Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to Be Suppressed?

Below are two articles on this breaking story. I may post others as they become available.

First, From Fr Z's Blog

Reports are circulating into my phone, my mail box and onto the interwebs (Messa in Latino and Tossati) that the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (PCED) could be suppressed soon and absorbed into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).    Tossati claims that Francis has already signed a Motu Proprio and that it was to be published last Thursday.

The claim is, as Tossati puts it, the PCED was needed due to a “l’emergenza pastorale… pastoral emergency” which no longer exists.  Hence, the PCED isn’t needed.  This is against the backdrop of recent hostile voices in the Italian bishops conference against Benedict and Summorum Pontificum.   Of course that represents a spectacular example of the tightly parochial view of Italian bishops, in the worst sense of that word, a hyper “campanilismo”.

As a matter of fact, the blinkered hostility of Italian bishops demonstrates in a concrete way that there remains a “pastoral emergency”.  And this is a pastoral emergency created by those very bishops… much like they created The Present Crisis with the fecklessness and moral cowardice.

If it is true… if there is a signed Motu Proprio to be published… then there will be some consequences.  What they might be depends on the juridical dispositions made.

My sources – very discreet – say that, at this time, there is no reason for you readers to worry.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean that the rumor, above, has been denied.  My sources offered careful language.

However, I can offer a few thoughts.  Mind you, this is my speculation based on careful sources sparked by rumor.

At first, the PCED was set up as an “ad hoc” Commission.   That meant that it wasn’t intended to be permanent.  However, the “hoc” to which the “ad” pointed includes the reconciliation of the SSPX.   That isn’t going to happen in the near future and the work has been going on since 1988.

Next, the PCED was already absorbed into the CDF.   It still has its brief, with the backing of the CDF.  If it is completely absorbed, then the one responsible for at least some of what the PCED did would be the Cardinal Prefect of the CDF.

Were the PCED to be suppressed and its brief handed over to the CDF, then its disciplinary and juridical brief would more than likely be handed over at least in part to the canonical section of the CDF.   We would have little to worry about there.   If the law says X about something, then that is what those guys will defend.  For sure.

However, the PCED is also studying issues such as the synchronization or harmonization of calendars and so forth.  That work, I suppose, would go over the Cong. for Divine Worship, where also traditional rubrical questions might be answered.  Unless the right people were brought in for that, that could be… bad, given how those hallways were purged after roughly 2013.

Another aspect, an important one, that the PCED handles is the establishment of communities of religious life which want to use the traditional liturgical books and ways.  That part of the brief would probably be handed over to the Cong. for Religious, which, today, would spell…. how to put this… disaster.   Think Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.   Existing communities would not be eradicated, but they would also not have much support.  Setting up something new, under this regime, would be, to my thinking, next to impossible.  There is too much patent hostility from the top of that Congregation down to imagine anything other.  It would be absurd  to deny it.  Look what they recently did to that group of sisters in France who just wanted the Novus Ordo in a traditional way and to wear habits while they took care of the elderly and infirm.

On the other hand, maybe the entire brief of the PCED will be retained within the CDF and things will go on as usual, except when bishops defy the legislation, they have the Prefect of the CDF to deal with.

Mind you, this is my speculation based on careful sources sparked by rumor.

Imagine the crowing of the libs.

They are not going to defeat tradition.

Dear readers, time and time and time again for years now I have been saying that the true renewal of traditional liturgy will only happen when diocesan priests take it up and go with it.   While I highly admire and appreciate the work of the specialized religious communities and priestly societies, they are nevertheless vulnerable.   When diocesan priests in larger numbers – and I think this is going to happen – take up the call, we shall see something entirely new.

Fathers.  Take this as a clarion call.   You MUST get to work now, to overcome whatever hesitation or fear you have about the work it will entail to learn the traditional rites.  You MUST integrate them into your priestly personal interior landscape, so that they become part of who you are, into your very bones and marrow.

Laypeople.  How many times have I urged you not to be complacent in your parishes where you have the traditional use of the Roman Rite.  I’ve urged you to take part in the life of the parish and, indeed, to make yourselves indispensable.  Do you do that?   If you haven’t, and you lose what you have because the priest doesn’t see you around except for only the things you like, then you have yourselves alone to blame.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, FORWARD.   We do not go backward.  The tank has only one gear.

I suggest that you pray, friends.

Mind you, this is my speculation based on careful sources sparked by rumor.

And, second, from Rorate Caeli

Messa in Latino reports (and the information is also relayed by Vaticanist Marco Tosatti) that the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" (PCED), the Vatican body in charge of matters related to the Traditional Latin Mass and of negotiations with traditional groups (in particular the Society of Saint Pius X), is set to be abolished shortly, according to highly credible sources

Its functions would be completely amalgamated and absorbed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), to which it has been closely linked since the beginning, and in particular since July 2008, when the Prefect of CDF was made head "ex officio" of Ecclesia Dei.

Despite the close links, the limited structural autonomy of PCED had proven extremely beneficial to the integrity of the Traditional Latin Mass, especially since the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, of July 7, 2007, had given PCED important functions regarding the Traditional Roman Rite.

Is it a first step in the dismantlement of Summorum Pontificum?