Best Latin Mass in Manhattan

New York Press ^ | September 27, 2004

[tridentine]

CHURCH OF ST. ANN

110 E. 12th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.) 212-477-2030

Vatican II who? If you ever grooved along to "Kumbaya," we forgive you. If you ever bopped around during Guitar Mass (two words that should have never been joined in any sort of holy setting), we also forgive you. We didn't know any better.

Having come of age after Vatican II, we didn't know what we were missing until we got older: the gorgeous lace mantillas, novenas, St. Christopher medals. All, things they took away. After Vatican II, see, wise Church leaders decided that congregations should hear mass in their own language, and suddenly, ladies no longer wore veils in church, everybody stopped going to Confession and, most importantly, they got rid of the Latin Mass. That's when all hell broke loose.

Well, not exactly, but that decision did destroy a lot of the beauty and mystery of the ritual. Luckily, in recent years, there has been a reversal that allows for traditional Latin Masses to be revived, if enough parishioners want it, and we've finally been able to experience Catholicism the way it was meant to be. Every Saturday at 2 p.m., you too can join in this stately, dignified liturgy at Church of St. Ann.

Keep a lookout for us. We're the ones wearing an old, tattered and much-too-small First Communion veil, trying to remember how to say a rosary.

[sinkspur]

Whatever.