Saint Mary Major: the Most Priest Friendly Church in the World

The Mother of all Marian Shrines, The Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome (to which Pope Francis has a particular devotion [having officially visited five times so far as Supreme Pontiff!]) is the Church which best accommodates priests who go there to say Mass.  It seems that any priest with his celebret can arrive anytime and the good brothers (The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate) will set him up immediately to say Mass on any of various altars in either the extraordinary or the ordinary form with the proper and most dignified vestments (they have very worthy roman sets) and the proper books.  This type of priestly hospitality and priestly sense I have never found anywhere in the world, it is indeed better hospitality than the Vatican itself and more flexible and accommodating to the traditional form of the Mass.  A veritable buttress to the holiness of Our Lady's holy priests, as it should be.

It is most fitting that the preeminent shrine to Our Lady should be the place where priests are best cared for. Would that all the basilicas, shrines and cathedrals of the world should be half as welcoming as the Church of Churches of Our Blessed Mother, the Mother of God!