
Image by Alison Girone
CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis met with the leaders of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest this week and told them to continue serving the Church through the Institute’s proper charism, which especially centers around celebrating the traditional Latin Mass.
“On two occasions, the Pope insisted that we continue to serve the Church according to our own, proper charism, in the spirit of unity and communion which the harmony and balance of the Salesian spirituality allow,” reads a statement released by the Institute after the June 24 private audience.
The Institute’s website states that its main mission “is to spread the reign of Christ in all spheres of human life by drawing from the millennial treasury of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly her liturgical tradition, the unbroken line of spiritual thought and practice of her saints, and her cultural patrimony in music, art and architecture.”
The Institute has missions and churches in the United States, Italy, France, and Africa, among others. The Institute’s webpage on the Traditional Liturgy states that “the Institute of Christ the King lives for the Liturgy, which is the source of everything else when it comes to the Faith.”
“It is a worthy task and a highly important aim to maintain the fullness of the liturgical tradition, to safeguard the meaning of its mystical gestures, and to defend the right to do today what the Church has always done,” the Institute’s Traditional Liturgy webpage adds:
In total obedience to Holy Mother Church, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is proud and happy to serve the Lord present in the Holy Mysteries of the Liturgy and to give all the energy of its members to this decisive liturgical apostolate.
In the June 24 private audience, Pope Francis met with Prior General Monsignor Gilles Wach, the Institute’s Vicar General Monsignor Rudolf Michael Schmitz, and Canon Louis Valadier, who is provincial of France.
The Institute’s recent statement notes that those meeting with Pope Francis were able to thank the pontiff for his 2022 apostolic letter Totum amoris est, about St. Francis de Sales, a Doctor of the Church and patron saint of the Institute.
Monsignor Wach also presented to Pope Francis “all the pastoral work carried out by the priests of the Institute throughout the world in the service of souls,” according to the statement, which added that Pope Francis expressed gratitude for the prayers and missionary work of the Sister Adorers of the Institute.
“At the end of the meeting, the Holy Father invited our Prior General to visit him again with all the members of the Institute, as well as the Sister Adorers, whom he would be very happy to receive in audience,” the statement concluded.
The statement of Pope Francis’ encouragement of the Institute’s proper charism comes amid rumors of a Vatican document that may potentially be released and enact a total ban of the traditional Latin Mass.
As CatholicVote previously reported, a prominent liturgist with significant influence at the Vatican heavily criticized traditionalism in a recent interview. In the interview, Italian liturgist and professor Andrea Grillo said, “Tradition is not the past, but the future. Since the Church and faith are a serious matter, they cannot be reduced to the association of those who cultivate nostalgia for the past.”
