Down Argentine Way

LifeSiteNews today has a report about an

Argentine bishop who is closing his seminary because the seminarians refuse to accept mandatory communion in the hand.  The story can be read at Vatican backs bishop in closing down seminary over priests’ resistance to giving Communion on hand

This is clearly very disturbing and I can but wish the young men well. The closure of a seminary on such a slender pretext is deeply worrying, especially one that appears both thriving and orthodox. It does suggest a “clericalist” attitude on the part of the Bishop, the very sort of thing the present Pope so often inveighs against.

However I can see also signs of hope. Firstly that the Argentine Church has something like forty seminarians who do respect tradition, and secondly, that if the closure goes ahead and they are dispersed that they will either offer their vocations to such recognised groups as the article suggests, or, if unhindered, be a leaven in other seminaries.