Summit Meetings

For those of us who languish in the liturgical desert that is the Archdiocese of Hollywood, where Mass in the traditional Roman Rite is rationed out in miserly servings of one (1) per week (except on the third Sunday when we fast from such things) this sort of meeting is endlessly fascinating. Trads ponder it the way the Washington Post meditates on international gatherings at Camp David.

The original notice in Italian can be found here. The Remnant provided an English version here. The heart of it:

A traditionalist dinner by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, who received Lefebvrites in his Roman residence, in Piazza della Citta Leonina, a stone’s throw from the Vatican.

The influential Columbian Cardinal, appointed by the Pope to entertain relations with the traditionalists, has invited to dinner, with the utmost discretion, Monsignor Bernard Fellay, successor to Marcel Lefebvre at the head of the Society of St. Pius X (so the community is called that comprises the Lefebvrites), and Don Marc Nély, Superior of the Italian District of the Society. Witnesses report that it was much more than a simple lunch break: the Lefebvrists, in cassock, arrived in great secrecy at the residence of the Cardinal about 11:00 a.m. and departed after 4:00 p.m.

A protracted luncheon in Italy is not unheard of. But five hours? Dare we hope substantive issues were put on the table also and maybe even, Deo volente, settled?

Oremus.