While “House Trads” and conservative slopagandists continue to reel with disbelief and performative indignation, another voice has joined the chorus condemning the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage.
Once again, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has reached for his proverbial sword and launched a blistering attack on the organizers and prominent supporters of the pilgrimage, accusing them of abandoning the faithful to preserve their relationships with the conciliar hierarchy.
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In a lengthy statement published on X on October 29, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States condemned not only the Vatican’s treatment of traditionalist pilgrims but also the cowardice and duplicity of those supposedly defending Catholic Tradition.
“Those who should have told the faithful what they knew, and who chose to remain silent so as not to lose face,” he said, referring to the fact that event organizers had been told ahead of time they would not be allowed the process into St. Peter’s as a group. “They knew, and their fault is not only silence, but betrayal toward their own faithful, upon whom the humiliation and scandal of the denial fell.”
As Integrity Magazine argued shortly after the ill-fated event, the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage has become nothing more than a humiliation ritual that perpetuates the dangerous illusion that Catholic Tradition can coexist within the apostate, post-conciliar establishment, an institution which desires nothing less than its eradication.
Viganò then used the words of the prophet Isaiah to describe the perpetrators of the fiasco as “blind watchmen, all of them ignorant; they are dumb dogs, unable to bark.”
Next, he made a damning observation that should serve as a wake-up call to those pretending to be outraged and surprised by the Vatican’s rejection. “At this point, I am no longer interested in the Palace. The Palace has done what the Palace does: it responded in two lines, without a reason, with a protocol number. The Palace, at least, is consistent with itself,” wrote His Excellency, before rightly explaining that the real scandal lies in the conduct of those who claim to defend Catholic Tradition while remaining unwilling to jeopardize their standing with the conciliar establishment.
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The good archbishop noted that, “what interests me are those who should have told the faithful what they knew, and who chose to remain silent so as not to lose face,” before explicitly naming the most prominent culprits, including Cardinal Raymond Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Abbé Claude Barthe, Monsignor Gilles Wach, and representatives of semi-traditionalist institutes.
Later in his X post, Viganò was equally scathing about subsequent attempts to explain away the scandal. “Someone then hurried to explain, after the fact, that in the end it was a procedural matter, a misunderstanding, an unfortunate circumstance: it is shame added to shame,” he fumed.
Viganò did not spare one of the main protagonists of the “tradi-conservatism” movement, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, denouncing what he called a “pathetic retraction” he issued over details surrounding the event while rebuking it on the whole.:
Whoever justifies the official who denies prayer before the Altar of the Chair is not defending the Church: he is defending a bureaucratic fiction against the Faith, as well as his own interests … It is the shame of seeing men who preach the Mass of all time behave, when it comes to ‘putting their face on the line,’ like employees of an administration: one does not disturb, does not expose oneself, says nothing until it can be said without consequences.
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The underlying premise of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage, which was established in 2012, was that the Traditional Latin Mass could flourish through negotiated coexistence with the post-conciliar hierarchy. That premise has now completely imploded.
The restrictions imposed under Traditionis Custodes, the 2026 crackdown on diocesan and Ecclesia Dei Latin Masses, and the “excommunication” of the SSPX, followed by the humiliations surrounding this year’s pilgrimage, demonstrate the futility of endlessly seeking permission from authorities who are vehemently hostile to Catholic Tradition.
Archbishop Viganò’s post has now also exposed the moral bankruptcy of this approach. Integrity Magazine concurs with His Excellency on the points raised in his denunciation and reiterates its recent call: It is time to abandon the Summorum Pontificum charade, because Catholic Tradition is not a privilege to be negotiated with its enemies.
