Parishes are the center of Catholics’ faith lives — where they celebrate Mass every week, participate in ministries and celebrate sacraments, including weddings and funerals. Now the form of worship that some feel drawn to will be relegated to locations outside those central spaces. As a result, hundreds of Catholics who attend the Latin Mass at half a dozen parishes in one of the nation’s most visible archdioceses will be forced to either find a new place to do so or worship differently.
The change follows a ruling last year in which Pope Francis severely limited the use of the old rite, in a move he said was meant to increase global unity among the faithful. He suggested then that those who preferred the Latin Mass were using it to reinforce ideological divisions within the church.
Gregory said Friday that he had not found that to be the case in the Washington region.
“I have discovered that the majority of the faithful who participate in these liturgical celebrations in the Archdiocese of Washington are sincere, faith-filled and well-meaning,” he wrote. “Likewise, the majority of priests who celebrate these liturgies are doing their very best to respond pastorally to the needs of the faithful.”
The new guidelines are an attempt to abide by Francis’s ruling while continuing to provide for Catholics who find beauty and tradition in the old form of the Mass, Gregory said.
Other dioceses have taken similar steps: The Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the nation’s largest, placed limits on where the Latin Mass can be celebrated and required priests who have been celebrating the old rite to request permission to continue to do so. Cincinnati’s archdiocese relegated the Latin Mass to four non-parish locations. The Archdiocese of Denver allowed parishes that were already celebrating the old rite to continue to do so but said two seminaries would no longer train priests in the old Latin Mass.
Some Washington-area Catholics view Gregory’s decision as a slap in the face. Kenneth Wolfe, who has attended the Latin Mass in Washington for more than two decades, said the decision does nothing to bring together the region’s faithful.
“There can be no unity when the cardinal fires the first shot and everybody then is expected to drive from wherever they were, at a parish, to a location that’s nowhere near them,” he said before the decree was released. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Under the new rules, the Latin Mass — also known as the Tridentine Mass — can be celebrated only at the chapel at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Forest Glen, Md., the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America in Northeast Washington and St. Dominic Mission Church in Aquasco, Md.
Masses on Christmas and Easter, as well as sacraments including weddings and baptisms, must also use the modern form. The new rules will be reevaluated in three years, Gregory wrote.
The elimination of the Latin Mass from parishes could have financial ramifications. In a letter to Gregory in May, the Rev. Vincent De Rosa said his parish, Saint Mary Mother of God in the District’s Chinatown neighborhood, would struggle to survive if its Latin Mass parishioners left and took their donations elsewhere.
“To lose half our population overnight would put our finances at least $130K in the red, crush our volunteer base and seriously hamper our ability to proclaim Christ here,” he wrote.
Most Catholics attend the modern form of the Mass, which is celebrated in the local language. But a small number of traditionalists are intensely devoted to the Latin Mass, which was dominant before the 1960s.
For some, celebrating the old rite is a form of protesting what they see as the church’s liberalization since the Second Vatican Council and particularly during Francis’s papacy. Others say they find the Latin Mass rich with tradition and are drawn to its history over more than a millennium.
Gregory said he listened to the concerns of Catholics who attend the Latin Mass during listening sessions for the church’s worldwide synod over the past several months and has asked archdiocesan offices to provide pastoral outreach to them. He noted that those Catholics can attend Masses in the modern rite that incorporate elements common to the Latin Mass, including Gregorian chant, incense and long periods of silence.
That allowance is little comfort to Patrick Lally, who has attended the Latin Mass at Saint Mary Mother of God for more than three decades. To him, the old rite is not a form of protest, but a way of connecting to Catholicism’s ancient tradition and finding spiritual fulfillment.
“When I go to Latin Mass, I know that I’m celebrating the Mass that my grandparents celebrated, my great-grandparents celebrated and that my ancestors celebrated back into time immemorial,” Lally said. “And I feel like I’m with them.”
Before the decree’s publication, parishioners at Saint Mary mounted a long and passionate campaign to persuade Gregory to let the Latin Mass continue in parishes. They wrote letters, spoke in synodal listening sessions and invited the cardinal to visit their church. Gregory’s staff replied that his schedule would not allow him to come, according to a copy of an email exchange viewed by The Washington Post.
Lally vowed Friday to continue participating in ministries at his parish but said he plans to attend the old rite elsewhere — an arrangement that he expects to decrease the fullness of his worship. He said Gregory’s decision comes as deeply unfortunate news to the region’s Latin Mass community.
“We’re going through hell on this one,” Lally said. “This is really tough.”
Credit: Source link
