By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The toxic atmosphere of pressure to toe the official line by refusing the legitimate options the Church offers to all seems to be growing. The line of inter-Church battle against the Traditional Mass now even runs through the sacristy of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as I found this past week.
During my recent days of pilgrimage to Rome, I arrived early at the Sant’Uffizio Gate on Wednesday, October 17 prior to the general audience and requested entrance of the Swiss Guards posted there.
I arrived before 7 a.m. at the locked door of the Basilica sacristy and waited for some minutes there with other priests, bishops, and Wilfrid Cardinal Napier. I said hello to the cardinal, and asked for and took a selfie with him.
There was one other priest dressed in cassock as was I, so I asked him if he was planning to offer the Traditional Mass on the designated altar. On a previous visit I had found that one altar was usually prepared with Mass cards for that purpose. He responded that yes, he was, but that this arrangement had changed.
Upon entering the sacristy, I informed someone working there I wished to offer the Traditional Latin Mass. He directed me as to where to prepare and I did so. Another individual offered me vestments and I asked for white as were other priests preparing to offer Traditional Mass as indicated that day for St. Margaret Mary on the Traditional calendar of 1962.
Most of the priests were vested in red to offer Mass in commemoration of the saint of the day designated on the modern calendar, St. Ignatius of Antioch. So I stood out.
The priest who, I believe, was possibly the sacristan, due to his palpable air of authority in manner and bearing, approached and began to repeatedly question me in a harassing tone.
“The whole Church is celebrating a great martyr today, St. Ignatius of Antioch. What saint are you celebrating?” Repeating it over and over again. So much for Christian hospitality in the house of God.
While I was waiting to be led to a side altar in the church to begin my Mass he approached me again, a second time, badgering me by repeating his question, “What saint are you celebrating today?”
Finally I responded, in Italian, with the rejoinder, “The Pope is changing everything in the Church and he can change the calendar also if he so pleases.” He responded by mumbling something about changing cars and clothes and other similar things, perhaps with the intended implication that calendars should not be so changed.
On that score he is wrong: They have been changed and will be changed again, as is true of many other things based on man’s authority or lesser Church tradition. As I said, I assumed the man was the basilica sacristan. I did not ask his name.
That he behaved in so unpriestly and unprofessional a manner may be due to a number of things. One reason could be the powerlessness of people like him to stamp out the continued celebration of the Church’s immemorial rite. There were several other priests vested in white that day at the side altars in St. Peter’s.
That he behaves in such a way in front of the young members of the basilica’s corps of altar boys is especially egregious. His anger blinds him to the perpetual attraction for the young of all things held forbidden by officialdom. He may have learned already about the growing attraction to the Traditional Mass among the young and prospective priests. Servers are among thus group, of course.
What I learned was that certain Catholics who don’t do exactly what some in high places hold to be good postconciliar behavior must prepare to receive their “stripes.”
And, if you want to offer Traditional Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica you had better bring your own set of altar cards. It’s a good thing that over the eight years I have offered the old Mass I have learned to memorize the prayers on the “carte gloria” as well as the orations at the foot of the altar. Upon inspection I could not find even one set of altar cards in evidence at St. Peter’s that day.
Thank you for reading, and praised be Jesus Christ now and forever. @MCITLFrAphorism
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