TRIDENTINE-LATERAN Feb-6-2008 (320 words) xxxi
Archbishop to ordain priests using Tridentine Mass in Rome cathedral
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A former Vatican official will ordain four traditionalist priests in a Tridentine Mass celebrated in the cathedral of Rome, church officials said.
The Feb. 23 ordination Mass in the Basilica of St. John Lateran will be the most prominent celebration of the old rite in Rome since Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on its use last year.
The Mass, to be celebrated by Archbishop Luigi De Magistris, will follow the 1962 Roman Missal, known commonly as the Tridentine rite. In July 2007 the pope issued new rules, saying the old rite could be used much more freely than before.
Those to be ordained are members of the Good Shepherd Institute, a society of apostolic life that uses only the Tridentine rite. The institute, based in France, is made up primarily of priests and seminarians who left the schismatic Society of St. Pius X and reconciled with the Vatican in 2006.
The Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, split with the Vatican years ago over liturgical and other issues.
In a statement, the Good Shepherd Institute expressed thanks to the pope and the Diocese of Rome.
"We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to the ecclesiastical authorities who have graciously allowed the celebration of this Mass to take place in the extraordinary form and in the cathedral of the Holy Father," the statement said.
"The Institute of the Good Shepherd wishes to take this opportunity to demonstrate its devotion to and communion with the Holy Father and, though him, its communion with the whole church," it said.
Archbishop De Magistris is the retired head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, an office that deals with indulgences and matters of conscience. Last September, he celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in Rome for the papal document that allowed wider use of the 1962 missal.
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