Motu Proprio to Suppress Ecclesia Dei Commision

Marco Tosatti, Stilum curiae (Plinthos amended Google translation)

The Motu Proprio which sets the end of Ecclesia Dei as an independent Commission, and its integration as an Office in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is ready, signed by the Pontiff, and should have been published last Thursday. We are unaware of the reasons that the document has not yet been published.

It is a rather short legal text, in which it is said that since the pastoral emergency linked to the celebration of the Vetus Ordo, and which led to the creation of the Ecclesia Dei Commission thirty years ago, has come to an end, consequently the Commission in its current form no longer has any reason to exist.

We recall that the Motu Proprio of John Paul II, dated 2 July 1988, was born in reaction to the consecration of four bishops by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre. Some of its powers and functions were modified by Benedict XVI in 2009. The document of John Paul II gave the Commission the right to "grant to anyone who asks for it the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition in force in 1962, and this according to the rules already proposed by the commission of cardinals 'established for that purpose' during December 1986 after having informed the diocesan bishop ".

The Commission was the point of arrival of those who appealed to it to obtain a review of the denials of bishops opposed to the celebration of the Mass according to the Vetus Ordo.

Moreover, following the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI (2007), the commission supervises the application of the Motu Proprio, studies the possible updates which the liturgical texts of 1962 might need: for example the presence of new saints in the calendar. Moreover, the Commission was the last resort for the faithful who asked for the celebration of Mass according to the extraordinary form and did not have a positive answer either from their parish priest or from their bishop.

It is now necessary to see how many, and which of these powers, can continue to be carried out by what will be the new "Office" Ecclesia Dei within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and whose last referent, evidently, will no longer be the responsible secretary, as before, but the prefect at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The initial statement, according to which the pastoral emergency would have ended, gives rise to some more than legitimate doubts. At a time which in the Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference voices of bishops and specialists are raised to deny legal validity to the Motu Proprio "Summorum Pontificum" of Benedict XVI, and at a time which there are bishops who are directly or subtly hindering the celebration of Mass according to the Vetus Ordo, to say that there is no pastoral emergency appears perhaps a bit rash.
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Plinthos: It seems to me that the Holy Father is among the vast majority of the bishops of the world who have secretly decided to oppose the traditional Mass by at least not promoting it among the secular clergy or in their parishes or their cathedrals. Their policy is to destroy it by isolating it. The message to all of their subjects is clearly: "stay away from tradition" They relegate it to the peripheries. Their attitude is that only those who are exclusively dedicated to it should do it, the rest of us should stay away. That is the present atmosphere, contrary to Summorum Pontificum. The traditional form of the Mass and those (especially clergy and seminarians) attached to it are treated as something bad for the world, an evil that we must still tolerate. But, I ask, together with Pope Benedict XVI, why should ordinary Catholics, Pope's included, need to neglect or reject their Catholic tradition in order to be Catholic?

A Pact Between Pope Francis and the Society of Saint Pius X for the Isolation of Tradition?