Pope Leo XIV received the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday 19 January, marking the first formal meeting between the new pontiff and leaders of one of the Church’s best known traditionalist priestly societies.
According to an official communiqué issued by the fraternity on 20 January, the Pope met Father John Berg for a half hour conversation in the Apostolic Palace. He was accompanied by Father Josef Bisig, a co founder of the fraternity, its first superior general, and now rector of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton in the United States. The meeting had been requested by the fraternity.
The communiqué described the audience as cordial and said it allowed the fraternity to present the Holy Father with a fuller account of its history and apostolic work. It said the priests outlined the various forms of ministry the fraternity has offered to the faithful for almost 38 years and recalled the internal law and charism guiding the sanctification and formation of its members.
“This audience also provided an opportunity to raise any misunderstandings and obstacles that the Fraternity encounters in certain places and to answer questions from the Supreme Pontiff,” the statement said. No specific difficulties were identified. At the conclusion of the meeting, Pope Leo gave his blessing and extended it to all members of the fraternity.
The Priestly Fraternity of St Peter is a society of apostolic life of pontifical right, founded in 1988 by priests who separated from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X in order to remain fully under papal authority while continuing to celebrate the traditional Roman Rite. The fraternity was erected by the Holy See during the pontificate of John Paul II and was placed for many years under the oversight of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.
The audience comes at a time when the traditional Latin Mass remains in a precarious state, with multiple clerics, including Cardinal Burke, Bishop Rifan, and Archbishop Schneider, having spoken to Pope Leo XIV about the issue following the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which introduced restrictions on the use of the pre conciliar liturgy. Since late 2024, the fraternity has been in the midst of an apostolic visitation initiated by the Holy See. Both the fraternity and the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life have stated that the visitation is a normal exercise of oversight intended to assist institutes formerly under Ecclesia Dei following Traditionis Custodes.
The fraternity has previously emphasised that it underwent a similar visitation in 2014 and that the current process is not punitive. In February 2022, Pope Francis issued a decree following a private audience with fraternity leaders which exempted it from certain provisions of Traditionis Custodes while placing it under closer institutional supervision than during the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
The Vatican did not issue its own communiqué on the audience beyond the release of official photographs showing the Pope with Father Berg and Father Bisig. In its statement, the fraternity said it was grateful to the Holy Father for granting the audience and encouraged the faithful to continue praying during a thirty day novena in preparation for the renewal of its consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on 11 February. That date has particular significance for the fraternity, which has long placed its identity and mission under Marian patronage.
Beyond the immediate facts of Pope Leo XIV’s audience with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter lies the question of how the meeting should be interpreted. While the gesture of listening and dialogue may signal attentiveness, it remains primarily a pastoral courtesy, the significance of which can easily be overstated.
For many of the faithful, particularly young families and converts drawn to the traditional Latin Mass, liturgy is not merely an aesthetic preference but bound closely to doctrinal continuity. How Rome listens to these communities, and how it acts on that listening, shapes trust in ecclesial governance.
Headline driven coverage of papal audiences often assigns them greater weight than they can bear. While such meetings are signals, sometimes genuine, they are neither decisions nor policy. The meeting with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter should therefore be understood not as an isolated event but as part of a longer process of consultation surrounding the future of the traditional Latin Mass.
Pope Leo XIV’s audience with the fraternity, conducted at its request and described in its communiqué, suggests a pontificate still in its listening phase. The Holy Father received Father John Berg, accompanied by Father Josef Bisig, and heard an account of the fraternity’s history, apostolate, and the difficulties it encounters in certain places. The Pope asked questions and gave his blessing. None of this is unusual. Similar meetings took place under previous pontificates, including that of Pope Francis.
Unlike the Society of St Pius X, the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter was founded precisely to embody a commitment to fidelity to Rome alongside the continued celebration of the traditional Roman Rite. Its existence has always depended on papal goodwill and juridical protection. That dependence has not been dissolved by the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes, nor by the apostolic visitation currently under way.
Pope Leo XIV has, by all accounts, been speaking quietly with a wide range of bishops, cardinals, and communities across the ecclesial spectrum since the beginning of his pontificate. Listening alone, however, does not resolve the questions raised by liturgical restriction or by the place of tradition in the life of the Church. Recent history supports this assessment. Even under Pope Francis, audiences with traditional communities often produced similar statements. To assume that a single meeting alters this situation is to misunderstand how Rome operates.
In an age of instant interpretation, every audience is treated as a sign and every silence as a threat. Yet the Church moves slowly, often frustratingly so. Audiences are part of discernment, not its conclusion. They indicate that Rome is listening, not that it has decided.
For Catholics concerned about the future of the liturgy, realism remains a virtue. Prayer, patience, and clarity matter more than drawing conclusions from an audience that, for now, signifies presence rather than policy.
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