Latin Mass Society

Chairman's Blog

21/10/2023 - 10:00

I delighted to

I delighted to announce the launch of 

The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals:
Petitions to Save the ancient Mass from 1966 to 2007

Preface
by Martin Mosebach

With contributions
from Leo Darroch, Fr Gabriel D
íaz-Patri, Philip Maxence, Sebastian Morello, Matthew
Schellhorn, and Erik Tonning

In due course it will be available from Arouca Press (in the USA) and the Latin Mass Society shop (in the UK), and Amazon: see my author page.

I will be introducing it in Rome, at the 

Paix Liturgique Conference, Friday 27th October (Patristic Institute Augustinianum, via Paolo VI, 25), 

and in London on Thursday 9th November.

The London launch will take place at the St Wilfrid Hall, London Oratory  SW7 2RP

6:30 for 7pm; refreshments

All welcome.

More about the book can be found here.

When the Church's ancient Mass was in peril, in 1966, 1971, and in later years, a huge outpouring of support for it came from artists and intellectuals, many Catholic, many not, including Anglicans, Jews, non-believers, and even Communist sympathisers. What they recognised is that this Mass is part of the cultural and spiritual patrimony of the whole world, and that it would be a tragedy if it were to cease to be celebrated.
    This book looks at the petitions, the petitioners, their historical context, the arguments they used, and the intellectual and artistic movements of which they were part. It includes long-forgotten documents, new archival research, and discussions of key ideas. Why did the pacifists like Lanzo Del Vasto and E.I Watkin sign? What was the appeal of the Mass to artistic modernists like David Jones, Benjamin Britten, Robert Lowell, and Sir James MacMillan? How is this connected with the movement promoting the Middle Ages? Why did so many converts sign, like Evelyn Waugh, Malcomn Muggeridge, and Compton MacKenzie? Why are there so many Argentinians among the signatories, so many members of the Académie française, so many Nobel laureates and nominees, and so many people who had distinguished themselves in the fight against Fascism?
    Furthermore, this book draws out from the shadows the outstanding contribution to the organisation of the early petitions by otherwise obscure figures: the Italian Cristina Campo, and the Englishman Bernard Wall, their circles and their concerns.

As the Trappist, and theological liberal, Thomas Merton wrote in 1964:


As you know, I have many friends in the world who are artists, poets, authors, editors, etc. Now they are well able to appreciate our chant and even our Latin. But they are all, without exception, scandalized and grieved when I tell them that probably this Office, this Mass will no longer be here in ten years. And that is the worst. The monks cannot understand this treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this  incomparable art.



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20/10/2023 - 10:00

Oxford Pilgrimage Saturday 21

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High Mass in the Dominican Rite in the Priory Church of the Holy Spirit, Blackfriars

St Giles, OX1 3LY, at 11am. Accompanied by polyphony from the Newman Consort.

This is followed, after a break for lunch, by a procession to one of the sites of Martyrdom in the city at 2pm. This is followed by Benediction at Blackfriars.

Do join us! We even have a gallows at the site of the martyrdoms.


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04/10/2023 - 09:45

Westminster Cathedral: in Crisis magazine

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The Kiss of Peace at a Pontifical Mass following the LMS AGM in 2019

I have written more about this, in Crisis Magazine. Some key paragraphs:

"The Cathedral was packed with people, many standing all down the aisles, in the galleries, and at the back of the Church. It was a most impressive celebration and astonished the foreign visitors by the beauty of the church, the music, and the intense devotion of the congregation. We could not have hoped for a more triumphant assembly.… There were representatives from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and other places."

This is a description by Geoffrey Houghton-Brown, my predecessor as Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, of the first Traditional Mass to be celebrated in Westminster Cathedral after the liturgical reform, on Saturday, June 17, 1972. 

...

One of the many puzzles of Traditionis Custodes and subsequent documents is whether it is seeking to marginalize traditional Catholics or to integrate them. The radicalization of traditional Catholics that it condemns, fairly or not, is the predictable result of marginalization. The “parallel Church,” which it decries, develops when one group suffers marginalization. But the solution being put forward is also marginalization.

...

The policy of Traditionis Custodes is not a policy founded on hope, like Pope Benedict’s hope for the enrichment of the Church by the ancient liturgy. It is, instead, fearful of the future, fearful of young Catholics and the changes they may bring. It is a policy that “stands athwart history yelling Stop.”

Read the whole article there.
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Preparing to process out of the sacristy, Annual Requiem 2016. Photo by John Aron.

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30/09/2023 - 10:38

Westminster Cathedral and the Traditional Mass: in the Catholic Herald

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The Annual Requiem in 2016. I'd forgotten I'd been on the serving team on that occasion.
Photo by John Aron.
The Catholic Herald has published a short piece by me reflecting on the cancellation of our Annual Requiem. It begins:

The Latin Mass Society has been informed that the Traditional Latin Mass may no longer be celebrated at the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral, as is has been twice a year since 1972. With a break for Covid, there have therefore been about 100 such Masses over fifty years. The next one would have been a Requiem Mass on 4 November.

A monthly Low Mass will continue, on First Saturdays in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, but these two annual Masses are regarded as being for the Latin Mass Society, and therefore not part of the Cathedral’s pastoral provision. Many Catholic associations have Masses in the Cathedral, and over many years these ones have, indeed, served as the Society’s Annual Requiem and the Mass for our Annual General Meeting. Nevertheless, they had the same origin as the monthly Masses, as part of Cardinal Heenan’s response to the “English Indult” for the Traditional Mass, which he personally sought and gained from Pope Paul VI.

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29/09/2023 - 16:02

Pilgrimage, suffering, and sacred geography: for 1Peter5

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LMS Procession through the streets of Little Walsingham, in the rain.
My latest for 1Peter5. It begins:

I recently walked the 76 miles from Cambridge to Walsingham in Norfolk, via Ely, over four days, a walk organised by the Latin Mass Society. I met most of my fellow pilgrims—for that was what they were—after the first leg, and walked with them for the remaining 57 mile: 200 people slogging along paths and roads, or looking after the walkers as drivers or cooks. Some of the young men never seemed to lose their bounce, but I think for everyone at certain points, and for a lot of us for a lot of the time, the element of suffering, of penance, dominated our feelings. After a certain point you can keep walking in a mechanical way, despite the discomfort of your feet or legs, but the discomfort remains.

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Mass in the Slipper Chapel

As my aching limbs have slowly recovered—it takes longer every year—I have been reflecting on what it was actually for. It was, of course, an act of devotion to Our Lady, for the conversion of England. In 1061 Our Lady ordered a replica of the Holy House of Nazareth to be built in this small Norfolk village, but this was completely destroyed on the order of King Henry VIII in 1538. To honour its location today may seem quixotic, but it is a reassertion, in the teeth of apparent political and cultural reality, of the idea that this is still a holy place: that we will still honour it as our heavenly mother wished us to, more than 960 years ago.

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Mass in the Catholic Shrine's Reconciliation Chapel

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28/09/2023 - 16:00

LMS Annual Requiem in Westminster Cathedral Cancelled

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LMS Annual Requiem 2018, celebrated by
the retired Bishop Patrick Campbell, in Westminster Cathedral.

28th September 2023

The Latin Mass Society has been informed that the
Annual Requiem (sung, 1962 Missal) scheduled to take place at Westminster
Cathedral on Saturday 4th November at 2:30pm will not take place.

The 1962 Missal will continue to be used in the
Cathedral on First Saturdays at 4pm (Low Mass), including Saturday 4th
November. A Sung Requiem Mass for deceased members and benefactors of the
society will take place at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane on the following Monday,
6th November, at 6:30pm, accompanied by the Southwell Consort.

The Annual Requiem has taken place in consultation
with the Latin Mass Society since Cardinal Heenan gained the 1971 ‘English
Indult’. The series of monthly Low Masses were established at the same time.
The Latin Mass Society lays a wreath on the tomb of Cardinal Heenan annually,
in thanksgiving for his intervention, and this tradition will continue.

Background

The Latin Mass Society was founded to preserve
the ancient Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church in 1965.

The 1962 Missal (containing the ‘Traditional
Latin Mass’) was used before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Mass
according to this missal may be celebrated under certain conditions alongside
the reformed Missal first used in 1969.

The English Indult was a permission granted by Pope
Paul VI which allowed the bishops of England and Wales to permit celebrations
of the older Missal. This possibility was extended to bishops all over the
world by Pope John Paul II in 1984. Today, under new legislation by Pope
Francis in 2021, it is increasingly restricted.

Link to statement on the LMS website.

Latin Mass Society, 9 Mallow Street, London EC1Y 8RQ |
020 7404 7284

Media contact: portia@lms.org.uk

Registered Charity Number: 248388 

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24/09/2023 - 12:50

Annual Mass in Snave: photos

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Yesterday say the eighth annual LMS Mass in St Augustine's, Snave (bearing in mind a break for Covid). St Augustine's is one of fourteen churches in the care of the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust. While the others continue as Anglican Parish churches, this does not, and has only two services a year: a Harvest thanksgiving/ evensong, and this Missa Cantata organised by the Latin Mass Society Local Representative, Marygold Turner.
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Mass was celebrated by Fr Gabriel Diaz Patri, and accompanied by the Victoria Consort. The Mass was for the Ember Saturday, and the Consort sang Byrd's Mass for Four Voices and motets.

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There is no electricity or piped water at St Augustine's, which was built in the 13th century. I suppose this means there is no chance of electrical fires or burst water pipes, which are among the chief banes of unoccupied buildings.

It was a great privilege to have Mass in this wonderful ancient church.
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21/09/2023 - 14:26

On Lying, for Catholic Answers

My latest for Catholic Answers.
It begins:

The Catholic tradition takes the Eighth Commandment—“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”—extremely seriously. Strict condemnations of all kinds of lying can be found from the Fathers of the Church, notably St. Augustine (who wrote two short works on the subject), to the Doctors and the modern Magisterium. The act of lying is per se malum: it cannot rightly be done even for a good end.

One reason for this is that lying is contrary to the nature of God, who is Truth. It is of the utmost importance that we can believe what God tells us—both what he reveals about himself and what he promises to those who love and obey him—since this is the basis of the Christian life. God could permit the children of Israel to take others’ property, as when the Israelites conquered Canaan, because he is the primary owner of the whole universe. God could permit Abraham to kill Isaac, because all humans born in original sin owe God a life. But he cannot permit anyone to tell a lie.

Read the whole thing there.

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14/09/2023 - 10:00

A short film on St Elisabeth Hesselblad: Sweden's 20th century saint

Cross-posted from Rorate Caeli.

This beautiful 30-minute was produced by EWTN's Norwegian branch, EWTN Norge, and is narrated by Dr Clemens Cavellin, a traditional Catholic academic.

Elisabeth Hesselblad (1870-1957) was canonized in 2016, as the first Swedish saint since the late middle ages. She emmigrated to the United States in 1888, where she converted to the Catholic Church. Her life mission became to bring the Bridgettine order back to Rome, to the house of Saint Bridget, and to Sweden. She founded a new branch of Bridgettines that now has many convents worldwide, particularly in India. This film focuses especially on her early life as she describes it in her memoirs.

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09/09/2023 - 11:24

Byrd Festival in London

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The Latin Mass Society is sponsoring a festival of William Byrd's Catholic liturgical music, to mark the 400th anniversary of his death, in London. You can see the full programme of Masses here. William Byrd, one of England's greatest composers, managed to combine a job at the court of Queen Elizabeth I ('Bloody Bess') not only with his Catholic Faith, but active support of the underground Catholic community through his composing.

Because these Masses are Traditional Masses, we are able to use not only his well-known Mass settings (he wrote Masses for 3, 4, and 5 voices), but pieces from his 'Gradualia', which give polyphonic settings to a vast number of Mass propers (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion). We have carefully planned the festival to enable these pieces to be sung, not only in the context of the traditional liturgy, as he intended, but on the correct feast days.
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They are being sung by the Latin Mass Society's polyphonic consort, the Southwell Consort, which combines professional singers with singers who have received training but who have not pursued singing as a career. The opportunity to sing these wonderful pieces has been enthusiastically taken up by members of the consort, who are regularly fielding about 20 singers on these occasions.

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Last evening I attended the second Mass of the series in St Mary Magdalen's, Wandsworth, which had a congregation of about 85. Mass was celebrated by the Parish Priest, Canon Martin Edwards. The majority of the Masses are taking place in Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, on Mondays at 6:30pm.

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