A Solemn Pontifical Mass will be offered by His Excellency, Camilo D. Gregorio DD, Prelate of Batanes, on September 14, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in the Parish of the Lord of Divine Mercy, Maamo cor. Madasalin Sts., Sikatuna Village Quezon City, in the Diocese of Cubao.
This Mass will be in commemoration of the first anniversary of Summorum Pontificum.
This Solemn Mass comes the day after the Traditional Confirmations and Pontifical Votive Low Mass in the same parish church.
This Solemn Mass comes the day after the Traditional Confirmations and Pontifical Votive Low Mass in the same parish church.
This is the first Solemn Pontifical Mass to be offered in Metropolitan Manila since 1970. Bishop Gregorio himself had offered Pontifical Low Masses in 1995 and early in 2008.
Bishop Camilo Gregorio is one of the strongest supporters of the Traditional Latin Mass in the Philippine hierarchy. He attended the Sixth International Colloquium on the Liturgy of the Centre International d'Etudes Liturgiques (CIEL) in 2000 during which he gave a talk entitled "A Pastoral View of the Ecclesia Dei Communities." This talk can be found in the book Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: The Proceedings of the 2000 Sixth International Colloquium on the Liturgy.
This bishop has also suffered much for his orthodoxy, having been Bishop of the diocese of Bacolod -- one of the more prominent dioceses in the Philippines, and a hotbed of leftwing clerical agitation -- from 1987 to 2001. As bishop of Bacolod he established the indult and gave free rein to the Traditional Mass. Conflicts with that diocese's liberal clergy led to his resignation. Today he is the bishop of the Prelature of Batanes -- the second smallest and the most remote of the Philippines' dioceses.
