Archbishop to ordain priests using Tridentine Mass in Rome cathedral

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A former Vatican official will ordain four traditionalist priests in a Tridentine Mass celebrated in the cathedral of Rome, church officials said.

The Feb. 23 ordination Mass in the Basilica of St. John Lateran will be the most prominent celebration of the old rite in Rome since Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on its use last year.

The Mass, to be celebrated by Archbishop Luigi De Magistris, will follow the 1962 Roman Missal, known commonly as the Tridentine rite. In July 2007 the pope issued new rules, saying the old rite could be used much more freely than before.

Those to be ordained are members of the Good Shepherd Institute, a society of apostolic life that uses only the Tridentine rite. The institute, based in France, is made up primarily of priests and seminarians who left the schismatic Society of St. Pius X and reconciled with the Vatican in 2006.

The Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, split with the Vatican years ago over liturgical and other issues.

In a statement, the Good Shepherd Institute expressed thanks to the pope and the Diocese of Rome.

"We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to the ecclesiastical authorities who have graciously allowed the celebration of this Mass to take place in the extraordinary form and in the cathedral of the Holy Father," the statement said.

"The Institute of the Good Shepherd wishes to take this opportunity to demonstrate its devotion to and communion with the Holy Father and, though him, its communion with the whole church," it said.

Archbishop De Magistris is the retired head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, an office that deals with indulgences and matters of conscience. Last September, he celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in Rome for the papal document that allowed wider use of the 1962 missal.

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Bringing back the old devotion.  But there is an even older devotion that truly needs to be brought forth.  

Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus dei qui sedes ad dexteram patris, miserere nobis.
Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who sits at the right hand of the father, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

The most striking feature of late antique and medieval Christianity was the public nature of its liturgy. When most of us think of liturgy today, we imagine the short, discreet, essentially congregational or parochial events that take place periodically within the confines of churches.

Ancient and medieval Christian liturgy was an entirely different affair. From the fourth to the seventh century, Christian worship, like Christianity itself, became a fundamentally urban experience. Bishops, their clergy, monks and nuns, the holy dead and all the faithful transformed the cities of the Roman empire into powerful symbols of redeemed space and time. Christian liturgy took up many hours of every day, filled the city's largest meeting halls, spilled out into the city's streets, broke through the city's walls.

Peace