The abused-spouse mentality of Traditionalists seeking a safe space in the Conciliar Church was again on display last week when Rome refused to permit the principal Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) of the 15th International Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage to be said inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The Vatican’s refusal to grant permission for Bishop Athanasius Schneider to celebrate the TLM in St. Peter’s dashed the hopes of conservative Catholics and and Trad Inc. influencers who witnessed the return of the ancient Roman liturgy to the Basilica at last year’s pilgrimage.
During that even in October 2025, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke celebrated a solemn Pontifical Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal at the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s. The aspirations of those who still insist on seeking permission from the Modernists in Rome were kindled when more than 3,000 persons reportedly attended the liturgy.
This year, the pilgrimage will still take place in Rome from October 23–25, but while clergy and laity will be allowed to process to St Peter’s and pray inside the Basilica, their Pontifical Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Schneider at the high altar of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major at 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 24.
According to a letter dated August 7 sent to the organizers through the Apostolic Nunciature, the organizers of the pilgrimage were informed that they did not have authorization for the Mass “this year.” The letter was, according to reports, signed by Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State.
One can be sure that self-described traditionalists loyal to Rome will now pin all their hopes on the phrase “this year” and build elaborate explanations around it to defend their persecutors. Reality, though, has been telling a remarkably different story this past year and has repeatedly obliterated their Latin-Mass-only aspirations.
Consider that the SSPX and its followers were excommunicated in July. Indult and Ecclesia Dei TLMs were also decisively shut down in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said in an interview that Leo XIV “is not going to change Traditionis Custodes” and is “not going back to Summorum Pontificum.”
The Dispatch
Leo himself doubled down on the Novus Ordo as the normative liturgy of the Conciliar Church in a recent Wednesday catechesis series on Summorum Pontificum. He has given no indication that he has an interest in either maintaining or expanding the traditional liturgy.
Given that the last scrap of crumbles has been denied them by the synodal heresiarchy, supporters of the Latin Mass should realized that it is futile to continue to insist on begging to be a sideshow in the synodal circus.
Bishop Schneider himself rightly said in an interview last week that synodality “is a code word used to undermine Catholic doctrine” and that it is a “concrete plan to adapt slowly the doctrine and the structure of the Catholic Church to Protestant churches and even to the spirit of this world regarding sexuality and morality.”
Add to this the Conciliar Church’s unabated re-creation of itself in the image of the world through its pursuit of global communism, eco-paganism, and LGBTQ ideology, and the question begs an answer: why does Schneider & Co. want to obtain permission from an institution that is clearly in heretical free-fall when they should be insisting, above all else, that it abandons the false religion of Vatican II and confirm Catholics in the faith?
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Even if the pilgrimage’s organizers received permission to say the TLM in St Peter’s Basilica daily, it would amount to nothing more than tokenism if Rome does not return to the Catholic religion and repent of its post-conciliar sacrilege, blasphemy, and apostasy.
While no official reason was given by the Vatican as to why permission was denied, AdVaticanum reported that a source indicated that last year’s celebration was perceived among some officials around the Pope and at St Peter’s as “gloating” by traditionalists. If that minor display of “attachment” to the “Extraordinary Form” was seen as gloating, think of how much hatred the Modernists in Leo’s regime disdain the Church prior to the Second Vatican Council. Against such men, only a full-blown counter-revolution will do — not begging for concessions.
