Rome, Italy, May 12, 2011 / 10:56 am
Father Tim Finigan has three reasons to be happy. He’s in Rome. It’s sunny. And tomorrow will see the publication of a new papal document that will clarify the Pope’s 2007 permission to expand the use of the pre-Vatican II form of the Mass.
He anticipates that the new document will reinforce Pope Benedict’s earlier statement. It will make clear, “that the older form of the Mass or ‘extraordinary form,’ is now allowed if a priest chooses to say it privately or if a parish priest chooses to allow it in his parish,” he told CNA.
Fr. Finigan may be best known to many Catholics worldwide as the author of his blog, The Hermeneutic of Continuity. He’s also the parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary in Blackfen near London, England. There over the past few years he’s re-introduced the older form of the Mass as part of the parish’s Sunday schedule.
He did this in response to the Pope’s 2007 apostolic letter, “Summorum Pontificum” (Of the Supreme Pontiffs), which called for a more generous provision of that older form. Across the globe, though, those priests who’ve acted in similar fashion have often faced great hostility.