They only wanted to pray there…
NOT YOU! Vatican Bans Traditional Latin Mass Pilgrims From Entering Saint Peter’s Basilica
The Church of Magnificent Humanity, Infinite Dignity, and Perpetual Inclusion has decided that participants in the annual semi-traditionalist Ad Petri Sedem Pilgrimage will not be allowed to enter the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter this year, which is the world’s most iconic Catholic church.
As the well-informed Vaticanist Diane Montagna reports on her blog today:
The Vatican will bar priests, religious and lay faithful participating in the annual Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage from entering St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, Oct. 24, extending restrictions beyond the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass to the pilgrims’ customary gathering for prayer at the tomb of St. Peter.
According to the organizers, the decision was communicated in recent days in a letter from the Vatican Secretariat of State. “Your procession is not allowed to enter into St. Peter’s Basilica,” the letter stated, according to Christian Marquant, the pilgrimage’s chief organizer.
(Diane Montagna, “Vatican Bars Annual TLM Pilgrimage from Entering St. Peter’s Basilica”, Diane Montagna’s Substack, Oct. 23, 2026)
The official reason given, Montagna relates, was that last year’s event had been “instrumentalized”.
We will evaluate that justification in a moment; but first, let’s look at the pilgrimage itself a little bit more.
An Annual Semi-Trad Pilgrimage in Full Communion
Also known as the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, it is put together once a year by a group called the Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum (CISP). The event’s official web site outlines how the organizers envision things to go typically:
Each year, from 2012 onward, the representatives of the People “Summorum Pontificum” bring together in Rome faithful, priests and religious from all over the world. Their aim is that of being part of the new evangelization at the rhythm of the extraordinary form of the roman rite – i.e. the Latin and Gregorian Mass, celebrated according to the last edition of the Tridentine Missal published by Pope John XXIII.
During the three-day pilgrimage, its participants have the opportunity of witnessing the eternal youth of the traditional liturgy. Friday, the pilgrims gather in the Basilica of Santa Maria “ad Martyres” (Pantheon), where they assist at solemn Vespers. Saturday, after a time of Eucharistic adoration and a procession throughout the streets of the centre of Rome, a solemn Pontifical Mass is celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica. The pilgrimage ends Sunday, feast of Christ the King with masses of thanksgiving.
(Source; bold print given.)
That was the plan also for this year, but on Sep. 9, 2026, it was made known that the Vatican had denied the group’s request for a Solemn Pontifical Mass in St. Peter’s this time, even though they had given their permission last year.
The celebrant in 2025 was the intrepid ‘Cardinal’ Raymond Burke of ‘dubias’ fame; this year’s celebrant is going to be the vice pope Kazakh auxiliary Novus Ordo bishop, Athanasius Schneider. The Mass will still take place, but not at St. Peter’s in the Vatican. It will be held at St. Mary Major’s in Rome instead, at 3:00 pm local time.
According to the official schedule for the pilgrimage, posted at summorum-pontificum.org, all the participants wanted to do at St. Peter’s tomorrow is process into the basilica and pray there:
Last year’s pilgrimage was well attended, with estimates of about 3000-5000 participants. The procession looked like this:
(image: Severina Bartonitschek/KNA)
(image: Severina Bartonitschek/KNA)
Last year, when permission was granted not only for the pilgrims to enter but also for ‘Cardinal’ Burke to offer Mass according to the quasi-traditional 1962 Missal, Rorate Caeli hailed this as an “important sign”, and proclaimed confidently:
In 2024, the Traditional pilgrims of the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage (Last Sunday in October – Christ the King) were not allowed to celebrate the Traditional Mass on an altar of the main nave on Saturday of the last weekend in October: they just entered as pilgrims, with scheduled prayers, but the main masses were all in Churches that already have the Traditional Latin Mass regularly in Rome. The same had happened in 2022 and 2023.
In this new Pontificate of Leo XIV, the old custom is returning, and in great style: Cardinal Burke is not under any kind of ostracized position anymore, and will celebrate the Mass of Saturday, October 25th, 2025.
That was last year.
Now, however, the situation is worse than under the waning days of ‘Pope’ Francis: Not only is no Mass permitted at St. Peter’s, even the pilgrims have to stay away. Let’s see if Rorate Caeli will recognize this latest development as an “important sign” also.
For some people in their camp, it appears that the reality of the situation hasn’t quite kicked in yet: Summorum Pontificum, ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI’s landmark document establishing the TLM as an alternative to be used alongside the New Mass throughout the Vatican II Church, is no more. After all, what one Modernist pseudo-authority can give, another Modernist pseudo-authority can take away; and that’s exactly what happened: In 2021, Francis took away what Benedict XVI had given in 2007. As for Leo XIV, it looks like he doesn’t care about the issue enough to change the status quo in the foreseeable future.
The TLM ‘Instrumentalized’ for an ‘Ideology’?
But now, let’s evaluate the reason given by the Vatican authorities for the present refusal of entry, namely, that last year’s graciously-approved TLM in St. Peter’s had been “instrumentalized.” Is that true — and what does it even mean?
From a Novus Ordo perspective, the explanation actually makes sense. We must remember that all the individuals associated with this pilgrimage are in ‘full communion’, as the expression goes, with ‘Pope’ Leo XIV and his six predecessors of infelicitous memory. This implies acceptance of, and submission to, the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium, which is naturally what the ‘Pope’ will require if he’s going to grant permission to use the traditional Roman missal.
In other words, under such auspices the traditional Roman rite of Mass cannot, understandably, be used to agitate against the Novus Ordo religion or its liturgy. That is what the Neo-Modernists mean by ‘instrumentalizing’ the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), or by using it ‘ideologically’, as ‘Pope’ Francis used to say.
In his letter to the world’s bishops accompanying the release of the Apostolic Letter Traditionis Custodes, Francis wrote that he is “saddened that the instrumental use of [the] Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’.”
All you people at The Remnant, Tradition in Action, Rorate Caeli, and what was then Catholic Family News: Francis was looking at you! You cannot have it both ways: preach your resistance against the Vatican II Church but then demand from the Vatican II Church your in-full-communion liturgy!
A little further on in his letter, Francis returned to the same point, lamenting that
ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — “I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ” — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted. In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors. The distorted use that has been made of this faculty is contrary to the intentions that led to granting the freedom to celebrate the Mass with the Missale Romanum of 1962.
(Antipope Francis, Letter to All Bishops Worldwide to Present the Motu Proprio “Traditionis Custodes” on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the Reform of 1970, Vatican.va, July 16, 2021)
Again: From the official Novus Ordo perspective, this course of action is eminently reasonable. Of course Francis was an enemy of true Catholicism and hated the Traditional Mass; but on the supposition that he was the Pope and all the changes of Vatican II and the subsequent magisterium were good and holy, he obviously could not tolerate people using a concession for the traditional missal to try to overthrow the conciliar program.
Yet, that is precisely what a number of advocates of full-communion TLMs — so-called ‘indult Masses’ — do all the time.
Here in the United States, notable repeat offenders in that regard are Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Michael Matt of The Remnant, and certain writers at Rorate Caeli, to mention only a few of them. They like to use any opportunity they can to keep the narrative alive that if only we can get more adherents to the TLM and the traditional catechisms around the world who recognize Leo XIV and his six predecessors as legitimate, eventually the Vatican II Church will rescind the infernal council and abandon the New Mass and the entire liturgical ‘reform’ and consign it all to the flames. Every little step ‘in the direction of Tradition’ is thus considered a small success — hence Rorate Caeli immediately and confidently spoke of an “important sign” — that will eventually lead to complete victory.
But this is mere narrative creation (or narrative maintenance) based on an illusory hope that is founded on an erroneous ecclesiology. The Catholic Church cannot defect in the first place. Many recognize-and-resist traditionalists seem to think that defection is possible, it just cannot last forever; and as long as the same church that imposed the defection also repudiates it again at some point, all is saved.
But this is not just indefensible doctrinally, it is also contrary to common sense: No lost credibility is regained if after decades of insisting on ‘irreversible’ teachings that themselves overturn the perennial Catholic magisterium, suddenly the perennial magisterium is declared obligatory again and the irreversible innovations are declared anathema.
But the Neo-Modernists currently occupying the Vatican have likewise maneuvered themselves into a corner from which there is no escaping: They cannot, on the one hand, present themselves as the big-tent church in which all are welcome, no one is ever excluded, and everyone has a voice, and then shut out of the world’s most significant church a number of TLM-promoting priests and laymen who merely want to pray there before the tomb of St. Peter.
Thus we must say to the Vatican the same thing we say to the semi-traditionalists: You can’t have it both ways.
All Are Welcome (to Go to Hell)
Speaking of double standards, most people reading this post will probably recall quite vividly what sort of ‘pilgrims’ had been granted Vatican permission to enter St. Peter’s Basilica just a little more than a year ago:
The Associated Press released a number of brief video reports at the time, and of course so did other news outlets. Here are three, if you can stomach them:
“Transgender People Join ‘LGBTQ+ Pilgrimage’ to Vatican” (direct link):
.
“Lesbian couple pass through Vatican’s holy door in LGBTQ+ jubilee pilgrimage” (direct link):
.
“First-ever LGBTQIA+ pilgrimage included in the official Jubilee Year program at the Vatican” (direct link):
.
The practical conclusion is inevitable: Next time TLM pilgrims in full communion with Leo XIV want to be allowed entry into St. Peter’s Basilica, they had better wave some aberrosexual pride banners and transgender flags and carry a rainbow cross. Chances for entry will increase dramatically that way.
Until then, instead of making a Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Peter, they can now go on a Traditionis Custodes Journey to St. Mary Major and pray there before the grave of ‘Pope’ Francis.
And if they’re like Taylor Marshall, they can even ask Francis to pray for them!
Title image source: composite with elements from Shutterstock (Kulkova Daria and Glenn Cocoa), enhanced with AI
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