Old Rite news from Rome, November 8, 2005
From a friend of mine at the North American College in Rome, I recently received good news about the old rite. Both of these things are rather small, but nonetheless, I find them heartening.
This past Sunday, November 6th, Jorge Arturo Augustin Cardinal Medina Estevez offered the Holy Sacrifice according to the Missal of 1962 in a Pontifical Solemn High Mass at the Church of Gesu e Maria in Rome. This is a beautiful church where the Institute of Christ the King offers a Mass each Sunday, a sort of indult Mass, since the other Masses there on Sunday and throughout the week are Novus Ordo. (Also, for those of you who enjoy these sorts of details, Gesu e Maria is the titular church of Avery Cardinal Dulles.) My friend told me that, though the organ was a little out of tune, the Mass itself went off very well.
Of more lasting significance, perhaps, is a development at the Angelicum, the Dominican university in Rome. On Wednesdays at 1PM, Fr. Paul-Bernard Hodel, OP, last with the Dominican community in Fribourg, will be offering Mass according to the traditional Dominican rite. This will be a public Mass and as you can tell from reading this post, word of mouth has already carried the news of it quite some distance; the tradition-minded seminarians in Rome are certainly going to be there!
This is only a small thing, a lone old rite Dominican Mass at the Angelicum, but it's a good sign, another positive development. It's something which wasn't likely to happen 10 years ago, so we're moving in the right direction, even if the movement is slow.
My friend won't be able to go to the first Mass at Angelicum, which is tomorrow, but he said that he would keep me posted as he has friends who can tell him how it went.
Thanks! I hope the Angelicum Mass continues, as I intend to check it out in February.
Can it be that the weekday Masses at Gedu e Maria are NO rite? I would not have guessed this.