The Times: Pope to bring back the Latin Mass

It's hard to be sanguine about such reports, but here's the latest, from The Times of London. In an article entitled (rather ironically), "Pope set to bring back Latin Mass that divided the Church," Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent, writes:

Pope Benedict XVI is understood to have signed a universal indult — or permission — for priests to celebrate again the Mass used throughout the Church for nearly 1,500 years. The indult could be published in the next few weeks, sources told The Times.

* * * The new indult would permit any priest to introduce the Tridentine Mass to his church, anywhere in the world, unless his bishop has explicitly forbidden it in writing.

* * * Daphne McLeod, chairman of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, a UK umbrella group that campaigns for the restoration of traditional orthodoxy, said: “A lot of young priests are teaching themselves the Tridentine Mass because it is so beautiful and has prayers that go back to the Early Church.”

Again, as I said, it's hard to be sanguine. There have been many false alarms before, and I'm not inclined to suppose this report to be any different. I'll believe it when I see it.

Of Book Burnings and Frontal Lobotomies
I wonder if the Roman curia understands the extent to which current interest in the Traditional Roman Rite, far from being the exclusive province of SSPXers, reflects a growing groundswell among young families and young people and young priests who have no living memory of pre-Vatican II days. One would have to stoop to the draconian measures of book burnings -- to destroy the pre-Vatican II Latin rite missals, all that has been written about the traditional Mass by Klaus Gamber, Alcuin Reid, Aidan Nichols, Michael Davies, indeed, by Joseph Cardinal Ratizinger himself -- to eradicate all memory of the Traditional Roman Rite. Further, one would have to stoop to the equally draconian measures of requiring frontal lobotomies of large numbers of faithful Catholics to get them to stop thinking of the new Mass as inferior and to accept it with anything like nonresistant acquiescence.

Confirmed:

Of related interest are the details translated from the Italian news sources furnished by New Catholic on Rorate Caeli today (10/11/06). Furthermore, he writes:

"For those who still had any doubts about the document itself, the report from the news agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops leaves none:

Canadian Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg, Manitoba, told Catholic News Service Oct. 10 that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Congregation for Clergy, had spoken briefly to Canadian bishops about the expected step.

A direct confirmation from a bishop to the "official" American Catholic news agency."