Michael Francis Burbidge
Michael Francis Burbidge was born on June 16, 1957, in Philadelphia, and ordained a priest of that archdiocese on May 19, 1984. An educator by training - a master's in education administration from Villanova and a doctorate in education from Immaculata University - he served as an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia from 2002 until Benedict XVI named him Bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2006. On October 4, 2016, Pope Francis appointed him the fourth Bishop of Arlington, Virginia, and he was installed that December.
Arlington was one of the most vibrant and traditional dioceses in the country, with the Traditional Latin Mass offered in twenty-one parishes, so his implementation of Traditionis Custodes became one of the most closely watched in the nation. Rather than act unilaterally he spent a year consulting the pastors of his Latin Mass parishes with canon-law and liturgy experts, and petitioned Rome for a dispensation to preserve what he could. He also chaired the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities from 2022 to 2024, through the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
His instruction of July 29, 2022, effective that September, cut the old Mass from twenty-one parishes to eight locations - only three inside a parish church - and barred the survivors from publishing their Mass times; the blow to a stronghold diocese was real, and he spoke of it as a letting go of his own will in obedience. In June 2026 he established a chaplaincy entrusted to the Fraternity of St. Peter, a partial reopening of the door he had closed.
- 2022-07-29After a year of consultation with his Latin Mass pastors and a petition to Rome, he published his instruction implementing Traditionis Custodes, effective 8 September 2022: the old Mass reduced from twenty-one parishes to eight locations, only three of them (St. John the Beloved, St. Rita, St. Anthony) inside a parish church, the other five relegated to schools and other buildings; parishes were barred from advertising the celebrations or publishing their times. Celebration ad orientem was permitted. ↗
- 2026-06He established the Chaplaincy of Our Lady of Victory, entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, bringing two FSSP priests from Front Royal to serve the faithful attached to the 1962 Missal - a partial reopening after the 2022 cuts, welcomed by traditional Catholics. ↗
Bishop Burbidge is the case that resists a simple verdict, and honesty demands we resist it too. The trad question — did he protect the old Mass or take the knife to it? — he answered, in 2022, with a knife held reluctantly. His instruction cut the Traditional Latin Mass in Arlington from twenty-one parishes to eight, pushed five of those out of their churches and into school halls, and forbade the survivors even to print their Mass times. For a diocese that was a national stronghold of the old rite, the blow was real, and the faithful who were 'devastated' by it were not wrong to grieve.
And yet the man who swung that knife did not want to. Unlike the bishops who reached for Traditionis Custodes as a long-awaited weapon, Burbidge framed his obedience without a trace of contempt for the old Mass — and his most revealing words were not about the faithful but about himself: 'The Lord is giving me an opportunity to grow in holiness, because I am letting go of my will here.' That is the language of a man executing an order he would not have written, not a partisan settling scores. He studied the law with his pastors before acting, fought Rome for a dispensation to keep eight celebrations alive, allowed them ad orientem, and in 2026 went further — establishing a chaplaincy and bringing the FSSP into the diocese to serve the very community he had been forced to constrain.
So the just verdict is a mixed one, and it should be given without spin in either direction. He contracted the old Mass and muzzled its advertisement; that cannot be waved away. But he did so as an obedient son enforcing a Roman policy, softened every edge he was permitted to soften, and has since opened a door rather than bolting it. Not a champion of Tradition — but not its enemy either. A shepherd caught between a law he was bound to obey and a flock he plainly did not wish to wound.