Cardinal Burke says the old Mass again in St. Peter’s, Leo blesses the synodal revolution, and Rome pretends the two are one Church.
It was a sight both glorious and hollow: Cardinal Raymond Burke, flanked by torchbearers, processing half a mile with hundreds of faithful from the Basilica of Sts. Celso and Giuliano to St. Peter’s. Incense rose under Bernini’s bronze clouds as he offered the pontifical Mass of the Ages at the Altar of the Chair: the first time in two years that the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage was allowed inside the Vatican’s central sanctuary.
The crowd rejoiced. The cameras clicked. And at almost the same hour, Leo XIV was presiding over the “Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies,” preaching that no one “possesses the whole truth” and that the Church must “walk together.” The juxtaposition was perfect: at one altar, the ancient faith expressed in Latin and silence; at another, the new religion of dialogue performed in prose and applause.
The message from Rome was clear. The old Mass can appear onstage again, but only as a curated artifact, a prop of unity for a Church that has redefined unity itself. What was once the daily worship of Christendom is now an occasional exhibit, rolled out to prove that inclusion extends even to what it means to exclude.
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