About half a century ago two German ladies were pushing their prams through a park when they came across a statue of the Virgin Mary. The elder woman took out her grandson and lifted him towards the Mother of God.
“Every day,” she told her friend, “I pray that little Michael will become a priest.”
Fifty years on, that Michael, not so little anymore, is sitting in the Brompton Oratory wearing a long black soutane. Mgr Michael Schmitz has turned out, one would think, exactly as Großmutter might have hoped. There is a lot of the 1950s about him: thoroughly coiffed hair stands rigidly on his scalp, while underneath, wiry spectacles make neat rings around his eyes.
Mgr Schmitz only found out about his grandmother’s supplications to Our Lady after his ordination. Clearly the discovery still affects him profoundly. “It is all very miraculous to me,” he says in his thin yet clear German accent. “You see the hand of God so many times in the life of every priest.”
His voice calls to mind that of Benedict XVI. Indeed, Mgr Schmitz knows the Pope quite well. He was ordained by Cardinal Ratzinger in 1982 and has met the Pontiff a number of times since.
Like Pope Benedict, Mgr Schmitz has a powerful mind that shimmers through his conversation. He speaks with almost poetic precision, and his mastery of Latin informs his excellent English. 
As vicar-general of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICRSS) and Provincial Superior of its American branch, Mgr Schmitz is a well-known figure in traditionalist circles. The Institute, a rapidly expanding society of priests and seminarians, has a strong presence in France and America and is now beginning to serve in Britain.
The community represents a sort of elite corps of the growing neo-traditionalist brigade. ICRSS seminarians are thoroughly “Romanised” for eight years before their ordination and vigorously drilled in Latin and plainsong to facilitate the celebration of the Mass of 1962.
Not that Mgr Schmitz would appreciate the military allusions. “We are thoroughly unmilitant,” he insists. “The little that we have been able to achieve has been entirely through grace.”
Certainly, these are exciting times for those devoted to the Latin liturgy. It is expected that there will soon be the eagerly anticipated motu proprio to lift restrictions on the Tridentine Mass.
Yet Mgr Schmitz is not getting too excited. “Recently, we have been thinking that any day it will come,” he says. “But we may still be thinking that in 30 years’ time.”
Can we be certain, though, that the Holy Father wants this reform? “Before he became Pope,” Mgr Schmitz observes, “he offered many indications that there should be continuity. The Church cannot ban a liturgy that has been hers for the greatest part of her history.”
Mgr Schmitz suggests that the reform would be a “logical continuation” from Sacramentum Caritatis, Benedict’s recent exhortation on the majesty of the Eucharist.
In that document, the Pontiff called for better music and the wider use of Latin, both of which the Institute of Christ the King has been promoting since its foundation in 1990.
“I believe that within the text of Sacramentum Caritatis there are some hints,” Mgr Schmitz ruminates. “A return to what we call the traditional Mass would have a logical connection with this exhortation.”
But, like Oliver Twist, he wants some more. “A document alone, with the best intentions, does not create a new world or lifestyle.
“We would be even more grateful if by an official document the Holy Father would make it known that the Mass of always is still the Mass of always and has come out of the closet.”
Moreover Mgr Schmitz is very keen to point out that the revival of the traditional rite is not a matter of “turning the clock back”.
“First of all, that is a banality,” he says with Germanic aplomb. “You cannot turn back the hands of time. Secondly, Christians do not believe in a wheel of time that we turn, but in a directed time. Our philosophy of history, our theology of history is always, let us say, orientated towards something that happens now.”
Some of the faithful, however, are alarmed by the popular revival of the Old Mass.

They argue that what the “neo-trads” refer to as “the Mass of always” is in fact the product of the Middle Ages, whereas the liturgies that emerged following the Second Vatican Council are connected with the older, patristic heritage of the third or fourth centuries.
“Very well,” Mgr Schmitz returns with a hint of frustration. “This distinction between historical periods is not a Catholic thing to do. I believe that the Holy Ghost is present in every age and in every period of the Church.
“To divide the history of salvation into little drawers that you yourself label with certain qualities is a very narrow view of the history of the Church. As a matter of fact, we are not medievalists, we are not concentrated on the third century or the 17th.” Very well, but what then can we make of the last 40 years of Catholic worship? Does the Novus Ordo not also belong to this organically evolving Church? “We don’t exclude anything,” Mgr Schmitz answers gently. “We simply want to open the window, so that the wind of tradition, the good Roman Catholic tradition, can blow through into what has often become a rather stale atmosphere.”
This is hardly an extremist position, yet a large number of bishops and high-ranking priests want to keep their church windows firmly shut.
Mgr Schmitz turns diplomatic on this subject. “I don’t want to judge anyone,” he says. “But the resistance comes from the older generation. It is kind of a strange phenomenon because we have many younger people in our churches who have never seen the Latin Mass in the past. Yet they want it. 
“It seems that a generation after the Second World War has broken with its own past and now cannot understand that this past is actually the present. So the opposition comes from them.
“We notice that the younger bishops are very open. Even if they personally have no great leaning towards the traditional liturgy, they are easy-going about it.”
The situation, then, is peculiar: liberals are acting like reactionaries while conservatives speak about freedom and letting young people do what they want. It is perhaps because of this bizarre generational difference that youthful traditionalism is often confrontational in tone. Mgr Schmitz, however, is on guard against the “spirit of rebellion”.
He emphasises that humility and charity are paramount in the struggle for holy life. “St Francis de Sales says we have to cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet,” he recalls. “This is our goal, and it works.
“We should not turn the mysteries of God into weapons of ideological aggression. Obedience has always been the great challenge. If you suffer for being obedient, the graces that come afterwards are wonderful.”
Yet there are plenty of Catholics in England and Wales who would say that they have suffered quite enough.
They would like to see the Institute of Christ the King running parishes in this country, sooner rather than later.
“Everywhere I go I hear the same question,” Mgr Schmitz observes, laughing. “Why are you not here? Unfortunately, we cannot clone our priests and you cannot rush a vocation. It takes time.
“It is not that we do not want to go to England, it is just that it is technically not possible at this moment.”
Nevertheless, he concedes that if an English bishop rang up to ask the Institute to save a parish, his community would not decline the offer. “We are Italian enough – for the founder studied in Italy – to find a solution. If a bishop really wants us, whether it be in America, in Germany, or here in Britain then we will find a solution.”
This throws up a difficult question. If the Institute is willing to rescue dying parishes, why are English bishops closing hundreds of churches rather than giving the traditionists a try?
Mgr Schmitz is unwilling to be drawn into a reply. “You will forgive me,” he says. “I will not discuss such matters.” For him, the great enemy is not obstructive prelates, but division within the Church in an age of increasing godlessness.
“We seem sometimes in the Church like little tribes engaged in a useless battle with wooden swords, while behind us an atomic bomb ticks. We should turn around, throw our swords away and find a way to defuse the bomb.”