A Word About the ICRSS

Fr. Franck Quoex after celebrating Mass with the FSSP in 1998
source: http://www.fssp.org/album/VPB1998/

Since I posted images of Holy Week at the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest's seminary in Italy from 2003, I have received a number of comments and inquiries about the Institute's current liturgical practice and why/when it ceased to use the old rite in favor of 1962. I may have an answer to that point.

 

While searching for some information on that point I came across an interview with one Fr. Patrick Perez with a man named Stephen Heiner. Judging from some of the other interviews on Mr. Heiner's page, I would surmise that Fr. Perez is affiliated with some groups on the edge of canonicity, but that is not relevant to what he has to say. In his interview Fr. Perez recounts being ordained with the Institute in the 1990s when they were still under the bishop of Gabon in Africa. While in that state, Fr. Franck Quoex taught liturgy and M.C.ed for the Institute. Quoex advocated for "pre-1955" (which could mean whatever was done in 1954, or exact use of the 1939 typical edition) and the Institute seems to have followed along. And some point, in more recent times, Rome integrated them into the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, possibly with grudging participation by the Institute. This process compelled the Institute to adopt the 1962 liturgy used by all the other Ecclesia Dei communities. There may have been some level of resistance. Fr. Perez seems to have left the Institute and gone "independent" in protest. I heard a few years ago that the Institute's parish in St. Louis, MI had celebrated the old Holy Week with some post-1956 practices (Mandy Thursday and Holy Saturday Masses in the evening, Communion of the faithful on Good Friday, four readings on Holy Saturday). I do not know if this mash-up was confined to St. Louis or just meant to be transitional, but it did not last. Now the Institute seems to use the 1962 liturgy with some quiet protest: prayers at the foot of the altar on days which omit them, commemorations, old Gospel tones in Holy Week, Palm Sunday door ceremony, old Mass ceremonial etc. Any readers experienced with the Institute may correct me if I am wrong, as I have never had occasion to worship at an Institute parish.

 

Oddly, while the Institute did use an older liturgy and has modernized, some parishes, are moving the other way. We shall see what the future holds.