Rorate Caeli

"A document has been signed..."

Yesterday, we closed our third and last update on the April 7 meeting with a note, from Archivum: His Holiness "has signed a document regarding the Rite of the Mass".

One of our most trustworthy sources has finally broken the general silence and has confirmed that truly a document of great importance on the liturgy of the Latin Church "has been signed".

However, just as yesterday we mentioned "...the Rite of the Mass...", this source cannot or will not confirm if this document of great importance impacts (a) the Traditional Roman Rite (or, as it is usually called in more adequate terms, "the liturgical rite and discipline, according to the prescriptions of Saint Pius V, with the adaptations introduced by his successors up to Blessed John XXIII"); or (b) the New Roman rite (which, regarding the rite of the mass, was approved on Holy Thursday, 1969, by the Apostolic Constitution "Missale Romanum", of Paul VI); or (c) both rites.


PS 1: The Pope named today as members of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei": Cardinals Levada (as had happened with the previous head of the CDF...), Ricard (who had been first appointed to the Commission by Pope John Paul), and Cañizares Llovera. The nominations, of course, are not donec aliter provideatur, but for regular five-year terms (Pastor Bonus, 5). Does this mean the Commission still has a long life ahead of it in its current format?...

PS 2: We thank the dear commentator who was able to transcribe what would have been said at Radio Vaticana, though apparently later expunged from the official transcript. Amidst the report on the conclusions of the Assembly of the French Episcopal Conference regarding "the Traditionalist question" (see Update 1, item d), the reporter would have said: "...Ciò, soprattutto, in vista della pubblicazione del motu proprio del Papa sul rito della Messa..." (That is: "This [the measures towards Traditionalists] especially in view of the publication of the Motu Proprio of the Pope on the rite of the Mass.").

PS 3: We apologise for not linking to specific published news sources in different languages, as we usually do, but this time we depend mostly on unpublished sources. Almost all Italian newspapers have remained silent. The usual online news sources have also been silent, except for ACI (see our Update 2), which did mention a few aspects of yesterday's meeting. We refuse to link to the Zenit or CWN reports which have absolutely nothing new.