Requiescat in pace, Pope Benedict: statement of the FIUV

FIUV Statement on the death of Pope Benedict XVI

Photo byt Peter Nguyen,
via Wikipedia Commons

Una Voce International (the FIUV) learns with profound grief of the death of the Pontiff Emeritus, Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger.

In every corner of the world, Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass owe Pope Benedict an immense debt of gratitude, for his great gift to the Church, his Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum (2007). In this he set out a way of achieving liturgical peace, after decades of conflict, allocating a permanent and honoured place in the life of the Church for the older liturgy. This was fittingly symbolised by the celebration of the Traditional Mass in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with increasing solemnity as the years passed, for international gatherings, first of the FIUV, and then of the International Pilgrimage ad Sedem Petri, ‘Summorum Pontificum’.

It has been a direct effect of Pope Benedict’s document to make it possible for many tens of thousands of Catholics, including many priests, to discover the enduring value of the ‘older liturgical tradition’. This is something whose effects will long endure.

The Federation has asked for Masses to be said for Pope Benedict, and calls on its member associations to arrange Requiem Masses of suitable solemnity for him in due course.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

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