There has been almost no coverage anywhere in the mainstream press about an extraordinary event that occurred on October 18th in St. Peter’s Basilica — the celebration by Archbishop Raymond Burke, head of the Apostolic Signature, of the first High Mass according to the old Latin rite in St. Peter’s Basilica in 40 years, since 1969.

And because of that lack of press coverage, the old Mass, that “mysterious tapestry of texts and actions,” as Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) once termed it — sometimes illogical, sometimes jumbled, but nevertheless always wonderful — returned to St. Peter’s Basilica after 40 years without any special notice at all, almost, as it were, silently, almost like “a thief in the night.”

The chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament, which is on the right side of St. Peter’s Basilica, was filled to overflowing by the time the Mass began at just after 9:30 am.