Excerpts of a conference given by Monsignor Schmitz- For the priests of the Institute

As you know, we are often asked what distinguishes our beloved Institute from other traditional groups. It is not difficult to identify a number of significant traits, such as, for instance, our canonial life, shown forth by our choir habit, our salesiano-benedictine spirituality, our motto – Veritatem facientes in Caritate – that we endeavour humbly to put into practice, finally, and perhaps above all, our solemn liturgy, which expresses our attachment to the great liturgical tradition of the Church.
But all of these – along with many other characteristic traits which give our Institute a common identity – are contained in the notion of romanitas. […]
The Church is not Catholic or Roman because of Rome, but Rome is the providential means which manifests the divine and universal dimension of the Catholic Church to the world. In this sense, Pope Pius XI wrote in a letter to Cardinal Gasparri at the time of the famous Concordat of the Lateran in 1929: “The universality of the Church is found already both in letter and in practice at the dawn of her existence and in the preaching of the Apostles. Thanks to the work of the Apostles and their collaborators, the Church rapidly expanded above and beyond the confines of the Roman Empire.” […]
The Church of Rome and the romanitas, of which we are presently speaking, are limited not only to the historical frontiers of the Roman Empire, but constitute a realisation of God’s plan for Catholicism, far vaster than the Empire. Thus, we know that after the conversion of the Roman Empire to Catholicism, it was the Church who upheld the romanity of the Empire and not vice versa. We must thus refute the idea that would attribute the romanity of the Church to the great number of means given her by the Roman Empire to bear Catholic culture throughout the world. […]
Thus, what Rome was never able to achieve by force of arms, she would achieve by religion; dominating the entire globe. Catholicism, the universality of Rome and romanitas find their source in the Catholic Church, founded by Our Lord, and sent to Rome that Rome might be the instrument of His victory. […]
Romanitas is not a simple characteristic of the Church amongst others, but the sum total of these characteristics. That is why all heretics have consistently attacked it, ascribing the epithet “Roman” to the Church of the Lord; thus realising instinctively that everything is contained in this mark of the Church. A famous representative of the Roman School, Fr Mariano Cardovani, thus expresses this truth: “Only he who has found and recognised the true Church can understand that she is Roman. That is why romanitas is more than a simple means of research, it is a result, a conquest, and cannot be taken as a point of departure.” […]
We can underline the apostolicity of the Church, we can prove her unity, her catholicity and thus establish where the true Church of the Lord is to be found; but all of these things, owing to our faith in the Church, are united in the concept of romanitas. […]
And it is for this very reason that even those who refer to themselves as “traditional”, as soon as they undergo a weakening of their faith in the divinity of the Church, will begin to have difficulties with her romanity. I am not referring here to overt Gallicanism or Febronianism, but to the subtleties of those who mistrust Rome, who desire to change her style, those whose human weaknesses go against the great Roman spirit and tradition, who have a difficult relation with the papacy, because the latter is not sufficiently German, or American, or French… All of these things show forth a weakening of faith in the Church as this faith should guide us to a romanitas, the realisation of God for His Church. […]
As Monsignor Wach has always said, the charism of the Institute can be expressed as the pursuit of grandeur in the service of the Church. Grandeur – the liturgy and the life of the Church of Rome – is the gift of God that our founder had the spiritual prescience to welcome.
“Think big”. We need to think big; we need to acquire a loftiness of the spirit, which will enable us to breath with divine lungs. God’s universality and omnipresence live in the Catholicity of the Church.
This grandeur, which comes not from us, must never leave us. We must grow in catholicity, in personal grandeur; not in considering ourselves to be great, but in accepting this greatness as a gift of God’s grace. There is thus no room for attachment to small or petty things, no room for jealousy between one another, nor for politics in our apostolates. […]

The Institute teaches us to have great souls, open to God’s inestimable grace, filled with the great truths of the Faith, rejoicing in the beauty of solemn liturgy, in sacred music and in art as the reflection of the divine. We must have a noble and generous life-style, not thinking of ourselves, but of the Church’s goal to bring Heaven to earth, and to carry all things heavenwards.