S. seminary in Rome), perhaps under the pressure of their board, has snuffed out the Traditional Latin Mass, which was a regularly scheduled Mass on Saturdays.”

Fr. Zuhlsdorf suggested that the directive would “simply drive learning the TLM underground, as before in the times before Summorum.”


‘A statement of rupture’

LifeSiteNews contacted Fr. Harman and NAC media officer Father David Schunk seeking further comment but did not receive an answer to the questions before  publication.  

LifeSite also contacted theologian and columnist Dr. Peter Kwasnieswki, who questioned the “canonical counsel” the College had received. “There have already been many canon lawyers who have come forward explaining the possibilities that the motu proprio allows for keeping the usus antiquior in place,” Kwasniewski noted. 

“The step to suppress the ancient Roman rite at the most prestigious seminary for American candidates for the priesthood signifies rather that the administration agrees with Pope Francis that the traditional worship of the Church and the theology it embodies are no longer compatible with modern ecclesiastical life and liturgy. In other words, a gesture and a statement of rupture between the Church’s past and present, which is inadmissible and only serves to undermine the credibility of the Church in the future.”

Echoing Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s words, Kwasniewski suggested that the “policy will backfire, since the seminarians today are by no means naive about what is going on in Church politics; the TLM is already fascinating to them, and this will make it only more so.”

The ban on the Latin Mass will represent a significant change in the College’s weekly custom since the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum in 2007. In 2008, Catholic writer and Rome tour guide John Sonnen described the celebration of a Latin Mass in the College, which was attended by “over 60 seminarians … including the Rector and some staff.”

Sonnen noted how before the Mass began, there was an “instructional time” so the seminarians and attending clerics could become better acquainted with the rite. 

Fr. Harman’s suppression of the traditional liturgy is not without precedent. Just days after the Pope issued Traditionis Custodes, some bishops already moved to prohibit or curtail the Latin Mass. One of the first to do so was Bishop Declan Lang of the Diocese of Clifton, England, along with Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas.


‘Undermine’ the Church with liturgical ‘rupture’ and scandal

The prohibition on the Church’s traditional liturgy is the latest headline in a year that has seen the NAC make numerous headlines. 

Earlier this year, Anthony Georgia, a former seminarian, sued Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the Archdiocese of New York for $125 million, alleging that he was prevented from returning to his studies at an American seminary in Rome because he witnessed the vice rector inappropriately touching another seminarian. In addition to naming Cardinal Dolan, the suit named Fr. Adam Park, then vice rector of North American College (NAC); Fr. Peter Harman, rector of NAC; Fr. John G. McDonald, a lecturer at NAC; and several John Does.

The former seminarian claimed that Park, who was ordained by the disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick – who now faces charges of sexual assault against a teenager – and Harman were both known by seminarians to have engaged in homosexual activities.

After some months, Fr. Park stepped down as vice rector and Fr. Harman announced that Park would not return for the 2021 academic year.

Contrasting the two news items, Rorate Caeli wrote on Twitter: “So, basically, buggery is fine — the TLM is the problem…” 

For respectful communication: 

Father Peter Harman: pharman@pnac.org