RORATE CÆLI

Leo and the Liturgy: in his own words, in the Sermon for the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Finally, I would like to mention an essential aspect of the Cathedral’s mission: liturgy. The liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed... the source from which all its power flows” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10). In it, we find the same themes we have already mentioned: we are built up as God’s temple, as his dwelling place in the Spirit and we receive strength to preach Christ in the world (cf. ibid., 2).

Main excerpt of Dom Alcuin Reid's piece on Leo XIV on the Sacred Liturgy -- or, more correctly, the excerpt related to our main concern, the Traditional Roman Rite:

***

The second area in which the Holy Father will have to exercise leadership is in facilitating a return to the liturgical peace that was violently ended by the abrupt and, as we have recently learnt from new evidence, the carefully manipulated, persecution of those, particularly young people, who have discovered the older liturgical rites and who have “felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them” (Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops, 7 July 2007).

LEO AND THE CHINESE: An Enigma - Part VI in the Series "The First Year of Leo XIV"

LEO AND THE CHINESE

by Serre Verweij

for Rorate Cæli

[Part I - Leo and the Germans.]

[Part II - Leo and Synodality.]

[Part III - Leo and the Radicals.]

[Part IV - Leo and the Latin Americans.]

[Part V - Leo in his own Words.]

***

One of the biggest controversies during the recent conclave was the agreement between the Holy See and China approved by the late Pope Francis. The details of this agreement have never been made public, but it allows the Chinese communist government to nominate bishops. As a result, it legitimizes the schismatic state church with state-appointed bishops that has existed for decades, while seemingly throwing the underground Catholic Church faithful to Rome under the bus.

From a local reader:

The parish of Saint Josaphat in Bayside, Queens has at last been transferred into the care of the ICKSP. Bishop Robert Brennan graciously invited the Institute to run the parish as a way to continue it being a home for the TLM in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

A "Catholic Daily Wire" at last? Traditional Catholic platform Pelican+ bursts onto the digital scene

A new Mass for Paris.

OP-ED: The Enemy's Three Enemies. The Real Reasons for the Trouble Triggered by the Mother of God

by Professor Massimo Viglione*

TOTA PULCHRA ES MARIA

Years ago, I wrote that the predictable outcome of Conciliar Gnostic Ecumenism would be the progressive, steady, but definitive and unavoidable expurgation from the formerly Catholic (but now hyper-modernist) religion, of the three essential elements forming the Church's Divine and human nature. In ascending order:

A Miraculous Refuge from the Global Barbarians by Marcello Veneziani

"The only hope for a new beginning lies in the new scribes, the new monasteries, the heroic minds of Vichiana memory, the new academies, and the promising gardens, such as the one a stone's throw from barbaric, forgetful and rather dissolute Rome."

Marcello Veneziani

La Verità – 22 October 2025

The School of Athens by Raphael

What would you say if one day you found yourself among gatherings of young people from all over the world speaking to each other in Latin and Ancient Greek, attending lessons on Plato in the original language, painting mythological scenes from the classical world, playing music on traditional instruments, discussing Homer and Virgil, reading books and taking notes, without cell phones or artificial intelligence? Probably that you were dreaming or suffering from an ex post facto hallucination, the effect of a cultural withdrawal from the classics.

Quis ut Virgo? - Who is like unto Mary? -- Reflections on the Document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, by Roberto de Mattei

by Roberto de Mattei

November 5, 2025

On October 16, 1793, what was perhaps the most disgusting crime of the French Revolution took place: the execution of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, after a sham trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Plinio Correa de Oliveira wrote of Marie Antoinette: "There are certain souls who are only great when the winds of misfortune blow upon them. Marie Antoinette, who was futile as a princess and unforgivably frivolous in her life as queen, was transformed in a surprising way when faced with the vortex of blood and misery that flooded France; and the historian verifies, with respect, that a martyr was born from the queen and a heroine from the doll."

Op-Ed: Mary, the Co-Redemptrix and Mater Populi Fidelis

The Co-Redemptrix and Mater Populi Fidelis

by Father Pierre LaLiberté*, JCD/PhD

for Rorate Cæli

The document Mater Populi Fidelis of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, specifically in numbers 17 and 18 gives a undeservedly over-simplified overview of this important doctrine of the Catholic Faith. The fact that Our Lady cooperated in the work of the Redemption, at least mediately, is a de fide teaching. To doubt it would incur theological censure.

DDF Document: Mater Populi Fidelis - Doctrinal Note on Some Marian Titles Regarding Mary’s Cooperation in the Work of Salvation

[Rorate note: The papal approval is at the end of the document, right before the endnotes. Interesting that Leo XIV approved the note, but not “in forma specifica” — which would make it an actual papal teaching demanding high assent of the faithful.]

DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

Mater Populi Fidelis

Doctrinal Note on Some Marian Titles Regarding Mary’s Cooperation in the Work of Salvation

Presentation

The present Note responds to numerous requests and proposals that have reached the Holy See in recent decades, and particularly this Dicastery, regarding questions pertaining to Marian devotion and certain Marian titles. These are questions that have concerned recent Popes and have been repeatedly addressed in the last thirty years in various areas of study within the Dicastery, such as Congresses and Ordinary Assemblies. This has enabled the Dicastery to compile an abundant and rich body of material that nourishes the present reflection.

In 1952 Pope Pius XII said the following, in a public address recorded among his official acts:

Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live.

In 2017 Pope Francis spoke, in a not dissimilar context:

Fr. Nicola Bux on the Church in Italy and Homosexuality: "The Church cannot change Revelation."

Those pastors who argue for the need to change teaching on homosexuality and other moral issues should be reminded that “the Church does not have the authority to change ‘even one iota or one sign’ ” of Revelation, of which the Catechism is a faithful interpreter. The Catechism can “change,” or develop, only in the sense of advancing understanding of the doctrine, but without distorting it. La Bussola interviews Fr. Nicola Bux.

La Bussola Quotidiana

November 3, 2025

On Friday evening, October 24, in Rome, in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), presided over solemn Vespers in the ancient rite in the context of the 14th “Summorum Pontificum ad Petri Sedem” Pilgrimage, commonly referred to as “the Jubilee of the Traditionalists.”

Plenary Indulgence Reminders for the first full week in November (November 1st-8th) - Repost (Enchiridion Indulgentiarum)

There are several plenary indulgences available for the first week in November. They are the following:

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For the faithful departed

If this be true, doubtless also the providing for the interment of bodies a place at the Memorials of Saints, is a mark of a good human affection towards the remains of one's friends. Yet it follows not that the bodies of the departed are to be despised and flung aside, and above all of just and faithful men, which bodies as organs and vessels to all good works their spirit has holily used. For if a father's garment and ring, and whatever such like, is the more dear to those whom they leave behind, the greater their affection is towards their parents, in no wise are the bodies themselves to be spurned, which truly we wear in more familiar and close conjunction than any of our putting on. For these pertain not to ornament or aid which is applied from without, but to the very nature of man. Whence also the funerals of the just men of old were with dutiful piety cared for, and their obsequies celebrated, and sepulture provided: and themselves while living did touching burial or even translation of their bodies give charge to their sons.

And when this affection is exhibited to the departed by faithful men who were most dear to them, there is no doubt that it profits them who while living in the body merited that such things should profit them after this life. But even if some necessity should through absence of all facility not allow bodies to be interred, or in such places interred, yet should there be no pretermitting of supplications for the spirits of the dead: which supplications, that they should be made for all in Christian and Catholic fellowship departed, even without mentioning of their names, under a general commemoration, the Church has charged herself withal; to the intent that they which lack, for these offices, parents or sons or whatever kindred or friends, may have the same afforded unto them by the one pious mother which is common to all. But if there were lack of these supplications, which are made with right faith and piety for the dead, I account that it should not a whit profit their spirits, howsoever in holy places the lifeless bodies should be deposited.

- From the book of St. Augustine, the Bishop, on the Care for the Deceased, Cap. 2 & 3

In Vigilia Omnium Sanctorum: “Poorness, at least in spirit, is the first in order, the mother, and procreatrix of virtues”

Mark well how Jesus goeth upward with His disciples, and downward to the multitude. How should the multitude behold Christ, save in a lower place? Such go not up to the things which are above; such attain not to the things which are high. And when Jesus cometh down, He findeth such as are diseased, for such like go not up to the heights. Hence also Matthew saith that there were there all sick people, iv. 23. Of these every man had need of healing, that, when he had received strength, by and by, he might go up into the mountain. And therefore, being Himself come down, He healeth them in the plain, that is to say, He calleth them away from their lust, and freeth them of their blindness. He cometh down to our wounds, to the end that by a certain use of His nature, and by the abundance thereof, He might make us joint-heirs of the kingdom of heaven.

German public broadcaster ZDF has for decades presented Sunday "divine services": Evangelical and Catholic. This past Sunday, for the first time, the Catholic "mass" was a "Queer Divine Service." We take the opportunity to remind all that Traditionis custodes, the document that attempted to abolish the Traditional Rite of the Latin Church, had the illegitimate audacity of stating: "The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite."*

The centenary of Pius XI's great 1925 encyclical Quas Primas on the divine-human, individual-social Kingship of Jesus Christ has seen the release of two new books of considerable interest to tradition-loving Catholics.

Desecration of my parish church

by Serre Verweij

A video is going viral of a vandal toppling a statue of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a church in Utrecht. That’s my parish church. A parish of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, led by a pillar of orthodoxy, Cardinal Eijk. An oasis of the true faith in the corrupted and decadent nation that is the modern Netherlands.

Christ the King Procession in Rio de Janeiro

This past Sunday, October 26, a procession in honor of Christ the King took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro. This year’s procession marked the centenary of the institution of this celebration by Pope Pius XI, through the encyclical Quas Primas. The event was organized by the Centro Cultural Permanência and the SSPX (Society of Saint Pius X), with structural support from the Centro Dom Bosco.

This was the first year in a while that I did not attend the annual Summorum Pontificum Conference in Rome. My memory of last year’s conference--the laity held up in the lines to get through security, the singing of one of the minor Hours of the liturgical day at the Confessio instead of a Mass that had been forbidden, the feeling of being treated like strangers in a place that is near the very heart of the Church--all this contributed to my decision to stay home. And this in spite of the remarkable papal decision to allow Cardinal Burke, whom I love as a friend, to celebrate Pontifical Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite at the altar of the Throne. And this in spite of Cardinal Zuppi’s celebration of Solemn Vespers at San Lorenzo in Lucina on Friday evening.

Roberto de Mattei: "The Pontifical Mass at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter": An Event Far Greater than one Might Imagine Today

Cardinal Burke's solemn Mass at the Chair of Peter

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

October 28, 2025

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.

The always fantastic AROUCA PRESS has just released a great book for these times of crisis in the Chuch, Spes Nostra (Our Hope), a book dedicated to reminding us of the good and spiritual things of Catholic life to strengthen us in our weary days:

French Weekly Magazine: 115 Nations in the Vatican Pontifical Mass - "Liturgical Pacification in Rome?"

Father Danziec writes for French weekly newsmagazine Valeurs Actuelles on the Pontifical Mass of the Rome pilgrimage celebrated on October 25, 2025, by Cardinal Burke in the Vatican Basilica

Leo XIV: Liturgical pacification in Rome?

Father Danziec

Valeurs Actuelles

October 26, 2025

(image source)

Yesterday, a Latin Mass was celebrated in the traditional rite at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Attended by a huge crowd of faithful, the ceremony was authorized by Pope Leo XIV. A sign of détente?

(source)

Standing Room Only at the Return of the Old Rite to Saint Peter's

Nicola Spuntoni

La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana

October 27, 2025

Reinstated after a three-year ban, the traditional liturgy fills the Vatican Basilica: over two thousand people attend the pontifical Mass celebrated by Cardinal Burke for the annual Summorum Pontificum gathering. High numbers and a low average age testify to the excellent health of the faithful attached to the Vetus Ordo.

The best image of the Pontifical Mass celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke at the altar of St. Peter's Chair was taken in a joke by Damian Thompson, a brilliant writer for the British magazine The Spectator: “You know it's an ancient rite when the priests aren't ancient.” And indeed, what was most striking about Saturday afternoon's ceremony was the young age not only of the priests but also of all the faithful present.

There were certainly more than two thousand people. The gendarmes and sampietrini noticed this as they found themselves managing the impressive influx for the highlight of the 14th Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage. With the benches and standing room filled to capacity, many were forced to remain in the adjacent aisles, and queues soon formed inside the Basilica. It was a “sweet” inconvenience, if you will, because it testified to the excellent health of the community of lovers of the so-called Tridentine Mass. There was a large turnout and a lot of media attention, with a large contingent of journalists and photographers unlike anything seen before 2022.

Solemn High Mass Today in the Archdiocese of Washington for Feast of Christ the King

Rome has not been the only place in the Catholic world in these past few days where bishops and priests have cooperated to make the Church's venerable and ancient rite more available to God's faithful people.

Today, at the chapel of Saint John's in Forest Glen, Silver Spring, Maryland, a solemn high Mass for the feast of Christ the King, observed on the last Sunday of October annually in the traditional calendar as established by Pope Pius XI in 1925, was offered by priests stationed in the Archdiocese.

More images of the Mass at Saint Peter's Basilica (Fantastic panoramic images)

All images courtesy of D. Elvir Tabakovic (Claritate.org) -

Click on arrows of album below to see all images

And, for the record, the articles on the Pontifical Mass by the Associated Press ("American Cardinal Celebrates Old Latin Mass in St Peter's in a sign of change" - link) and The New York Times ("Papal Permission for Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Gives Traditionalists Hope"- link).

Cardinal Burke's Sermon at the Vatican Basilica Pontifical Mass - October 25, 2025 - We thank God that, through Summorum Pontificum, the whole Church is coming to an ever-greater understanding and love of the great gift of the Sacred Liturgy

(Cardinal Burke in St. Peter's, at the main evening news broadcast in Italy, TG1)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

It is the source of deepest joy for me to offer the Pontifical Mass at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter as the culmination of the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage of 2025. In the name of all present, I express heartfelt gratitude to those who have labored so diligently and well to make possible the Pilgrimage. I am offering the Holy Mass for the faithful in the Church throughout the world, who labor to safeguard and promote the beauty of the Usus Antiquior of the Roman Rite. May today’s offering of the Pontifical Mass encourage and strengthen us all in love of our Eucharistic Lord Who, through Apostolic Tradition and with unfailing and immeasurable love for us, renews sacramentally His Sacrifice on Calvary and nourishes us with the incomparable fruit of His Sacrifice: the Heavenly Food of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

Pontifical Mass at Saint Peter’s

Deo gratias!

Damian Thompson posted the image below, showing an overflowing number of pilgrims:

All the Glory of the King's Daughter is Within: Supporting the Hermit Vocation in a World of Noise

Desert Mother - Syncletica of Alexandria

Guest writer, Mark Rose - Founder & Executive Director of Heed, a nonprofit that supports eremitic vocations

In an age defined by ceaseless activity, digital distraction, and a near-compulsory social engagement, the eremitical vocation stands as a profound and jarring contradiction. To the modern mind, the hermit’s life of withdrawal, silence, and hidden prayer seems not only anachronistic but useless—a flight from the pressing needs of the world. Yet, from the perspective of the Faith, this radical retreat is not an abandonment of humanity but a deeper plunge into the heart of the Mystical Body. The hermit, hidden with Christ in God, stands in the breach, offering a spiritual warfare of prayer and penance that is mysteriously fruitful for the salvation of souls.

From our friends at Messa in Latino:

With the conclusion of the 10th Pax Liturgica Meeting at the Pontifical Patristic Institute Augustinianum, which we reported on live in previous articles, the 14th Peregrinatio ad Petri Sedem has officially begun: the editorial staff of MiL-Messainlatino.it is and will be present for all three days!

A letter to Aldo Maria Valli on the syndrome called "inclusivitis.” How it is made manifest and how to combat it.

[Note: Aldo Maria Valli is the famous retired Vaticanist of Italian public broadcaster RAI.]

October 23rd 2025

Dear Aldo Maria,

(image from past event in France, 2024)

Cardinal Müller will celebrate a Solemn Pontifical High Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, in Philadelphia, on November 2nd.

Sunday, November 2, 2025 • 5:00 p.m.
Mass Venue: Our Lady of Lourdes Church, 6301 Woodbine Avenue, Philadelphia, PA

"Old rite, new generation - The Latin Mass finds new life in region: At Our Lady of the Valley, a quiet revival is underway as young parishioners embrace the centuries-old Latin Mass"

From Easthampton, in the Connecticut River valley of Massachusetts, comes this fantastic report on the power of the Traditional Latin Mass for a new generation of young Catholics and their large families.

Main excerpts, from the Daily Hampshire Gazette:

EASTHAMPTON — It’s a fallacy to say that young people are only into new things.

Back in November 2023, I announced a wonderful new resource from Os Justi Press: a booklet, Sanctissimum Rosarium in Cantu, that sets the Latin prayers of the Rosary to Gregorian chant psalm tones, in order to make the chanting of it very easy to do.

By their fruits you shall know them: The Spiritual Fruits of Summorum Pontificum and the Traditional Mass are Astonishing

It is not the Rite that divides, but the exclusion:

Let us judge it by its fruits

Miguel Escrivá

Infovaticana

October 18, 2025

First, those who love the traditional Mass are excluded, and then they are accused of excluding. They are set apart, and then that marginalization is used as proof that they are “divisive.” It is a perfect circle of exclusion and blame. But the reality should be precisely the opposite: when the Vetus Ordo coexists with the ordinary form, it does not generate division, but rather a fruitful balance. This is what Benedict XVI stated in Summorum Pontificum and in his letter to the bishops: the two forms of the Roman rite should not be in conflict, but should coexist in peace. Where this has been correctly applied, parishes and seminaries have filled again.

Ratzinger: "The deepest cause of the crisis that has subverted the Church is located in the effacing of the priority of God in the liturgy."

(Repost from 2017)

The Russian edition of volume XI of the Opera Omnia of Benedict XVI Ratzinger was published this Easter (a common date this year for East and West) and Pope Benedict XVI had been asked at the beginning of the project, in 2015, to write a preface -- which he did.

Corriere della Sera provided the Italian version of the Russian publication, which we now present in English:

Benedict XVI
[Corriere della Sera, April 15, 2017]

Nihil Operi Dei praeponatur - "Let nothing be set before the Divine Worship." With these words, Saint Benedict, in his Rule (43,3), established the absolute priority of Divine Worship in relation with any other task of monastic life. This, even in monastic life, was not necessarily obvious, because for monks the work in agriculture and in knowledge was also an essential task.