This just in from SSPX.org:

On November 12, 2017, the day after the feast of St. Martin, patron saint of the archdiocese of Utrecht, Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, reconciled the church of St. Willibrord.



The church is situated in the historic center of the city of Utrecht, and 600 faithful from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany were present. The ceremony began with the rite of reconciliation that the Roman Pontifical prescribes for restoring a sacred building to Catholic worship after it has been used for secular purposes. The bishop first blessed the “Gregorian water”, a mixture of water, wine, salt, and ashes, then sprinkled the interior walls and the ground in the form of a cross, in order to purify the church of its profane defilements.



In his sermon, Bishop Fellay reminded the faithful that the artistic beauty of this place of worship is a reflection of the divine beauty, of which the Christian soul is also an image. He went on to point out that this sacred building has now been restored to the traditional liturgy for which it was built and that “has never been abrogated”, as pope emeritus Benedict XVI declared in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, although certain members of the hierarchy claimed it had been. The ceremony continued with a Pontifical High Mass celebrated from the faldstool, directed by the seminarians of Zaitzkofen, and enhanced by the magnificent sounds of the sumptuous organ and the baroque pieces that were sung most excellently and professionally. Read the rest HERE





REMNANT COMMENT: Can there be doubt in anyone's mind that the Novus Ordo is on life support? It's in critical condition from within, as doctrinal organ shutdown and a ridiculously trivialized liturgy mean precious few mainstream Catholics even bother going to Mass anymore (do you blame them?), much less leave their hard earned dollars in the collection baskets. At this rate, the entire experiment in novelty will be over and done with in a generation or two.



At the same time, traditional Catholicism and the Traditional Latin Mass are making a comeback never before thought possible, unless and until the great Modernist facade comes crashing down first. Well the great facade is doing just that, thanks be to God.



In this Fiftieth Anniversary year of The Remnant newspaper, let's take a moment to recall the way things used to be.



Here's a bit of "ancient" video I happened upon recently in preparation for last month's Catholic Identity Conference, where I was to deliver a talk on the history of the Traditional Catholic movement (available HERE in on-demand video, by the way).



This video takes us back to the early days of the Traditional Catholic counterrevolution—to my boyhood home—where my mother and father had set up a catacomb chapel of sorts, centered around an old altar they'd rescued from a “totally groovy” Novus parish that was chucking all the old statues, nixing the altars and bulldozing the sanctuaries. So my father rescued what he could and installed it in our basement.



That catacomb altar served as an outpost for the early "men in black"—priests from all over the world who refused to go along with the Revolution, and who are now revered pioneers of the early Traditional Catholic resistance.



Here's a glimpse of what it looked like, keeping in mind that some fairly well known figures frequented this catacomb chapel. Remnant founder, Walter L. Matt, is the old gent at the front, and old-timers will also recognize a young Michael Davies and several other early traditionalist Remnant writers receiving Holy Communion; yours truly, by the way, is serving Father John Emerson’s (ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) Mass.

We've come a long way indeed. Now the Society of St. Pius X is erecting massive seminaries (including the largest built in the U.S. since the Council) and rescuing historic and monumental churches from dumpsters of Vatican II on both sides of the Atlantic.



God is good. Congratulations to the SSPX---may God bless and Mary keep them all, and may we never forget the sacrifices of the early traditionalists--men and women, priests and laity (and two bishops)--who literally gave up everything in defense of the Traditional Latin Mass. They were Traditionalists before Tradition was cool, God bless them!