Traditional Catholic Pilgrims (mind you, plain diocesan priests and faithful) have been banned from entering Saint Peter's Basilica during this weekend's Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage.
The move was announced to Christian Marquant (of Paix Liturgique), during the liturgical conference that precedes the pilgrimage every year.
From our friends at Messa in Latino:
Christian Marquant: "The Pope Denied Us Saint Peter's, Believing the Mass Was Instrumentalized Last Year"
Reported by Enrico
Messa in Latino, October 23, 2026
*The President of the Association Paix Liturgique, who has devoted his life to the defense of the Mass of all ages, concluded our meeting with direct, clear, and incisive words.*
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Turning to an examination of the ecclesial situation, the speaker observed that it is deeply sorrowful to be ignored by the hierarchy of the Church — ignored in the literal sense: they do not know who we are or what we do. They know nothing beyond the Society of Saint Pius X, and even that they know very poorly.
Consider the following: in 1976, a survey by IFOP — an official polling organization — certified that fifty percent of French Catholics, both practicing and non-practicing, said the Church had gone too far with its reforms, and that approximately twenty-five percent agreed with Lefebvre, who had ordained priests without authorization. The bishops' reaction: none.
In 2001 — before Benedict XVI — twenty-five percent of French Catholics said they would have liked to attend the traditional liturgy. Only ten percent were opposed, the rest indifferent.
After the *motu proprio*, the same surveys, conducted across several countries, showed that approximately one third of Catholics would have wished to attend the ancient Mass, and among the remainder, an absolute majority was not opposed to liberalization.
And yet the official Church has never acknowledged this aspiration of the faithful.
Meanwhile, in France, over the course of fifty years, practicing Catholics as a proportion of the total population have fallen from fifty percent to four percent — reckoning those who attend Mass at least once a month — and to two percent for those who attend every Sunday. The faithful have voted with their feet. The official Church does not seem to care.
Why not explain these things to the Pope? An attempt was made, through Bishop Schneider, who obtained an audience last December. In the course of that meeting, when the Mass at Saint Peter's the previous year came up, Pope Leo remarked: "That Mass was instrumentalized." What did he mean? Perhaps he was displeased by the large attendance, or even more so by the prominent coverage it received in the press.
And indeed, this year the Mass at Saint Peter's was denied.
More than that — and this is the very latest news — not only the Mass, but even access to the Basilica itself has been forbidden to us, and this without so much as the appearance of a pretext, which in any case would have been unconvincing.
We shall see tomorrow what transpires.
This year, few senior prelates are in attendance at our conference. The wind has not been favorable in recent months, and they can tell which way it is blowing. There are few bishops with the courage of an Athanasius or a Hilary of Poitiers.
But we laypeople are certainly not intimidated. We have seen far worse moments than this, and difficulties — not to say persecutions — are of the very essence of the Church Militant.
In France, following *Summorum Pontificum*, there were seven hundred petitions for new Masses — and those are only the ones that were recorded. How many were granted? Only a fraction. One must therefore persevere in asking, in insisting, and even in fighting. *Quaerite et invenietis, pulsate et aperietur vobis* — seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Christian recounted having requested a meeting with Cardinal Roche at least ten times, without result. When the staff of his Dicastery asked the reason for the request, he replied: to greet him, since he used to call regularly on his predecessor; to receive guidance; or simply to share a coffee. Nothing — not even a frank exchange.
It is evidently easier to take the path of easy decline, it seems, than to react and reverse the downward slope.
Evidently, they are afraid of us. We do not officially exist, but we inspire fear — because the new priests and the faithful are sympathetic to us and cannot understand the reasons (which are irrational and nonexistent) for preventing us from praying as all our ancestors have prayed.
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RORATE NOTE: This has never happened before, with any pilgrimage, including those of SSPX, Orthodox, or Protestants. It just does not happen. We truly are the last pariahs.
Fine, this wicked generation shall pass as well.
