The event has an importance—even symbolic—far greater than one might imagine today; and its memory deserves to be handed down to the reflection of tomorrow's historians.
It was around 2:30 p.m. when the singing of the Creed echoed under the majestic vaults of St. Peter's Basilica, intoned with powerful voices by a procession of over two hundred priests, advancing slowly, followed by thousands of faithful participating in the 14th International Pilgrimage Ad Petri Sedem.
After crossing the Holy Door, the procession arrived in the grandiose apse of St. Peter's Basilica, where the monumental Chair of Peter stands surrounded by marble, bronze, and rays of glory. Bernini's genius carved not only an artistic triumph, but a symbol of the Tradition of the Church, faithfully preserved for two millennia. The priests stood in two rows to the right and left of the altar, dominated by the large bronze case containing the Chair and the imposing statues of four Doctors of the Church: the Latins, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, and the Greeks, St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom. Above the cathedra, in a cascade of gold and light, the Dove of the Holy Spirit, set in the famous alabaster window, radiated a warm glow over the entire apse.
On either side of the tribune, the funeral monuments of Urban VIII, also by Bernini, and Paul III, the Pope who convened the Council of Trent, still seem to watch over the heart of the Petrine Primacy. Above, on the vault, the delivery of the keys to St. Peter recounts the origin of papal authority, while on the sides, scenes of the martyrdom of St. Peter and the beheading of St. Paul compose a sacred drama that speaks of blood shed for the faith.
There could be no more eloquent setting for the solemn ceremony that began shortly after 3 p.m. when His Eminence Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Patron Emeritus of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, entered and celebrated a solemn Pontifical Mass according to the ancient Roman Rite, assisted by ceremonial officers who helped to give the liturgy the magnificence it deserves.
The nine hundred chairs provided proved small for a crowd three or four times larger, composed of men and women, young and old, who had come from all over the world. The event was made extraordinary by the place where it took place: a setting unique in the world, where architecture, sculpture, theology, and history intertwine to make visible the mission of the Church and the Papacy: to preserve the faith and transmit it throughout the centuries.
Cardinal Burke, in his highly appreciated homily, recalled the centenary of the apparition of the Child Jesus, together with Our Lady of Fatima, to the Venerable Servant of God Sister Lúcia dos Santos, on December 10, 1925, in which "the Lord showed us the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Our Lady, covered with many thorns because of our indifference and ingratitude, and because of our sins. In particular, Our Lady of Fatima wishes to protect us from the evil of atheistic communism, which distances hearts from the Heart of Jesus—the only source of salvation—and leads them to rebellion against God and against the order He has established in creation and written in the heart of every man.
Through her apparitions and the message she entrusted to the shepherd children, Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto, and to Venerable Lúcia dos Santos—a message intended for the whole Church—Our Lady denounced the influence of atheistic culture on the Church itself, which has led many to apostasy and to abandoning the truths of the Catholic faith.
At the same time, Our Lady taught us to perform acts of love and reparation for the offenses committed against the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and her Immaculate Heart through the Devotion of the First Saturdays of the month. This consists of confessing one's sins sacramentally, receiving Holy Communion worthily, reciting five decades of the Holy Rosary, and keeping company with Our Lady by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary (...). The Devotion of the First Saturdays is our response of obedience to our heavenly Mother, who will not fail to intercede to obtain all the graces that we and the whole world so urgently need."
The cardinal then recalled the 18th anniversary of the promulgation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, with which Pope Benedict XVI made possible the regular celebration of Mass according to this form, in use since the time of St. Gregory the Great. “Let us give thanks to God,” he said, “because, through Summorum Pontificum, the whole Church is maturing in an ever deeper understanding and love for the great gift of the Sacred Liturgy, as it has been handed down to us in an unbroken line from the Apostolic Tradition, from the Apostles and their successors.”
The ceremony was accompanied by the notes of Gregorian chant from the Music Chapel of the Roman Pantheon, which spread like a sacred wind, uniting the prayers of those present with those of countless generations of believers who, before them, had looked up at that apse, seeking the truth of doctrine and the comfort of faith.
A martyr of this faith was Albanian Cardinal Ernest Simoni, who attended the ceremony in the front row, together with Cardinal Walter Brandmüller. Imprisoned by the communist regime in 1963, Cardinal Simoni spent over twenty-five years of his life in forced labor until his release in 1991. Today he is known for the power of his exorcisms and, at the end of Mass, he pronounced from the pulpit an abbreviated formula of exorcism against Satan and the rebellious angels, composed in 1884 by Leo XIII, inspired by the archangel St. Michael, after having had a terrifying vision of demons gathering to destroy the Church.
The celebration ended, after the Salve Regina, with the solemn singing of Christus vincit, while intense emotion touched priests and faithful alike. The faces of many of them revealed the suffering of those who, in order to remain faithful to the Mass of All Time, had to face misunderstandings, trials, and humiliations. But now, around that ancient liturgy, the golden rays of the apse, the figures of the evangelists and the Fathers of the Church seemed to bring together the past and the present in a single embrace, before the Chair of Peter.
For the first time since Traditionis Custodes (2021) came into effect, the celebration of the traditional Mass has been authorized at the altar of the Chair in the Vatican Basilica. During the first pilgrimages to Petri Sedem, the Tridentine Mass was celebrated freely in St. Peter's, but for some years this had no longer been permitted. Only the authorization of the reigning Pope Leo XIV made this event possible, which to many appeared as a rising dawn light, while in the world so many ephemeral stars have fallen or are preparing to vanish into the night.
