An Italian parish priest has been suspended from ministry after hosting an online meeting in which he declared that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council were contrary to the Catholic faith.
Don Leonardo Maria Pompei, pastor of Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo at Sermoneta, in the province of Rome, was suspended a divinis on 4 September by Bishop Mariano Crociata of Latina, Terracina, Sezze and Priverno, a former Secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
The measure forbids Don Pompei from exercising any priestly functions, from wearing clerical dress, and from publicly presenting himself as a priest. The suspension followed his decision to defy a diocesan order to desist from social media activity and to proceed with a YouTube broadcast in which he explained his rejection of the post-conciliar liturgy.
In the livestream, he told parishioners that he had concluded the Second Vatican Council was incompatible with Catholic tradition and that the Church needed to return to the ancient Roman Rite. He described his priestly vocation and his deepening conviction—reached through the study of older Catholic writers such as St Alphonsus de’ Liguori and the Venerable María de Ágreda—that the reforms of the 1960s had distorted the faith.
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