It's Hip to be Latin

Sat Dec 08, 2007 7:48 am (GMT -5)


Catholics show fresh interest in Latin mass

By JACQUELINE SALMON
The Washington Post via The Colorado Gazette
December 7, 2007
Link to original


WASHINGTON - Parts of it are 1,500 years old, it’s difficult to understand, and it’s even more challenging to watch. And it’s catching on among young Catholics.

It’s the traditional Latin Mass, a formal worship service making a comeback after more than 40 years of moldering in the Vatican basement.

In September, Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on celebrating Latin Mass, frequently called the Tridentine Mass, citing “a new and renewed” interest in the ancient Latin liturgy, especially among younger Catholics.

Spoken or sung entirely in Latin by priests who face the altar instead of the congregation, it is a radical departure for most Catholics, who grew up attending a more informal Mass celebrated in their native tongue.

And it is a hit with younger priests and their parishioners.

Attendance at the Sunday noon Mass at St. John the Beloved in McLean, Va., has doubled to 400 people since it began celebrating in Latin. Most of the worshippers are younger than 40, said the Rev. Franklyn McAfee.

Younger parishioners “are more reflective,” McAfee said. “They want something uplifting when they go to church. They don’t want something they can get outside.”

For some, the popularity of the service represents the gap between older Catholics, who grew up in the more liberal, post-Vatican II era, and their younger counterparts, who say they feel as if they missed out on a tradition jettisoned in the move to modernize.

Priests, musicians and laypeople are snapping up how-to videos and books, signing up for workshops and viewing online tutorials with step-by-step instructions on the elaborately choreographed liturgy.

“I knew there would be some interest, but I didn’t know how quickly it would spread and how really deep the interest was,” said the Rev. Scott Haynes, a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago who started a Web site in August offering instructions in celebrating the Mass. The Web site, www.sanctamissa.org, has received at least 1 million hits, Haynes said.

“Before Vatican II, there were a lot of things that marked Catholics as Catholic: the Tridentine Mass in Latin, fish on Fridays, those kinds of things,” said Monsignor Kevin Irwin, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University. “And I think that 40 years after the (Second Vatican) Council, there is a revival of questions asking what is Catholic identity, and for some, this is an external manifestation of saying, ‘We’re Catholic.’”