Abbé Philippe Laguérie, on his blog responds to a reader question about the situation in Niafles, France. Fr. Laguérie provides some context of the situation in some of his comments.
What follows is an excerpted, unofficial translation from the original French:
The situation in Niafles
4th June 2007 22:02, by Fr Philippe Laguérie
"In order to understand the situation in Niafles, one has to look at its history. When Fr Chéhère, parish priest of Niafles and faithful to the traditional Mass, died, Mgr Maillard very wisely accepted that a priest of the FSSP, Fr Loddé, should replace him. It was a magnanimous gesture worthy of admiration. It was then that the... socialist mayor of the village, whose obvious direct involvement in the choice of rite of the parochial Mass everyone can see, and who is therefore nicknamed Pépone for 25 km around, went to complain to the bishop of Laval that there was far too much Latin in the region! ...
"Nevertheless, the fact remains that the bishop of Laval, very courageous up to then, believed he had to give in to the pressure of his clergy and of this insignificant mayor to bring to an end Fr Loddé's Masses.
[...]
"...all sorts of negotiators try to convince the sympathetic bishop of Laval to give them a church."
The portrait painted here is of a bishop who is not of ill intent, but simply who has 'caved' to some external and internal pressures. Let's pray for the bishop and also for a resolution to this.
While we are at it, let's also pray for those who do not have a great acceptance and tolerance of the liturgical tradition of the Church. Attitudes of liturgical rupture see both the traditional Roman liturgy and traditional liturgics generally (as expressed in a reform of the reform) as rather intolerable and marginalizable. As we proceed in this time of growing openness to our tradition, we shall also see, concurrently, a time of heightened opposition. (For example, we have seen such opposition here in statements made by the Bishop of Stockton.) Take sorrow, on the one hand, that such attitudes exist at all, but on the other, take heart in the fact that it is precisely a sign of the significantly positive times upon which we are embarking that we see these things expressed.
In that regard, this might be a good time to pick up Adoremus' Novena for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy and pray it for this general intention, bearing in mind as well the situation of the parishioners of Niafles and bishop of Laval.