Posted on 01/31/2022 6:54:26 PM PST by ebb tide
Nearly 2,800 supporters of the Traditional Latin Mass have signed a petition addressed to Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington. The organizer tells CNA he delivered that petition to the bishop’s office on Monday.
The document asks Burbidge to lift restrictions he recently imposed on the celebration of the sacraments in the Extraordinary Form.
“In the spirit of the Synodal Path that the church has embarked upon, we humbly ask that you engage in consultations with the faithful of each parish church potentially affected by restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass,” reads the petition, which was originally published online at Change.org on Jan. 14. “And we pray fervently that you might offer permission to allow the Extraordinary Form and other traditional sacraments to continue across the Diocese of Arlington.”
The petition organizer, 36-year-old Noah Peters of Fairfax, Virginia, told CNA that he handed a printout of the signed petition to the receptionist at the Diocese of Arlington’s main office Jan. 31. At the time of its delivery, the petition listed nearly 2,800 signatures from around the world, with 2,551 signatures from the United States, he said.
The vast majority of those, Peters added, featured Northern Virginia addresses.
“I decided to keep signers from outside the diocese because many indicated in the comments that they had family here or otherwise attend Mass here,” Peters told CNA. “For example, one woman said that she drove two hours each Sunday from Maryland to attend a TLM in our diocese, because our Masses are so beautiful and reverent here!”
The Diocese of Arlington is one of the two Catholic dioceses in Virginia. Twenty-one of the diocese’s 70 parishes offer the Latin Mass, one of the highest percentages among U.S. dioceses.
The petition began earlier this month after Burbidge issued a statement concerning the celebration of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form in the diocese. While the bishop did not restrict any of the existing Traditional Latin Masses in the diocese, he said there is to be no “scheduling of new celebrations of the Sacraments (such as baptisms and weddings) in the Extraordinary Form.”
Peters described how he hoped Burbidge would respond to the petition.
“I am hoping and praying that Bishop Burbidge carefully considers the overwhelming response we received and the many comments, which are quite moving,” he said. Along with the petition itself, Peters delivered the comments that Catholics left on the petition.
Ping
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