Astor Piazzolla
Invierno Porteño [Buenos Aires Winter]
It seems unwise to go back, two months after the papal election, to what used to happen liturgically in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires up to early March 2013. But, for some reason, ACI Prensa director and EWTN Spanish news editor Alejandro Bermúdez, wanted to revisit the matter which, in our opinion, should just have been left alone. It seems that the then-Archbishop was a kind of liturgical hardliner, going to the extreme of forbidding priests who apparently wanted to consecrate sweet potato from doing so.
Anyway, moving on from the novus ordo to our concern, the Traditional Mass, this is what Mr. Bermúdez had to say:
"Following Summorum Pontificum, he made the traditional Mass readily available. In fact, Buenos Aires is probably the Latin-American city with the largest number of Masses celebrated in the extraordinary form."
This assertion is absolutely unbelievable. Not only does he insist on a matter we already showed to be mistaken, repeatedly, but he ups the ante by affirming that, "Buenos Aires is probably the Latin-American city with the largest number of Masses celebrated in the extraordinary form". (!!!!)
Assuming the situation at this moment is still as it was on March 13, 2013, and considering only diocesan ("Summorum Pontificum") Masses, the truth is exactly the opposite of what is affirmed by Bermúdez: Buenos Aires, that is, the city of Buenos Aires (the Federal Capital of Argentina, or Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, whose area exactly coincides with that of the Archdiocese, and that should not be confused with the surrounding Province of Buenos Aires, and corresponding surrounding dioceses) has NO diocesan Traditional Mass. None. Zilch. Nada. There are Traditional Masses in the city, but they are celebrated by the Society of Saint Pius X...
That makes the city of Buenos Aires certainly the most relevant city in the region with no current diocesan TLM. It also probably is the largest city proper with no diocesan TLM in the region: the largest cities proper in the region are Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Lima, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, and Santiago de Chile, and every single one of them has at least one diocesan TLM. (We are using "city proper" as a reference here because, as we explained in that same post, there are indeed two diocesan TLMs in the huge urban sprawl of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, the third largest in the region, but both are in neighboring municipalities in the surrounding Province -- partidos --, in dioceses outside the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.)
As for the city with the largest number of Traditional Masses in Latin America? Almost certainly that distinction goes to Campos dos Goytacazes, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, seat of the Apostolic Administration St. John Mary Vianney, dedicated exclusively to the Traditional Roman Rite - several TLMs daily. Excluding this unique situation, the position is probably held by Sao Paulo, also in Brazil (apparently, and as also seems to be confirmed by those contributing information to WikiMissa).
We sincerely hope we do not have to repeat this in the future.
