Mutterings of dissent in Westminster
Two major traditionalist gatherings took place last week – both apparently at odds with the direction of Pope Francis’ papacy.

The first was the Sacra Liturgia conference, where the star turn was Cardinal Robert Sarah, the man in charge of the Vatican’s liturgy department. He told a gathering at Imperial College, South Kensington, that priests should face east – versus orientem – when celebrating Mass from the first Sunday of Advent onwards, something liturgical traditionalists call for. Then, in a homily at nearby Brompton Oratory, he reflected that when Peter shifted his focus away from Christ he “sinks like a rock”. Was this a coded message to the current successor of St Peter?

Hot on the heels of this gathering came the Latin Mass Society’s annual general meeting in Westminster Cathedral Hall, where the main speaker was Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, the papal nuncio to Switzerland and no supporter of the present Pope. An American prelate and former nuncio to the Ukraine, he has sent out a series of anti-Francis tweets, including one saying that his boss was “utterly wrong”.