I wondered whether I should write this post, but it seems weird to have something this big happen without mentioning it, so I might as well. I had a private audience with the pope for about a half hour to talk about my Traditional Latin Mass research that will be coming out with a book from Oxford University Press this November or so.

While there are a lot of people who would love to present their research to the pope, this article has a decent summary of why this particular topic is germane to decisions that Pope Leo XIV will be making in regards to the TLM. Basically, Catholics who prefer the TLM have been associated with anti-Vatican II schismatic groups like SSPX, and in part because of this different popes have handled TLM Catholics in various ways, but we did the first significant, comprehensive study on what the TLM parishioners in the pews actually think about Vatican II and related issues.

My coauthor and I decided to not give details publicly about the audience and what the Holy Father said, but yes, my religious affiliation and the fact that I was not Catholic came up naturally in the introductions (since when talking about a controversial in-house issue it’s nice to know that the presenter isn’t a partisan), and it was a very enjoyable and lovely discussion.