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Posted on 08/26/2026 1:43:58 PM PDT by ebb tide
Jesuit priest Fr Thomas Reese SJ has written a column entitled “Why I hate the Latin Mass”. The column takes the form of the priest pretending to go to confession. He begins by telling the imaginary confessor: “It has been a week since my last column, I mean my last confession. Since that time, I have expressed hatred toward the old Latin Mass.”
In the following paragraphs, the priest lays out the reasons why he hates the Traditional Latin Mass, referring to it as a “zombie” because “we thought it was dead, but it keeps coming back”. He explains that he does not hate the people who attend the traditional Mass and states that “with better catechesis, I think they would appreciate the new liturgy.”
The priest explains that he grew up loving the Traditional Latin Mass and that his first years as a Jesuit novice were spent experiencing the traditional liturgy. He further explains that, under obedience, he willingly embraced the new Mass in 1969. He says this kind of obedience should be noted by “so-called conservatives” and wonders why, if they are traditionalists, they are not “obedient to the council and the popes who have promoted the liturgy in the vernacular”.
The priest explains that he quickly began to love the new liturgy and enjoyed the “greater variety of readings” found in it. He says that he was “sick of hearing the parable of the wise and foolish virgins” because there were “a lot of virgin saints in the liturgical calendar”, and that he enjoyed the new Eucharistic prayers. He further explains that he embraced the changes because “our tradition is to change”.
He also states that the new Mass helped him to understand the “roots of the Eucharistic prayer in the Jewish Passover prayer” and that “in the Eucharist, we pray with Jesus, not to him.”
The priest also confesses to being “jealous of the TLM promoters”, whom he describes as being “so well organized” and “few in numbers”. He states that this alleged minority still receives “a huge amount of attention from the bishops and the media”, while those who want further reforms to the liturgy are ignored. “We can’t get anyone’s attention,” he writes.
The priest says he would like to see “a better English translation of the Mass” and particularly mentions a translation completed in “1998 by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy”, which he states was “rejected by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger”. He accuses Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI and one of the most prominent liturgical scholars of the 20th century, of telling “English speakers how to pray in their own language”.
He also states that he would like to see “better connections between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist”. He suggests this could be achieved by having a “unique preface for each Sunday in the three-year cycle that would pick up on the themes and vocabulary of the readings.”
His final suggestion is that the Eucharistic prayers should be “more biblically themed”. He proposes “a Eucharistic prayer based on each Gospel that could be used when that gospel is read”. He adds: “Also, we could use Eucharistic prayers based on the Pauline letters.”
Fr Thomas J. Reese SJ is an American Jesuit priest and journalist. He is the former editor-in-chief of America, the Jesuit monthly, and has also been a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. He is now a senior analyst for Religion News Service, a news agency that focuses on religious affairs but not specifically on the Catholic Church, for which he wrote the column. He was appointed to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) by then President Barack Obama in May 2014, reappointed for a further two-year term in May 2016, and served as the commission’s chair from June 2016 to May 2017.
The agency has published contentious pieces in the past. For example, in a piece from June of this year entitled A Catholic schism over women deacons? Many opponents have already left, the author, Phyllis Zagano, claims there is “no Catholic doctrine banning women as deacons” and argues that the Church should be “restoring women to the ordained diaconate”.
This is also not the first time Fr Reese has written against the TLM for the news agency. In an April 2021 piece entitled The future of Catholic liturgical reform, the priest wrote: “The church needs to be clear that it wants the unreformed liturgy to disappear.” The article is striking because it predates Traditionis custodes, Pope Francis’s July 2021 motu proprio.
The article again criticises Pope Benedict XVI, both for his approach to liturgical translation and his liberalisation of the older form of the Roman rite. Fr Reese writes that, during his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger insisted that “liturgical texts be translated word for word from the Latin”. He also takes issue with the late Pope for taking “away the bishops’ authority” by mandating “that any priest could celebrate the Tridentine Mass whenever he pleased.”
Similarly, in a July 2026 column entitled Is church unity worth a Latin Mass?, Fr Reese writes that seminarians who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass “should not be ordained”. He also calls for the older form of the Roman rite to be “banned on major feasts like Christmas, Holy Week, Easter and holy days” and writes that it “should not be available every Sunday”.
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My Appeal to Pope Leo XIV: The TLM Is Easier for Me to Actively Participate In
Will appeals from the laity, begging Pope Leo XIV to restore Summorum Pontificum, be heard?
He hates the Latin Mass because it offers stability and doctrinal certainty; he prefers instead the chaos of constant pointless change for change’s sake.
That, and I bet he’s a poofter ... and he wants the Church to approve of his kink.
He’s a Jesuit, just like Pope Francis.
And he is over 80 years old. His generation of priests won’t be around forever
Fr. Reese is a modern day Marin Luther.
OK, Boomer. I hear you. We got it from here.
Well, he confessed his hatred for the TLM.
I assume he’s reconciled with it now.
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