Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI received in private audience on Monday two prominent proponents of Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
According to the website Notions Romaines, the Pope Emeritus met yesterday afternoon Cosimo Marti, co-founder and treasurer of the International Federation Juventutem, a movement of young Catholics who favour the Tridentine Mass. He was accompanied by Joseph Capoccia, director of the pilgrimage «Summorum Pontificum Populus», an international pilgrimage to Rome that has taken place annually since 2012.
Marti had requested some time ago an audience with Benedict XVI, but following the former Pontiff’s retirement, he believed his request would be forgotten. The invitation to visit him on Monday, sent through Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, therefore came as a considerable surprise.
This year marks the 7th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’ which liberalized celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal. Up until 1969, Mass had always been celebrated in this way in the Roman Rite, and is also known as the Tridentine Mass.
The Juventutem federation celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy of the Holy See, will celebrate a thanksgiving Pontifical Mass in the Roman church of Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini on Oct. 24, MessainLatino reported.
Since his retirement, Benedict XVI has regularly received visitors at his Mater Ecclesiae residence in the Vatican Gardens. A frequent visitor, according to Archbishop Gaenswein, has been Pope Francis.
