BTW, I am grateful to the blog MESSA IN LATINO for articulating the same objection I posed earlier to Fr. Lombardi's unnecessary and in any case, too defensive statement denying that the Holy Father could ever have, God forbid!, celebrated the traditonal Mass in private since he became Pope! Here is what the blogger had to say. (He makes earlier comments about other recent Vatican communications moves that he finds questionable - including announcing the updated norms on all the offenses against the faith, morals and the sacraments that are under the competence of the CDF. On which point, I disagree heartily - on both practical and logical grounds - - as I have explained more than once before.)
Re Fr. Lombardi's denial that the Pope
has ever said the TLM in private:
For the Vatican's disastrous communications system,
it seems more important at any cost to defend
the Pope from any possible charge of traditionalism!
Translated from
July 23, 2010
...This blog was the first to report - pardon the lack of modesty - the contents of a little-reported news conference given recently by Mons. Bernard Fellay [superior-general of the FSSPX) in a Brazilian city, where he said that the Holy Father and his secretary, Mons. Gaenswein, have probably celebrated the traditional Latin Mass a few times.
Well, the news was picked up by everyone, and suddenly, the ineffable Fr. Lombardi rushed - with a celerity worthy of a major crisis - to tell the Catholic News Service that the Pope only celebrates, or rather concelebrates, the Novus Ordo, in Italian, with his secretary.
He adds, without realizing the absurdity of what he us saying (seeing that he is belying a statement made by Mons. Fellay who certainly knows how to distinguish the TLM from the Novus Ordo) that probably, the 'mistake' comes from the fact that the Pope celebrates the Mass facing the altar in his private chapel!
Nonetheless, why this hasty denial? We know that the Pope is almost literally under 'blackmail'
[I think the sense is 'held hostage' by the progressivists] for as long as he does not publicly celebrate the traditional Mass.
But perhaps it is too much for Fr. Lombardi and his fellow advocates of the Novus Ordo that even one voice should be allowed - without having to confirm or deny it - that Benedict XVI could possibly 'under certain circumstances' dare to celebrate the TLM in private!
Meanwhile, let me go on believing - since it hurts no one - that the Pope has said the TLM at least once in his private chapel, if only to show his Memores housekeepers and his valet what they have missed by having been born after Vatican II! And while I understand the prudence that has so far kept him from celebrating the TLM in public, how long will he continue not giving it 'full citizenship' within the realm of papal liturgies itself??? On this one point, I respect his judgment but my mind is too limited to find any justification for what seems to me like inconsistency from this most consistent of Popes... There has to be a significant reason I am unable to see but which appears clear to Mons. Fellay and other traditionalists who would otherwise have been expressing their remonstrations in no uncertain terms!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/07/2010 05:42]