It has recently come to light that a group of students at Oscott College, the seminary that serves most of the dioceses of the Midlands and the North of England, made a formal request for Mass to be celebrated at least occasionally in the college in the usus antiquior. It seems that this request was made back in February 2012. The request resulted in the matter being discussed later at a meeting which included members of the seminary staff and an advisory group of bishops.
The upshot of this meeting was a decision that the priority for Oscott College should be to train seminarians in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, and that the Extraordinary Form was not to be celebrated at Oscott, although seminarians were free to experience the Extraordinary Form where it is provided in the Archdiocese and elsewhere.
It seems that, as a matter of policy, students of Oscott College are not being allowed to "experience" the older form of the Mass at at the seminary, but instead are being allowed to seek it out elsewhere in their own free time.
Since the closure of Ushaw College, Oscott College is where most students for the priesthood destined to serve in the Middlesbrough Diocese can expect to be trained. Consequently, this is a matter of direct interest to the faithful of the Middlesbrough Diocese.
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Does His Holiness The Pope know ?
I would not expect His Holiness to know at this stage, as this story has only just been revealed into the public domain.
If the students at Oscott wished to take the matter further, their next action, in accordance with Summorum Pontificum, should be to refer the matter to the Archbishop of Birmingham, Oscott being in the Birmingham Archdiocese. If they fail to get satisfaction at that stage, they would then be entitled to take the matter to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. At that stage, it is quite likely that His Holiness would get to know.
It is also possible that the Holy Father might get to know by a different route. This story has attracted quite a bit of attention on the blogosphere, and will,no doubt, before long get an airing in the press.
As they say, this issue is likely to grow legs.
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