For centuries, Catholics around the world attended the celebration of what is often called the Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and was more recently called the Extraordinary Form of the Mass by the late Pope Benedict XVI. The English author and Catholic convert Evelyn Waugh wrote, shortly before the liturgical reforms promulgated by the Second Vatican Council, of the TLM’s influence on generations of Saints and martyrs. “This was the Mass for whose restoration the Elizabethan martyrs had gone to the scaffold. Saint Augustine, St. Thomas à Becket, St. Thomas More, Challoner and Newman would have been perfectly at their ease among us; were, in fact, present there with us,” Waugh wrote. “Their presence would not have been more palpable had we been making the responses aloud in the modern fashion.”
Francis’s decisions have empowered modernist bishops to ban priests from celebrating the TLM.
While the TLM was quietly carried on by a minority of Catholic priests following the late 1960s, when the Novus Ordo missale became the new standard for the Catholic liturgy, it experienced something of a renaissance in 2007, when Benedict XVI liberalized the celebration of the old Mass with his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. In 2021, however, the late Pope Francis issued his own controversial motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes, largely restricting the celebration of the TLM that so many had come to know and love over the previous decade-and-a-half.
Many of those devoted to the TLM wondered why such a reverent and revered gem from the Church’s liturgical treasury would be snatched away from them. For many, the TLM was a uniquely mystical experience, shaping or reshaping body, mind, and soul to contemplate Christ and to place themselves in His presence. In fact, a recent study in the Catholic Social Science Review confirmed that more traditional liturgical practices, including receiving the Eucharist on the tongue, the ringing of consecration bells, and the celebration of the TLM, all serve to foster a more fervent belief in Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist, a core tenet of the Catholic Faith.
The study asked participants — English-speaking adult Catholics in the U.S. — to rate their belief in the true presence on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 corresponding to a belief that “bread and wine are symbols of Jesus; I am certain that Jesus is not really present” and 5 indicating that the respondent is “certain that Jesus is really present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.” Catholics who at least sometimes attend the TLM had a higher rate of belief in Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist (an average mean of 3.83 out of 5) than those who have never attended a TLM (3.07 out of 5).
The study also found that Catholics who never receive the Eucharist on the tongue, always receive the Eucharist in the hand, insist that the Eucharist should be received in the hand, have never heard consecration bells used, and have a negative perception of the TLM had the lowest rate of belief in the true presence, never rising above an average mean of 3.
While not all those who do or ever have attended the TLM are ipso facto predisposed to be saintly and not all those who attend even more secular Novus Ordo Masses are predisposed to be progressive villains, the data does demonstrate that Catholics who attend the TLM have a measurably greater sense of reverence for Christ in the Eucharist and a firmer belief in one of the central pillars of the Catholic Faith. Why, then, is the TLM dying out?
In part, as noted, the waning of the TLM is due to Traditionis Custodes. While Benedict XVI’s reign allowed parish priests around the world to offer their congregations this timeless liturgical treasure, Francis’s decisions have empowered modernist bishops to ban priests from celebrating the TLM and make it nearly impossible for parishioners to attend the Mass.
One recent example is that of Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina. Several parishes in Martin’s diocese had offered the TLM, drawing crowds of hundreds to St. Ann’s and St. Thomas Aquinas’s parishes. On September 28, the last Sunday before Martin’s restrictions were to take place, Catholic News Agency reported that a cumulative 1,200 parishioners attended the two parishes. Despite the flourishing of these parishes, Martin decided to limit celebration of the TLM in his diocese to the Chapel of the Little Flower in the St. Therese Parish in Mooresville, North Carolina, which can seat 350 and is a lengthy drive (nearly an hour from either St. Ann or St. Thomas Aquinas) for most parishioners.
In another example, just days before leaving the Diocese of Monterey, California for his new assignment replacing Bishop Joseph Strickland in Tyler, Texas, Bishop Daniel Garcia stripped the faithful of the TLM. In Brooklyn, Bishop Robert Brennan has had to cut down the number of TLMs available — in this case, not due to the restrictions of Traditionis Custodes but because of a dwindling number of priests available to serve parishioners.
Ironically, the problems that are causing the waning of the TLM — both progressive or modernist bishops and their harmful, unnecessary restrictions and the low number of priestly vocations — might be remedied were the TLM more widely available. There, good Catholic men and good Catholic women could start good Catholic families and raise good Catholic sons who would go on to become faithful priests and even faithful bishops. After all, as Waugh observed, it was the beloved TLM that inspired centuries of martyrs to cling to their Faith, even at the expense of their lives. Such fervor, one might think, would be a welcome component of parish life for Catholic bishops.
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