Announcement from Our International Office

The International Federation Una Voce Welcomes Four New Members. The International Federation Una Voce is pleased to announce the admission of four new members. The Federation Council has approved applications from:
• Una Voce Albaruthenia (Belarus),
• Una Voce Natal (Brazil),
• Una Voce Cuba,
• Una Voce Ucraina (Ukraine).

Since the promulgation of the motu prorio Summorum Pontificum in July 2007 the Federation has admitted twelve new associations: from Malta, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile - Casablanca, Philippines, Japan, Portugal, and now the four associations named above. We are also in active discussions with another five groups in Latin America and two in Asia. What is especially encouraging is that all these groups are being formed and led by energetic young people who have found in the traditional liturgy a spirituality they have not been able to find elsewhere. This is our hope for the future in that young lay people will be working with young clergy and religious to ensure that the traditions of the Church will be preserved and fostered.

The first President of the International Federation Una Voce, Dr Eric de Saventhem, speaking in New York in June 1970, said that the suppression of the traditional Mass had been achieved de facto only and not de jure. It would be unthinkable, he said, for the older form of Mass to be forbidden as one would have to argue that it had been wrong or bad - either doctrinally or pastorally. He thought it perfectly legitimate to ask that the new Ordo Missae should be offered as an additional, alternative way, of celebrating Mass. This was an argument that all the leaders of the International Federation have used regularly when in Rome. The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum has confirmed what Dr de Saventhem said nearly forty years earlier. In his talk he also said:

"A renaissance will come: asceticism and adoration as the mainspring of direct total dedication to Christ will return. Confraternities of priests, vowed to celibacy and to an intense life of prayer and meditation will be formed. Religious will regroup themselves into houses of "strict observance." A new form of "Liturgical Movement" will come into being, led by young priests and attracting mainly young people, in protest against the flat, prosaic, philistine or delirious liturgies which will soon overgrow and finally smother even the recently revised rites.
It is vitally important that these new priests and religious, these new young people with ardent hearts, should find -- if only in a corner of the rambling mansion of the Church -- the treasure of a truly sacred liturgy still glowing softly in the night. And it is our task - since we have been given the grace to appreciate the value of this heritage -- to preserve it from spoliation, from becoming buried out of sight, despised and therefore lost forever. It is our duty to keep it alive: by our own loving attachment, by our support for the priests who make it shine in our churches, by our apostolate at all levels of persuasion."

Everything that Dr de Saventhem prophesied has come to pass. The revised rite of 1970 has indeed been overgrown and smothered by flat and delirious liturgies. For forty years the members of the International Federation have worked unceasingly to keep alive "the truly sacred liturgy" and to prevent it being "buried out of sight, despised, and therefore lost forever". The enquiries being received by the Federation are coming mainly from young people who are not attracted or inspired by these "flat, prosaic, philistine or delirious liturgies" and are welcoming and embracing the venerable usus antiquior of their forefathers. The International Federation Una Voce will continue unceasingly in its work to attract new members and help restore and spread the usus antiquior and the venerable and ancient liturgy of our forbears to our altars.

Leo Darroch, President - Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce.

28th September 2011.