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Extraordinary anniversary
Latin Mass gains fans in year since 'motu'
By Andrew Junker, ajunker@catholicsun.org
July 18, 2008
PEORIA — Timmy Ruane, an 11-year old student at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Glendale, was nervous the morning of July 7.
Though he had been practicing for weeks prior, that morning was the first time he’d be serving a Tridentine Rite Mass by himself. He walked out of the sacristy of St. Charles Borromeo Parish with Fr. Loren Gonzales at eight o’clock sharp, knelt before the altar and began reciting the Latin responses to the priest’s prayers.
“It was challenging and hard,” Ruane said after the Mass. “But I love it. I think it’s very beautiful.”
Ruane had just started serving an English language Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help a little less than a year ago when he and his father read in The Catholic Sun that St. Charles Borromeo was adding a Tridentine, or extraordinary form of the Mass, to its schedule.
“It was his idea,” said Tom Ruane, Timmy’s father. “He thought coming to the Latin Mass would help his understanding of the English one. He takes his spiritual life very seriously for an 11-year-old.”
It was a wonderful scene for the one-year anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, the document that liberalized use of the extraordinary form of the Mass, Fr. Gonzales said. And it exemplified the slow but steady progress the Latin-language Mass has made in the past year.
Fr. Gonzales, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo, began offering the extraordinary form on Friday mornings last September. After a few months, he received enough encouragement from his parishioners to add the Mass to each weekday. Between five and 20 people attend daily.
“I remember the Mass from my youth and if I really reflect well on my vocation, I can say that I heard the call during my youth at a Latin Mass,” Fr. Gonzales said. “It certainly brings me full circle to that moment.”
And while he admitted that there was initial resistance from some parishioners, he made sure to schedule the extraordinary form in a way that wouldn’t affect the other Masses.
“We’ve heard the criticism, that this is a turning back, but I see it as a sign of our continuation in faith,” he said. “If we see what we do in an historical context, then I think it’s better understood, and it’s bound to grow.”
One year later
On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, an apostolic document called a motu proprio, which indicates that it came from the pope’s own initiative.
Before the document was released, priests needed permission from their bishops to offer the extraordinary form of the Mass.
Now, any priest may choose either form of the Roman Rite when celebrating a private Mass and any faithful who asks to attend these private Masses is to be admitted. The priest, however, must be properly trained in this form of the Mass.
If a “stable group” of parishioners — no required number is mentioned — asks that the extraordinary form of the Mass be celebrated regularly at their parish, “let the pastor willingly accede to their requests,” the document reads.
But do Catholics really desire the older form of the Mass?
Michael Dunnigan, president of Una Voce America, a lay organization that supports the extraordinary form of the Mass, said they do. And while there might not have been a stampede of Catholics to Latin Masses in the past year, the growth has been appreciable.
Pre-Summorum Pontificum, there were about 107 dioceses in the United States that allowed a Tridentine Mass to be celebrated on Sundays. Now, about 145 dioceses offer it.
Likewise, a few months before the motu proprio came out, there were about 210 total extraordinary form Masses offered in America on any given Sunday. Now, there are more than 300.
In the Diocese of Phoenix, the traditional Latin Mass is offered by Mater Misericordiae Mission everyday of the week, by Fr. Gonzales at St. Charles Borromeo, and by Fr. Alonso Saenz at St. Catherine of Siena Parish.
Mater Misericordiae — which celebrates Mass mainly at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish — has about 150 registered families and is raising money so it can build its own church.
This is a good thing, Dunnigan said, because it shows that the extraordinary form of the Mass is slowly being integrated into diocesan liturgical life, which he sees as a goal of Summorum Pontificum.
“I think one way to understand the motu proprio would be as a healing document in several senses,” Dunnigan said. “I think the Holy Father is interested in healing the rupture that we have in our history. He’s trying to incorporate the traditional Mass, not just have it be tolerated, but have it be a normal part of the Church’s life.”
By having both forms of the Mass offered in parishes, the hope is to bridge the Church’s history since the Second Vatican Council with the rest of its history, Dunnigan said.
“We hear a lot of people described as pre- or post-Vatican II. I think the pope wants to get past that,” he said. “Why can’t you be both? I think there’s a value to having the extraordinary form available even if there aren’t thousands and thousands of people coming.”
Fr. Kenneth Fryar, FSSP, pastor of Mater Misericordiae, said it’s important to understand the pope’s desire in making available the extraordinary form of the Mass.
“We need to ask why the Holy Father wants the extraordinary form in parishes,” he said. “He wants to maintain the historical treasures of the Church in the living form, not just on the shelf somewhere like in a museum.”
That’s what he hopes more and more people will discover. It’s what drew Kathleen Clark to the Catholic Church more than 30 years ago.
“I think it’s a beautiful Mass. I love the solemnity of it,” the convert and Mater Misericordiae member said. “I guess people think it’s irrelevant and old fashioned or pre-Vatican II, but that hasn’t been my experience of it.”
This interpretation is very important to Fr. Gonzales in the way he celebrates Mass.
“Our worship is not just of the last 40 years, but is continuous and handed down to us in essentials since the Apostles,” he said. Celebrating both forms of the Mass “is a sign of our continuation in our faith. I feel that Pope Benedict has shown us both in word and example this continuity.”
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