St. Peter’s Side-Altar Mass Ban: Papal Subordinates Trigger Another ‘Imbergoglio’
National Catholic Register, 15 March 2021
The eighth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election brought a completely unexpected and wholly unnecessary controversy.
Ad multos annos Holy Father! Just try to avoid the anniversaries. … Your subordinates ruin them by launching embarrassing “imbergoglios.”
The eighth anniversary of Pope Francis’ election brought a completely unexpected and wholly unnecessary controversy. The Vatican Secretariat of State, without forewarning or any apparent consultation, banned all the Masses offered on the side altars of St. Peter’s Basilica, a daily practice that has been a much-loved tradition for decades.
An example of how strange this new edict is: Consider Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner who cares for the poor and homeless in the Holy Father’s name and is the single most emblematic figure of this pontificate in the Roman Curia. He is one of the regulars who offers daily Mass at the side altars. He will now have to make other arrangements.
Other senior curial officials have offered their daily Mass there for decades. Each morning, there are dozens of priests — a great many of them who work in Vatican offices and do not have a parish — as well as visiting pilgrim priests, who offer the Masses, joined by pilgrims in the basilica who consider it a great blessing to attend Mass in the early morning quiet at the heart of the Church.
Just outside the sacristy, small groups wait and ask the priests who are processing out what language they are celebrating in. Thus ordinary faithful can attend Mass in their own language at an altar that contains the remains of a great saint — Leo the Great and Gregory the Great from antiquity, Pius X and John XXIII from our own time.
On May 4, 2003, I was there early on Sunday morning when a small group of nuns asked if they might join my Mass — and if I could celebrate for them in Italian. They were Polish, but could follow Italian. I was happy to do so at the altar of Mary, Mother of the Church. Afterward, I asked what brought them to St. Peter’s that morning.
“We work in Rome, but our chaplain is away today,” the superior of sisters told me. Then I recognized them!
Continue reading at the National Catholic Register.