The largest workshop for the Traditional Latin Mass in the world, Ars Celebrandi, concluded last July 18 in Licheń, Poland, with a visit by Archbishop Guido Pozzo.
Archbishop Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (the Holy See office for Catholics attached to the traditional Roman liturgy) had this message to the workshops’ participants and organizers: "I would like to thank God for this active presence of the Ars Celebrandi community, committed to the promotion of the ancient Roman liturgy and thus giving glory to God for the sake of the Church and all mankind... I encourage you to continue and go forth, in trust in the grace of God."
Archbishop Guido Pozzo celebrated the Pontifical Mass in the Licheń Basilica and presided over Pontifical vespers. The faithful taking part in these celebrations and receiving the Papal blessing could receive a plenary indulgence under ordinary conditions by the decision of the Apostolic Penitentiary.
(Video of the Pontifical Mass below)
Archbishop Guido Pozzo delivered a conference entitled "The Ancient Roman Liturgy and the Contemporary Crisis of Faith" and responded to numerous, sometimes very detailed questions of the participants. In his conference he strongly emphasized the point that today’s crisis of Christianity (which has already become a cataclysm in Western civilization) has three dimensions—the secularization of faith, hope and love, sharing a common denominator: loss of interest in supranaturalism and closing in horizontal immanentism, as a result of which one can see only what is visible to the eyes. In opinion of Archbishop Pozzo this is a new heresy, different from all previous ones; in the history of the Church, some particular aspects of faith were challenged, and now it is the Faith as such which is being undermined. This view can be called a Gnostic one. This crisis cannot be solved without eliminating its causes, that is, placing God back in the first place, so that all other matter can regain the right orientation. And the Holy Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite is, in the opinion of the Archbishop, one of the ways to restore this proper hierarchy. (More images available here).
Also Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—via Archbishop Pozzo—sent his greetings to the participants and organizers of the "Ars Celebrandi” workshops.
The fifth "Ars Celebrandi" liturgical workshops in Licheń (12th-19th of July) were attended by a record number of more than 200 people aged between 11 and 70, almost 50 priests among them. Twelve of them (including one canon) celebrated Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite for the first time in their life. These participants came not only from Poland, but from a dozen or so other countries, including Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Germany, Albania and South Korea (a workshop for English speaking altar boys was carried for the first time). Morover, the "Ars Celebrandi" workshops included not only learning of liturgical celebrations or singing (Gregorian chant), and celebration of sung Office hours, but also a spiritual and intellectual formation.
The workshops of the traditional liturgy "Ars Celebrandi" in Licheń are organized by the association Una Voce Polonia (Polish branch of the International Una Voce Federation).
