News

Prominent UK priest calls Pope Francis’ Latin Mass restrictions ‘bonkers,’ ‘shameful’ – LifeSite

(LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic priest from the United Kingdom has joined his voice to those of prominent clerics across the West in expressing his dismay and strong disapproval of Pope Francis’ heavy restrictions upon the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

“The suppression of the Latin Mass is the most bonkers thing I have seen in the Church so far,” tweeted Fr. David Palmer, a priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham serving in the Diocese of Nottingham, England.

“I have never offered it, so don’t have a personal stake, but some of the best priests and lay people I know in the diocese where I work (and further afield) are absolutely devastated,” he lamented.

In a follow-up comment the priest added, “to be honest, [it is] shameful.”

Fr. Palmer, whose Twitter account currently shows 7,389 followers, has made headlines in the past for his candor on social media.

In the summer of 2021, the University of Nottingham refused to officially recognize the Catholic priest as its campus chaplain because of his pro-life views.

As reported by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), Fr. Palmer referred to an assisted suicide bill being introduced into the House of Lords as an attempt to “kill the vulnerable.” He also defied the tendency to sanitize the grizzly reality of abortion by referring to it as “the slaughter of babies.”

— Article continues below Petition —
PETITION: We won’t give any money to liberal bishops who attack the Faith
  Show Petition Text
14562 have signed the petition.
Let’s get to 15000!
Thank you for signing this petition!
Add your signature:
  Show Petition Text

Liberal bishops around the world continue promoting heterodox views on homosexuality, female priests, divorce, contraception, and more — advancing anti-Catholic positions that jeopardize the salvation of souls.

Such bishops often sideline, ignore and even persecute traditional Catholics who simply ask that the Faith be preserved and passed on to their children.

But traditional Catholics cannot be silenced any longer, which is why we are uniting in this international boycott of modernist bishops and dioceses until the deposit of Faith is upheld by the hierarchy again. 

SIGN: We will not fund modernist bishops or priests who undermine the Catholic Faith, but rather direct our contributions towards faithful clergy and orders that work for the salvation of souls.

There are countless examples of bishops working against Christ’s Church in calling for divine law to be ignored in favor of sexual, doctrinal and liturgical deviancy, even trying to clamp down on Catholics who practise the Faith. 

Just last year, Cardinal Cupich banned traditional prayers after Mass, and more recently has curtailed the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese. 

The attack on the Faith is out in the open, with modernist bishops causing scandal in countless ways:

We have seen enough. Now is the time to show true Catholic unity against those who undermine the Faith – do not be bullied into submission by these men who would disfigure Christ’s Church.

JOIN THE BOYCOTT & SHARE! Tell everyone you know to STOP giving money to bishops who attack the Catholic Faith.

“We therefore commit to a financial boycott of modernist bishops until the hierarchy resolves to uphold the entire deposit of Faith.”

If the bishops refuse to uphold and protect the teaching of Christ’s Bride, the Catholic Church, then we must refuse to support them until they repent. 

Thank you 

P.S. — Demanding that liberal bishops be held to account through financial boycott will help save the Church from doctrinal and pastoral ruin. This is the first step in restoring the Faith for future generations. Our time is now, so please join us by signing today!

Photos: Pope Francis. Flickr. Long Thiên; Cardinal Cupich. Flickr. Goat_Girl; Collection Plate: Lisa F. Young/Shutterstock

  Hide Petition Text

When university officials demanded he amend the wording of his tweets, the priest refused. “I was told it was fine for me to have this opinion, but they were concerned with how I expressed it,” he said. “When I asked how they would suggest I express it, quite remarkably, they suggested I should call it ‘end of life care,’ which is a completely unacceptable policing of religious belief.”

In October 2021, on the cusp of a second lockdown in the U.K., Fr. Palmer vowed to be arrested rather than to stop offering Mass for the faithful. He also expressed regret over having stopped public Masses during the earlier shutdown of churches.

However, just before the lockdowns took place, his bishop, who was empathetic to Palmer’s position, asked him nonetheless to desist for offering a Mass accessible to the faithful during that time, to which the priest obediently complied.

In reproaching the suppression of the TLM, Fr. Palmer joins a chorus of prominent voices also defending the Church’s liturgical tradition, including German Cardinal Gerhard Müller who classified further restrictions issued by the Vatican as “brutal intolerance” against those who prefer the ancient use.

READ: ‘Brutal intolerance’: Cdl. Müller condemns Pope Francis’ latest attack on Traditional Latin Mass

The former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith further commented that Pope Francis’ February rescript “degrades bishops or local ordinaries of secondary rank to petitioners to the highest authority (that is, the bureaucracy of the Department of Worship),” adding that the ruling “harms the pastoral responsibility of the episcopate” while obscuring “the true meaning of the papacy, which is to represent and realize the unity of the Church in the truth of faith and sacramental communion.”

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, condemned the fresh restrictions as not the “style of God.” “Pope Francis himself has emphasized that those who are attached to the TLM should be ‘accompanied, listened to, and given time,’” Tobin noted at the time.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, also spoke out in defense of adherents to the Church’s long liturgical tradition, describing them as “very docile to the teachings of the Church, very eager to follow the teachings of the Church… They’re very faithful Catholics.”

And Fr. Gerald Murray, a regular commentator on EWTN’s The World Over, called such suppression “a basic violation of Church order” which “makes absolutely no sense” and is “a persecution of Latin Mass Catholics, plain and simple.”

READ: Fr. Murray: The Vatican’s ‘persecution’ of Latin Mass Catholics is ‘damaging the Church’

“This is the paradox of the papacy of Pope Francis,” the New York based canonist reflected. “It’s a paradox because he came into the office saying he wanted a decentralized Church, he wanted collegiality, then he started speaking about ‘synodality,’ which means we walk together, and we talk together, and we listen to each other. The exact opposite is happening as regards to the Latin Mass.”

RELATED:

Pope Francis belittles devotion to the Latin Mass as a ‘nostalgic disease’ during Jesuit meeting

UK University rejects Catholic Chaplain for expressing pro-life views online

UK bishop forbids priest from saying private Mass while church open during new lockdown

Archbishop of Detroit issues new Latin Mass restrictions in conformity with Vatican rescript

North Carolina bishop restricts celebration of Latin Mass every Sunday to one diocesan parish

Previous ArticleNext Article