01-06-2026, 08:43 AM
Excerpt from Chris Jackson's Hiraeth in Exile post for January 6, 2026 [emphasis mine]:
The proposed “traditional ordinariate”: an ecclesiastical reservation dressed as peace
Diane Montagna reports that Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières has sent cardinals a proposal to create a dedicated jurisdiction for the old Roman rite, modeled in principle on military ordinariates, offering a stable framework for the vetus ordo communities. The proposal is presented as constructive, pragmatic, and aimed at easing a conflict that has grown sterile since Traditionis Custodes.
Call it what it is. It is a plea for legal asylum.
The traditionalist instinct behind the letter is understandable: diocesan structures have become unreliable, bishops have become liturgical regulators, and the faithful attached to the old Mass are treated as a tolerated nuisance until the next crackdown. A personal jurisdiction promises stability.
The admission is the real headline. A separate jurisdiction makes sense only when the “ordinary” structure is either hostile or incapable. The proposal implicitly concedes that the postconciliar rite and the postconciliar episcopate have produced an ongoing persecution of the old liturgy, not a pastoral integration. It also concedes something else: the claim of “one Roman rite in two forms” cannot survive the lived reality of suppression and contempt. Fr. Raffray even describes the internal contradiction between Benedict’s framing and Francis’s insistence on a single form, then points toward a practical recognition of two distinct Latin rites as the way forward.
Traditionalists will argue over whether an ordinariate is a trap, a ghetto, a providential lifeboat, or the next stage of containment. That debate is real. The devilish twist is this: the same Rome that would govern such an ordinariate is the Rome that authorized the crackdown. Any structure it erects can be revised, narrowed, staffed with enemies, or slowly suffocated. The reservation can be fenced in from the inside.
Still, the proposal functions as a confession. The center of gravity has shifted. The diocese no longer protects Tradition. Tradition seeks protection from the diocese.
The proposed “traditional ordinariate”: an ecclesiastical reservation dressed as peace
Diane Montagna reports that Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières has sent cardinals a proposal to create a dedicated jurisdiction for the old Roman rite, modeled in principle on military ordinariates, offering a stable framework for the vetus ordo communities. The proposal is presented as constructive, pragmatic, and aimed at easing a conflict that has grown sterile since Traditionis Custodes.
Call it what it is. It is a plea for legal asylum.
The traditionalist instinct behind the letter is understandable: diocesan structures have become unreliable, bishops have become liturgical regulators, and the faithful attached to the old Mass are treated as a tolerated nuisance until the next crackdown. A personal jurisdiction promises stability.
The admission is the real headline. A separate jurisdiction makes sense only when the “ordinary” structure is either hostile or incapable. The proposal implicitly concedes that the postconciliar rite and the postconciliar episcopate have produced an ongoing persecution of the old liturgy, not a pastoral integration. It also concedes something else: the claim of “one Roman rite in two forms” cannot survive the lived reality of suppression and contempt. Fr. Raffray even describes the internal contradiction between Benedict’s framing and Francis’s insistence on a single form, then points toward a practical recognition of two distinct Latin rites as the way forward.
Traditionalists will argue over whether an ordinariate is a trap, a ghetto, a providential lifeboat, or the next stage of containment. That debate is real. The devilish twist is this: the same Rome that would govern such an ordinariate is the Rome that authorized the crackdown. Any structure it erects can be revised, narrowed, staffed with enemies, or slowly suffocated. The reservation can be fenced in from the inside.
Still, the proposal functions as a confession. The center of gravity has shifted. The diocese no longer protects Tradition. Tradition seeks protection from the diocese.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre