Young and Old in Diocese Are Drawn to Latin Mass

By Linda Busetti

Linda Buestti Photo 

LATIN MASS: Father James Massa, executive director of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and a Brooklyn priest, celebrates a Tridentine Mass at Our Lady of Peace, Park Slope, last Sunday, July 15.

It is not only older pre-Vatican II folks who attend the traditional Tridentine liturgy in Latin on Sundays at Our Lady of Peace Church in Park Slope.

Little Cassie Ryan’s pink T-shirt with the words “I go Tridentine” was a gift for her baptism at Our Lady of Peace.

The weekly congregation of anywhere from 50 to 100 includes older women wearing mantillas as well as young couples with children.

According to longtime congregant Dorothy McMahon, permission was granted for the Mass from the 1962 Missal in Latin to be celebrated at Precious Blood Monastery around 1988. Msgr. James Asip was assigned to coordinate celebration of the Indult Mass. For a few years the Latin Mass was celebrated at the chapel of the former motherhouse of the Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, Park Slope, which is now a diocesan office building.

On May 30, 1993, the traditional Latin Mass began to be celebrated at Our Lady of Peace, where it continues on Sundays at 10 a.m.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio named Father James Massa coordinator of the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass in the diocese in August, 2005. Father Massa, who is now executive director of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, travels most weekends from Washington, D.C., to celebrate the Latin rite at Our Lady of Peace.

Father Massa said he was in one of the first ordination classes “who have no memory of Mass before Vatican II.” He had to be “tutored in the 1962 Missal in the rubrics of the Tridentine Mass.”

“Among young Catholics who practice their faith there is a yearning for many of the traditional elements of piety and worship that were rashly dispensed with after Vatican II,” Father Massa said.

He believes, “the usage of the Tridentine rite… will continue to attract younger people, but not in such numbers that it will exceed the Vatican II Mass.” He has performed baptisms in Latin and “I look forward to doing weddings.”

Before the celebration of the Latin Mass, Peter Cardillo takes the prayer cards from the altar in the center of the sanctuary and places them on the altar before the tabernacle. Cardillo has assisted at the Mass since the late Msgr. Asip was coordinator.

Arriving for Mass were Angela and Vincent Toner from Woodside, who have attended the Mass in Latin in Brooklyn for 18 years. “This is the Mass we grew up with,” Angela says, “The Mass we are familiar with and we both love.”

Jimmy Yazzo of Park Slope has been coming for eight years. Yazzo, who used to be an altar boy, said, “I just love this Mass.”

It was the first time that Peter Barker and his sister had come, although Barker lives only blocks away. “My sister heard about it,” the native of Ireland said. He said he came “to reconnect” with the “spirituality” of the Latin Mass.

Joan Bennett heard about the Latin Mass on The Prayer Channel seven or eight years ago. “I just love the Latin Mass,” she said explaining that the reverence made her feel closer to Christ.

Sara Lentz is a convert from Protestantism and used to attend a Latin Mass at St. Agnes in Manhattan. For the past three years, the young woman who wears a mantilla has been coming to Our Lady of Peace. She says she can “count on the homilies at the Latin Masses to follow conservative Catholic teaching.”

Barbara Puleo and her family, including two teenagers, come from Staten Island. “I grew up with the Latin Mass,” she explains. Puleo says it is hard to find one in Staten Island. She has been coming to Brooklyn for the Tridentine Mass since 1988. Her daughter, 16, and son, 15, received all their sacraments in Latin.

Just before Mass began, Father Massa greeted the Ryans from Bay Ridge with little Cassie in her stroller.

About 60 congregants sat spread widely around the church as Father Massa entered the sanctuary to the ringing of bells. With his back to the congregation he proceeded to read the prayers of the liturgy in Latin. The congregation followed along in a red paperback missal with English on one side and Latin on the other.

“In the Latin Mass there seems to be more holiness,” McMahon said. “The priest faces the tabernacle, not the people. There are less distractions.”

Father Massa said earlier, “It is important to see the two Missals as a continuous development of the Roman rite” which should not be “in opposition.”

People in Queens found it difficult to drive all the way to Park Slope and requested a Latin Mass there. Bishop DiMarzio granted permission about a year and a half ago for the Latin Mass to be celebrated at St. John’s Cemetery Chapel, Middle Village.

One participant did not want his name used because some people might see attending a Latin Mass as going against Vatican II. He said that as a college student he had originally started attending a Latin Mass at St. Agnes, Manhattan, in 1989. He was immediately struck by the “depth to it …what the Mass should be on many levels, spiritually, aesthetically and intellectually.” The Third Order Carmelite said he was attracted by the “contemplative” nature of the Mass. “There was more silence and interior participation in the heart.”

He said about 50-60 people come to the Mass in Queens, which is celebrated by Father Joseph Wilson of St. Margaret’s parish, Middle Village, on the second and fourth Sundays of each month at 9 a.m. The summer schedule is July 22, Aug. 12 and Aug. 26.

He said that people come from Bayside, Whitestone, Woodside, and Long Island as well as Middle Village. There is a diverse congregation of Chinese, Koreans, Polish, Italians and Indians.

Many of the congregants are young couples and families, he said. “Young people see a certain spiritual poverty in the world,” he said. “When they go to church they want to be raised above it.

“Latin unites everyone,” he said.

back to top