Beginning today [yesterday], first Saturday of the year, a 14-year-old custom has been interrupted: the celebration of the Holy Mass in the Ancient Rite every first Saturday of the month in honor of the Virgin, in the Cesi Chapel of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major [Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome].
The person responsible for the suspension is the Archpriest of the Basilica, Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló.
The information above is from Chiesa e post concilio and, though we cannot verify the responsibility of the Cardinal -- which can, in any way, be presumed -- we have been able to confirm independently that, for the first time in 14 years, the First Saturday Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore was not celebrated yesterday. Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, a Spaniard, was Apostolic Nuncio in Argentina from 2000 to 2003 and is considered a close friend of the Pope since his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
A community of the Franciscans of the Immaculate have aided in the service of the Liberian Basilica in the past few years, but this is an independent matter, as these First Saturday Masses were celebrated before they arrived there and until the first Saturday of December 2013. [Image: First Saturday Traditional Latin Mass celebrated in the Cappella Cesi in 2010.]
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[Note: See also below our two new pieces on the intervention on the Franciscans of the Immaculate, by Antonio Socci ("In the Vatican, a new Progressive Inquisition") and Sandro Magister ("With the Franciscans of the Immaculate, treatment worse than disease").]
