Posted on 05/31/2008 4:23:54 PM PDT by NYer
May 31--LINCOLN -- A cardinal from the Vatican, surrounded by 50 priests.
Gregorian chants floating through clouds of incense.
A 3 1/2 -hour Mass, sung in Latin mostly by priests facing the altar.
A cathedral packed to standing-room-only with lots of families with lots of children, women and girls in veils, men in suits, boys in neckties and close-cropped haircuts.
Catholics kneeling to take communion.
The ordination at Lincoln's Cathedral of the Risen Christ on Friday seemed oh-so-retro. But it was hardly an exercise in nostalgia. It was more like back to the future for a small but growing minority that seeks a louder voice in the Roman Catholic Church -- those devoted to the old Latin liturgy known as the Tridentine Mass.
It's a big deal for Catholics because many equate bringing back the Tridentine Mass, which dates to the 16th century, with rejecting the 1960s reforms of Vatican II. Proponents see it as finally bringing back sacredness, God-oriented reverence and tradition that had been left behind.
Whatever the reaction, Friday's events in Lincoln were a further sign that the Latin Mass is on a rebound some 40 years after it was replaced, in the wake of Vatican II, by the modern Mass. The newer rite is celebrated in the local language with the priest facing the congregation.
The Latin Mass was largely shunned for nearly 20 years. It began a comeback when Pope John Paul II approved its use in 1984, then further encouraged its use in 1988 with a letter known as Ecclesia Dei Adflicta.
The rebound accelerated last year when Pope Benedict XVI decreed, in a document called a motu proprio, that priests no longer needed their bishops' approval to say the old Latin Mass, or as the pope calls it, the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.
Denton, Neb., a small town outside Lincoln, is a center of the movement. It's home to Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, which prepares men from all over the world to be priests in the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. That organization is the largest of the priestly societies authorized by the Vatican to preserve ancient liturgical traditions.
Friday's service in the Lincoln cathedral was the ordination of four Fraternity of St. Peter priests. They were ordained by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Vatican department that oversees matters regarding the Latin Mass. His appearance in Lincoln was not only a sign of the Nebraska seminary's importance to Rome, but also a further symbol of encouragement from a pope seen as friendly to those who love the Latin Mass.
The ordination Mass was televised live on Eternal Word Television Network, an international Catholic cable network.
Like many of the 800-plus people at Friday's ordination, Wyoming Catholic College teacher Thaddeus Kozinski saw Friday's ordination in the context of Pope Benedict's recent U.S. visit and last year's papal decree.
"What you're seeing is a resurgence in traditional Catholicism and a public vindication of it," Kozinski said as he and his family joined a throng chatting on the cathedral steps after the service. "It's not marginalized anymore."
Kozinski said he hopes his fellow devotees of the Latin Mass will respond with joy and gratitude to God.
About 300 Latin Masses are offered each Sunday in the United States, according to the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei, an Illinois-based lay group that promotes the old liturgy. That's up from about 175 a Sunday in 2001.
Latin Masses are offered each Sunday at such churches as Immaculate Conception Church, on South 24th Street in Omaha, and St. Francis of Assisi Church, 1145 South St. in Lincoln. About 250 people combined attend the three Masses at Immaculate Conception.
"It's a drop in the bucket," said Mary Kraychy, executive director of the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei. "But it's growing."
The Denton institution is the Fraternity of St. Peter's English-speaking seminary. The fraternity also has a seminary in Germany. Currently, 45 seminarians are enrolled at Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The seminary recently was expanded to accommodate 100 students, said the Rev. Joseph Lee, a priest of the society. It draws seminarians from around the world and sends priests around the world.
The Fraternity of St. Peter has nearly 200 priests worldwide. Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary also is one of the largest providers of training for priests who wish to learn the old Latin Mass. Since June 2007, priests from more than 60 dioceses have been trained.
The society moved the seminary to Nebraska from Pennsylvania in 2000. Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz invited the society to his diocese, but the seminary is independent of the diocese. Rather, the society reports directly to Rome.
Demand from priests and parishioners has increased since Benedict XVI's much-anticipated 2007 decree, Lee said. The pope wanted to make sure that the extraordinary form of the Roman rite is preserved and made available to Catholics who desire it, Lee said.
What Benedict XVI didn't intend with the decree, and he said so himself in a letter to bishops, was for the Latin Mass to replace the modern Mass, known as the Novus Ordo. The pope refers to that liturgy as the ordinary form of the Roman rite.
"It (the decree) doesn't require it. and it doesn't encourage replacing the Novus Ordo," said Eileen Burke-Sullivan, an assistant professor of theology at Creighton University. "The emotional and spiritual needs of people are very varied. There isn't one size that fits all."
Devotees of the Latin Mass include older Catholics who grew up with it and wish it had never gone away, as well as younger people raised on modern Masses.
Omahan Erin Sullivan grew up on English-speaking Masses but found a church home where the Tridentine Mass was offered. For about five years, she and her husband, Jim, and their children attended Latin Mass at St. Patrick Catholic Church. They moved about a year ago, with their seven children, to Immaculate Conception when Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss gave that parish to the Fraternity of St. Peter to administer.
Sullivan, who sang in the choir at Friday's ordination, said she was attracted to the Tridentine Mass by "its beauty and its reverence, its silence and its solemnity."
"When you attend the Latin Mass, there's no doubt that there's something holy and special going on," she said.
I was an altar boy in the Latin days...I miss Mass that way.
Dial-up challenged. Perhaps someone can research and post pictures from yesterday’s ordination. Thank you!
YAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Deo Gratias.
You can still find the Indult Tridentine (Latin) Mass at certain parishes within the various NY Dioceses. Where in NY are you siturated?
I live in Great Neck on the border of Nassau and Queens.
The Confiteor:
Cardinal Hoyos, per the rubric for a Solemn Pontifical Mass, says many of the prayers from his throne:
The ordinandi prostrate as the Litany of the Saints is sung
The laying on of hands:
The Elevation of the Precious Blood:
The Final Blessing: 
Thank you, I know a couple of those churches/chapels.
Since the promulgation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, there is no longer an “indult” Mass. The Tridentine Latin Mass is now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. You are right, there are a number of churches that offer it in NY.
You said: I was an altar boy in the Latin days...I miss Mass that way.
So was I. We had strong right arms my friend (holding up the plate).
being an altar boy at weddings....
Brides Maids kneeling at the altar rail!!!
(am I going to hell for that?)
LOL..I don’t know about that. All I remember was the pain trying to keep my right arm from falling off holding the plate under folks chins. Not sure I even noticed the young ladies.
Ever forget to ring the bells on cue? I was scared to death of missing that mark.
Our altar “servers” still ring the bells.
It was the ringing them accidentally that used to get me.
I have to say that (except for the afore-mentioned cleavage distraction) I took the responsibility very seriously for a 12/13/14 year old. A couple of the other guys were always fooling around or trying to make a joke out it but I distinctly remember feeling a sense of gravitas every time I put on the cassock and surplus, and behaving accordingly. I believe that I am better for it, even forty years later.
Thanks to you and all who have served at the altar. May God bless you for your service.
I agree. I really loved it. When I stopped doing it they gave me a little lapel pin “knights of the altar”. Unfortunately, when I went off to college my mom cleared out my dresser and closet, gave away my vast collection of baseball cards, matchbox cars and my pin.
I also really loved the tradition cassock vice todays one piece thing.
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