På nettsidene til foreningen Windsor Latin Mass leste jeg også (pdf-fil) om Michael Davis, som i mange år hadde kjempet for at den tradisjonelle latinske messen måtte brukes mer – før han døde i 2004. Vi kan bl.a. lese om forholdet mellom Davis og kardinal Ratzinger:
After retiring from teaching in 1992, he was in 1995 appointed President of the International Federation Una Voce, the world’s largest advocacy group for matters pertaining to the Tridentine Mass. … In this leadership role, Davies spent the last years of his life traveling, giving speeches, and continuing to write, becoming the world’s top lay advocate of the Extraordinary Form.
Davies took the interesting path of having defended the positions of both then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Many Catholics find the latter’s actions grossly imprudent and disobedient. Some traditionalists did not believe the former had been acting aggressively enough to advocate the traditional liturgical views His Eminence expressed in his writings. Davies would have been more than interested to learn that the former Cardinal Ratzinger, in his new capacity as Supreme Pontiff, is pursuing reconciliation with Lefebvre’s organization.
Largely through his work with Una Voce, Davies had met several times with our present Holy Father. Indeed, Davies memorably shared the stage with Cardinal Ratzinger in Rome in 1998 at the event commemorating the tenth anniversary of both the Motu Proprio Ecclésia Dei Adflícta and the founding of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. It was at this event that His Eminence made the now-famous statement that we would have to wait for a “new generation of prelates” before a “juridic” solution freeing the Tridentine Mass would be enacted. That statement was rather depressing for many who believed Cardinal Ratzinger to be the most likely member of the Curia to pursue such legislation. After the event, Davies assured skeptics that His Eminence would push for such legislation if it were possible. In 2007, Davies was vindicated when the now-Holy Father issued his Motu Proprio, Summórum Pontíficum, allowing any priest to celebrate the Tridentine Mass on his own volition.
Cardinal Ratzinger made a kind statement upon Davies’ passing. With his advanced theological and liturgical knowledge, and understanding of Vatican politics, it is telling that the now-Pope Benedict XVI saw value in Davies’ writings and work. …