VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) was celebrated at the altar of St. Michael in St. Peter’s Basilica Tuesday morning to commemorate the traditional feast of St. Michael, or Michaelmas.
The Italian traditional Catholic blog Messainlatino reported the scheduling of the September 29 Solemn High Mass, while Catholic blog Rorate Caeli and other sources confirmed its celebration on Tuesday.
This is at least the second year that a Solemn High Mass was permitted at the St. Michael altar for the Michaelmas feast, after several years of restrictions on TLMs at the basilica’s main altars under Pope Francis’s papacy. However, Rorate Caeli reported last year that the Latin Mass was also discreetly scheduled in 2023 and 2024.
This TLM at a major altar of St. Peter’s Basilica comes just weeks after the organizers of the 15th edition of the traditional Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage at the Tomb of St. Peter were denied permission to celebrate the Latin Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica during this year’s October 23–25 pilgrimage.
READ: Vatican denies Bishop Schneider Latin Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica
Instead, Bishop Athanasius Schneider will be permitted to celebrate a Pontifical Mass at the high altar of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major on October 24.
“The Secretariat of State sent the organizers a letter explaining that, at least for this year, permission for the Pontifical Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica will not be granted,” a source very close to the organization of the traditional pilgrimage previously told LifeSiteNews. “The real reasons are unknown. It seems very strange that today the so-called LGBT Catholics can obtain a special Mass in St. Peter’s more easily than Catholics attached to the Church’s Tradition.”