The DDF’s new document is titled Come to Me. One day after it dropped, the Vatican told the Latin Mass pilgrimage: not you.
On Thursday, October 22, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith published Venite ad Me, approved by Pope Leo XIV and signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. Paragraphs 90 and 91 call the liturgy the “privileged place” where the faith is handed on, a “living memory and tradition,” and tie the celebration of the faith to inculturation: preserve “the richness of the Church’s symbolic tradition” while making it “accessible and meaningful to the men and women of our time.”
On Friday, October 23, Diane Montagna reported that the Vatican Secretariat of State has barred the 15th annual Summorum Pontificum (Ad Petri Sedem) pilgrimage from entering St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, October 24 – not just the Mass, which was already refused in August and moved to St. Mary Major, but the procession and the pilgrims’ prayer at the tomb of St. Peter. “Your procession is not allowed to enter into St. Peter’s Basilica.” Twelve months ago Pope Leo authorized Cardinal Burke’s Pontifical Mass at the Altar of the Chair. This year that altar hosts a Lectio Francisci.
Joe McClane reads paragraphs 90 and 91 on air and makes two arguments. First: the liturgy is not a cultural product to be inculturated. It is a pattern shown to Moses on the mountain (Exodus 25:9, 40), a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:5), and the worship St. John saw “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” – vested priest, altar, incense, the Sanctus, the Lamb standing as though slain, the marriage supper (Revelation, per Scott Hahn’s The Lamb’s Supper). Moses didn’t take a survey of the tribes. John didn’t poll the seven churches. The liturgy comes down; it doesn’t bubble up. Second: by the document’s own standard, every “specific context” is to be met where it is – except the Catholic whose context is the Church’s own tradition. That is not inculturation. That is a double standard.
At 4:30, Dr. Anthony Stine of Return to Tradition joins the show on Venite ad Me, the St. Peter’s ban, and what this week tells us about where Rome is headed under Pope Leo.
GUEST: Dr. Anthony Stine, Return to Tradition – / @returntotradition
SCRIPTURE (RSV-CE):
Exodus 25:40 – “See that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.”
Hebrews 8:5 – “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary…”
Revelation 5:6 – “I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…”
Revelation 22:17 – “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.'”
DOCUMENTS & SOURCES:
Venite ad Me. Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change – Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, 22 October 2026 (paragraphs 90-93, Chapter V, “Liturgy”): https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/co…
Diane Montagna, “Vatican Bars Annual TLM Pilgrimage from Entering St. Peter’s Basilica,” 23 October 2026: https://dianemontagna.substack.com/p/…
Scott Hahn, The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth (Doubleday, 1999) – the Mass/Revelation chart, p.119
Please pray for the pilgrims in Rome this weekend, for Bishop Schneider, and for the Holy Father.
