Vatican Denies Traditional Pilgrim Group Permission to Pray Together in St. Peter’s

The Vatican on Saturday refused permission for more than 1,500 traditional Catholic pilgrims to enter St. Peter’s Basilica as a group to pray at the Apostle’s tomb. No reason was given.

Organizers had sought permission for the collective prayer after the Vatican rejected an earlier request for a Pontifical Mass in the basilica during the annual Ad Petri Sedem (to the See of Peter) Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage, held in Rome Oct. 23–25.

The pilgrimage nevertheless was welcomed at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, where Bishop Athanasius Schneider celebrated a Pontifical Low Mass, for which the organizers were grateful, but their hopes of entering St. Peter’s together to pray at the Apostle’s tomb remained unfulfilled.

The pilgrimage, an annual event begun in 2012, is organized by Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum, an association comprising 33 traditional Catholic associations from all over the world. The associations and participants say it is meant to demonstrate fidelity to the Pope and the Catholic Church (“cum Petro et sub Petro”), taking its name from Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which liberalized the traditional Latin Mass.

Largely a lay event, the pilgrimage also brings together priests and religious who are devoted to the Mass celebrated prior to the liturgical reforms of 1970. Since Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, the liturgy, also known as the usus antiquior, has faced severe restrictions, especially in the United States.

The Vatican had already denied the pilgrimage the possibility of having a Pontifical Mass celebrated in the basilica, when the Secretariat of State notified them of their decision in an Aug. 7 letter, almost eight months since the pilgrimage organizers had first requested it.

“At that point it was hoped and assumed that it would nevertheless be possible to have a collective devotion of some kind for the pilgrims, in St. Peter’s, as happened in 2023 and 2024 when permission for Mass was refused,” said Joseph Shaw and Monika Rheinschmitt, respectively president and treasurer of the traditional group Una Voce International (FIUV), one of the Coetus associations, in an Oct. 26 statement.

“The August letter did not rule this out, so the Coetus requested it,” they added, referring to a Sept. 8 letter sent to the Secretariat of State by Father Claude Barthe, chaplain of the pilgrimage.

In that letter, Father Barthe asked the Vatican: “May we nevertheless, on the coming 24 October, enter the Basilica in procession, pray for the Pope at the Confession, and adore the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of the Chair? The Basilica’s sacristy informs us that this would be possible at 1 p.m., should Your Excellency grant us the necessary permission.”

Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, deputy secretary of state, replied in a letter dated Sept. 30, that it was “not possible to respond favorably” to the pilgrims’ request to enter in procession and pray at the tomb. No reason was given and Archbishop Rudelli also did not deny the availability of the basilica at the intended time. 

No Reason Given

The Register asked Holy See Press Office spokesman Matteo Bruni on Oct. 23 why this pilgrimage of traditional Catholics was denied entry to pray in the basilica, but he had not responded by press time.

Pilgrims were not notified of the refusal of entry until a day before the pilgrimage procession to St. Peter’s. The pilgrimage’s chief organizer, Christian Marquant, explained in an Oct. 25 statement that Archbishop Rudelli’s letter “was sent by post, delivered a few days later to the Apostolic Nunciature in Paris, and only reached Father Barthe on 12 October, less than two weeks before the pilgrimage.”

He said the organizers chose not to disclose the news “immediately at the time” because they were still trying “to obtain permission for the group to enter the basilica, given the importance of that gesture and the scandal it would represent for the pilgrims, and for Catholics in general, to be denied entry in the context of a pilgrimage.”

Marquant added that “since these efforts were unsuccessful, the announcement was made one day before the procession that led the pilgrims to St. Peter’s Square.”

The Coetus Internationalis group had initially requested, through Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary of Astana, Kazakhstan, to use the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Pontifical Mass. Bishop Schneider personally handed Pope Leo XIV the request when the Holy Father received him in private audience at the Vatican on Dec. 18, 2025.

In the Aug. 7 letter denying them use, no reason for the refusal was given except that the basilica was unavailable for the Mass. In late September, the Vatican announced it would host on the same day as the requested Mass a Lectio Francisci at the Altar of the Chair to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi.

This led some commentators to claim there was a scheduling conflict, but in their correspondence with Coetus Internationalis, the Vatican made no mention of the Franciscan event that had been made public nine months after the pilgrims’ request for the Mass. The hours of the Lectio Francisci conference, scheduled for the afternoon of Oct. 24, would also not have overlapped with a Pontifical Mass which would have taken place in the morning, nor a prayer at the tomb, as the basilica sacristy had already said the Altar of the Chair was available at 1 p.m. when either the Mass or prayer would have likely taken place.

Some on social media also claimed that the Vatican had given the pilgrimage organizers other dates for the Mass, but this was strongly refuted by Marquant, who said that “no alternative date was suggested” — a claim that had already been independently verified to the Register by the organizers.  

St. Mary Major

After the Pontifical Mass in the basilica was denied, the pilgrimage organizers then “sought and gained for a Prelatial (Pontifical) Low Mass in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome,” said Shaw and Rheinschmitt in their statement. “The Coetus was privileged to be allowed a Mass there on a Saturday, which is not normally allowed for pilgrim groups,” they added.

The Mass was celebrated by Bishop Schneider, as planned, who offered it for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis. In his homily, he called on those in positions of responsibility in the Church to foster “longed-for liturgical peace” that would “restore the full use, without discrimination, of the traditional form of the Roman Rite.”

Contrary to some reports alleging that the Vatican restricted the Mass to an hour, Shaw and Rheinschmitt said that a “very reasonable time slot was allocated” for the Mass, and that it “ended at about 4:15 p.m., as would be expected.”

They also said Cardinal Rolandas Makrickas, the archpriest of St. Mary Major, the sacristans, and the basilica security “were all very helpful, and we are very grateful to them.”

Pilgrimage organizers noted some discord sown on social media by a few self-appointed commentators without any connection to the event, who spread falsehoods about the pilgrimage.

Marquant lamented “the confusion” these commentators had caused, and emphasized that the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage “has at its heart love for the Pope and for the Catholic Church.”