MORE ABOUT CISP MEMBERS Today we give the floor to "Senza pagare"

Dear friends,

We continue the presentation of the members of the CISP with an interview with our friend João Silveira, the coordinator of the Portuguese-speaking blog Senza Pagare who will explain to you that his audience far exceeds Portuguese speakers alone. No wonder, for a people who participated so actively in the Great Discoveries and thus in the Evangelization of the World.

The preparation of our next pilgrimage continues and we hope to send you soon the complete detailed program of our most important event of the year!

In union of prayer and friendship,

Christian Marquant

President of CISP

Can you introduce us to Senza Pagare?

The Senza Pagare blog was created in 2005, when having a blog was “trending”. Facebook didn't yet exist, or at least was virtually unknown. Blogs were been used for people to communicate with each other.

The Senza blog, in particular, was created by a group of Portuguese friends after a pilgrimage to Rome in April 2005, on the occasion of the Conclave which elected Benedict XVI and then of his first mass as Pope. These were days of immense joy and excitement in Rome. The group went through unforgettable moments and one of the objectives of the creation of the blog was to testify it to the world. The other objective was that it was a way we could use to easily communicate with each other.

From the beginning, the blog also assumed an apostolic character: with the publication of prayers, lives of saints, texts of Catholic doctrine and also news from our Church. Over time and the advent of social networks, blogs have lost content and audience. The Senza Pagare blog is an exception, being one of the few to have been maintained since its beginnings.

We took advantage of social networks and the Senza Pagare page on Facebook has more than 120,000 subscribers. As the texts are writen exclusively in Portuguese, most followers come from Brazil and Portugal. With the ease of translation, nowadays, we already have subscribers from almost all over the world.

Why are you attached to the traditional liturgy?

In Portugal, the traditional Mass practically disappeared after the Liturgical Reform of 1970. Since then, it has been an almost taboo subject and still considered something of the past, obsolete and which today would be anachronistic. Even those who criticize the traditional Mass, starting with the priests, do not know it or, at best, have tenuous memories of the time when they were children.

My first regular contact with the traditional Mass only took place when I went to study in Rome almost 10 years ago. It was the discovery of the most beautiful treasure that the Church possessed and which, strangely, had been hidden from me, that is to say denied. Since then, one of the missions of Senza Pagare has become the dissemination of the Traditional Rite and all the innumerable riches that surround it. It is an essential part of the larger mission of the blog, which is to help souls to surrender to Jesus Christ as the Way, Truth and Life and, in this way, to be saved.

The traditional Liturgy, integral to the life of the Church since the first centuries and spiritually nourishing the vast majority of saints, cannot be despised or persecuted within the Church itself. Moreover, it has an even greater importance in our times when the majority of the population live like pagans trying to quench the thirst for sacredness with continuous entertainment. The discovery of the traditional liturgy, with its sanctity and beauty, has brought many back to the Church or even allowed many to enter it for the first time.

Why are you a CISP member?

We are members of the CISP because we are one of the few websites in Portuguese to regularly promote the Traditional Rite. After several years of this work, we have succeeded in making this Rite known to many who, since then, have begun to live it too, whether by going to the Traditional Mass or by wanting to go there even if they do not have no near home.

The Paix Liturgique Letters, which we publish regularly, have contributed to this, as well as the reports we do on major events in the traditional world, such as the Paris-Chartres pilgrimage and the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome.

What is your view on the news of the Church on the subject of the traditional Mass?

In the Church reigns a climate of liturgical conflict. This is not new, it started with the Liturgical Reform of 1970, which was almost universal. Little escaped it, and it was made with many elements proper to a revolution: namely the haste as it was made and also the merciless persecution made to those who only wanted to continue living their spiritual life at the rhythm of the Traditional Liturgy.

Nowadays, in the Church, power is largely in the hands of people hostile to the Traditional Rite. Some out of spite, others out of ignorance, even if they have good intentions. On the other hand, a growing number of young priests and faithful of a much lower age than the average who have discovered the traditional Mass, often through the Internet, and who want to have it in their lives because they recognize its importance for their prayer and also for doctrinal formation. It should be noted that this desire is global and not limited to any particular country or part of the world. They are true "signs of the times", according to an expression very dear to many of those who reject the traditional Mass.

Looking only at the number of vocations and those who attend Mass, without having to make speculative predictions, the future of the Church will involve more and more priests and faithful praying with the traditional liturgy. But the path will not be easy and if many trials have already been overcome, others will come. God alone can know what they will be. However, no praevalebunt!

https://senzapagare.blogspot.com/