St Louis de Montfort, the Cross, and Tradition

On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI normalized the ancient rites of Mass and the Sacraments for all Latin Rite Catholics and priests. Gone were the days of prohibition…gone were the days of ghettoized pockets…gone were the days of indults and special permissions…the Old Mass, the Sacraments usus antiquior were back for they had never been abrogated. As Pope Benedict wrote: What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Traditional Catholics were given greater latitude…greater liberty to worship in the ways that the Church of Rome has always worshipped. Tradition began to grow…began to build…parishes… apostolates…chaplaincies…schools…retreats. Faithful and serious Catholics families and individuals seemed to be drawn more and more towards the Mass of our ancestors. But in the midst of all this growth…all the enthusiasm…resistance towards Tradition began to grow more and more. Some went so far as to suggest that the Traditional Catholic with his Traditional Liturgies was holding back the full expression of the recent Church council and the full flourishing of the Church. A new Roman Pontiff was on the throne of Peter and he clearly stated that the Old Rites were to be phased out…Latin Masses were to be eliminated one by one…all other Old Rite Sacraments were to be forbidden in most places…Traditional Catholics were to be denied, by enlarge, any parish life. All that had been built up had to be torn down, for we no longer pray like we used to pray.