General Assembly 2023: information for members

The FIUV General Assembly GA will take place on Saturday 28th October in Rome.

Everything officers of member associations need to know about the GA and what they need to do in advance of it can be found on this page.

Participants at the FIUV GA 2019 in Rome. The 2021 GA took place online due to COVID.

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Synod on Synodality: Continental reports

The 'Continental Stage' of the Synod on Synodality has concluded, with the publication of the 'Continental Reports': they can be seen here.

Since the FIUV and the LMS asked people to contribute to the consultation process, it is interesting to see whether our voices have actually made it through to these reports. I discussed the national reports here.

The voice of Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass do emerge in two of the reports: not surprisingly, those of Europe and North America. This is not because Traditional Catholics are absent from Oceania, Asia, Africa, and South America, but because the bishops of those regions have been unwilling to allow celebrations or to acknowledge their point of view. It is worth reminding ourselves that the Traditional movement is well-established in Australia and New Zealand; there are many apostolates of the Traditional priestly institutes in Africa, notably the ICKSP in Gabon; and South America is home to the Apostolic Administration of St Jean Vianney in Campos, Brazil, the one place in the world where one can find a bishop exercising ordinary jurisdiction over a community of traditional faithful.

The reports are a reflection not only of the inputs, of course, but of the process of selection. The reports as a whole have very little to say about the liturgy.

This is what got through in the European and North American reports: emphasis mine.

Europe (pdf)

67. From a fundamental point of view, it is possible to detect the link between Church and liturgy, between ecclesiology and the theology of liturgy: The liturgical dimension in the Church is a place of strong tensions. These tensions are part of a deeper tension of an ecclesiological nature. Ecclesiological tension often arises from a vision of the Church based on one’s own expectations (Italian language working group). In this context, the tensions and sufferings concerning the ancient form of the Roman liturgy should be understood, with explicit references by France, England and Wales, and Nordic countries to the pre-conciliar liturgy according to the Missal of 1962.

North America (pdf)

27. Some participants in the synodal process reported on the profound sense of suffering of those prevented from receiving the Eucharist. While there are a variety of reasons for this reality, perhaps preeminent among them is Catholics who are divorced and remarried without an annulment, and others whose objective situation in life contradicts the beliefs and teachings of the Church. Additionally, some delegates spoke of those wounded by the limitations placed on the pre-conciliar Latin rite. Unfortunately, liturgy is not always experienced as unifying. “We could find our unity in common prayer, but liturgy is one of the things that is divisive in the Church and we must break through that” (Session X Group 18).

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Gregorius Magnus 15 published

Gregorius Magnus 15, Summer 2023, is now available as a PDF. 

*and on ISSUU*, optimised for mobile devices.

This issue has two appreciations of Pope Benedict XVI and a report of the most recent Summorum Pontificum 'Ad Sedem Petri' Pilgrimage in Rome, and meeting of CIEL in Rome.

Would you like to advertise? Or to contribute to future editions? Click on the links.

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The Rescript: Press Release

On Tuesday 21st February the Holy See Press Office published a Rescript confirming, for the Dicastery for Divine Worship, certain legal points in relation to the interpretation of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Traditionis Custodes.

The key point is that from now on permission for the use of a parish church for celebrations of the 1962 Missal may only be granted by the Dicastery. The Rescript makes reference to Canon 87.1 which states that bishops may lift the obligations of universal law for the good of souls in their diocese: this no longer applies, as the matter is ‘reserved to the Holy See’.

The effect of this ruling will depend on the degree to which current provision for the celebration of the 1962 Missal depends on the use of parish churches in a particular locality; the willingness of bishops to seek permission from the Dicastery for celebrations in such churches to continue; and the response of the Dicastery to these requests.

If bishops all over the world seek permission for all the celebrations of the 1962 Mass taking place in parish churches in their dioceses, the Dicastery will be faced with many hundreds of cases to consider, raising the question of the practicability of them discharging their role.

The Latin Mass Society and the FIUV would like to express its dismay that authority over a matter of such pastoral sensitivity has been centralised in this way.

Serious pastoral harm will follow if permission is not granted where alternative places of worship are not readily available for the use of communities attached to the older form of the Mass.

Instead of integrating them into parish life, the restriction on the use of parish churches will marginalise and push to the peripheries faithful Catholics who wish only to worship, in communion with their bishops, with a form of the liturgy permitted by the Church. This desire was described as a ‘rightful aspiration’ by Pope John Paul II, and this liturgy was described as representing ‘riches’ by Pope Benedict XVI.

We call upon all Catholics of good will to offer prayer and penances this Lent for the resolution of this issue and the liberty of the ancient Latin Mass.

Pray for the TLM this Lent

 Appeal for prayers and penances

for the Liberty of the Traditional Mass in Lent

From Una Voce International and others

Una Voce International and other organisations, groups and individuals concerned with the Traditional Latin Mass would like to appeal to all Catholics of good will to offer prayers and penances during the season of Lent, particularly for the intention: the liberty of the Traditional Mass.

We do not know how credible rumours of further documents from the Holy See on this subject may be, but the rumours themselves point to a situation of doubt, conflict, and apprehension, which is severely harmful to the mission of the Church. We appeal to our Lord, through His Blessed Mother, to restore to all Catholics the right and opportunity to worship according to the Church’s own venerable liturgical traditions, in perfect unity with the Holy Father and the bishops of the whole Church.

Una Voce International (Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce, FIUV,) https://fiuv.org

Some commentary on this project from the President can be found here.

This initiative has the support of The Remnant newspaper, Preserve the Latin Mass, the many member associations of Una Voce International, and others.

Other language versions: French

Requiescat in pace, Pope Benedict: statement of the FIUV

FIUV Statement on the death of Pope Benedict XVI

Photo byt Peter Nguyen,
via Wikipedia Commons

Una Voce International (the FIUV) learns with profound grief of the death of the Pontiff Emeritus, Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger.

In every corner of the world, Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass owe Pope Benedict an immense debt of gratitude, for his great gift to the Church, his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum (2007). In this he set out a way of achieving liturgical peace, after decades of conflict, allocating a permanent and honoured place in the life of the Church for the older liturgy. This was fittingly symbolised by the celebration of the Traditional Mass in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with increasing solemnity as the years passed, for international gatherings, first of the FIUV, and then of the International Pilgrimage ad Sedem Petri, ‘Summorum Pontificum’.

It has been a direct effect of Pope Benedict’s document to make it possible for many tens of thousands of Catholics, including many priests, to discover the enduring value of the ‘older liturgical tradition’. This is something whose effects will long endure.

The Federation has asked for Masses to be said for Pope Benedict, and calls on its member associations to arrange Requiem Masses of suitable solemnity for him in due course.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

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