A Pilgrimage to the Holy Land Graced by the Celebration of the Vetus Ordo

By Alberto Carosa

Until recently the author of this article had never seriously considered the idea of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but everything changed when the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) informed his supporters and friends that the Institute would organize a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in late January.

As far as is known, it was the first such pilgrimage arranged by the Italian chapter of the ICKSP as a sort of test for an initiative graced by the celebration of the Old Rite more than once a day. Ultimately, as a whole the test was successful and the Institute is planning another pilgrimage in late 2019 or early next year.

The ICKSP is a religious institute of pontifical right whose apostolate is based on the celebration of the pre-Vatican II liturgy, but this liturgy is almost no longer celebrated in the Holy Land, according to the authoritative opinion of our guide during the pilgrimage, Don Michele Somaschini, a priest of the diocese of Milan and close friend of the ICKSP.

By contrast, he points out, a number of the Christian holy sites with their buildings and structures, including altars and rails, have remained unchanged since 1757, when the Ottoman Empire, reconfirmed by decree in 1853, froze the situation with regard to the shared ownership, possession and use of these sites among the various Christian communities and denominations.

The Basilica of the Annunciation

The decree, which provides that nothing be changed without unanimous consensus, still applies today and to give an idea of how complex the situation is, suffice to say that up to five Christian denominations currently cohabit in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox, Latin (namely the Catholic community, represented by the Franciscans under the Status Quo provisions), Armenian, Copt, Syrian and Ethiopian.

The Holy Sepulcher was one of the three main holy sites, together with the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth and that of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Traditional Masses were also celebrated by the other two priests accompanying our group of pilgrims. Whereas Don Michele was mainly in charge of logistics, two priests of the ICKSP, Don Antonio Landais, seconded to the Institute's Roman headquarters, and Don Federico Pozza, who instead is based in Florence, were responsible for the liturgical celebrations in the various holy places visited by the group of pilgrims.

In total, including the three priests, the group consisted of 17 people, an excellent number for the success of the pilgrimage, as it is preferable to have groups not exceeding 20. In fact, it would have been quite difficult for a bigger group of people to be accommodated in the narrow spaces available at most of the holy sites, and notably in the above three main, most symbolic places.

Moreover, in these three sites the Masses had to be celebrated ay side altars or chapels, and not where the specific event exactly took place. In Nazareth the Mass was celebrated in the presbytery in the lower Basilica of the Annunciation, just opposite the grotto where the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary.

Whereas this basilica is held by the Franciscans, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem is in the hands of the Greek Orthodox clergy, another legacy of the above Status Quo which appears to be all the more puzzling if one considers, as noted by Don Michele, that there are virtually no Orthodox faithful in the Holy Land. The basilica stands on the grotto complex, which includes that of the Nativity, but with a wall in common with the adjacent Franciscan convent of St Kathryn of Alexandria "ad Nativitatem", whose Franciscans are once again securing a continued Catholic presence in the holy sites.

In this complex of caves, the most important one after that of the Nativity is that of St Jerome, because this Doctor of the Church settled there at the beginning of the fifth century to write by candlelight the Vulgate, or Latin translation of the biblical texts written in Hebrew and Greek. And exactly in this cave, precisely adjacent to that of the Nativity, we were able to celebrate our daily Mass. And there is nothing more appropriate than to celebrate the ancient Latin Rite in the place where the first Latin translation of the Holy Scriptures was written!

A similar situation was experienced at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, in the sense that this shrine is owned by the Greek Orthodox church, in collaboration with the Franciscans and four other Orthodox denominations.

For the celebration of our Traditional Masses, access was granted to the altar of St Helena and to that on the right-hand side of the chapel of the crucifixion. St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, founded the basilica in the fourth century in the place where she miraculously found the hill of Calvary, the grotto of the Sepulcher and the Cross. Due to the uninterrupted flows of pilgrims and their priests, especially in this basilica, it looked as if it might be a sort of miracle if we were able to have our Masses there. Besides physical constraints, in the sense that it is simply impossible to celebrate Mass in certain places such as, for example, the exact location of the Sepulcher, another problem to be borne in mind was the time slot allotted for the celebrations, which at times might be only 20 minutes. This might be fine for a novus ordo mass, but would make it virtually impossible for an Old Rite Mass to be decently celebrated and therefore alternative solutions and arrangements had to be found, but again in terms of what is provided for by the “status quo” arrangements.

We had heard of single priests celebrating the old rite in some holy sites, but we were probably the first, or at least one of the first organised groups to use the traditional liturgy here. In general, we pilgrims and our three priests were warmly received and assisted wherever the request was made to celebrate Mass, not only by the Franciscan custodians of the holy places, but also by the religious responsible for the other churches and shrines under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem-based Latin Patriarchate, the other Catholic institution overseeing the network of parish churches and other non-conventual diocesan structures in the Holy Land.

The Latin Patriarchate was reinstated only in 1847 by Pius IX, after its initial establishment and activity during the Crusades, and the Franciscans in the Holy Land this year are celebrating the 800th anniversary of their continued presence since 1219, when, in September of that year, St Francis met the Egyptian sultan Melek Al Kamil, nephew of Saladin. This meeting was recalled even by Pope Francis himself, during his recent trips to the United Arab Emirates in February and to Morocco in March.

Although on the occasion the sultan did not convert after the saint's preaching, nonetheless St Francis managed to win from his interlocutor a fundamental concession: access and permanence for his friars in the Holy Land, where they gradually expanded the number of holy sites under their control. Once the crusades were over, the Franciscans represented for several centuries the only Catholic presence in the Holy Land, making enormous sacrifices and at times even martyrdom in order to maintain the right to possession of these holy places.

Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem the Mass at the altar of the Nails of the Cross

We can never be sufficiently grateful to St Francis and his friars for having paved the way for us to be pilgrims to the holy sites and thus reap immense spiritual benefits, all the more so with the graces of at least one daily Traditional Mass, something that the author has personally experienced. And words are not enough to describe the emotions and feelings which went with this experience, so much so that every devout faithful should make a visit to the Holy Land at least once in his or her lifetime.

After all, Don Michele made it quite clear that the primary aim of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to foster and increase one’s faith and love for Jesus by looking at the skies He looked at, breathing the air He breathed, admiring the panoramas He admired, treading the soil He trod. At times, he went on, this is also a powerful antidote against scepticism, as was the case in one of his past pilgrimages, when a young woman at the end burst into tears exclaiming: “But then it’s all true!”.