President's Message

by Joseph Shaw

At the time of writing, Pope Francis is in the Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic – the Gemelli Hospital in Rome. Readers will have had further updates, but right now the news is of recovery. There is talk of him returning to his usual residence in the Vatican, and even resuming official events, such as a meeting with Britain’s King Charles III. Nevertheless, we have had a powerful reminder of Pope Francis’ mortality, his fragile health, and his advanced age: he is now 88.

The Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce this year celebrates its 60th anniversary. Since 1965, we have seen five popes: Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Our association will no doubt see many more. Each has gifts for the Church, though they cannot hope for an equal share of influence: John Paul I’s extraordinarily short reign can hardly compare with John Paul II’s unusually long one. What none of them can do is stop history in its tracks: none can bind his successors. This goes for legislation and ideas alike, but ideas are potentially more powerful than legislation – as Pope Francis likes to say, ‘time is greater than space’: things that can grow organically are more powerful than control of a legal or institutional space. A pope who wishes to make a real difference must do so by inspiring and persuading, planting ideas in new generations long after attempts to bully and forbid have been set aside.

The Federation and our member associations do not have the option of using legislation to accomplish our ends. We can hope to influence others only by our words and, of even greater importance, our actions. These are indeed powerful. Every celebration of the ancient Mass that our activists facilitate, every pilgrimage, every act of devotion, is a source of innumerable blessings. We know this: we have seen the conversions of life, the formation of families, the vocations to the priesthood and the religious life that the ancient liturgy has nurtured. As one of the founders of our movement, Cristina Campo, remarked, surely speaking of herself and the long hours she spent in Rome’s great monastic church of San Anselmo, balanced between her former life without the Faith and a new one: ‘There are those who have been converted by seeing two monks bowing deeply together, first to the altar, then to each other, then retreating into the depths of the choir stalls’.

How abundant, and how beautiful, are the means of grace that God has provided for us in the ancient liturgy of the Church! And how fragile this liturgy is, how easily driven out of a parish or a diocese; and what sacrifices it demands of each generation of our movement, to keep it alive. For this is

God’s way: to provide His grace freely, and yet to involve human efforts in the delivery of that grace: ‘How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach, unless they be sent?’ (Rom 10:14f).

Dear readers, after 60 years of effort, of ours and of our predecessors, it is not for us to complain of a lack of resources, or official disapproval, or exhaustion. It is for us to do what small things we can. As God spoke to St Paul, ‘My power is made perfect in weakness’: virtus in infirmitate perficitur (2 Cor. 12:9). God will not be outdone in generosity.

Joseph Shaw, PresidentFeast of St Joseph, 19th March 2025