Motu Proprio Watch: Cardinal Castrillón Confirms

It is coming!

As is being covered in many places, Cardinal Castrillón confirmed at the CELAM conference in a speech that the Motu Proprio is on its way. Here are some of the pertinent bits from Rorate:

Undoubtedly, the most important effort, which concerns the entire Church, is the search for an end to the schismatic action and to rebuild the full communion, without ambiguities. The Holy Father, who was for some years a member of this Commission, wishes it to become an organ of the Holy See with the proper and distinct end of preserving and maintaining the worth of the Traditional Latin Liturgy. Yet it must be said with all clarity that it is not a turning back, a return to the time before the 1970 reform. It is, instead, a generous offer of the Vicar of Christ who, as an expression of his pastoral will, wishes to put at the disposal of the whole Church all the treasures of the Latin Liturgy which for centuries has nourished the spiritual life of so many generations of Catholic faithful.The Holy Father wishes to preserve the immense spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic treasures linked to the Ancient Liturgy. The retrieval of this wealth is linked to the no less precious one of the current Liturgy of the Church.

For these reasons, the Holy Father has the intention of extending to the entire Latin Church the possibility of celebrating Holy Mass and the Sacraments according to the liturgical books promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962.

It does not come any clearer than that. If there was any lingering doubt about the Holy Father’s intentions to issue the Motu Proprio, this should put it to rest. It is coming. The timing remains uncertain but this speech is clearly intended to telegraph its imminence.

I now have to put my champagne back in the ‘fridge.