For those Catholics who are seeking even more regular access to the Traditional Latin Mass, sacraments, and accompanying parish and liturgical life, there are 75 parish locations that offer this access daily … the ideal and ultimate goal for Catholics who desire to truly live out the liturgical life of the Church in its fullness.
The upcoming seventh anniversary of the implementation date of Summorum Pontificum has been noted with nary a whisper from likely traditional-minded media outlets and blogs. I suppose with both the mainstream and Catholic media’s feeding frenzy on covering Pope Francis’ every waking moment, movement, and spoken word, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Has it really been seven years since that momentous date that provided juridical recourse to Catholic laymen directly with their parish priest to provide access to the Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments? What kind of results have we seen in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and Canada in dioceses and parishes offering the Traditional Latin Mass?
The Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei, http://www.ecclesiadei.org/ , keeps a comprehensive list of these locations, and their data are used for this story. At last count, in 191 dioceses in North America, there are about 485 parishes that offer the Traditional Latin Mass with some frequency (monthly, twice-per-month, or weekly). There are 335 parish locations that offer a weekly Traditional Latin Mass to Catholics albeit, more often than not, in afternoon or evening time slots. But still, 335 weekly offerings in 191 total North American dioceses seem to be a positive commentary on the fruits of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio.
For those Catholics who are seeking even more regular access to the Traditional Latin Mass, sacraments, and accompanying parish and liturgical life, there are 75 parish locations that offer this access daily (or close to daily, sometimes with the summer being an exception, for instance). This is, of course, the ideal and ultimate goal for Catholics who desire to truly live out the liturgical life of the Church in its fullness. And of those 75 parish locations, a total of 38 are provided for by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), and another 13 by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICR).
This brings us to the heart of this article. That leaves a mere 24 diocesan, or other, venues (such as St. John Cantius Canons in Chicago) where the Traditional Mass is regularly offered daily (again, noting some occasional exceptions). So for Catholic homeschoolers, and other young families who desire to raise their children with the daily formation provided by such a parish, this task seems daunting.
Young Catholic couples must consider several factors in order to plant strong family roots. These include a single-income (usually provided by the father); the mother acting as the main teacher of often numerous children; the cost of living; access to jobs; a rural, suburban, or country environment; and the desire to find like-minded families who are trying to fight the culture of death that is now America.
This article will focus on a diocesan parish offering the Traditional Latin Mass in one of the most unlikely of places—what is often referred to as “the buckle of the Bible Belt”—Greenville, South Carolina (more broadly, the Greenville-Spartanburg-Easley-Anderson “Upstate” area). While Prince of Peace is a parish without the benefits of a personal parish served by a group of priests such as the FSSP or ICR, the parish’s evangelical liturgical approach is beginning to attract national and international attention.
Following is an interview with Rev. Christopher Smith, the pastoral administrator at Prince of Peace Catholic Church, which serves nearly 2,000 families in Taylors (Greenville), South Carolina. Not only is this parish attracting families seeking access to doctrinal and liturgical sanity in the wasteland of the postconciliar debacle, it is beginning to be recognized by even the non-Traditional Catholic audience as perhaps a beacon of the “New Evangelization” due to the number of converts and reverts it attracts, but with methods and techniques borrowed from the “Old Evangelization.” Of course, the apparent irony here will not be lost on longtime readers of The Remnant. Average daily Mass attendance (Monday through Saturday) hovers around 40 with weekly Sunday Mass attendance edging as high as 200-plus, but with regular attendance around 170.
Note that Prince of Peace also has a burgeoning school, a round-the-clock adoration chapel, and numerous other flourishing apostolates one would expect from a parish with parishioners on fire for the faith. Prince of Peace is also home to numerous processions on special feast days and adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
Fr. Smith has served as pastoral administrator of Prince of Peace since December 2011, and is a native of nearby Easley, South Carolina. He is a former Baptist who converted to Catholicism as a teenager. He is a graduate of Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, and he holds both a licentiate and a doctorate in dogmatic theology.
Why did you decide to offer access to the Traditional Latin Mass daily?
Fr. Smith: We had a community dedicated to the extraordinary form for about 10 years prior to my arrival, and the community has grown and has really begun to expect to live its daily life around that liturgy. Because I have had two priests who are able to celebrate both the ordinary and the extraordinary forms in a parish large enough to warrant two daily Masses, it made sense to have both forms daily.
Also, it has both consolidated the community of those attached to the extraordinary form, and has provided the opportunity for those who want to attend daily Mass, the opportunity to consistently experience the extraordinary form Mass at noon. Some people come more because it is a noon Mass than because it is in the extraordinary form.
What reactions have you received from parishioners?
Fr. Smith: There was a little bit of concern at the beginning, especially because I was coming in new, from people thinking we were going to completely change it over into an extraordinary form parish. But when they saw that we were not taking away anything, but just adding more opportunities to go to Mass, I believe that that helped alleviate those concerns.
What did you expect when you began in this first assignment leading a parish, and what did you learn over the nearly two years since?
Fr. Smith: When I first started, what I thought was those who are already going to the Sunday Traditional Mass might choose to go to daily Latin Mass. We have a lot of homeschool families, so I thought they might go to that Mass.
What I didn’t expect—but which has been very, very wonderful in our parish—is that a lot of people who swore two years ago they would never darken the doors of the Latin Mass, now go every day because it is a Latin Mass at noon, and they have grown to respect it, appreciate it, and love it. Also, we have members of the Latin Mass community who would previously never go to an English (language) Mass, and they now go periodically because it is celebrated according to the mind of the Church, and it is celebrated in the same manner as the extraordinary form.
I didn’t expect that to happen, and I certainly didn’t think it would happen that quickly.
Not many diocesan parishes in the U.S. or the world offer the Traditional Latin Mass, let alone daily. How does this serve to build the Church and aid in the salvation of souls?
Fr. Smith: I think that children who grow up with both forms of the Roman rite offered daily will recognize that as completely normal. They don’t have any baggage against one or the other form.
And there won’t be any kind of animus against either the ordinary form, or the extraordinary form, because they have had frequent experiences of the proper celebration of both forms. So when they go into other parishes in other locations, they will bring with them a much broader understanding of the “little c” catholic view of the liturgy because it hasn’t been weighed down by any previous psychological baggage from the past.
What kind of response—either positive or negative—have you received from other priests in the diocese or elsewhere, or from parishes offering both forms of the Roman rite according to the mind of the Church?
Fr. Smith: A lot of priests, when they hear about what we do, it may perhaps sound very strange to them for some reason. But when they actually come, and visit, and experience firsthand how both forms are as similar as possible, while still respecting the unique differences, and they see the participation and the faith of the people—and they see all of this in action, then it makes more sense to them.
No one else in our diocese is doing it the way that we are, but we also have a history in our parish that other parishes have not had. There are places where they would love to have the extraordinary form more often, but they don’t have the same level of desire—as shown over a period of 12-plus years now—that our parishioners have.
What would your advice be to other priests considering a similar approach? There are lots of logistical challenges and practical considerations. How would you answer those practical challenges and considerations?
Fr. Smith: There are many priests in our diocese who regularly offer five or six (Ed. Note: Novus Ordo) Masses every weekend, and oftentimes, at different locations. And all of those are necessary. In situations like those, with one lone priest, it is difficult for the priest to celebrate the extraordinary form on a regular basis. It is simply not feasible when they are by themselves. Where there are two priests in a parish covering only one location, then it is a little bit easier.
But I also think it is important that the people don’t feel that it is being forced upon them in any way. So altar rails, ad orientem worship, and the things that are normally associated with the extraordinary form, slowly a kind of modus vivendi between the two forms—begins without constantly having to redo the sanctuary space. There are all kinds of variables that exist depending upon the parish.
In some places, it can work very easily, and in other places, it takes a lot of creative thinking.
Wouldn’t the music considerations alone be quite daunting for the average parish?
Fr. Smith: Right off the bat, with the extraordinary form, you can build as much as your resources allow. Now, how can that have a positive gravitational pull on the ordinary form? That is a little more difficult. What are the resources in your parish? But also, what has the music history of the parish been?
One of the things I would offer is to provide regular, ongoing catechesis on music in the liturgy at Mass (for the ordinary form) and then introduce the propers and ensure there is some kind of coherence in a parish between one liturgy and the next.
One of the things about Prince of Peace is that when we have sung liturgies, when we have hymns, the propers are included in all the Masses as well.
I believe you must create a consistent way of worshiping in the parish rather than catering to everyone’s individual taste because that never really works to unify a parish around the liturgy.
How do you answer common objections from people who don’t appreciate the Prince of Peace style of liturgy due to their common parish experience since 1970?
Fr. Smith: People have to understand that the liturgy is not primarily about the externals, nor about creating an interesting experience as many people tried to do after the Council. Nor is it about just fixating on lace, vestments, and the “smells and bells.” We need to understand the liturgy is not principally about something we do.
If you put the emphasis on the externals, then some people will say, “I don’t like that,” and they will reject it.
Whereas if you understand what is actually happening during the liturgy—and it’s not just what is happening at the altar, but it extends into one’s daily life—then all of a sudden the beauty, and the majesty, and transcendence of the liturgy is something the people can take with them into their daily lives.
For example, I often speak about reverence for the Body of Christ, and that the reason people receive Holy Communion in a certain way shows a specific internal disposition as well as an external disposition.
It is important, but also that same reverence we have for the Body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament should also be had for the Body of Christ in the Church. We are all fellow members of the Body of Christ—so that the life of charity flows from everything we do in the Eucharistic celebration. And I think when people begin to realize that is where you are coming from as a priest, not just kind of rearranging the furniture, they begin to understand that this all has a deeper meaning, rather than conclude that “Father just likes to do things this way and is forcing it upon everyone.” It is a natural outgrowth from a vision of the liturgy that emphasizes its transcendence, but also its relationship to daily life—rather than just making it up according to what is someone’s particular taste.
Pope Francis has said that the Church cannot be shut up in the sacristy. Some people take that as some type of implicit criticism of traditional liturgy. But it really is not at all when it is understood properly.
Because all of the beauty of the liturgy is not just something that “people in the know” kind of do as a hobby, but it is something that is to be a school of Christian service, so that we can go out, and evangelize, and perform acts of service and charity in the world.
If that doesn’t happen in the life of the faithful, it is not the fault of the liturgy; that is the fault of the Christian world not making that link between liturgy and life that is the essence of Christianity.
What has been your experience as far as reverent liturgies performed according to the mind of the Church—both the ordinary and the extraordinary form—regarding its attraction to younger or older Catholics?
Fr. Smith: It has been my experience that every place where the liturgy is celebrated according to the mind of the Church, whether in the ordinary form or the extraordinary form, younger people tend to be those who gravitate toward it. Even at Prince of Peace, a lot of the older Catholics who lived through the changes following the Second Vatican Council just don’t want to go back again. And for some of them, it is very difficult.
When they were in their formational years, they were exposed to all of these things, and then they were systematically taught to hate them. I understand and I respect that, and I think pastors have to take this into consideration because it is not those people’s fault. You really cannot undo that, even with all of the best will in the world.
Whereas, with the younger generation, they have no psychological baggage attached to traditional liturgy. When they see it, they don’t automatically think, “Oh, my God, they are trying to undo Vatican II!” They think, “Wow! This is really interesting and beautiful. How can I learn more?”
And that is true, whether it is the extraordinary form or the ordinary form done well.
The generations that have survived the liturgy wars have often closed themselves up into these trenches, and they are not going to come out except for some kind of work of grace. But the younger people seem to gravitate toward the transcendental you can see within it—truth, goodness, and beauty—because they are not distracted by what these things supposedly mean if you view them through a hermeneutic of rupture.
I would encourage pastors to find a place within their parishes for the extraordinary form; but while doing so, as gently as possible, and to focus on the solemn celebration of the liturgy in both forms, and to get the younger generation to really understand it, and participate in it, and to love it. I would focus on that.
That is why schools and religious education programs are also so important because once the parish sees you are getting their children involved in the liturgy, and they understand the propers, and the reasons behind the vestments—as but two examples—it works like spiritual leaven through the families and the parish.
About Brian Mershon
Excellent article on the perfect storm of the Catholic Faith that I will remember at Prince of Peace. This is one of the few things I miss here in Chile, either the traditional Latin Mass or the Novos Ordo celebrated while remaining true to mother Church. Unfortunately through out the world neither the Latin Mass or the Novos Ordo celebrated with reverence are often found, especially in Latin America.
Another fine article by Brian Mershon.
A very good interview: informative, encouraging, and honest answers (to difficult questions).
My Father and I recently began attending a Traditional Latin Mass twice a month at a Society of Saint Pius X Chapel, which is a two hour drive for us each way. We are not interested in the internal Church politics surrounding the SSPX, we simply want to worship at a TLM and this beautiful chapel is our recourse. My father grew up with the TLM, of course then it was simply called the Mass. And so in some conversations we’ve had over the past year or so about some reading I had been doing concerning the liturgical changes which grew out of Vatican II he mentioned that he missed the reverence of the TLM and wished that is was still around. Now, I grew up with the Novus Ordo, being 43 it’s all I’ve ever known. That’s my point of reference, typical Novus Ordo, guitars, typical Novus Ordo hymnal, girls assisting at the altar, lay Eucharistic ministers, peace be with you and all the other kumbayaness of it all. So needless to say my first experience at that TLM was shock, and amazement at the beauty and reverence. I actually felt cheated because I had never been able to experience this beautiful rite. My Dad remembered a great deal of the Latin prayers and spontaneously went about participating. When we left our first TLM Dad looked at me and asked, “Did you notice the reverence?” And I did very much notice the reverence and the beauty of the liturgy. It is beautiful, it is reverent, it is timeless and unfortunately it is not as readily available as we would like. We neither one have an ax to grind against the Novus Ordo, but it is simply a very different experience. And we still attend the Novus Ordo at our local parish on the Sunday’s that the TLM is not offered at the SSPX parish. But we have both mentioned that if we could we would attend the TLM exclusively and I intend to speak with our Priest at some point about the possibility of having it offered at our parish as well. It is simply unsatisfactory that we have to drive so far to attend this Mass. In an effort to continue learning I’ve recently purchased a 1962 Missal and have also purchased a couple of books about the TLM, one by Fulton Sheen which is extraordinary in explaining the theology behind what was known at the time of his writing as the Mass. I am very happy to see that the Extraordinary Form is beginning to take hold and organically grow and become more readily available. Please include the Archdiocese of Raleigh in your prayers as the parishioners across the Archdiocese need access to the TLM if they would like to attend.
Wayne, According to http://www.latinmasstimes.com/. there are at least 10 TLM’s offered by NC diocese. St. Benedict the Moor Church in Winston Salem & Sacred Heart Cathedral in Raleigh Celebrate the TLM on the 1st, 2nd and 4th Sundays. These Masses within the Diocese of Raleigh may be closer to you . Check out “Latin Mass times” web site for other Latin Masses in NC & SC. May save you some time and travel expenses.
We live on the coast so none of those are closer. I’ve looked for a while and even spoke with our parish priest this morning from St Egbert who informed me that there just wasn’t enough demand here. I don’t necessarily believe that, although I do think he was being honest from his point of view on the matter. I mentioned it at our parish Bible study not long ago among a group of around a dozen folks and about half were interested and honestly had no idea that we could request it under Summorum Pontificum or that it had never been abrogated and replaced by the novus nordo in the first place. Time will tell, parish politics being what they are and all.
I grew up with the Latin Mass. I do not hate it! I love Gregorian Chant. I was deeply moved by the Good News of the Gospel proclaimed in English during the Latin Mass. However, I do not and am not interested in returning to that form of liturgy precisely because Latin is not my language. I never understood the prayers of the Mass in Latin.
The 1962 Missal of Pope Saint John XXIII is an excellent resource for learning the prayers as the English translation is printed next to the Latin and is in a larger font so it’s very easy to read and follow along. Both Baronius Press, Angelus Press offer excellent, very high quality 1962 Missals.