New Details Show That the TLM Ban in St Peters Is Targeting Bishop Schneider

The only TLM banned in St Peter's is specifically the pilgrimage Bishop Schneider is leading.

Inside a Medieval Inn: Filthy, Dangerous, or Actually Fine?

From Modern History TV

What happens when you visit a medieval Inn? How it works, who you might meet. How to Use a Medieval Inn: A Guide to Hospitality in the Middle Ages.

Planning a medieval journey? 🏨 In this video, we explore how medieval inns worked and what travelers could expect when stopping for the night. From finding a bed to negotiating for meals, discover how inns served as essential hubs of hospitality, trade, and gossip in the Middle Ages.

Learn about: What services inns provided to medieval travelers The cost of staying at an inn and what you’d get for your money How meals, drinks, and sleeping arrangements were organised The role of inns as gathering places for merchants, pilgrims, and adventurers Real historical accounts of life in a medieval inn Whether you’re a history buff or just curious about medieval life, this video will transport you to the bustling world of medieval inns and taverns. 👉 Watch now to discover: What was it like to spend the night at a medieval inn? Did inns cater to all social classes? How accurate are inns in fantasy TV shows and games?

Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | September

Traditional Catholic morning prayers to help start your day in a holy way! The month of September is dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. I hope these prayers increase your devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary this month, to share in her sorrows and to and draw you closer to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Begin each day with morning prayer! This video is a compilation of many traditional evening prayers Catholics say, and should not be considered a replacement for those who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office evening prayers.

7 Places So Sacred Even Priests Are Locked Out

From Totus Catholica

Seven Catholic places even priests are never allowed to enter. On 7 May 2025, the master of ceremonies stood at the doors of the Sistine Chapel and said two Latin words, extra omnes, everyone out. The heavy doors sealed 133 cardinals inside, and every priest, bishop, and archbishop who was not a voting cardinal had to leave too. Their collars meant nothing at that door. Most people think the Church keeps locked rooms because she is hiding something. The truth is stranger and far older. God himself invented the locked door. He hung the first one in the desert, wrote a death sentence on it, and let only one man walk through it one day a year. That first door was the parochet, the thick curtain sealing the Holy of Holies, where the command in Leviticus was terrifying in its simplicity: do not come in or you will die. Only the high priest passed it, only on the Day of Atonement, only carrying blood, and only in plain linen, in total silence. Every locked room in this video descends from that one: the archive, the charterhouse, the enclosure, the conclave, the confessional. And the ending is the shock. At the moment Christ died, that same veil was torn in two from top to bottom, from a height no human hand could reach. Six of these doors are still locked, and they should be. The seventh, the only one that ever truly stood between you and God, stands wide open. If you are carrying something heavy, the confessional door is open to you this week. In this video: • Why secretum means private, not secret, and what the post-1958 wall actually protects • The monastery that took 16 years to answer a filmmaker's letter • The convent lock the world gets backwards, because it faces outward • The one door not even the pope may open: the seal of confession • The parochet, the torn veil, and why God hung the first locked door himself ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 The Door That Shut Out Every Priest 1:51 Inside the Vatican's Secret Archive 2:49 Grande Chartreuse: 16 Years for a Yes 3:49 The Convent Lock That Faces Outward 4:52 The Conclave and the Room of Tears 6:41 The Seal Not Even the Pope May Open 8:01 The Holy of Holies and the Torn Veil 📖 SCRIPTURE REFERENCED • Leviticus 16: do not come in or you will die. Only the high priest, only on the Day of Atonement, only while carrying blood. • Hebrews 9: Christ is the true high priest, who entered the real Holy of Holies, heaven itself, not with the blood of animals but with his own, once and for all. • Matthew 27:51: at the moment he died, the veil of the temple, that same parochet, was torn in two from top to bottom. ⛪ FROM THE CATECHISM • CCC 1467: the seal of confession admits of no exceptions. What you confess can never, under any circumstance, be repeated, and a priest who breaks it is automatically excommunicated. 📜 SOURCES & FURTHER READING • The Vatican Apostolic Archive: 85 km of shelving, 12 centuries of letters, open to accredited scholars since Leo XIII opened it in 1881, with everything after 1958 closed to everyone. • Grande Chartreuse, founded by St. Bruno in 1084: a filmmaker wrote in 1984 asking to film inside; the monks answered yes 16 years later, and he lived in their silence alone for six months. • Papal enclosure: even the local bishop may enter only for a just cause, and a priest enters only to bring the sacraments, often with a grill still between him and the community. • The Sancta Sanctorum, the popes' private chapel: for over a thousand years only the pope offered Mass there, guarding an image of Christ believed not painted by human hands. • St. John Nepomucene (1393) was thrown from a bridge in Prague, and St. Mateo Correa (1927) was shot in Mexico, both for refusing to break the seal of confession. 🔗 EXPLORE MORE 🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/ Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary ✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact 🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien... 📚 Free eBooks: https://buymeacoffee.com/totuscatholi... 👥 Become a Totus Insider: https://buymeacoffee.com/totuscatholi...

Don’t Say “God”: New Rule for Canada Military Chaplains

This, although the Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins with the words, "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognise the supremacy of God ...".

From Aleteia

By Theresa Civantos Barber

In Canada, chaplains and all members of the military are now banned from talking about God at mandatory public events. Bishop says rule is opposite of neutrality.

Since 2019, Canada’s Quebec province has banned public sector employees in positions of authority — including teachers, police officers, judges, and crown prosecutors — from wearing visible religious symbols, which includes hijabs, turbans, yarmulkes, and Christian crosses. 

Now, Canada has gone a step farther. Members of the military, particularly chaplains, throughout all of Canada are forbidden from mentioning the word “God” or other religious words at mandatory military public events, such as graduation parades, ribbon-cuttings, ship commissionings, and Remembrance Day ceremonies.

In Canada, chaplains are now banned from publicly talking about God. The directive isn't limited just to chaplains: All Canadian Armed Forces members, including volunteers, students, casual workers, and contractors, may not use religious language in public remarks.

The new instructions, issued on July 29, 2026, to all Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Military Personnel, states that “the CAF has a duty of religious neutrality.” According to the directive, at these mandatory public events, chaplains may offer “inclusive” spiritual reflections but may not use religious language:

… spiritual reflections are inclusive public addresses to a group of individuals that nurture resilience by fostering meaning, purpose, and spiritual well-being, especially within a culture of care and service.

“Spiritual reflections” are not to be confused with anything religious, however:

Spiritual reflections do not use religious specific language, including references to God, etc. They reflect upon lessons learned, beliefs, values, and experiences to inspire gratitude, remembrance, hope, and integrity. These principles are grounded in a respect for freedom of conscience and religious expression, while upholding the dignity and value of diverse spiritual traditions.

Funerals are not considered public military ceremonies according to the new policy, and chaplains may still use religious language at funerals if the family wishes, as well as at other private or family-led events. Chaplains are allowed to use religious language in voluntary worship services and private counseling, and they may wear religious items.

Catholic chaplains have publicly criticized the policy to various news media. Bishop Scott McCaig, who leads the Roman Catholic Military Ordinariate of Canada, published a statement criticizing the new policy. 

"This instruction is based on a false premise: simply because some belief systems do not profess the existence of God, or some other divine source, does not make them neutral. Atheistic systems of belief require as much assent of intellect and will (faith) as any theistic system of belief. They too profess particular beliefs about God (existence or non existence, nature, etc.), the world and its existence, values, as well as meaning and purpose. That is why Secular Humanists rightly have chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces. They are one of many ‘Spiritual Faith Traditions,’ and are recognized as such by the government.

There is no such thing as reflections on meaning, purpose and spiritual well being without philosophical
and religious presuppositions. It is not the place of the government to adjudicate between
them. That is the opposite of state neutrality,” he wrote.

He urged changing the policy:

The instruction is neither neutral nor inclusive. 

I am saddened that the responsible military and political authorities consistently refused to have a substantive dialogue with concerned religious and spiritual leaders …

As the Military Ordinariate studies the matter, I urge prayers for a fair and reasonable resolution of this issue. Please pray for our political and military leaders, for reconsideration of this instruction, and for openness to a truly inclusive dialogue.

Addressing other religions

It is interesting to note how people in the Vatican, even the Pope, address the faithful of other religions.

For example, after the recent tragic flooding in Nepal, a majority Hindu nation, the Pope's message referred to "the Almighty."

"Commending the souls of the deceased to the clemency of the Almighty ..."

The message closed by saying the Pope "invokes upon all divine assistance and protection."

There are only about 8,000 Catholics in Nepal.

While not using the word God, this type of message would probably not be acceptable according to Canada's new rules.

Modernism Replaced Catholicism

From I Miss Christendom

Why Did the Terrorists Choose September 11?

I have argued, ever since 11 September 2001, that the date was deliberately chosen to avenge the Jihad's defeat at Vienna in 1683.

From PJ Media (September 2016)

By Tyler O'Neil

On the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, even after the release of the "28 pages" which revealed the involvement of Saudi Arabia, many questions remain unanswered. Why did the terrorists choose September 11 as the date for their attacks? One historical answer seems to have the most potential, but it is not without its critics.

"It was on September 11 1683 that the conquering armies of Islam were met, held, and thrown back at the gates of Vienna," wrote Christopher Hitchens in Britain's The Guardian less than a month after the attacks. He argued that "believers in propaganda by deed, like Gavrilo Princip [the man who carried out the assassination that started World War I] and Timothy McVeigh, usually choose to invest themselves with portentousness by selecting an anniversary that will freight their murder with meaning. Often, it is a date that only meant something to a very limited or arcane circle until its true value was unveiled to a stunned world."

Of the 1683 Siege of Vienna, Hitchens wrote:

Now this, of course, is not a date that has only obscure or sectarian significance. It can rightly, if tritely, be called a hinge-event in human history. The Ottoman empire never recovered from the defeat; from then on it was more likely that Christian or western powers would dominate the Muslim world than the other way around. In our culture, the episode is often forgotten or downplayed, except by Catholic propagandists like Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton. But in the Islamic world, and especially among the extremists, it is remembered as a humiliation in itself and a prelude to later ones. (The forces of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza once published a statement saying that they could not be satisfied until all of Spanish Andalusia had been restored to the faithful as well).

Hitchens makes a strong case, and the battle indeed has some significance. The Ottoman Turks had attacked Vienna once before, in 1529, but that siege was short compared to the 1683 event, and while the Ottomans were repulsed then, they came back later. In 1683, the city was about to fall, the Turks had broken through the outer walls, and the siege had gone on for two months before the Polish King Jan Sobieski arrived to free the city.

On September 11-12, Sobieski led a contingent of knights to free the city, and some historians have said his attack was the largest cavalry charge in history. Others say that J.R.R. Tolkien, in The Lord of the Rings, took the inspiration for his "Ride of the Rohirrim" in the battle of Helm's Deep from this event. To the minds of Westerners having read that book or seen the powerful film versions of the story, this is an attractive theory.

In his 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright lent weight to Hitchens' argument. According to him, Al Qaeda "perceived the contradiction embodied by Islam's long, steady retreat from the gates of Vienna, where on September 11—that now resonant date—in 1683, the king of Poland began the battle that turned back the farthest advance of Muslim armies. For the next three hundred years, Islam would be overshadowed by the growth of Western Christian societies."

Chillingly, Wright added, "Yet bin Laden and his Arab Afghans believed that, in Afghanistan, they had turned the tide and that Islam was again on the march."

"If not because of the Siege of Vienna, why 9/11?" asked Faith McDonnell, director of the religious liberty program at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). "Islamic supremacists are always very aware of the significance of dates, and they have long, long memories and hold long, long grudges," McDonnell told PJ Media in an email statement.

"They also have an enormous sense of pride and shame, and Islam was all set to take over the whole world and be the be-all and end-all of everything, i.e. caliphate. Then they got squashed. It was an enormous shock to them, and they never got over it," McDonnell concluded.

Hazem Farraj, an American Christian minister and former Muslim, said he did think the terrorists chose September 11 for the significance of the 1683 Siege of Vienna. "The moment, for example, when news of Benghazi broke and it was on 9/11 ... I assumed that was an attack and not a protest gone wild," Farraj told PJ Media.

"As an ex-Muslim I can indeed confirm the idea that Muslims take a long view of history," he added. "In fact, if you notice, the terrorist will still speak to Westerners as not just Westerners alone, but we are STILL 'Crusaders.'"

He accused the "Saudi instigated propaganda machine, which had a comfortable nest egg inside DC bureaucracy," of causing the Islamic State, because "it is essential for Islam to be propagated worldwide." Farraj argued that the best thing to do in the Middle East is to secularize the region.

"In fact, the idea of a caliphate makes the most sense within the contexts of Western/Eastern clashes," he explained. "For me, in the local mosques of Jerusalem, I vividly remember the lessons from the Friday sermon on the coming glorious caliphate. Not coincidentally, that was prior to the second intifada uprising." This inspiring view of a caliphate prevailing over the Crusaders was an inspiration for Al Qaeda, Farraj argued.

If so, what better date to bring the West to its knees than the very anniversary of an Islamic empire's stunning defeat at the hands of a Polish king?

Some disagree with the idea that the inspiration of September 11 was so clear cut, however. Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Parliament from Britain, refused to speculate on the motives of the terrorists when asked by PJ Media. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what was going through the minds of those sociopaths and psychopaths," Hannan said. "A lot of them seemed fairly irreligious, if you looked at their lifestyles: They were drinkers, you wouldn't use the word 'pious' to describe them."

When asked specifically about the connection to the 1683 siege, Hannan said, "To be honest, I think there's such a thing as over-interpreting. I think we're dealing with a fairly recent phenomenon whose real explosion came with the Iranian Revolution. Going further back than that is of limited value."

M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, also denied the connection. "I don't believe the date has to do with that," he told PJ Media. Al Qaeda "of 2001 is a Saudi creation from bin Laden, et al. and my theory, or guess is that the day coincided with the Islamic calendar day for the creation of Saudi Arabia and the day it was handed to House of Saud." Jasser noted that Al Qaeda hated the relationship the House of Saud had with the West, and aimed to separate Saudi Arabia from the United States.

"That would make more sense than a caliphate date," Jasser said.

Dr. David Stewart, professor of history at Hillsdale College, also expressed his doubts. He acknowledged the significance of the date and that the terrorists would likely have known it. "Yes, there's no doubt that most educated Muslims are aware of the events surrounding Vienna as part of their national narrative," and "certainly the people who would have committed themselves to an act of terrorism would have known," Stewart told PJ Media.

That said, he considered it "unlikely that they chose it for that reason." First, it sends "a very mixed message — it's such a signal of defeat. Are they trying to commemorate the defeat or to reverse that defeat?" He argued that if they were commemorating a date, it would likely have been a more positive date. "It's an odd thing to commemorate."

Stewart also pointed out that there is no record of any Muslim leader confirming the connection between the 2001 attacks and the 1683 siege. "The closest thing to an allusion is bin Laden saying 'the sword has been returned after 80 years,'" which clearly does not refer to a siege more than 300 years beforehand. Rather, bin Laden seems to be referencing one of two events: the creation of the Jewish state 79 years earlier, or the treaty ending World War I and dissolving the Ottoman Empire 81 years earlier. Since the proclamation of the Jewish mandate took place in September, Stewart said he thinks bin Laden's remark referenced that event.

"I think what Hitchens saw is a really interesting coincidence but without further evidence, I don't think it amounts to much," the history professor stated, flatly. "I just don't find it compelling. The fact that no academic has really taken that up is a suggestion that academics in general don't find it a compelling argument."

Stewart also argued that Westerners have not considered the 1683 siege to be a very momentous event. "In Vienna itself, the lifting of the siege was commemorated for centuries, but it fell out of favor in the 19th century," he noted. Not very many books have been written about it in the last 100 years. "We don't consider it a central moment," when compared to the defeat of the Spanish Armada or the Russian Revolution.

"If the West collectively thought this thing mattered, there would be more than three books in the last hundred years," he concluded.

Whether or not the 9/11 hijackers chose that date because of the 1683 siege, that siege deserves to be remembered, and September 11 now has a great significance in both the West and the Middle East. It is important to put both the expansion of Islam and the Crusades in historical perspective, and to listen to voices within Islam, like Jasser, who defend American freedom.

The Lives of Ss Protus and Hyacinth, Martyrs

From The Golden Legend of Blessed Jacobus Voragine, translated by William Caxton in 1483.

HERE BEGIN THE LIVES OF SS. PROTHUS AND JACINCTUS AND EUGENIA

The Conversion of the Three Young Nobles

Prothus and Jacinctus were gentlemen of noble lineage and were fellows in the study of philosophy with Eugenia, daughter of Philip, of the most noble lineage of the Romans. Which Philip had taken of the senate the provostry of Alexandria, and had led with him Claudia his wife, his sons Avitus and Sergius, and his daughter Eugenia. And Eugenia was perfect in all the liberal arts and letters. Prothus and Jacinctus had studied with her, and were come to perfection of those sciences.

And Eugenia, in the fifteenth year of her age, was required to be married of one Aquilinus, son of the consul Aquilinus, and she answered that her behoved to be married and choose a husband full of good manners and not of high lineage. And then came to her hand the doctrine of St. Paul, and she began in her courage to be made Christian by good manners.

And then at that time the Christian men were well suffered to dwell beside the city of Alexandria. And as she went playing and walking by the town, she heard Christian men sing a verse of the psalter which saith: All the gods of the miscreants be devils, our Lord certainly made the heavens.

Then said she to Prothus and Jacinctus, that had studied with her in the arts liberal: We have overpassed the arguments and syllogisms of the philosophers by study corruptible, the arguments of Aristotle, and ideas of Plato, and the enseignments of Socrates, and shortly all that the poet sang and made, or the philosopher thought, it is all closed by his sentence; let us then be brethren and follow we our Lord Jesu Christ.

And this counsel pleased them.

Eugenia Enters a Monastery as a Man

And then she took the habit of a man, and came to the monastery where Helenus was abbot, which would in no wise suffer that any woman should come to him. And this Helenus had on a time disputed against a heresy, and when that he saw that he might not sustain the force of the arguments, he did do burn a great fire for to prove his faith, and said: We shall see now which is the right faith, and he himself entered first into the fire and came out again without hurt or grief, but the heretic would not enter into the fire, and was confused and put away.

And when Eugenia was gone to him, and had said that she was a man, he said to her: Thou sayest truly and well that thou art a man, for thou workest virtuously. And the condition of her was showed to him then of God, and she received the habit with Prothus and Jacinctus, and did her to be called of all brother Eugene. And when her father and mother saw her chair come home empty and void, then they did do seek their daughter over all, but she might not be found.

And then went they to diviners and soothsayers and demanded them where their daughter was become. And they answered that she was ravished of the gods among the stars, and therefore her father made an image of his daughter and commanded that all the people should worship her. And she dwelled among the company of brethren in the dread of God; and when the provost of the church was dead, she was made provost.

She is Propositioned by a Noblewoman

And then in Alexandria was a lady noble and rich which was named Melancia, whom St. Eugenia anointed with oil and delivered her of a quartan, in the name of God, and she sent to her many gifts which she would not receive. And the said lady supposed that Eugenia had been a man, and visited her oft and beheld the greatness and beauty of her body, in such wise that she was strongly esprised and chauffed in her love, and was greatly troubled how she might do to make Eugene to have to do with her. And then she feigned her to be sick and sent for this brother Eugene to come and have pity on her, and when she was come she told to her in what manner she was taken in his love, and how she burned in desiring him, and prayed her that she would lie by her and have to do carnally, and embraced her and kissed her and exhorted her to do sin.

And Eugenia had great horror and abomination of her, and said: Thou art by right called Melancia, for it is an evil name and fulfilled of treason, thou art said black and dark, daughter of darkness, friend of the devil, light of pollution, nourishing of lechery, anguishing daughter of sempiternal death.

And when she saw her deceived of that she coveted, she doubted that Eugenia should discover her felony, and began first to cry that Eugenia would there have enforced her, and then she went to the provost Philip and complained, saying that "a young man, a false Christian, was come to me because of medicine, and took me and would have enforced me by strength for to have sinned with him, if I had not been holpen and delivered by a chamberer which was in my chamber."

Her Trial and Vindication

And when the provost heard this he was greatly moved, and sent for a multitude of people, and made Eugenia to be brought with the other servants of Jesu Christ bound in iron, and established a day when they all should be delivered to beasts for to be devoured, and then were they called tofore the provost, which said to Eugenia: Say to me, thou right cursed wretch, if your God hath taught you to do such works as for to corrupt and defile the women forcibly against their will?

And then Eugenia, which had the head inclined because she would not be known, said that our Lord had taught and enseigned chastity entirely, and promised to them that kept it the life perdurable. "And we may well show that Melancia is false and lieth, but it is better to us to suffer than she should be vanquished and punished, and that the fruit of our patience perish not. But notwithstanding, let her chamberer be brought forth here. She is the witness of our felony, so that the leasings of her may be reproved."

And when she was come, she being learned of her lady, opposed against Eugenia, and said that he would have taken her by force, and also all the other of the meiny, corrupted by the lady, witnessed that it was so.

And Eugenia said: The time is passed of silence, and the time to speak is now. I will no longer suffer that this shameless creature put more blame guiltless on the servant of Jesu Christ, ne that she glorify not in her malice ne in her falsity. And because that truth surmounteth her leasing, and that wisdom surmounteth her malice, I shall show the truth, for none advantage but for the glory of our Lord.

And then she took her coat and rent it unto her girdle above, and said that she was a woman, as it appeared, and also said to the provost: Thou art my father and Claudia is my mother, and the twain that sit with thee, Avitus and Sergius, be my brethren, and I am Eugenia, thy daughter, and these twain be Prothus and Jacinctus.

And when the father heard that, he knew well his daughter, and then he and her mother embraced her and wept tenderly for joy. And then they clothed Eugenia with clothes of gold and enhanced her on high. And after this came a fire from heaven and burnt Melancia and all her meiny. Then Eugenia converted to the faith her father, mother, brethren, and all the meiny, and therefore left the father the provostry, and was ordained bishop of the Christian people. And as he was in prayer and orison he was slain of the miscreants and paynims.

Her Martyrdom

Then Claudia, with her sons and Eugenia, returned to Rome, and there converted much people unto the faith of Jesu Christ.

Then by the commandment of the emperor there was a great stone bound to the neck of Eugenia, and she was thrown into Tiber, but the stone brake and she went without harm upon the water. Then she was thrown into a burning furnace, but the furnace was quenched by miracle and became cold. And then she was put into a dark prison, but a great shining light made it all clear and light.

And when she had been there ten days without meat, our Lord Jesu Christ appeared to her, and brought to her a right white loaf and said to her: Take this meat of my hand. I am thy saviour whom thou hast loved with all thy thought. And on that day that I descend into the earth I shall receive thee.

Then on the day of the nativity of our Lord, the tormentor was sent to her and he smote off her head.

And after that she appeared to her mother, and said to her that she should follow her on the Sunday after. And when the Sunday came Claudia put herself to prayer and gave her spirit to God, and then Prothus and Jacinctus were drawn to the temple for to do sacrifice, and they by their prayers all to-brake the idol; and when they would in no wise do sacrifice, they accomplished their martyrdom in suffering their heads to be smitten off. And suffered death under Valerianus and Gallus about the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-seven, by whose merits let us pray Almighty God to have mercy on us and bring us to his bliss. Amen.

The Ancient Roman Rite not at Home in Rome?

If Pope Leo has not sat down with people advocating the TLM, it is not from lack of opportunity, but from lack of desire to "accompany" Traditionalists.

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders, MA

"I have not had the chance to really sit down with a group of people who are advocating for the Tridentine rite."

After the election of His Holiness, Pope Leo, everyone noticed the shift in the use of the Roman tongue in the Roman rite according to the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI. More conspicuously in regards to the ancient Roman Rite – the “Latin Mass” – early in his pontificate His Holiness welcomed various bishops who had been viewed as “cancelled” under the pontificate of the late Pope Francis I.

One of those individual prelates was His Eminence, Cardinal Burke, who has continually defended not only the purity of the Roman faith, but fought for the preservation of the ancient Roman Rite. This was very conspicuous in the first year of Pope Leo’s reign when His Eminence offered the ancient Roman Rite in the most venerable Roman church, St. Peter’s Basilica, last year, as a part of the annual Latin Mass pilgrimage.

Meanwhile, shortly before that happened, the Holy Father explicitly expressed openness to listening to, and understanding the Latin Mass movement. Let’s recall what he said at that time:

There is another issue, which is also another hot-button issue, which I have already received a number of requests and letters [about]: The question about, people always say ‘the Latin Mass.’ Well, you can say Mass in Latin right now. If it’s the Vatican II rite there’s no problem. Obviously, between the Tridentine Mass and the Vatican II Mass, the Mass of Paul VI, I’m not sure where that’s going to go. It’s obviously very complicated.

I do know that part of that issue, unfortunately, has become – again, part of a process of polarization – people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It’s become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate. I think sometimes the, say, ‘abuse’ of the liturgy from what we call the Vatican II Mass, was not helpful for people who were looking for a deeper experience of prayer, of contact with the mystery of faith that they seemed to find in the celebration of the Tridentine Mass. Again, we’ve become polarized, so that instead of being able to say, well, if we celebrate the Vatican II liturgy in a proper way, do you really find that much difference between this experience and that experience?

I have not had the chance to really sit down with a group of people who are advocating for the Tridentine rite. There’s an opportunity coming up soon, and I’m sure there will be occasions for that. But that is an issue that I think also, maybe with synodality, we have to sit down and talk about. It’s become the kind of issue that’s so polarized that people aren’t willing to listen to one another, oftentimes. I’ve heard bishops talk to me, they’ve talked to me about that, where they say, ‘we invited them to this and that and they just won’t even hear it’. They don’t even want to talk about it. That’s a problem in itself. It means we’re into ideology now, we’re no longer into the experience of church communion. That’s one of the issues on the agenda (emphasis added).

It is not clear if those discussions did indeed happen as Pope Leo had hoped for, or if they did happen, what became of them.

Since that hopeful movement the greatest events in Pope Leo’s pontificate in regards to the traditional movement have been the tragedy of the break in Eucharistic Communion with the SSPX bishops and priests, of which OnePeterFive readers are fully aware. During all this sad saga, the Holy Father made very few remarks regarding the Latin Mass or the movement, other than some passing, vague comments about the problems with the SSPX clerics not accepting the Ecumenical Council Vatican II.

Now we hear the news that the players in the Vatican have removed permission for the ancient Roman Rite to find a home again in the Roman basilica of St. Peter’s at this year’s Latin Mass pilgrimage in October for that month’s feast of Christ the King.

From Mr. Michael Haynes:

Sources close to the pilgrimage organisers told this correspondent that the Mass at the Vatican had been canceled for this year and that news of this was communicated via the Secretariat of State.  

Instead, Cardinal Roland Makrickas – the archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore – offered the pilgrimage to celebrate Mass in his church.  

Pilgrims will now process to the Vatican to venerate the relics of St. Peter, before making their way across the city to have Mass in the basilica of St. Mary Major. 

Makrickas is a public friend of the traditional Mass and the communities that celebrate it. Under his tenure as archpriest the traditional Mass has quietly made a gradual return in St Mary Major. It was he who granted permission for the Institute of Christ the King to celebrate a solemn Mass inside the basilica in May 2025, coincidentally on the very day that Pope Leo XIV was elected in conclave.  

The immense size of the pilgrimage last year surprised Vatican staff, who were unprepared for the large numbers of attendees at the Mass. Many pilgrims came from far abroad in order to support the event, encouraged by the sight of Cardinal Burke offering the Mass and understanding it as an impending change in circumstances for the traditional liturgy. 

But sources close to the event told this correspondent last year that the immense media focus on the Mass risked backfiring, as opponents of the traditional liturgy in the Vatican would take umbrage at such widespread coverage. The Mass was a singular event, sources noted. Whilst very welcome, it was not a firm indication of any overturning of Pope Francis’ restrictions on the traditional liturgy.

AdVaticanum talked to an inside source about this media attention:

A Vatican source told AdVaticanum that the decision followed difficulties in obtaining access and permission for the celebration at St Peter’s this year. According to the source, who is familiar with the negotiations, last year’s Mass was viewed within the Pope’s “circle” and among staff at St Peter’s Basilica as “gloating”.

“That perception was not well received,” the source said.

The source described the decision as “one step forward and two steps back”, arguing that last year’s permission had been followed by a celebration whose scale and tone were interpreted as a triumph by those overseeing access to the basilica.

A concession was granted in 2025 when the traditional Mass returned to St Peter’s Basilica, but the subsequent reaction has now resulted in more restricted access for this year’s pilgrimage.

It is important to remember that what happens in Vatican City is a result of dozens and hundreds of bishops, priests, and lay faithful who make decisions about all sorts of various issues. Some things that happen in Vatican City are a result of the Holy Father’s personal actions. Some are not. We do not know what the Holy Father thinks of these things, or if he was involved in the decision about the Latin Mass in St. Peter’s.

We do know that the ancient Roman Rite has many friends and allies in Rome in high places, like Cardinal Roland Makrickas, as well as those who helped Miss Diane Montagna last year (“Traditionis Custodes: The Narrative Is All Lies“).

Therefore Pope Leo’s own wisdom can help guide the traditional movement at this stage in the new pontificate, pointing out a breakdown in charity as a central problem: “I’ve heard bishops talk to me, they’ve talked to me about that, where they say, ‘we invited them to this and that and they just won’t even hear it’. They don’t even want to talk about it. That’s a problem in itself. It means we’re into ideology now, we’re no longer into the experience of church communion.” Let us live, speak, and act from our one Eucharistic Communion at the one altar in communion with that of St. Peter, for the Eucharistic Heart is our only heart, and the One Thing Necessary which binds every Catholic and is the “source and summit” of the Christian life.

Let us allow His Eucharistic Heart to rule and govern all of our hearts.

VIVA CRISTO REY!