Father Urbančok’s invitation to join the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome
TENTH SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM PILGRIMAGE – LET'S ALL GO TO ROME
Holy Mass in St Peter’s Basilica during the 2018 Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage
Friends, the tenth traditional Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage in Rome will soon take place, again on the Sunday of Christ the King (the last Sunday of October in the traditional calendar). The pilgrimage originated as a desire of the faithful to travel to Rome to thank Benedict XVI for his eponymous motu proprio. It is because of Summorum Pontificum that the faithful were once again free to know the treasure of the Church that is the celebration of the liturgy as it existed from the time of the Gregorian Missal to the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council.
Coming soon after the publication in July of Pope Francis’s new motu proprio, Traditionis custodes, the pilgrimage is a great opportunity to show how deeply the older liturgy is loved in particular by many young families, deeply religious people who find it to be a great help in their spiritual journey. Full details of the pilgrimage will be announced in the coming week. The schedule so far is as follows:
Friday, 29 October
6 p.m. – Pontifical Vespers at the Pantheon;
Saturday, 30 October
9 a.m. – Eucharistic Adoration at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso, followed by a procession of the participants to St Peter's Basilica;
11:30 a.m. – Pontifical Mass at St Peter’s Basilica celebrated by His Excellency Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco;
Sunday, 31 October – Feast of Christ the King
11 a.m. – Pontifical Mass at the Church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini.
A notable event during the pilgrimage will be the announcement of the establishment of the Latin Mass Society of Slovakia and its admission to Una Voce International, an association which exists to promote the use of the traditional Latin Mass and which I have written about in previous posts. The participation of several dozen pilgrims from Slovakia is already assured. Anyone else interested in joining them should not hesitate to contact me for advice on what to do. In addition to the official programme, the Slovak pilgrims will visit the main Roman basilicas during the weekend. A Green Pass is not required to attend Mass, while entry to the basilicas is possible on the basis of a negative test for COVID-19, which is equivalent to a Green Pass and is currently valid for 48 hours.
Let us be encouraged by the prophetic words of Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum, in which he said, among other things, the following: "The Roman Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V and revised by Blessed John XXIII is nonetheless to be considered an extraordinary expression of the same lex orandi of the Church and duly honoured for its venerable and ancient usage."
Finally, on a personal note, I would like to say that I have been on around four of the previous pilgrimages and that Masses celebrated in St Peter’s Basilica on these occasions are among my greatest experiences of participating in the liturgy.
— Father Ľubomír Urbančok
