TRADITIONAL AND TLM FRIENDLY BISHOP ERIK VARDEN IS CHOSEN BY POPE LEO TO LEAD THE POPE AND VATICAN CARDINALS FOR THEIR LENTEN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

God willing, Pope Leo will make this bishop the Prefect for the Dicastery for Divine Worship! He also has celebrated the TLM! How great would that be!

Five years ago Erik Varden O.C.S.O. was consecrated the first ethnic Norwegian Bishop-Prelate of Trondheim in modern times, and the first to be consecrated in Nidaros Cathedral since the Reformation (it became a Protestant Cathedral, The Church of Norway at the Reformation).

Sileri non possum is reporting the following:

Vatican City - It will be  Msgr. Erik Varden, O.C.S.O., bishop and Trappist monk, who will preach the Lenten Spiritual Exercises for Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia. The choice, made with a view to the annual appointment that ushers in the penitential season of Lent, brings alongside the Pope a voice recognised for theological rigour, spiritual depth, and a solid monastic rootedness. There is, however, a further element to bring into focus: Varden belongs to that profile of bishops who, in recent years, have stood out for balance and for a constant appeal to the value of tradition, without indulging either in identity-based hardening or in headlong flights forward. He is a shepherd who reasons in terms of integration and not opposition, and precisely for this reason he is a man of communion.

Another source has more information:

Youth and liturgy: a search for beauty without labels

Varden recognizes that there is a renewed interest in traditional liturgy among young people of various sensibilities, although he does not consider it a uniform phenomenon or a generational conflict. For him, the key lies in the faithful celebration of the mysteries: “Do the red and say the black.” That is, follow the rubrics of the Missal and let the liturgy speak without personal additions.

He rejects the tendency to classify this phenomenon as “backward” or contrary to the Second Vatican Council. He cites the Chartres pilgrimage as an example: “The young people who attended were simply impossible to categorize… Some might go to a charismatic service on Saturday, have Mass in Latin on Sunday, and go to work with Caritas on Monday.”

Varden concludes: “As long as we keep insisting on pigeonholing people into these narrow categories, we are not going to understand what is happening.”