Bishop: "Between the old Mass and the new Mass, the difference is between heaven and earth"

The Faithful from whom Monsignor Aupetit has withdrawn their Masses at Notre-Dame du Travail and Saint-Georges de la Villette, while talking about evangelising the outskirts and turning the church into a start-up, and who are mobilising in front of the Archbishop's Palace in Paris this week, are talking about the catastrophic figures for diocesan ordinations in 2023 and Monsignor Schneider's passage through Paris:

"The French Bishops' Conference has just published the very poor figures for ordinations in France in 2023. A total of 88 priests have been ordained. It should be noted that this figure includes 18 religious, some of whom (Carmelites, Benedictines) do not provide any diocesan service. In fact, there are 56 "pure" diocesan priests. This shows the great poverty of what remains of the seminaries in France, while the Saint-Martin Community has produced 7 priests. It will be noted that to this low level of figures, it would have been welcome to be able to add the 4 ordinations that did not take place in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon. 

It had been ten years since the number of ordinations had fallen below 100, since 2013 to be precise, when 90 ordinations were counted. Since then, the number seems to have remained at around 120 for almost a decade (the CEF having got into the habit of including priests from the Saint-Martin Community and a few traditionalist priests), with a few increases in 2014 (140 priests) and 2021 (130 priests). We are now lower than in 2013. This comes as a rude surprise.

These figures include the five French priests ordained for the Fraternité Saint-Pierre. Riposte catholique (Effondrement des ordinations sacerdotales en France) rightly points out that priests ordained by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Society of St Pius X and the Resistance are not included. All the figures are not yet known for these communities, but the total number of traditional French priests ordained could represent at least 15% of all priests ordained this year in France (more, if we do not count "pure" religious, without service in parishes or in the equivalent of parishes, among those ordained).

If we were to give an assessment of the traditional Mass, it would be: "Very satisfactory results, but we can do better! It is usually said that the proportion between the traditional faithful and the priests they "engender" is the same as that between the parish faithful and ordained priests... before the Council. Which wasn't bad, but it didn't reach the figures that used to be recorded in the Provinces of Christendom, Brittany, Aveyron and the Basque Country. In short, it was as if, for the traditional Faithful, the revolution of the late 60s of the 20th century had not taken place.

I'd like to add this beautiful testimony given to me by Mgr Athanasius Schneider, who was in Paris for a meal organised by Renaissance catholique. Monsignor Schneider said that one of his friends, a bishop in Kazakhstan, was a man of excellent doctrine but had never celebrated traditional Mass. But one day, the bishop in question telephoned Monsignor Schneider to tell him the 'good news': he had celebrated the old Mass. And he gave his assessment: "Between the old Mass and the new Mass, the difference is between heaven and earth". Which reminds me of the words of a young Parisian priest: "I don't want to learn to say the traditional Mass, because if I did, I'd only say that one!

This Mass will not be taken away from us! This Mass will be given back to us when it has been taken away! That's why we're asking our pastors to give it back to us in the places where they took it away by praying the Blessed Virgin with our rosaries, every Wednesday at 5pm at Saint-Georges de La Villette, every Sunday at 6.15pm in front of Notre-Dame du Travail, and every working day, from Monday to Friday, in front of the offices of the diocesan administration, 10 rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, from 1pm to 1.30pm. 

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