Because perhaps all of these rumors are for naught. Or it just won’t be a big deal.

But if something is up with the Tridentine liturgy (Pian rite? 1962 Missal? What am I supposed to call this? I never know. Someone always corrects you no matter what you say), I’m going to be full of questions for Vatican journalists. Hey. What did you know and when did you know it? Did you know anything?  How did they get you to keep quiet? With all of the leaks about the instruction on formation, the dead silence on this is just odd.

And if something does come down, something that is going to have this effect, it’s going to be newsworthy, and it will be interesting to see the secular media scrambling, wondering where this came from, when the Catholic blogs have been teeming with speculation for weeks.

Since I have no way of knowing what’s happening, if anything, I can’t predict reactions, but I’m just going to guess that this will be a bigger deal than some other predict. It goes beyond the minority of Catholics who are interested in attending a Tridentine rite liturgy. The moment, depending on what is said, will be deeply threatening to a lot of people, in the same way the release of the Catechism was. In a story I’ve related before ad nauseam, I was in a meeting before e Catechism was released in which a bishop said, "We’ve got to be careful who gets their hands on this. It’s not for everyone. We don’t want people getting it and comparing our programs to it."

Yeah.

(Oh, and the Compendium? 50,000 copies so far)