Rorate Caeli

La Croix: Motu Proprio revealed to world's Bishops

Isabelle de Gaulmyn, Rome correspondent of the French daily La Croix, the semi-official newspaper of the Church in France, reports the following.

Excerpts:


The motu proprio on the Missal of Saint Pius V
revealed to the Bishops

On Wednesday, June 27, a meeting in the Vatican of the representatives of episcopal conferences took place, in which Cardinal Bertone delivered the contents of the motu proprio aiming to liberalize the use of the Tridentine Missal.

On Wednesday, June 27, in the afternoon, Cardinals and Archbishops from different countries assembled around Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, to be advised of the contents of the motu proprio aiming to liberalize the use of the missal in Tridentine rite, said "of Saint Pius V".

"It is a kind of internal publication to the Church," it is said in the Curia. The "external" publication, that is, the official one, should take place soon, by way of L' Osservatore Romano, the daily edited by the Holy See. The text, written in Latin, will be accompanied by a letter of Benedict XVI, in several languages.

Before this meeting, the Bishops were unaware of the entire final content of the text. In fact, after the last known meeting of the Ecclesia Dei commission, charged with the rapprochement with the integrist [sic] movements, on December 12, 2006, the decisions were taken with the utmost discretion.

Safeguards to guarantee the last word to the Bishop

The Pope, who wishes to ease access to the rite of Saint Pius V, had asked the Ecclesia Dei commission to work towards a solution since 2006. With a double objective: favoring the return of integrist [sic] communities to the Catholic Church, but also to encourage the attachment of Catholics to a liturgical tradition mishandled, in his eyes, after Vatican II.

...

The project provoked the reservations of a certain number of episcopates, including those of France and the United States, for whom this de facto biritualism presents a risk for the unity of the Church. The fear is that the bishop, subject to pressures in favor of one rite, may lose his authority over the diocese. Concerns [which were] heard by the Pope who, in the exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, in March, specified that it belongs to the Bishop, "celebrant par excellence within his Diocese", to "ensure unanimous unity of the celebrations taking place in his territory" [sic - following French translation of the document]

The motu proprio should predict safeguards to guarantee the last word to the bishop, in case of a disagreement between faithful and priests on this matter.

... the motu proprio could establish that the lectionary be, in both rites, the one established by Paul VI in 1967. [sic]