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

[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