Hoping it's true!
O, ne Zot ... more rumors ...
Wake me up when there's news.
Pleeze, pleeze, pleeze let it be so!
However, realistically speaking, I've heard these rumors before - and absolutely nothing has happened. I'm picking up a 50 pound grain of salt right about now.
I had a dream last night that I was talking to my bishop about this very thing. I wanted to know when wwe'd see the Tridentine Mass at all out churches since the Holy Father had issued his instruction (it was a dream so I don't know exactly whatthe instruction was) and the bishop was saying that he had to train all his priests to celebrate mass in Latin. It was very clear and stayed with me all morning.
Depending on how much, or little, ancillary verbiage is included in Benedict's promulgation, this *could* be a very "bad" thing. If permission is given for universal use of the 1962 Missal, without any explicit permission of diocesan ordinaries required, it is more than possible that, in many dioceses, the bishop will feel that it is permitted to entirely do away with the existing indult Latin Mass(es) in the diocese, on the grounds (excuse) that any priest can say it anywhere. But then it will be "understood" by the priests of the diocese that, if they want advancement or lack of "hard duty" assignments, they'd better "do the right thing" and avoid saying Mass from the 1962 Missal. The Latin Mass will thus be in a worse position in many areas than before the papal pronouncement. Latin Mass congregations will be scattered, and "divide and conquer" will rule the day.
I note that the exact scope of what's coming isn't very clear. I'm still hoping that Benedict will actually wind-up creating an apostolic administration (along the lines of Campos, only world-wide) for TLM, or perhaps create a patriarchate for it out of the ashes of his recently disavowed title of Patriarch of the West. THOSE options would protect the Latin Mass much more effectively than a universal indult running side-by-side with concerns for collegiality. A universal indult can only work with *lots* of specific, foundational "extras" that will shield existing indult parishes from closure, and shield seminarians and priests who want to learn or say the Latin Mass now in their local parishes from the retributions of their ordinaries, many of whom, we all know, would be twitching to cast off to the nether regions any priests with unprogressive designs on the 1962 Missal!
If the scope of this pronouncement is confined to a universal indult, I hope that Benedict isn't overawed by the concepts of collegiality that made his predecessor far less effective than he could have been. He needs to "direct" these changes, rather than merely "propose" and "encourage" them! And I still think that an apostolic administration or newly-minted patriarchate would better serve our needs in the long term.
So, what do you think?