Summorum Pontificum?

It was because of rumours that the current papal regime might reverse Summorum pontificum that I wrote my recent series on Concelebration in the Roman Colleges. I suppose I must learn that people don't read all one writes and commonly fail to grasp what one is really getting at.

I will put my opinions as simply as I can.

I do not think it is the Holy Father's style to do things in an unnecessarily and publicly confrontational way.

There are certainly gruesome individuals around like Andrea Grillo who do hope for SP to be eviscerated. This, they hope, would be achieved by eliminating the Subsidiarity according to which all presbyters can celebrate the EF without needing permissions.

But I do not think that the HF would just reverse SP, certainly not during the lifetime of his predecessor.

I think the current pope prefers to achieve his ends by more subtle and round-about means.

I suspect the draft Working Paper which I discussed at such length, of being an attempt by Pope Bergoglio or, more likely, his intimates such as the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, to destroy the priestly culture that SP fed into. That's much more his style.

Anyway, Benedict XVI, not the stupidest of men, got in first by making clear that it would be ultra vires for any pope to attempt to extinguish the classical Roman Rite.

Remember also that it is historically the position of the SSPX that they did not ask for permission to celebrate the older Rite themselves in a private ghetto, but insisted, absolutely rightly, on this fundamental liberty, never lawfully abrogated, being confirmed to every presbyter of the Latin Churches. Pace Bishop Williamson's mistrust of his former colleagues, I do not think the Society would renege upon such a highly important principle.