Bishop Burbidge speaks at St. Rita
A significant and most welcome development has come from the Diocese of Arlington, VA. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge has announced that, beginning July 1, 2026, the Chaplaincy of Our Lady of Victory will be administered by priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter. Fr. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP, and Fr. John Audino, FSSP, have been appointed to serve the faithful who attend Mass and receive the other sacraments in the Extraordinary Form.
This does not change the existing eight Traditional Latin Mass locations in the Diocese of Arlington. Those eight locations remain as they were: three parish church locations and five non-parish locations.
But this is nonetheless real good news. For traditional Catholics in Northern Virginia, the question has never been merely one of “Mass times.” It has also been the availability of the traditional sacraments: baptism, matrimony, confession, the rites for the sick, and the full pastoral life that belongs to Catholics attached to the ancient Roman Rite. A chaplaincy entrusted to the FSSP is a concrete answer to that need (and a formalization of the presence of the FSSP within the Arlington Diocese).
It is also, one hopes, a first step. Arlington still lacks a full FSSP apostolate, parish, or stable public location of its own within the diocese. May this chaplaincy of Our Lady of Victory become the seed from which such a location eventually grows.
Nor should the broader context be missed. Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes imposed grave restrictions on the use of the 1962 Missal, including limits on parish churches and on the establishment of new traditional groups. Pope Leo XIV has not yet undone those restrictions. But the signs under this new pontificate are plainly different: a Vatican message to the French bishops recently called for “concrete solutions” that would generously include those attached to the Vetus Ordo, and a similar message was delivered to the English bishops.
This Arlington development is therefore a concrete indication of a more favorable disposition toward the traditional faithful than what we endured in the Francis years.
Deo gratias! Pray for Bishop Burbidge, for the FSSP priests, and for the faithful of Arlington.
