Photo by Miguel Patag (photo of St. Monica-St. George Parish in Cincinnati)
The author has reprinted portions of a letter he wrote to his local Catholic bishop in Ohio shortly before Pope Francis’s promulgation of Traditionis Custodes. The letter has been edited to remove certain location-related details.
I am writing to you to express my love for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and to share my experience with it. I would also like to say some words about the growth that this form of the Mass has experienced and the fruits that have come out of this growth.
My devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass grew out of my love for the Mass in the Ordinary Form, as I had only ever attended the Ordinary Form growing up. I became familiar with the Latin Mass during my sophomore year of high school. I learned to serve Low Mass on Tuesday mornings before school. The group that taught me to serve also gave me opportunities to serve the Ordinary Form for the first time. During college, I was able to serve High Masses on Sundays at a local parish run by the Cincinnati Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
During one High Mass I was serving in college, while one of the Propers was being beautifully chanted, I considered how blessed I was to be able to attend the Traditional Latin Mass, with all its history and richness. I thought how difficult it must have been for a portion of the faithful during the decades following the Second Vatican Council when they received little access to this form of the Mass that they had known and loved their whole lives. During those years, Catholics attached to the Latin Mass often felt excluded and ostracized. Despite the challenges these communities have faced, devotion and access to the Latin Mass has grown significantly across the US and the world. It is common that families, often with several small children, will drive a great distance (even an hour or more each way) to attend the Extraordinary Form.
The Extraordinary Form, or “Tridentine Mass,” has shown strong fruits among attendees, which indicate its powerful ability to cultivate Catholic faith and morals. Between 2019 and 2020, Fr. Donald Kloster from Connecticut conducted a survey of 1,779 TLM-attending individuals between the ages of 18-39. 98% of the respondents reported attending Mass every Sunday; 80% said they had considered a priestly or religious vocation. When asked what led them to the TLM, the responses were: reverence (35%), parents (16%), friends (13%), curiosity (12%), solemnity (8%), other (8%), spouse (5%), and music (3%). The same priest also conducted a survey in 2018, which received around 1,300 responses, to survey TLM-attending Catholics on the same topics that have been asked of Catholics in more generalized studies by groups like Pew Research and CARA. While 89% of Catholics, in general, approve of contraception (Pew Research), Kloster’s survey showed that only 2% of TLM-attending Catholics did. Approval of abortion was at 1% among the TLM attendees (Kloster), versus 51% for Catholics overall (Pew Research). He found that 98% of TLM-attending Catholics went to Confession annually and Mass weekly, compared to 25% of Catholics in general (CARA). Kloster found that TLM attendees donated 6% of their income, versus 1.2% among Catholics overall (CatholicPhilly.com). According to LaCroix, 20% of priestly ordinations in France in 2018 came from “traditional or classical orders or societies.” As of 2020, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), which exclusively offers the Traditional Rites, had 162 seminarians and 12 transitional deacons for the order of 330 priests.
Speaking for myself, my devotion to the Eucharist has grown stronger because of the Extraordinary Form. This Mass has developed my love for sacred music, sacred architecture, the liturgical calendar, the Divine Office / Liturgy of the Hours, and Church history. It has led me to take interest in the topics of liturgical reform and the Second Vatican Council. Notably, it has also led me to deepen my knowledge and appreciation of the Ordinary Form, especially through listening to a podcast by, and attending a conference at, the Liturgical Institute of Mundelein Seminary.
I have found that multitudes of young people are drawn to the Latin Mass. The Sunday Latin Masses I have attended are full of young families and children. For the last couple of years, I’ve been part of a local Catholic young adult group. I recently took an anonymous poll in the group’s group chat asking how people viewed the Latin Mass. Out of 33 responses, 19 selected “favorable,” 13 selected “neutral,” and 1 selected “unfavorable.” I replicated this poll in a few other group chats of young Catholics I am in (the groups are not related to the Latin Mass). At the University of Cincinnati Newman Center, the newly ordained parochial vicar introduced occasional TLMs during this past school year. I put the poll in the UC Newman Center group chat, and out of 37 responses, 34 selected “favorable” or “neutral.” Out of 24 responses in a group chat for Catholics at Ohio State University, 22 selected “favorable” or “neutral.” Out of these three polls and two others (of the same poll) in group chats consisting of young Catholics from around the country and beyond, I received 153 responses. In total, 54% selected “favorable,” 42% selected “neutral,” and 4% selected “unfavorable.”
Recently, I was talking to a friend at the young adult group. He mentioned that he would love it if the parish where the group is located introduced a Latin Mass, but that he had never attended one. Despite never having attended a Latin Mass, he was aware of its beauty and reverence and had a strong desire to become familiar with it. Another friend in the group recently told me that his pastor and he are planning to start a TLM at their parish. Speaking for myself and many others, we are drawn to the beauty, reverence, transcendence, and solemnity of the Traditional Latin Mass. For us, the Latin Mass powerfully expresses the truth of what the Mass and the Eucharist truly are. We love the universality of the Latin Mass, its development under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit from the earliest centuries of the Church, and its role in nourishing the great saints of the Church’s history. The rich signs and symbols point to the countless truths of Our Lord, the Liturgy, the Eucharist, and the Church as the Body of Christ. We find ourselves spiritually enriched by aspects like Gregorian Chant, the Mass being sung/chanted, the Latin language, ad orientem worship, and Communion received on the tongue while kneeling. These characteristics are permissible in the Ordinary Form, but uncommon.
We take seriously the words of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, which stated, “[T]he sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully acknowledged rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way” (Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶4). Many of us young people felt a sense of confusion when we first learned of the Tridentine Mass. I wondered why no one had told me more about the Mass that existed for almost the entirety of the Roman Rite’s history, and that people still living grew up with. I felt that I had missed out on something incredible and spiritually profound. I come across many people who desire to learn about the history of liturgical reform and to rediscover the Traditional Latin Mass. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer and to give them their proper place” (“Letter to the Bishops Accompanying Summorum Pontificum,” July 7, 2007).
I am grateful to Our Lord, Your Excellency, and the previous bishops of this diocese that we have good access to the “Mass of the Ages” in our Diocese. I have had the opportunity to attend the TLM at several parishes in the diocese, including for a few special occasions. I pray that this access continues and grows and that the permissions given by Pope Benedict XVI in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum may continue. I pray that one day there will also be closer access in our diocese for those like me who live farther out in the suburbs, and for those who live in counties further away from the diocese’s urban center.
Your Excellency, I humbly ask that you continue to permit the Extraordinary Form to flourish in our diocese and that you support its growth and those members of the faithful who are attached to it. I am so thankful for your episcopal ministry and the amazing priests and lay leaders we have in our diocese. I greatly appreciate your taking the time to read this letter, which you may share with others as you desire.
Follow this author on Twitter: @16heintel
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