Francis' Crusader Against the Roman Rite Was in Paris
- The conference was attended by about fifty students from the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie (ISL) in Paris and about one hundred clerical and lay liturgists from various French dioceses.
- Outsiders who wanted to attend the conference had to pay 120 euros (!), a measure to keep out unwanted guests (Catholics).
- There was only one bishop among the speakers, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris, who had to attend ex officio because he was the host; he spoke mainly about Paris and about himself and then quickly left.
- Reverend Laurent Jullien de Pommerol of the parish in La Croix-Rousse (Lyon) and director of altar servers at the Service national de la pastorale liturgique et sacramentelle (SNPLS), was due to lead a workshop on training altar servers, but he had left the priesthood in December 2023 shortly before the birth of his child.
- Cardinal Roche spoke about Desiderio Desideravi, Francis' 2022 apostolic letter on the "liturgical formation of the People of God".
- The title of Roche's talk was "Interpreting through love"; he explained that to be "capable of symbolism" we must "enter into trust with creation" (sic).
- Roche made extensive use of the liturgical reflections of Romano Guardini (+1968), whose experience was based on the Roman Rite, not the Novus Ordo.
- The organisers of the conference were startled by three Catholics handing out leaflets on the Roman Rite to conference participants outside the venue, the Institut des Carmes.
- The three spoke to a priest from Martinique who was attending the conference and who couldn't understand how it could be regretted that pieces of the consecrated host fell to the floor during distributing Communion into the hands of the participants, since according to him and what he is taught at the ICP, it is not a question of the "physical presence" of Christ, but simply of a "sacramental presence".
- The final Eucharist was presided over by Roche, whose greatest achievement was to get a congregation of Novus Ordo Catholics to sing the Lord's Prayer in Latin.
- The liturgy was unimpressive, and participation was tepid.
- According to PaixLiturgique.org, it was hard [or easy] to believe that the audience was made up of ILS students, mainly priests and religious, as well as those responsible for liturgy in French dioceses.
- The Eucharist was "too modern" for the faithful of the Latin Mass, and a terrible step backwards for the last zealots of the Novus Ordo revolution.
- The result was the superimposition of elements of the Roman Rite over the Novus Ordo, which satisfied no one and resulted in an liturgical mediocrity.
Picture: Arthur Roche © Mazur, CC BY-NC-ND, #newsEjyfdxgztp
