I just want to say thank you for defending the traditional liturgy so nobly. It pains my heart when I hear others malign the TLM or those who attend it for misguided reasons. This article was a consolation to read.
I agree with your note that what we do in the current Church situation "seems to be a matter of personal discernment." At an earlier chapter of my journey I tried to enrich and raise up the NO parish I attended. It was very frustrating running into clerics and laypeople who didn't take things very seriously... except for their responsibility to impose that lack of seriousness on people in RCIA and the congregation. I'm not naturally very brave or thick-skinned. I'm someone who is generally more sensitive, and I'm easily influenced by the people I surround myself with. Being at this parish and trying to serve it well eventually led me to a place that was discouraged and physically nauseated. At that point my spiritual director recommended going somewhere different. I bounced around different Divine Liturgies and eventually found my way to the TLM, where I, like you, found a spiritual home and a rich heritage I didn't know was robbed from me. I still attend the NO for daily Mass out of convenience, but I drive a decent distance to go to the TLM every Sunday.
I would say that I don't attend the TLM because I'm better than anybody, but because I'm weak, easily discouraged, and easily fooled. I have found the reverence and good priests of TLM Masses to be strengthening, encouraging, enlightening, and trustworthy.
Nathan, thanks for that heartfelt comment. I, too, am weak. That is why I fell away from the faith almost entirely. I would check the box on Sundays at the local NO, but I felt nothing. Complete emptiness inside. But I have always desired God, prayed to God, and sought the truth (by way of philosophy). It was not until I encountered the TLM that I found what I never knew I was looking for. It allowed me to begin to understand the faith for the first time, and each day and week and year it seems that I uncover more and more of this inexhaustible tradition. I have received so much support in catechizing my children and such wonderful admonitions and reading recommendations from the TLM priests. It has been like a lifeboat for my family.
A charitable and articulate response. I am reminded too of the psalm “Worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness.”
In my experience, reverent Novus Ordo masses are almost always celebrated by priests who know and practice the Traditional Roman Rite. Of course, this is no coincidence. As you say, the Novus Ordo rubrics do not provide much guidance so reverent Novus Ordos are usually informed by practices from the TLM. Of course, it really shouldn’t be up to the individual priest to cobble together a reverent liturgy; the liturgy and rubrics should already dictate reverent celebration, but I’m not convinced they really do.
We currently live in an area where we can only attend TLM once a month. On most Sundays, we go to a decently reverent Novus Ordo. The priest is very sympathetic to traditionalists and may even call himself one. He offers the old rite for sacraments like Baptism and would celebrate the TLM were he not barred from it by the Bishop. He celebrates Ad Orientem and encourages kneeling for communion. He has tentatively welcomed a chant choir, though they are only allowed to sing once a month. He also told me that he was written up to the Bishop for celebrating Ad Orientem and had to travel to meet with him to explain why he was celebrating this way. This Bishop is actually thought of as friendly to Traditionalists.
Even with a traditionally minded priest, there are liturgical abuses involving the choir and the excessive use of liturgical ministers. When I spoke to the priest about inviting the chant choir to sing more often, he said there was nothing he could do because he did not want to start a war in the church. So, some days we get “Here I am to Worship/insert bad 70s hymns” and some days the Latin Chant Choir.
That’s all to say; there are so many obstacles even traditionally minded priests face in celebrating a reverent Novus Ordo. As the influence of the 70s-minded Boomers wanes, I hope this changes, but for people looking for a beautiful and reverent Mass, I believe you are correct that TLM is the best and most reliable option (with caveats for the Byzantine Liturgy and the Anglican Ordinariate).
Thanks, Amelia for your comment. It's so interesting to hear all of the stories of people across the country who are begging their priests to return some tradition to the parish. And who would love to have a TLM nearby. Yes, so often the priest's hands are tied and even the bishop's. It is really unbelievable. I do agree with you that once the influence of the Boomers wanes, we will be able to return to reverence.
We are fortunate to have a TLM less than 10 minutes from our house. It is an outpost of the FSSP nearby, which started in a tiny chapel, moved to a slightly larger chapel, and then had to find an even bigger church, which still is not big enough for the crowds it draws--primarily Spanish-speakers. They send a priest to a beautiful historic chapel in the town we live in and many travel far and wide to get here. We are fortunate to have a wonderful priest at the host church in town which owns the chapel and is Novus Ordo. This priest is incredibly friendly to the TLM community, allowing us to use the space. The Bishop is also very friendly to the TLM. During Covid, as the curtain fell, so many people flocked to the Mass. There are so many wonderful families, young couples, old folks, people from all walks of life who gather at this chapel. We count our blessings for it.
Bravo, Mrs. Finley. This is a great response to that reader! What never fails to intrigue me is how some people seem to believe we are obliged to make our nearest Novus Ordo parish better. Of course, it is something we could try, but they see it as an obligation -- as if you're being treasonous for jumping ship as it is sinking. I understand that Catholics have a duty to love and serve their parish, but, sadly, that isn't possible these days. It isn't your parish if your father doesn't take care of you, and you can't serve where you are not wanted. Certainly, it would be nice to have the local parish become traditional, but how? More people have tried before and failed. It's an uphill battle which all too often is like running on a treadmill -- you take a lot of steps, but stay in the same place. Meanwhile, you're starving spiritually, which can easily lead to one of two things: either you give in to despair that nothing is right, or you end up joining the ruling zeitgeist. The soul is too precious a thing to risk (and that still doesn't mean all trads will be saved, in case my above comment reeks of that 'elitism' your reader wrote about). I say this as someone who suffered the effects of the Novus Ordo before even becoming a young adult. I did not care about my Faith. I was lukewarm. But what I was thirsting for was reverence, beauty, and the undiluted truth. I encountered all of that in the TLM, and I thank God for it. No, I will not go back. Not ever.
Well, the "obligation" is rooted in the Church's lawful definition of a parish. Today, we are entirely used to traveling around. I grew my family up driving to the third closest parish. But really, my parish is not based on where I decide to attend, register, or send my envelopes; my parish is based on the territory where I am living. My territorial pastor has certain duties to me, etc. Sadly, this is treated as a mere legalism today.
That being said, this is not something which ought to be used as ammunition for finger-pointing. Just as many TLM people choose not to attend their parish, many NO people do the same. So this isn't an attack, but I hope that helps clarify the point about a "parish obligation" and where that might be rooted.
Thank you Father! If you are ever struggling in praying the office, Go to the top of your belltower or whatever the highest point at your church is and gaze out upon the territory of your parish, and remind yourself that you are the vanguard in trying to get all the people in it to heaven, or maybe a better analogy is the texas ranger who found himself having to stop a riot by himself, giving rise to the motto “one man for one riot” or something similar. Our Lord’s promise was that the gates of hell wouldnt stand against the Church, but remember that gates are a defensive measure. Meaning that you win when you go on offense, even against hell itself. Go conquer it!
I am re-reading Pieper's great "Leisure the Basis of Culture," and am struck again by his rooting of fruitful culture in worship: "Cut off from the worship of the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman." In my life's journey I have experienced a wide range of worship, and I believe the Divine Liturgy and TLM best represent what Pieper correctly asserts. The solidity of those two forms has never been equaled by the NO which, in thrall to human options, never seems settled.
I like Dr. Finley's article; it all make eminent sense to me. My wife and I only attend the traditional Mass offered at St. Benedict Parish in Fort Worth Texas, pastored by two FSSP priests. All masses are packed, notably the High Mass at 11:00 A.M. It is very beautiful. We are really blessed. More comparison between TLM and NO can be found in Dr. Peter Kwasniewski's Turned Around, a gem of a book.
I converted away from Catholicism for this very reason. When my husband and I were moving every two years all across the country for his job I had ample opportunity to sample many many NO parishes. My one criterion to continue attending Mass at any particular parish was that the priest acted like he actually believed that what he was handling was the body and blood of our Savior. Let me tell you, low as that bar was, it was incredibly difficult to meet.
I never tried TLM, instead finding an Eastern Orthodox Church where the liturgy and all the congregants behaved as though Christ was real and his admonitions serious. The conversion transformed my whole life. I suspect I could have had an equally meaningful experience had I tried a TLM Mass. But I know for sure that without switching to a religious fount that was capable of transforming me (for transformation is what we all need) I would have remained an unserious Christian, at sea, flailing. We CANNOT do it alone. NO leaves us essentially alone, without support, to try to grope towards a liturgical life. But in this unchristian era we cannot depend upon the forms that were handed down generation by generation before. The chain has been broken and if we want to live as Christians we must be taught and shown the way— our imaginations must be reformed in a Christian model.
It really is true that the TLM is the "gold standard" and it was Benedict XVI's liberalization of it that taught so many priests how they could better offer the Holy Sacrifice.
In this piece at Crisis Magazine, I talk about "Why Restricting the TLM Harms Every Parish Mass":
So very well stated - we my husband and I since 2021 and Traditionis Custodis have also fully committed to following the traditional way of our Church. I had always been attracted to the beauty of the TLM and honestly tried to navigate both liturgies and calendars (as are church is diocesan one which offers both) but when TC was issued I truly did a head scratch and couldn’t understand why that suppression was happening. We have a disabled daughter who can’t attend Mass and that fall I needed a second TLM for All Saints’ Day and I found it at an SSPX parish. When I went for the first time I truly couldn’t believe it. The beauty the absolute love I felt during the entire Mass - the music the rubrics the words of the prayers. It’s difficult to put in words but I was left in tears. Since then we’ve bought missals for everyone in the family and I am also so convicted by the beauty of the calendar. The way the saints are remembered and the way we as the faithful are drawn into the mystical body. That is missing in the new calendar which runs over three years instead of one. The one year calendar/missal and the TLM have such a profound effect on the human imagination. I am so grateful to God to be able to partake in this beauty to worship Him. Thank you for your beautiful and profoundly true words.
I haven’t time this morning to read your entire post, but plan to return later — just wanted to say I’m impressed you’re taking the time to respond charitably to criticism, rather than blocking the reader (as some are wont to do)!
This paragraph is prophetic: “The Novus Ordo parishes that go this way take their cues by looking back—returning to the tradition. If we abandon the old Mass, how will these Novus Ordo parishes raise the bar? Will we expect them to re-invent the traditions to which they are returning? The cultural and religious memory of those traditions are preserved in the Traditional Latin Masses that, thankfully, were never fully expunged.” Excellent post.
In NO parishes, my experience has been that it becomes more about the priest and not about the Consecration. It becomes more of a theatrical performance—-almost vaudevillian—by him, and not about the miracle that is occurring around Him.
There are wonderful NO priests to be sure, but they are constantly working to make worship more sacred and reverent because the NO itself is lacking.
Every Mass is part of the same Mass, the Mass in Heaven where the Lamb is continually presented to the Father and adored by all the Angels and Saints. You can “feel” this at a TLM, but I cannot
I agree that a movement of some sort is needed and I've long thought that it could be aided by something like renewing theism within our worldview. For example, I often reflect on whether I am merely attending church or am I invoking the help of the Living God through His Son and appealing to His real presence and mercy - am I truly offering myself to God. There is an irreconcilable difference between believing that I am a complete and self-sufficient being who chooses to attend liturgical services and believing that my daily existence is dependent upon God's will and actions. It seems like modern western minds often live under the auspices of the former. It is as though we have more faith in our own ability to provide for ourselves than we do in the actual existence of God. Ancient worship often centered around petitioning God or gods to obtain what was needed - good crops, a good spouse, a long life, being blessed with children, healing from illness, deliverance from enemies, etc.
To be sure, proper liturgies illustrate and communicate to us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is being offered to the Living God by the priest in persona Christi and on behalf of the congregation. My point is that; I think we have lost the sense that our existence is contingent on God, we are not our own, and reintegrating this into our worldview could be a very important part of any renewal that happens.
I'm writing something that perhaps, God willing, will become a book (I am serious about publishing--I have two published books out there). I think I would like to quote a chunk or two of what you have written, giving you credit, of course. You've summarized a number of my inchoate thoughts.
EDIT: I’ve written my last on this topic. I don’t think having this argument among laity outside of some sort of formal, ecclesiastical setting does anybody’s souls any good and instead foments bitterness inside the church and risks alienating people (heck I know I feel alienated right now). Please go and make your communities a better place instead of arguing with me on the internet.
Emily, thank you for taking the time to reply and I’m sorry if I end up writing another lengthy comment. I do first want to acknowledge that my accusation of uncharity was itself born out of frustration. I still think you are too critical on a very beautiful form of liturgy, but I apologise for coming out so strongly, it wasn’t necessary.
I do think you misunderstand what I mean by “spiritual elites” and I should have had the foresight to realise that elite was probably too charged of a word. What I mean is that people who prioritise finding a parish with a TLM or DL instead of a NO mass are people of great spiritual privilege. They are people who are willing to self-select into a group that prides itself on reverence and preservation of tradition even if doing so requires them to regularly inconvenience themselves. They’re willing to get in a car and drive 30 minutes instead of going to the church 5 minutes away, often requiring additional work to get their family out of the door in the morning. This isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. The TLM only community online certainly has its fair share of elitists (in the colloquial sense) and SSPX sympathisers, but I don’t mistake your position or the position of the average TLM/DL attendee for theirs.
My fundamental disagreement with you is really a chicken and the egg problem. I don’t believe that taking these reverent, beautiful ancient symbols of our faith and blindly transplanting them into a parish that isn’t reverent would fix that parish’s culture. Many of the symbols that are already in the NO masses aren’t being respected as they should be. The TLM seems more reverent because its communities are filled exclusively with reverent people. Ancient symbols are respected and honoured. But if you take these practises and lift them wholesale into a parish that doesn’t care they won’t have the same effect. The priest that lacks reverence during the consecration will still lack reverence. The poor homilist will still be a poor homilist, and the person in the back who doesn’t understand the symbols is going to see the incense as something that makes them have to wait longer to get to brunch and aggravates their asthma.
The reason why I felt you lacked the appropriate respect towards the NO mass is because you assign blame to the liturgy things that seem to be human failings in celebrating that liturgy. In my mind, the work that has to be done is in catechesis, bringing people up to value and cherish these symbols. There seems to be positive signs in this among the young generation of priests, but even if we have reverent priests we’re not going to move the needle in the churches that struggle with reverence if those parishes don’t have laity who are truly on fire with God’s love to help catechise the next generation.
I apologise again for speaking so harshly initially, the liturgy wars leave a rotten taste in my mouth and I hope that my reply here has struck a more conciliatory tone. I have actually been to a TLM, and I love that liturgical form (I’m a Latin nerd deep down), but I also adore the NO, though I acknowledge I’ve been blessed with good priests. It’s because of the good priests, however, that I don’t feel strongly about reforming the liturgy. The NO isn’t deficient we, as a church, have just done a poor job creating love for it.
Wesley, thanks for you comment. I take your points, but we will have to agree to disagree. Writing apologetics for the Latin mass is really outside of my wheelhouse, which is epistemology of the imagination, and not the main purpose of this Substack. I tried to highlight that in both of my articles. I will restate, though, that I believe that it is indeed the liturgy that is the problem, not the people celebrating the mass. They take their cues from the liturgy, the priest, the atmosphere. Just as a white-tablecloth restaurant conveys something very different from a McDonald's. People do rise to the occasion. When in Rome! I'm not naive, though. I don't think that if every NO parish were suddenly converted to TLM that everyone would suddenly change. But there would start to be a shift, and the new culture of reverence demanded by the very structure of the TLM liturgy would shift things. I'll conclude by paraphrasing what I found to be a wonderful line from Peter Kwasniewski's book Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright. There he says (and he may have been quoting someone else) that the TLM liturgy is like a warship. It was designed by geniuses so that it could be safely operated by idiots. The Novus Ordo was designed by bureaucrats and should only be operated by the saintly. I think that your positive experience in the NO is because you have had wonderful priests. I do not deny that they are out there. Many are out there, to be sure, doing God's work. But the liturgy itself matters and directs the mind and body and imagination in such a way that it leads us to certain conclusions about God, the Eucharist, truth, reverence, hierarchy, reality.
I accept that we may disagree, and I don’t need to drain any more of your time, but I think the fundamental flaw in your position is that it’s completely ahistorical. The tacit assumption is that had the liturgy remained untouched reverence would be substantially higher today than it is under the modern structure, but the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were undertaken precisely because the conciliar fathers at least had the sense that the TLM liturgy was failing to draw people into the sacred mysteries. The collapse of the Catholic faith across western Europe happened under the pre-VII Mass, not the NO. The quiet revolution in Quebec happened before the NO missals were even published. Increasing secularism has run amok since before the NO existed. Pretending that liturgical reforms would quickly revitalise the life of the church isn’t borne out by the record. People didn’t fall away because of the NO, they were falling away before it.
Yes, following the lead of your pastor matters. Absolutely people need a good example, but bad priests will still be bad if you reform the liturgy. Liturgical reform isn’t a panacea. Top down changes risk alienating people. The TLM was seen as too opaque and a missal that didn’t encourage people to pay attention to the liturgy before them (hence the people who pray the rosary during the mass, noble prayer for sure, but perhaps being engaged is better).
I’m not trying to whitewash issues of reverence, but my point is that a NO mass celebrated reverently is beautiful. A TLM celebrated reverently is beautiful. The difference is not that one liturgy is necessarily superior, it’s that a higher percentage of TLMs are celebrated reverently because the only priests that say them are priests with a strong desire to say that specific form. TLMs self-select reverent priests and reverent laity and then the attendees say, “well if every parish did things the same way mine does the Church would be better.” That doesn’t seem to be obviously true to me. What’s actually true is that if every church had your priest and had your parish’s level of reverence the Church would be better regardless of liturgy.
I appreciate the history of the TLM, I support preserving that piece of Catholic culture in some form, I’m even sympathetic to parishes including practices that they’ve fallen away from back into the mass. But a mass that fed the lives of many saints can’t be inherently deficient and I don’t think we should be rushing headlong into liturgical reforms when there’s not evidence aside from vibes that they would actually make things better given the intensity of emotions on both sides.
Nevertheless, the complaints people had before the Council look almost like a dream to us today. Rahner, for example, complained that "Catholics only go to Mass on Sundays." Nowadays, it's only the hard-core Catholics who go to Mass on Sundays at all. All the statistics have gone right down the drain since the 1960s. Not only the fault of the liturgical reform--but it certainly didn't stem the tide as predicted.
No, what you had before was a strong set of customs and associations, and when THOSE are shattered, all hell breaks loose. It was the terrible naivety of the reformers not to see this, and their naivety was caused by their rationalism. Rationalism and revolution always go hand-in-hand. This is why Edmund Burke is the right "patron saint" for Emily's argument.
You’re correct that liturgical reform didn’t stem the tide, but my objection is that it’s not obvious that undoing those reforms or unleashing a new set of reforms would either. The reforms proposed by the original piece are reforms that deeply appeal to a certain subset of Catholics who aren’t especially likely to struggle with falling away from the faith, indeed, many of these people already go to TLM or Divine Liturgy.
Again, the argument seems to go: parishes that implement these reforms do well, ergo every parish should implement these reforms, but my point is that the people who join these churches are likely self selecting and these parishes succeed because they are catering to an underserved population. The logical leap that if every parish reverted to a more ancient form or liturgy the entire church would be more faithful is simply not borne out by evidence at this point. Saying it was better then, ergo reversion would make it better again implies, without evidence ,that the falling away from the church prior to the reforms was not caused by people disliking the liturgy, but the falling away after the reforms was solely or largely due to the liturgy. I’m not sure that anybody has any evidence to support that.
I am happy to see that Peter Kwasniewski is replying, because I was going to direct you over to his Substack and to his many, many books that tackle this fraught, complex subject far better than I ever could. Let me heartily recommend reading his book Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright, which answers many objections to the TLM.
Actually, there's a quite a lot of evidence for the connection between Catholics falling away and the general insanity of the conciliar period, especially visible in the changes to the liturgy. See:
Also, it's imprecise for you to use the term "reforms" to refer to the return of something that is precisely not reformed. Unless by "reform" you simply mean "change," which is an odd way of speaking.
I do not think, with the generally unhealthy state of the Church today, that a sudden reintroduction of the TLM would make things quickly better. However, what WAS happening gradually was a slow spread of the TLM as more and more people discovered it. Had Benedict XVI's "laissez-faire" policy lasted, there would have been a gradual return of the TLM and an equally gradual traditionalizing of the Novus Ordo.
Pope Francis has shattered all of that in his petty, divisive, ideological way and set us all back possibly many more decades. We can, alas, look forward to a long Cold War until and unless a prelate of the wisdom of Benedict XVI takes the reins.
I use the word reform because the original author used the word “reform”
“General insanity of the conciliar period” is far broader than the liturgical reforms. The council was called because Pope John XXIII felt that the church was not connecting to people in a secularised world. The church was struggling before and after the conciliar period. I’m baffled at your confidence that the cause of the disaffiliation is purely liturgical reforms when there are broad trends of disaffiliation across the Christian world.
I, of course am unable to have read the book you’ve cited so quickly but to quote its amazon summary: “If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of Catholicism's crisis, might it instead be the secret to its comparative success?” Unless this is a bait and switch, it seems that this isn’t supportive of your argument. In either case, Catholicism has held up better than Protestant churches in the same time period, which would seem to indicate that liturgical changes aren’t the primary drivers of disaffiliation.
The website links you’ve included are people saying “dang, I sure miss the Latin Mass, it felt special and I think it’s better”. The rest of your reply is speculation, to which all we can say is “maybe, who knows.” Regardless, we owe Pope Francis our obedience, even if we think him to be incorrect in that matter. I will say that I’ve seen in online traditionalist communities the very things he worried about when he restricted the celebration of the TLM. The NO is a valid liturgy, it has fed the life of saints and while individuals may prefer the former mass, it should be no great burden to attend a NO Mass, even if one thinks it to be worse.
If we (for some value of "we") spent as much time teaching/encouraging people *to pray* as we currently spend writing about liturgy, it would be a far greater blow to the real enemy in this soi-disant war.
I just want to say thank you for defending the traditional liturgy so nobly. It pains my heart when I hear others malign the TLM or those who attend it for misguided reasons. This article was a consolation to read.
I agree with your note that what we do in the current Church situation "seems to be a matter of personal discernment." At an earlier chapter of my journey I tried to enrich and raise up the NO parish I attended. It was very frustrating running into clerics and laypeople who didn't take things very seriously... except for their responsibility to impose that lack of seriousness on people in RCIA and the congregation. I'm not naturally very brave or thick-skinned. I'm someone who is generally more sensitive, and I'm easily influenced by the people I surround myself with. Being at this parish and trying to serve it well eventually led me to a place that was discouraged and physically nauseated. At that point my spiritual director recommended going somewhere different. I bounced around different Divine Liturgies and eventually found my way to the TLM, where I, like you, found a spiritual home and a rich heritage I didn't know was robbed from me. I still attend the NO for daily Mass out of convenience, but I drive a decent distance to go to the TLM every Sunday.
I would say that I don't attend the TLM because I'm better than anybody, but because I'm weak, easily discouraged, and easily fooled. I have found the reverence and good priests of TLM Masses to be strengthening, encouraging, enlightening, and trustworthy.
Nathan, thanks for that heartfelt comment. I, too, am weak. That is why I fell away from the faith almost entirely. I would check the box on Sundays at the local NO, but I felt nothing. Complete emptiness inside. But I have always desired God, prayed to God, and sought the truth (by way of philosophy). It was not until I encountered the TLM that I found what I never knew I was looking for. It allowed me to begin to understand the faith for the first time, and each day and week and year it seems that I uncover more and more of this inexhaustible tradition. I have received so much support in catechizing my children and such wonderful admonitions and reading recommendations from the TLM priests. It has been like a lifeboat for my family.
A charitable and articulate response. I am reminded too of the psalm “Worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness.”
In my experience, reverent Novus Ordo masses are almost always celebrated by priests who know and practice the Traditional Roman Rite. Of course, this is no coincidence. As you say, the Novus Ordo rubrics do not provide much guidance so reverent Novus Ordos are usually informed by practices from the TLM. Of course, it really shouldn’t be up to the individual priest to cobble together a reverent liturgy; the liturgy and rubrics should already dictate reverent celebration, but I’m not convinced they really do.
We currently live in an area where we can only attend TLM once a month. On most Sundays, we go to a decently reverent Novus Ordo. The priest is very sympathetic to traditionalists and may even call himself one. He offers the old rite for sacraments like Baptism and would celebrate the TLM were he not barred from it by the Bishop. He celebrates Ad Orientem and encourages kneeling for communion. He has tentatively welcomed a chant choir, though they are only allowed to sing once a month. He also told me that he was written up to the Bishop for celebrating Ad Orientem and had to travel to meet with him to explain why he was celebrating this way. This Bishop is actually thought of as friendly to Traditionalists.
Even with a traditionally minded priest, there are liturgical abuses involving the choir and the excessive use of liturgical ministers. When I spoke to the priest about inviting the chant choir to sing more often, he said there was nothing he could do because he did not want to start a war in the church. So, some days we get “Here I am to Worship/insert bad 70s hymns” and some days the Latin Chant Choir.
That’s all to say; there are so many obstacles even traditionally minded priests face in celebrating a reverent Novus Ordo. As the influence of the 70s-minded Boomers wanes, I hope this changes, but for people looking for a beautiful and reverent Mass, I believe you are correct that TLM is the best and most reliable option (with caveats for the Byzantine Liturgy and the Anglican Ordinariate).
Thanks, Amelia for your comment. It's so interesting to hear all of the stories of people across the country who are begging their priests to return some tradition to the parish. And who would love to have a TLM nearby. Yes, so often the priest's hands are tied and even the bishop's. It is really unbelievable. I do agree with you that once the influence of the Boomers wanes, we will be able to return to reverence.
We are fortunate to have a TLM less than 10 minutes from our house. It is an outpost of the FSSP nearby, which started in a tiny chapel, moved to a slightly larger chapel, and then had to find an even bigger church, which still is not big enough for the crowds it draws--primarily Spanish-speakers. They send a priest to a beautiful historic chapel in the town we live in and many travel far and wide to get here. We are fortunate to have a wonderful priest at the host church in town which owns the chapel and is Novus Ordo. This priest is incredibly friendly to the TLM community, allowing us to use the space. The Bishop is also very friendly to the TLM. During Covid, as the curtain fell, so many people flocked to the Mass. There are so many wonderful families, young couples, old folks, people from all walks of life who gather at this chapel. We count our blessings for it.
Bravo, Mrs. Finley. This is a great response to that reader! What never fails to intrigue me is how some people seem to believe we are obliged to make our nearest Novus Ordo parish better. Of course, it is something we could try, but they see it as an obligation -- as if you're being treasonous for jumping ship as it is sinking. I understand that Catholics have a duty to love and serve their parish, but, sadly, that isn't possible these days. It isn't your parish if your father doesn't take care of you, and you can't serve where you are not wanted. Certainly, it would be nice to have the local parish become traditional, but how? More people have tried before and failed. It's an uphill battle which all too often is like running on a treadmill -- you take a lot of steps, but stay in the same place. Meanwhile, you're starving spiritually, which can easily lead to one of two things: either you give in to despair that nothing is right, or you end up joining the ruling zeitgeist. The soul is too precious a thing to risk (and that still doesn't mean all trads will be saved, in case my above comment reeks of that 'elitism' your reader wrote about). I say this as someone who suffered the effects of the Novus Ordo before even becoming a young adult. I did not care about my Faith. I was lukewarm. But what I was thirsting for was reverence, beauty, and the undiluted truth. I encountered all of that in the TLM, and I thank God for it. No, I will not go back. Not ever.
Well, the "obligation" is rooted in the Church's lawful definition of a parish. Today, we are entirely used to traveling around. I grew my family up driving to the third closest parish. But really, my parish is not based on where I decide to attend, register, or send my envelopes; my parish is based on the territory where I am living. My territorial pastor has certain duties to me, etc. Sadly, this is treated as a mere legalism today.
That being said, this is not something which ought to be used as ammunition for finger-pointing. Just as many TLM people choose not to attend their parish, many NO people do the same. So this isn't an attack, but I hope that helps clarify the point about a "parish obligation" and where that might be rooted.
Thank you Father! If you are ever struggling in praying the office, Go to the top of your belltower or whatever the highest point at your church is and gaze out upon the territory of your parish, and remind yourself that you are the vanguard in trying to get all the people in it to heaven, or maybe a better analogy is the texas ranger who found himself having to stop a riot by himself, giving rise to the motto “one man for one riot” or something similar. Our Lord’s promise was that the gates of hell wouldnt stand against the Church, but remember that gates are a defensive measure. Meaning that you win when you go on offense, even against hell itself. Go conquer it!
Yes, it does. Thank you, Father!
I am re-reading Pieper's great "Leisure the Basis of Culture," and am struck again by his rooting of fruitful culture in worship: "Cut off from the worship of the divine, leisure becomes laziness and work inhuman." In my life's journey I have experienced a wide range of worship, and I believe the Divine Liturgy and TLM best represent what Pieper correctly asserts. The solidity of those two forms has never been equaled by the NO which, in thrall to human options, never seems settled.
I like Dr. Finley's article; it all make eminent sense to me. My wife and I only attend the traditional Mass offered at St. Benedict Parish in Fort Worth Texas, pastored by two FSSP priests. All masses are packed, notably the High Mass at 11:00 A.M. It is very beautiful. We are really blessed. More comparison between TLM and NO can be found in Dr. Peter Kwasniewski's Turned Around, a gem of a book.
Dr. Kwasniewski has some wonderful books defending the TLM!
I converted away from Catholicism for this very reason. When my husband and I were moving every two years all across the country for his job I had ample opportunity to sample many many NO parishes. My one criterion to continue attending Mass at any particular parish was that the priest acted like he actually believed that what he was handling was the body and blood of our Savior. Let me tell you, low as that bar was, it was incredibly difficult to meet.
I never tried TLM, instead finding an Eastern Orthodox Church where the liturgy and all the congregants behaved as though Christ was real and his admonitions serious. The conversion transformed my whole life. I suspect I could have had an equally meaningful experience had I tried a TLM Mass. But I know for sure that without switching to a religious fount that was capable of transforming me (for transformation is what we all need) I would have remained an unserious Christian, at sea, flailing. We CANNOT do it alone. NO leaves us essentially alone, without support, to try to grope towards a liturgical life. But in this unchristian era we cannot depend upon the forms that were handed down generation by generation before. The chain has been broken and if we want to live as Christians we must be taught and shown the way— our imaginations must be reformed in a Christian model.
Thanks for another superb article.
It really is true that the TLM is the "gold standard" and it was Benedict XVI's liberalization of it that taught so many priests how they could better offer the Holy Sacrifice.
In this piece at Crisis Magazine, I talk about "Why Restricting the TLM Harms Every Parish Mass":
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/why-restricting-the-tlm-harms-every-parish-mass
So very well stated - we my husband and I since 2021 and Traditionis Custodis have also fully committed to following the traditional way of our Church. I had always been attracted to the beauty of the TLM and honestly tried to navigate both liturgies and calendars (as are church is diocesan one which offers both) but when TC was issued I truly did a head scratch and couldn’t understand why that suppression was happening. We have a disabled daughter who can’t attend Mass and that fall I needed a second TLM for All Saints’ Day and I found it at an SSPX parish. When I went for the first time I truly couldn’t believe it. The beauty the absolute love I felt during the entire Mass - the music the rubrics the words of the prayers. It’s difficult to put in words but I was left in tears. Since then we’ve bought missals for everyone in the family and I am also so convicted by the beauty of the calendar. The way the saints are remembered and the way we as the faithful are drawn into the mystical body. That is missing in the new calendar which runs over three years instead of one. The one year calendar/missal and the TLM have such a profound effect on the human imagination. I am so grateful to God to be able to partake in this beauty to worship Him. Thank you for your beautiful and profoundly true words.
Thank you for your comment! The beauty of the traditional Mass is so compelling, I agree.
I haven’t time this morning to read your entire post, but plan to return later — just wanted to say I’m impressed you’re taking the time to respond charitably to criticism, rather than blocking the reader (as some are wont to do)!
This paragraph is prophetic: “The Novus Ordo parishes that go this way take their cues by looking back—returning to the tradition. If we abandon the old Mass, how will these Novus Ordo parishes raise the bar? Will we expect them to re-invent the traditions to which they are returning? The cultural and religious memory of those traditions are preserved in the Traditional Latin Masses that, thankfully, were never fully expunged.” Excellent post.
Thank you for your excellent essay.
In NO parishes, my experience has been that it becomes more about the priest and not about the Consecration. It becomes more of a theatrical performance—-almost vaudevillian—by him, and not about the miracle that is occurring around Him.
There are wonderful NO priests to be sure, but they are constantly working to make worship more sacred and reverent because the NO itself is lacking.
https://substack.com/@frcharbelabernethy/note/c-93172753?r=brpti&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
You might like this link.
How beautiful!
Every Mass is part of the same Mass, the Mass in Heaven where the Lamb is continually presented to the Father and adored by all the Angels and Saints. You can “feel” this at a TLM, but I cannot
at a NO Mass even though each NO Mass is also part of the same Mass.
I agree that a movement of some sort is needed and I've long thought that it could be aided by something like renewing theism within our worldview. For example, I often reflect on whether I am merely attending church or am I invoking the help of the Living God through His Son and appealing to His real presence and mercy - am I truly offering myself to God. There is an irreconcilable difference between believing that I am a complete and self-sufficient being who chooses to attend liturgical services and believing that my daily existence is dependent upon God's will and actions. It seems like modern western minds often live under the auspices of the former. It is as though we have more faith in our own ability to provide for ourselves than we do in the actual existence of God. Ancient worship often centered around petitioning God or gods to obtain what was needed - good crops, a good spouse, a long life, being blessed with children, healing from illness, deliverance from enemies, etc.
To be sure, proper liturgies illustrate and communicate to us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is being offered to the Living God by the priest in persona Christi and on behalf of the congregation. My point is that; I think we have lost the sense that our existence is contingent on God, we are not our own, and reintegrating this into our worldview could be a very important part of any renewal that happens.
I'm writing something that perhaps, God willing, will become a book (I am serious about publishing--I have two published books out there). I think I would like to quote a chunk or two of what you have written, giving you credit, of course. You've summarized a number of my inchoate thoughts.
Sure!
EDIT: I’ve written my last on this topic. I don’t think having this argument among laity outside of some sort of formal, ecclesiastical setting does anybody’s souls any good and instead foments bitterness inside the church and risks alienating people (heck I know I feel alienated right now). Please go and make your communities a better place instead of arguing with me on the internet.
Emily, thank you for taking the time to reply and I’m sorry if I end up writing another lengthy comment. I do first want to acknowledge that my accusation of uncharity was itself born out of frustration. I still think you are too critical on a very beautiful form of liturgy, but I apologise for coming out so strongly, it wasn’t necessary.
I do think you misunderstand what I mean by “spiritual elites” and I should have had the foresight to realise that elite was probably too charged of a word. What I mean is that people who prioritise finding a parish with a TLM or DL instead of a NO mass are people of great spiritual privilege. They are people who are willing to self-select into a group that prides itself on reverence and preservation of tradition even if doing so requires them to regularly inconvenience themselves. They’re willing to get in a car and drive 30 minutes instead of going to the church 5 minutes away, often requiring additional work to get their family out of the door in the morning. This isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. The TLM only community online certainly has its fair share of elitists (in the colloquial sense) and SSPX sympathisers, but I don’t mistake your position or the position of the average TLM/DL attendee for theirs.
My fundamental disagreement with you is really a chicken and the egg problem. I don’t believe that taking these reverent, beautiful ancient symbols of our faith and blindly transplanting them into a parish that isn’t reverent would fix that parish’s culture. Many of the symbols that are already in the NO masses aren’t being respected as they should be. The TLM seems more reverent because its communities are filled exclusively with reverent people. Ancient symbols are respected and honoured. But if you take these practises and lift them wholesale into a parish that doesn’t care they won’t have the same effect. The priest that lacks reverence during the consecration will still lack reverence. The poor homilist will still be a poor homilist, and the person in the back who doesn’t understand the symbols is going to see the incense as something that makes them have to wait longer to get to brunch and aggravates their asthma.
The reason why I felt you lacked the appropriate respect towards the NO mass is because you assign blame to the liturgy things that seem to be human failings in celebrating that liturgy. In my mind, the work that has to be done is in catechesis, bringing people up to value and cherish these symbols. There seems to be positive signs in this among the young generation of priests, but even if we have reverent priests we’re not going to move the needle in the churches that struggle with reverence if those parishes don’t have laity who are truly on fire with God’s love to help catechise the next generation.
I apologise again for speaking so harshly initially, the liturgy wars leave a rotten taste in my mouth and I hope that my reply here has struck a more conciliatory tone. I have actually been to a TLM, and I love that liturgical form (I’m a Latin nerd deep down), but I also adore the NO, though I acknowledge I’ve been blessed with good priests. It’s because of the good priests, however, that I don’t feel strongly about reforming the liturgy. The NO isn’t deficient we, as a church, have just done a poor job creating love for it.
Wesley, thanks for you comment. I take your points, but we will have to agree to disagree. Writing apologetics for the Latin mass is really outside of my wheelhouse, which is epistemology of the imagination, and not the main purpose of this Substack. I tried to highlight that in both of my articles. I will restate, though, that I believe that it is indeed the liturgy that is the problem, not the people celebrating the mass. They take their cues from the liturgy, the priest, the atmosphere. Just as a white-tablecloth restaurant conveys something very different from a McDonald's. People do rise to the occasion. When in Rome! I'm not naive, though. I don't think that if every NO parish were suddenly converted to TLM that everyone would suddenly change. But there would start to be a shift, and the new culture of reverence demanded by the very structure of the TLM liturgy would shift things. I'll conclude by paraphrasing what I found to be a wonderful line from Peter Kwasniewski's book Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright. There he says (and he may have been quoting someone else) that the TLM liturgy is like a warship. It was designed by geniuses so that it could be safely operated by idiots. The Novus Ordo was designed by bureaucrats and should only be operated by the saintly. I think that your positive experience in the NO is because you have had wonderful priests. I do not deny that they are out there. Many are out there, to be sure, doing God's work. But the liturgy itself matters and directs the mind and body and imagination in such a way that it leads us to certain conclusions about God, the Eucharist, truth, reverence, hierarchy, reality.
I accept that we may disagree, and I don’t need to drain any more of your time, but I think the fundamental flaw in your position is that it’s completely ahistorical. The tacit assumption is that had the liturgy remained untouched reverence would be substantially higher today than it is under the modern structure, but the liturgical reforms of Vatican II were undertaken precisely because the conciliar fathers at least had the sense that the TLM liturgy was failing to draw people into the sacred mysteries. The collapse of the Catholic faith across western Europe happened under the pre-VII Mass, not the NO. The quiet revolution in Quebec happened before the NO missals were even published. Increasing secularism has run amok since before the NO existed. Pretending that liturgical reforms would quickly revitalise the life of the church isn’t borne out by the record. People didn’t fall away because of the NO, they were falling away before it.
Yes, following the lead of your pastor matters. Absolutely people need a good example, but bad priests will still be bad if you reform the liturgy. Liturgical reform isn’t a panacea. Top down changes risk alienating people. The TLM was seen as too opaque and a missal that didn’t encourage people to pay attention to the liturgy before them (hence the people who pray the rosary during the mass, noble prayer for sure, but perhaps being engaged is better).
I’m not trying to whitewash issues of reverence, but my point is that a NO mass celebrated reverently is beautiful. A TLM celebrated reverently is beautiful. The difference is not that one liturgy is necessarily superior, it’s that a higher percentage of TLMs are celebrated reverently because the only priests that say them are priests with a strong desire to say that specific form. TLMs self-select reverent priests and reverent laity and then the attendees say, “well if every parish did things the same way mine does the Church would be better.” That doesn’t seem to be obviously true to me. What’s actually true is that if every church had your priest and had your parish’s level of reverence the Church would be better regardless of liturgy.
I appreciate the history of the TLM, I support preserving that piece of Catholic culture in some form, I’m even sympathetic to parishes including practices that they’ve fallen away from back into the mass. But a mass that fed the lives of many saints can’t be inherently deficient and I don’t think we should be rushing headlong into liturgical reforms when there’s not evidence aside from vibes that they would actually make things better given the intensity of emotions on both sides.
Nevertheless, the complaints people had before the Council look almost like a dream to us today. Rahner, for example, complained that "Catholics only go to Mass on Sundays." Nowadays, it's only the hard-core Catholics who go to Mass on Sundays at all. All the statistics have gone right down the drain since the 1960s. Not only the fault of the liturgical reform--but it certainly didn't stem the tide as predicted.
No, what you had before was a strong set of customs and associations, and when THOSE are shattered, all hell breaks loose. It was the terrible naivety of the reformers not to see this, and their naivety was caused by their rationalism. Rationalism and revolution always go hand-in-hand. This is why Edmund Burke is the right "patron saint" for Emily's argument.
You’re correct that liturgical reform didn’t stem the tide, but my objection is that it’s not obvious that undoing those reforms or unleashing a new set of reforms would either. The reforms proposed by the original piece are reforms that deeply appeal to a certain subset of Catholics who aren’t especially likely to struggle with falling away from the faith, indeed, many of these people already go to TLM or Divine Liturgy.
Again, the argument seems to go: parishes that implement these reforms do well, ergo every parish should implement these reforms, but my point is that the people who join these churches are likely self selecting and these parishes succeed because they are catering to an underserved population. The logical leap that if every parish reverted to a more ancient form or liturgy the entire church would be more faithful is simply not borne out by evidence at this point. Saying it was better then, ergo reversion would make it better again implies, without evidence ,that the falling away from the church prior to the reforms was not caused by people disliking the liturgy, but the falling away after the reforms was solely or largely due to the liturgy. I’m not sure that anybody has any evidence to support that.
I am happy to see that Peter Kwasniewski is replying, because I was going to direct you over to his Substack and to his many, many books that tackle this fraught, complex subject far better than I ever could. Let me heartily recommend reading his book Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright, which answers many objections to the TLM.
Actually, there's a quite a lot of evidence for the connection between Catholics falling away and the general insanity of the conciliar period, especially visible in the changes to the liturgy. See:
https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Exodus-Catholic-Disaffiliation-Britain/dp/0198866755/
http://www.lmschairman.org/2013/06/a-sociologist-on-latin-mass.html
http://www.lmschairman.org/2013/07/the-old-mass-and-workers.html
Also, it's imprecise for you to use the term "reforms" to refer to the return of something that is precisely not reformed. Unless by "reform" you simply mean "change," which is an odd way of speaking.
I do not think, with the generally unhealthy state of the Church today, that a sudden reintroduction of the TLM would make things quickly better. However, what WAS happening gradually was a slow spread of the TLM as more and more people discovered it. Had Benedict XVI's "laissez-faire" policy lasted, there would have been a gradual return of the TLM and an equally gradual traditionalizing of the Novus Ordo.
Pope Francis has shattered all of that in his petty, divisive, ideological way and set us all back possibly many more decades. We can, alas, look forward to a long Cold War until and unless a prelate of the wisdom of Benedict XVI takes the reins.
I use the word reform because the original author used the word “reform”
“General insanity of the conciliar period” is far broader than the liturgical reforms. The council was called because Pope John XXIII felt that the church was not connecting to people in a secularised world. The church was struggling before and after the conciliar period. I’m baffled at your confidence that the cause of the disaffiliation is purely liturgical reforms when there are broad trends of disaffiliation across the Christian world.
I, of course am unable to have read the book you’ve cited so quickly but to quote its amazon summary: “If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of Catholicism's crisis, might it instead be the secret to its comparative success?” Unless this is a bait and switch, it seems that this isn’t supportive of your argument. In either case, Catholicism has held up better than Protestant churches in the same time period, which would seem to indicate that liturgical changes aren’t the primary drivers of disaffiliation.
The website links you’ve included are people saying “dang, I sure miss the Latin Mass, it felt special and I think it’s better”. The rest of your reply is speculation, to which all we can say is “maybe, who knows.” Regardless, we owe Pope Francis our obedience, even if we think him to be incorrect in that matter. I will say that I’ve seen in online traditionalist communities the very things he worried about when he restricted the celebration of the TLM. The NO is a valid liturgy, it has fed the life of saints and while individuals may prefer the former mass, it should be no great burden to attend a NO Mass, even if one thinks it to be worse.
Unpopular opinion:
If we (for some value of "we") spent as much time teaching/encouraging people *to pray* as we currently spend writing about liturgy, it would be a far greater blow to the real enemy in this soi-disant war.