Latin mass revives in the US despite Pope Francis’ disapproval

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Eric Agustin’s eight children used to call the first day of the week “Party Sunday.” The family would wake up, attend a short morning Mass at a parish close by, then return for lunch and spend a relaxed afternoon watching football.

But this year they made a big change. At the sanctuary of St. Joseph, their new parish, the liturgy is ornate, precisely choreographed, and conducted entirely in Latin. The family drives an hour to attend a service that starts at 11 am and can last nearly two hours.

The traditional Latin Mass, an old form of worship that Pope Francis tried to discourage, is having a revival in the United States: It attracts a mix of aesthetic traditionalists, young families, new converts and pope critics. And its resurgence, fueled by the pandemic, is part of a growing right-wing trend in American Christianity.

The Latin Mass sparked widespread discussion in the US Catholic Church not just about songs and prayers, but also about the future of Catholicism and its role in culture and politics. Adherents tend to be socially conservative and traditionally minded. Some, like the Agustin family, are drawn to the beauty, the symbolism, and what they describe as a form of reverent worship.

Others were drawn to new right-wing community rhetoric they encountered in online groups. They see the pope’s attempt to curb the Latin Mass as an example of the dangers of a world breaking away from Western religious values.

The traditional Mass, the “extraordinary form”, was celebrated for centuries until the Second Vatican Council’s transformations in the 1960s, which were intended in part to make the rite more accessible. After him, Mass could be celebrated in any language, contemporary music entered many parishes, and priests turned to people in pews.

But the cult in Latin never entirely disappeared. Though it represents a fraction of what is held in the 17,000 parishes across the US, it is thriving. The country now appears to have at least 600 traditional Mass venues, the most of any nation.

The growth takes place as Francis represses the model, establishing new rigid limits to the rite. His predecessor Benedict XVI expanded access to the old Mass, but Francis has characterized it as a source of division in the church and said it is often associated with a broader rejection of the aims of the Second Vatican Council.

The split over the old Mass represents a clash of priorities and power struggles in church leadership. In parishes it is more complicated. Many Catholics say they are drawn to Mass for spiritual reasons, supported by aesthetic and liturgical preferences, not partisanship. “There’s a reverence on a more advanced level,” says Agustin.

Dozens of large families and young people have flocked to the shrine of St. Joseph since it began regularly offering the traditional Latin Mass in 2016. A historically German parish, with a 19th-century building that once struggled to pay for energy consumption, is now full of people.

High Mass on Sundays begins with holy water strewn across the aisle, plumes of incense and the sounds of bells, a pipe organ and Gregorian chant. Men usually wear a suit and tie, and most women wear skirts and lace veils on their heads.

Supported by the demand for an intense religious experience, many supporters of the Latin Mass seek a return not only to ancient rituals, but to social values ​​and gender roles. Here, the rigorous is not a barrier, but an attraction that connects believers to a long history of spiritual clarity, which they see as a stark contrast to the modern church.

Covid has accelerated the divide as mainstream parishes have generally been closed longer, prompting some Catholics to look for new locations. Many say they discovered traditionalist podcasters and influencers that led them to the oldest mass.

While Catholics as a whole are a politically diverse group in the US, regular Mass-goers tend to be more conservative: 63% of those who attend Mass at least monthly supported Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, compared with 53% of respondents less frequent, according to the Pew institute.

Informal surveys have found that those who attend Mass in Latin not only go to church more often, but also hold mostly conservative views on issues such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

On a Sunday in October, before 300 people, the Reverend Canon JB Commins, 33, read before Mass an ad by Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit urging Catholics to act to defeat an electoral amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the US Constitution. state. The election would approve the measure.

Political and theological conservatives see Francis’ restriction of the Latin Mass as a worrying disregard for orthodoxy in general.

Since Francis became pope in 2013, he has emphasized inclusivity and tried to soften the church’s approach to hot spots like abortion and homosexuality. He also published a major encyclical on environmental stewardship, prayed for immigrants, and nominated women for historically important roles.

The 2021 document “Traditionis Custodes”, comparable to an executive order, delimited where and when the ancient mass can be celebrated. And this year, he further outraged traditionalists with a new document clarifying that tensions over the Mass are more than a matter of taste.

“I don’t see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — although I am surprised that a Catholic thinks about not doing so — and at the same time not accepting the liturgical reform,” he wrote.

The repression fueled what some call liturgical wars. “A whole view of the church and what it means to be Christian and Catholic is at stake,” says John Baldovin, a priest and professor of theology in Boston. “You can’t say it’s just about a beautiful mass.”

The conflict is particularly fierce in the US, where conservatives dominate the bishops’ conference and critics and media regularly challenge Francis’ leadership. At a conference in Pittsburgh, critics of the pope presented three “articles of resistance” against the Vatican and its current leadership. His main objection was the “Traditionis Custodes”, called an “act of religious discrimination”.

Some bishops, including those in Chicago and Washington, drastically reduced offering traditional Latin Masses this year. In Detroit, Vigneron allowed her to flourish unhindered.

In Old St. Mary’s, a 19th-century parish church in the touristy Greektown district, about 150 people gather for the monthly Latin Mass, accompanied by a Gregorian choir. Congregants kneel and murmur prayers. When it is time to receive the Eucharist, they follow in silence.

The service “reveals the true Catholics,” says Kristin Kopy, 41, after the service. Her husband works for Church Militant, a far-right website that criticizes homosexuality, restrictions to contain Covid and Pope Francis.

Kopy has a two-week-old daughter, Philomena, and older ones. She and her husband have been attending Latin Mass for six years and felt something was missing from the church experience. “I don’t speak Latin,” she says. “But it sounds like you’re connecting more with God.”

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