Italian cardinal leads Vespers at Pantheon for Traditional Latin Mass pilgrimage

Rome, Italy, Oct 29, 2022 / 11:00 am

The head of the Italian bishops’ conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, presided over Vespers on Friday for an annual Traditional Latin Mass pilgrimage in Rome.

The three-day Rome pilgrimage is named for Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, which acknowledged the right of priests to offer Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal.

Zuppi led Vespers on Oct. 28 at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Martyrs, better known as the Pantheon.

The Italian cardinal, a longtime collaborator with the Catholic Sant’Egidio Community, assumed leadership of the Italian bishops’ conference in May. He has been archbishop of Bologna since 2015. 

After the publication of Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, Zuppi was one of the first bishops to enact the decree in his diocese, allowing the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass to continue in the parish where it had been held since 2007.

The Traditional Latin Mass pilgrimage, organized by the People of Summorum Pontificum, is in its 11th year. According to its website, it brings people “ad Petri Sedem” (“to the See of Peter”) to give “testimony of the attachment that binds numerous faithful throughout the whole world to the traditional liturgy.”

On the morning of Oct. 29, pilgrims participated in eucharistic adoration at the Basilica of San Celso and Giuliano, a parish overseen by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a society of apostolic life with an emphasis on the Traditional Latin Mass.

Participants then processed the half mile from the church to St. Peter’s Basilica, where a Traditional Latin Mass was celebrated at the Altar of the Chair by Monsignor Marco Agostini, one of the masters of ceremonies for papal liturgies.

The pilgrimage will close on Oct. 30 with a High Mass for the feast of Christ the King, which is celebrated on the last Sunday of October according to the pre-Vatican II liturgical calendar.

The Mass at the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims will be organized by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society of apostolic life that celebrates the Roman rite according to the liturgical books in force in 1962. 

The FSSP published in February a papal decree confirming their faculty to use those books following Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes.

The Mass will be offered by Monsignor Patrick Descourtieux, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.