Fr. Zuhlsdorf on the prospects for H.H. The Pope celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/01/fr-zs-predictions-for-2010/

The Rev. Fr. John T. Zuhlsdorf has posted a list of his predictions for 2010. One of them is that

The three-year post Summorum Pontificum report will cause liberal enemies of the Pope to engage in a vicious campaign of disinformation.

I had completely forgotten about Summorum Pontificum’s accompanying explanatory letter’s invitation for feedback from the Hierarchy on the experience of the subsequent three years. Here is the relevant portion of that letter (addressed by His Holiness to “[His] dear Brother Bishops)”:

Furthermore, I invite you, dear Brothers, to send to the Holy See an account of your experiences, three years after this Motu Proprio has taken effect. If truly serious difficulties come to light, ways to remedy them can be sought.
[http://www.oriensjournal.com/Summorum%20Pontificum%20plus%20explanatory%20letter.html]

On the one hand, that last sentence and its talk of “ways to remedy” potential difficulties could be taken as having an ominous ring to it. On the other hand, it does speak of “truly serious difficulties”, as though to rule out frivolous complaints by obstructionist Modernist ordinaries.

But what I found really interesting was what this implies for the prospects for the Holy Father celebrating a public Papal T.L.M. The first commenter in the combox at Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s post noted that

“Pope Benedict will publicly celebrate the EF ad orientem.” is not on the list…

Comment by Geremia — 5 January 2010 @ 4:51 pm

To which Fr. Zuhlsdorf replied:

Geremia: That is because that won’t happen until after the three-year review of SP takes place.

Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 5 January 2010 @ 4:54 pm

And in response to the following follow-up comment:

… Fr Z.: Yeah, but that will be in July, right? He could still celebrate it after July.

Comment by Geremia — 5 January 2010 @ 5:31 pm

Fr. Zuhlsdorf elaborated:

Geremia: You think this will be done quickly? ROFL!

Think about it. Bishops will start sending reports after the three year mark of implementation… SEPTEMBER 2010. The reports will trickle in.

The Holy See will have to wait for the reports until “enough” have arrived.

Then everything will have to be studied and debated.

The results will eventually be presented to the Holy Father, at that time at least a year older.

Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 5 January 2010 @ 5:45 pm

Nevertheless, even if His Holiness does eventually celebrate a public Papal T.L.M. (a prospect which now seems a lot less remote to me than it did before I was reminded of the invitation for Episcopal feedback after three years) we must be careful not to be overly optimistic about what it implies; the Latin Church desperately needs the T.L.M. to be restored as her normative, indeed her only, rite, but I get the impression that the Holy Father sees the T.L.M. more as a means to improving the style with which the Novus Ordo Missæ is celebrated—Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s notion of a ‘gravitational pull’—in the vain hope of pulling the N.O.M. out of its anarchic death-spiral.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
7.I.2010