Commemorating "Summorum Pontificum" in the Eternal City

Commemorating Summorum Pontificum in the Eternal City | Alberto Carosa | Catholic World Report



In November, traditional Catholics will gather in Rome for the Year of Faith and Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Edward Pentin’s September
21 article for the National Catholic Register—on
rumors that Pope Benedict XVI might celebrate Mass in the extraordinary form at
the Vatican on November 3 for a group of traditionalist pilgrims from around
the world—helped to kindle media interest in the upcoming pilgrimage, of which the
Mass at St. Peter’s is the crowning event. While the rumors have proven unfounded—it
was announced last week that Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, prefect of the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, will be
the celebrant of the November 3 Mass—the three-day gathering of supporters of
the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum is expected
to draw international attention to the growing number of Catholics devoted to
the older form of the Roman Rite.

Father Claude Barthe
is the official chaplain of the pilgrimage, which is being organized by the Coetus
Internationalis Pro Summorum Pontificum,
a group that brings together the traditionalist Catholic organizations from
different countries. Father Barthe has graciously granted this exclusive
interview about the upcoming pilgrimage.

CWR: Father, there
are people who would like to know a bit more about you. Can you please give us
your brief curriculum vitae?

Father
Claude Barthe: I was born in 1947 in Fleurance, in the southwest of
France. My vocation goes back to my Catholic childhood. I studied at the
Catholic Institute of Toulouse, as a diocesan seminarian, but the
post-conciliar revolution forced me to leave the seminary. Then I studied
history and law, appreciating the traditional liturgy, so much so that I went
to Ecône where I was ordained a priest by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1979.
Afterward I sided with the traditionalist “hardliners,” and then increasingly
Roman, eventually becoming a diocesan priest. I also teach liturgy.

CWR: But how did
the idea of ​​this traditional pilgrimage come about, and why were you chosen
as its chaplain?

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