Corpus Christi Watershed

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

Views from the Choir Loft

PHOTO: Cardinal Ratzinger Saying The Latin Mass

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234 Summorum AY BACK in 1989, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated the Tridentine Latin Mass in Weimar (Germany) in a crowded church, which included many priests and seminarians, and again in 1999. In 2001, while at a Fontgombault conference, Cardinal Ratzinger sang the Tridentine Latin Mass.

Cardinal Ratzinger celebrated the Tridentine Mass at Fontgombault Abbey just a few months before being elected Pope. In his homily, he said:

“Let us pray to the Lord to help us to help the Church to celebrate the Liturgy well, to be truly at the feet of the Lord, to receive the gift of true life, the essential and necessary reality, for the salvation of all, the salvation of the world. Amen.”

I’ll never forget the excitement surrounding the release of Summorum Pontificum in 2007. Rumors were flying about it years in advance. Every day I’d check the internet to see if the document had been released yet. Now, that day seems far in the past.

For the record, I’m pretty sure I see Fr. Josef Bisig smiling in one of these pictures. I’m also fairly certain my first chant teacher, Fr. Peter Gee, can be seen in two of these photographs (but he was probably only a seminarian at that time):

228 Ratzinger Traditional Latin Mass 230 B16 Peter Gee 231 Ratzinger Bisig

I’ve never been a huge fan of Bavarian vestments (although they’re talked about here), but each culture has its own style:

233 Ratzinger

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