“The virtue of religion gives to God that which we owe Him, and we owe Him what He has inspired us in our tradition to give Him.”
– Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
Many books, articles, podcasts, YouTube videos, homilies, and lectures have been produced and published on this topic, but as the calendar has turned to 2020, I wanted to write a concise and well researched list of twenty reasons to make the switch to the traditional Latin Mass in the New Year. As Latin Mass parishes grow while others shrink and the faithful continue to turn toward tradition, hopefully you will find this list useful! Just as there are infinite reasons to attend the traditional Latin Mass, let there be infinite sources of information that record them all.
Note that this article is not meant to focus on negative aspects of the Novus Ordo Mass, but rather on the beauty of the Latin Mass. That being said, I attended the new Mass for over a decade between my conversion and now, so as I make the switch, some of my observations are inherent comparisons between the two Masses — not because I am trying to bash or malign one, but simply because it is my personal experience.
Will you join me in going to the Traditional Latin Mass full time by the end of 2020? Start out by going one Sunday a month at first to learn and to get your feet wet, then bump it up to two, and by November or December, you will be going every Sunday! Here are some reasons to consider it.
1) The language used is Latin.
The Western Church, or the Latin rite, the largest rite in the Catholic Church, has used Latin in its liturgies, exorcisms, and Church documents since the 4th century. It is her mother tongue and the universal language of the Church. It allows the liturgy not to be bound by the borders and languages of the world’s nations and to be truly Catholic, which, after all, means “universal.”
Latin, some may say, is a dead language; why use it in your liturgy? Well, as author and podcaster Timothy Gordon has said on multiple occasions, we continue to use it precisely because it is a dead language! It is unchanging, no new words or meanings are being created, and it is precise and clear. As recently as 2010, many parts of the Mass in English had to be retranslated (think of how “and also with you” became “and with your spirit”) — and in 2019, Pope Francis began discussing a change to the Our Father and the Gloria in English. Words change meaning over time, which can cause problems in theology, but these kinds of updates and changes do not happen with a dead language like Latin. “Et cum spiritu tuo” means the same now as it did five hundred years ago and has no need to be updated. Keeping the liturgy in Latin protects it from any changes going forward.
There is also a mystery; beauty; and transcendent, ancient feeling associated with prayers in Latin. If you compare a liturgy entirely in an ancient tongue that is not used in everyday conversing with one where the priest uses all of the colloquial speech of the vernacular, it is clear that one is more solemn, serious, and ancient. The use of Latin is like a veil that adds mystery and beauty to the liturgy, just as we veil the Tabernacle, the heads of women in the Church, and the bride on her wedding day. This “veil” that Latin provides is just another way to recognize that while at Mass, something mysterious, something different, something powerful, and something holy is taking place.
Finally, there is an argument to be made that Latin is actually more powerful or efficacious. This is evidenced by the fact that exorcisms do not seem to work, at least not to the same extent, if they are done in a language other than Latin. In fact, the rite of exorcism was not approved to be said in English until 2014. There is power in the ancient tongue, and the demons do not like it. Perhaps one theological reason for this, as the author and theologian Dr. Taylor Marshall has stated in several of his podcasts, is that Latin is one of the three languages inscribed on the cross of Christ; it was washed with His blood [1].
2) The Mass is offered ad orientem, with the priest facing the tabernacle.
Ad orientem is Latin for “to the East.” This harkens back to an ancient custom that all churches be built with the altar facing east toward Jerusalem. Beyond this ancient custom, whose history is outside the scope of this article, the practical application of celebrating the Mass ad orientem has many merits.
A critic might say the priest having his back to the people causes the Mass-goer to not be able to hear the priest. The short answer to that objection is simple: the priest is not talking to you, he is talking to God. And where is God located? In Heaven, yes, but He is also physically located right in front of the priest inside of the tabernacle. He is offering the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, to our Heavenly Father — why would he turn away from the Father while doing this?
The optics of ad orientem are also stunning and beautiful. The focus is directed toward God Himself. In most churches built before the 1960s or so, the architecture called the faithful’s minds toward the heavenly: the tabernacle front and center, elevated above the high altar; a crucifix on the altar; the altar itself, then the priest, then the people. Everything is oriented toward God — there is a sort of physical and architectural hierarchy, a linear upward movement from the back of the church to the front, up the sanctuary steps and to the altar that mirrors the theological hierarchy of God and His creation.
3) It is the Mass of the saints.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Pius X, St. Francis of Assisi, St Philip Neri, St. Thomas Aquinas…pick a saint, and the odds are nearly 100% that the Mass he attended and from which he gained his sanctifying graces was the Latin Mass or one of its early counterparts, which look nearly identical, as the Latin Mass has been wholly intact for over five hundred years and essentially intact for over fifteen hundred [2].
If this Mass was the center of spiritual life for all of these great saints, nearly all of the saints in our Church’s history, why not have it be our spiritual foundation as well?
4) The profound scriptural preparation for the Eucharist.
When I first converted, I often wondered: “what prayers can I say leading up to communion that would possibly prepare me to receive the actual presence of our Lord into my body and soul?” A good and thought-provoking question, I would argue. That is until you realize that the entire Mass leading up to the consecration is the answer to the question! Those prayers, those readings, gestures, and the work of the liturgy are what prepare you for the Eucharist, and Holy Mother Church in her wisdom has kept them intact throughout the ages. Scripture passages in the Mass should be not at all different; the passages should be chosen with the direction of the Mass, the preparation for sacrifice in mind.
An interesting aspect of the old Mass is that the readings from Scripture are not structured the way you might be used to. This was strange to me the first few times I attended, and it almost seemed as though there was less of an emphasis on the Bible. It was not until I read from this article by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski that I understood that it is not volume or variety of scriptural passages that is important in the liturgy, but rather their place and purpose in preparation for the holy sacrifice.
Dr. Kwasniewski states:
When it comes to biblical readings, the old rite operates on two admirable principles: first, that passages are chosen not for their own sake (to “get through” as much of Scripture as possible) but to illuminate the meaning of the occasion of worship; second, that the emphasis is not on a mere increase of biblical literacy or didactic instruction but on ‘mystagogy.’ In other words, the readings at Mass are not meant to be a glorified Sunday school but an ongoing initiation into the mysteries of the Faith. Their more limited number, brevity, liturgical suitability, and repetition over the course of every year makes them a powerful agent of spiritual formation and preparation for the Eucharistic sacrifice.
5) Everyone receives communion kneeling and on the tongue.
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6) There are no Eucharistic ministers.
In light of the recent study that says only one third of Catholics believe that the bread and wine become the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ during Mass, it is good to ponder why this might be the case. So let’s paint a picture.
At one Mass, five older women are handing out communion to a line of people who are standing and taking the host in their own, non-consecrated hands, and every single person in the church, likely instructed by an usher to do so, gets up from the pew to get in the receiving line.
At another Mass, only the priest touches the host, and all of the people kneel to receive it at a communion rail, which separates them from the sanctuary where God resides. They do so on their tongues so as not to touch the host with any other part of their body. At this Mass, several if not many of the faithful remain in their pews, having contemplated the state of their souls and not wanting to receive unworthily.
Which one of those Masses is filled with people who actually believe that the host is something sacred, something different from just bread?
There is an ancient saying that “how you pray is how you believe” (lex orandi, lex credendi — more literally translated as “the law of what is to be prayed is the law of what is to be believed”). The idea is that your actions, thoughts, and disposition in prayer directly affect what you believe. If you are wearing a t-shirt and jeans to Mass, receiving some bread in your hand from Susan from the parish council, and going on your merry way, are you likely to foster greater belief that you are in the presence of and actually receiving the King of the Universe?
I am not promising that everyone at your local Latin Mass will be dressed in a tuxedo, but the serious and solemn nature of the Mass usually attracts people who take it seriously. Kneeling to receive Communion from the priest contributes to this seriousness in a most critical way.
7) There are clear sex distinctions.
If you walk into a Latin Mass, you will not see any women in the sanctuary. You will also see that nearly every woman has her head covered, the role of the man is evident in the sacrificial work of the priest, and there are no female altar servers. We could take each of those points one at a time, but for the sake of brevity I have suggested readings on some of those points in the footnotes and will focus here only on the “altar girls” [3].
What is the purpose of an altar server? In their podcast on attending the Latin Mass, Dr. Taylor Marshall and Eric Sammons make the point that a priest who has spent six or more years in training to be able to offer the Mass is much more capable than a ten-year-old boy is of pouring some water or moving some objects around. The purpose of altar servers is not simply to help the priest with menial tasks that he could and, quite frankly, would probably rather do himself.
The purpose of altar servers is to foster vocations, to get young men up and close to what a priest does so they might be interested in it. In fact, it used to be that only men with minor orders were permitted to serve at the altar. Altar servers are wholly unnecessary in terms of the liturgy but are permitted because of the profound effect it can have on the vocation of a young man by getting him interested in the liturgy in a unique way [4].
Women cannot be priests, so if the point is fostering vocations to the priesthood, why allow females to participate? It should be clear to everyone at Mass that this is a deeply masculine role, and just as men cannot bear life in their own bodies as women can, women cannot offer this sacrifice as men can.
As Dr. Taylor Marshall states, the theological reason for this is actually quite simple: the priest, acting as Christ Himself (in persona Christi), says during the words of consecration, “this is my body.” The “my” here refers to Christ’s body. We know from science, basic reason, all of history, and the divine Word of God (Gen. 5:2) that there are only two types of bodies: male and female. Christ’s body is male, therefore a female cannot declare “this is my body” acting in the person of Christ [5].
8) Reverence for the Holy Name of God.
There is an ancient custom, still alive and well today at most Latin Masses, that you bow your head at the holy name of Jesus or the invocation of the Trinity. In fact, the priest will pull off his biretta at the mentioning of a holy name. This kind of reverence for God’s name is sorely needed in the 21st century as a countermeasure to the profanity so commonplace in using God’s name as a curse or a flippant expression, which is a direct violation of the 2nd Commandment. The reverence in the Latin Mass is a beautiful way to teach your children that the name of God truly is holy, which means “set apart.” Remember, lex orandi, lex credendi.
9) The actual prayers of the Mass.
There are many books and websites that do a side-by-side comparison of the new and old Masses, so I will not go through the whole missal here, but the beauty and efficaciousness of the Latin Mass are striking to anyone who reads through it.
Here are just a few examples of what you will hear or read in the old missal: Mass begins with the prayers at the foot of the altar; the Confiteor invokes St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John the Baptist by name; the Kyrie is repeated to make it a perfectly Trinitarian ninefold prayer (three lines each said three times); the language has a specific and purposeful focus on the sacrificial nature of the Mass; the traditional Last Gospel is read near the end of Mass; the Roman Canon, one of our most beautiful and ancient prayers, is always prayed preceding the consecration; at the end of Low Masses, the entire congregation joins in praying the Leonine prayers.
If you believe that you can invoke the help of a saint by calling on him, why not invoke more saints? If you believe that your prayers have power and that God hears them, why not say these beautiful prayers throughout Mass that the saints said before us? If you believe that the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ the Son to the Eternal Father, why not attend a Mass that emphasizes the sacrificial language? Now more than ever, we need these beautiful and ancient prayers that are part and parcel of the traditional Latin Mass.
10) The Latin Mass is God-centric.
My first time attending the Latin Mass, I was struck by how focused on God the priest and the entire congregation seemed to be. The atmosphere was similar to the prayerful reverence of a holy hour.
Here is what I noticed that I believe contributes to this focus on God: the priest is facing God along with the people so all prayers and focus are directed toward God; the priest celebrating Mass ad orientem emphasizes him as the leader of the people in the sacrifice (think of the analogy of the priest as a bus driver taking the congregation somewhere — to the foot of the cross); there are not readers, singers, and Eucharistic ministers moving around the sanctuary and taking the attention and focus of the people; the music is solemn and not the centerpiece of the Mass; the mostly silent nature of the Mass calls the mind to be quiet and focus on that which is holy; the priest does not have the choice of what prayers, long or short versions, he wants to say that day, but instead he just follows the missal, taking the pressure of “performing” off the priest.
These are just a few of the aspects of the Mass that stuck out to me, but entire books have been written on the God-centric nature of the Latin Mass. I highly recommend reading them!
11) Other ancient rites and traditions are common in Latin Mass parishes.
I just want to briefly highlight some things that our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up with as normal parts of their Catholic life that are still present in many communities where the Traditional Latin Mass is offered:
People abstain from meat on Fridays in accordance with canon law; Ember Days are observed; all seven sacraments are still in their original rites; use of sacramentals like the Benedict medal, blessed salt, and the Brown Scapular are popular among the laity; many clergy take the oath against Modernism; the minor orders of the priesthood are still observed by societies like the FSSP (the removal of minor orders is something the Council of Trent condemned by anathema)[6]; the old calendar is still observed so that feast and fast days are consistent with those observed by our ancestors and the great saints before us.
All of these pious practices will greatly increase your faith by adding a sense of connection to the entire Church to your daily life. Yes, you can participate in them without attending the Latin Mass, but the communities where these pious practices are discussed most often and integrated into daily life are the same communities where the old Mass is the center of spiritual life.
12) It is the Mass of history.
Can you imagine if the Church changed the sign of the cross? Seriously, imagine that one day the pope says, “We will no longer use the sign of the cross and instead we will just briefly close our eyes to signal the beginning and end of a prayer.” Wouldn’t that rock your world? You have used the sign of the cross for your whole life! It is just part of being Catholic!
Well, where does the average Catholic experience the Church, the clergy, parish life, and all other things “Catholic” on a regular basis? On Sunday at Mass, of course! Mass is central to the Catholic life — even more central than the sign of the cross or any other devotion. So try for a moment to imagine how it felt for Catholics when everything about the Mass changed in the ’60s and ’70s. It was infinitely more confusing, frustrating, and puzzling than if something like the sign of the cross were to be changed. The Mass that the Church had been celebrating for almost her entire history was flipped on its head, and, based on numbers regarding church attendance, the faithful did not like it.[7]
I am a convert to the Faith, and in my catechesis, I learned for the first time about Sacred Tradition. See, coming into the Church, I knew nothing about it. When John Paul II died and I saw it on the news, I had to research what a pope is, so I had a lot to learn about tradition and authority in the Catholic Church.
In my classes leading up to my conversion, I was taught that Sacred Tradition is held in the same regard as Sacred Scripture, something unique to the Church and heavily disputed by Protestants. I was also taught that we celebrate our “small ‘t’ traditions,” too. So when I converted in 2007 and then my parish started celebrating a Latin Mass in 2008, I wondered why I had never heard of this Mass. “It is the traditional Mass of the Church, the one that had been celebrated for centuries up until the 1960s,” I was told. Well, my recently catechized brain, high on the concept of tradition, could not even comprehend the fact that the Church as a whole moved away from the tradition most central to the life of the everyday Catholic.
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski eloquently and succinctly detailed why clinging to this Mass of history is so critical in one of his many brilliant articles on OnePeterFive:
As Catholics we have an obligation to receive our liturgy from tradition with deep veneration, as all of our forefathers in the Faith have done. When we fail to do this, we fail in moral, intellectual, and theological virtues. Moral, because the virtue of religion gives to God that which we owe Him, and we owe Him what He has inspired us in our tradition to give Him. Intellectual, because the formation of a Catholic mind leans on and learns from the accumulated wisdom of our predecessors. Theological, because faith is nourished on the intensely worshiped mysteries of faith, hope aspires to unseen heavenly beatitude, and charity clings to God above all and sees the neighbor in relation to Him — precisely what traditional liturgical rites embody, exemplify, and entice from us.
13) It is counter-cultural.
Referring again to the Marshall and Sammons podcast, it should be briefly noted that the Latin Mass allows us to be counter-cultural. We live in the culture of death and of instant gratification. The complicated, theologically rich rites and prayers of the Latin Mass are not instantly gratifying. They contain mystery and beauty that take years and years to understand and grasp, deepening your faith all the while. As Eric Sammons said, people want “their instant coffee and then their instant Mass,” and we need to fight that. The “smells and bells” of the High Mass and all of the extra details and ritualistic aspects make the Latin Mass counter-cultural and in today’s culture, maybe more than any other, that is certainly a good thing.
14) The tradition of sacred music.
I am no expert in liturgical music, and although I love music, this topic is not of particular interest to me, so it is hard to do all of the research necessary to do it justice. That being said, I think you can make one simple, powerful point concerning the reverence due to God in the music at Mass: is turning the Mass into a pop concert or a rock concert really giving the Father the reverence He is owed?
Even the document from Vatican II entitled Musicam Sacram says Gregorian chant should be given “pride of place” in the liturgy and constantly refers to music as needing to be sacred and preserving the solemn nature of the worship. Does your parish follow Vatican II’s instruction to give Gregorian chant “pride of place”?
15) Children need to experience the “beauty of holiness.”
Psalm 95:6–9 proclaims: “[6] Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary. [7] Bring ye to the Lord, O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring ye to the Lord glory and honour: [8] Bring to the Lord glory unto his name. Bring up sacrifices, and come into his courts: [9] Adore ye the Lord in his holy court. Let all the earth be moved at his presence.”
Children experience the Faith through what they see and chiefly by observing what their parents do. Their first experiences of God are in His “holy court,” the Church. Every Sunday, small children will follow in their families’ footsteps and learn to imitate what they hear and see at church. Because they are so impressionable and are absorbing everything they experience, it is critical that they grow up experiencing the reverence and profound silence of the traditional Mass.
One of the best books on this topic is by Dr. Maria Montessori. She is a famous Catholic educator, and her style and method of teaching young children, though somewhat controversial in my opinion, has become wildly popular in recent times. Many who do not know the history of the Roman Rite are surprised to learn that when she wrote about educating the child on the Mass, she was writing about the traditional Latin Mass! Because the description of the Mass in her book is so different from what we are used to today, many modern educators who follow Dr. Montessori’s methods leave this work out as they catechize the children, and this is a travesty. Her famous theory of the “absorbent mind” of the young child perfectly summarizes why children need to experience all the beauty, reverence, holiness, piety, and recognition of the divine that the Latin Mass has to offer.
16) Confession is often available during Mass.
This one is slightly tricky to prove in that there are certainly parishes that offer confession during Sunday Mass but do not offer Latin Masses (I have personally attended one). But like all of these other traditions of the Faith, it is far more common at a Latin Mass parish.
In an article for the National Catholic Register, R. Jared Staudt writes:
[M]ost Catholics receive Communion every time they come to Mass, whether or not they have received the Sacrament of Reconciliation within the last year (which many have not). This situation creates a sacramental crisis, where large numbers of Catholics receive the Eucharist without adequate preparation and/or without being in a state of grace.
If we are serious about getting a lot of our parishioners to Confession, especially those who have not gone recently and would not plan on coming another day, we need to make the sacrament as accessible as possible for them. At my home parish I was able to get a family to go who had not been to Confession in decades simply because we walked by an open door on the way in to Mass. Having Confession on Sunday should be a priority if we want to bring the Lord’s mercy directly to the people who are most in need.
I too have had the experience of going to confession simply because it was available right before the Mass for which I was there fifteen minutes early, as well as getting other family members to go at these times.
Pope John Paul II weighed in on this topic in his writing Misericordia Dei when he stated: “It is particularly recommended that in places of worship confessors be visibly present at the advertised times, that these times be adapted to the real circumstances of penitents, and that confessions be especially available before Masses, and even during Mass if there are other priests available, in order to meet the needs of the faithful.”
17) Silence is not just for reverence; it is for prayer.
The first time I went to a Low Mass, I was confused by how silent it was. I was not sure what I should be doing or how I should be participating. Shortly after, a friend of mine who had attended the FSSP seminary for a few years told me he could never go back to a parish without the Latin Mass because there was no time to pray during other Masses. I was instantly struck by just how much activity and noise goes on in the new Mass. The readings are read to you out loud, there is a song in between nearly every part of the Mass, there are call and response prayers that you wait for; you are constantly being occupied or even entertained. But how much time do you actually spend in deep, personal prayer with Christ during Mass? You are receiving the King of the Universe into your own body and soul. Do you not want to have some silent time to talk to Him? That silent time for prayer is built right into the Latin Mass.
18) It is easy with small children and big families.
At the new Mass, there are so many responses and songs that we have been told we have to participate in that we feel we have missed our part if we have to take a child out of the pew to the bathroom or to the back of the church. In my experience, this leads to the unrealistic expectation that your two-year-old sit in a pew for an hour or more and be totally silent.
The traditional Mass does not create the same kind of urgent need to be in the pew saying all of your responses in order to keep the Mass going. The priest is offering the sacrifice and saying the beautiful, ancient prayers whether you are chasing a toddler in the narthex or kneeling quietly in your pew. This allows parents the freedom to take care of their family however they may need and make Mass less of a chore for the children. If your child is crying or needs a diaper, just genuflect, walk out, take care of it, and then come back in. In the meantime, the priest has everything under control.
19) It is universal.
I have already mentioned that the use of Latin, the universal language of the Church, makes the Mass more accessible to everyone around the world. But beyond this, the fact that there is no choice for the priest in how things are done means that Mass will always look the same and that the same prayers will be said. The accents of the Mass or the optics will always remain virtually the same.
Can there still be a rogue priest who makes changes or offers an illicit or invalid Mass? Of course, but it is far less likely when that priest does not have choices built into the missal about where to stand, which prayers to say, who gets to distribute Communion, and all of the other things I have mentioned in this article. Having a standard Mass is clearly more “catholic” in its literal meaning: universal.
20) The sacrificial nature of the Mass is apparent and emphasized.
Many of the points that I have mentioned require entire books and years of study to fully delve into. That is true for this point more than any other, but I would be remiss if I did not mention it at all.
One book that formed my opinions on the Mass more than any other was the simple and short work entitled The Mass as Sacrifice. It opened my eyes to see that the Mass is a work (liturgy) of sacrifice offered to God. That is the chief definition of the Mass. If you had to define it in one word, the most accurate would be “sacrifice.” This is why Catholics use altars and not tables and why we have priests and not preachers. A priest is one who offers sacrifice, and he does so upon an altar.
And what is he sacrificing? Jesus Christ, the unblemished lamb. This is the mystery of our faith, the source and summit of it. If you do not have an understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice, the rest of Catholicism will not make sense. It is this truth that is so apparent to me at a traditional Latin Mass, and it is reason number one why I am making the decision to raise my children in this ancient liturgy starting this year. I want them to know in their heart of hearts that it is really and truly Jesus Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity up on that altar being sacrificed and offered to God. I believe that the Latin Mass is the best possible way to convey that to my children and to give them the best shot at eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. Though there are other reasons to attend the Latin Mass, as I have listed above, and many more beyond that, this alone is reason enough for me.
Conclusion
Just as a resolution to work out more in the new year may be uncomfortable or a sacrifice, let’s get out of our comfort zone, start learning Latin, and drive to a traditional Latin Mass. You may not understand everything at first, but do not worry: you don’t have to. I did not understand everything about Mass when I converted, even though those Masses were in English. After you go a few times, you will be hooked! Please feel free to email me throughout the year with thoughts, questions, and comments on your progress as you join me in this goal for 2020.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank those who influenced my traditional leanings, specifically those who introduced me to the Latin Mass: Dr. John Goodreau, Bill Erwin, and Fr. Jerry Wooten.
[1] John 19:19-20. “[19] And Pilate wrote a title also, and he put it upon the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. [20] This title therefore many of the Jews did read: because the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin.”
[2] Michael Davies, perhaps the greatest scholar and historian on the subject of the Latin Mass in modern times, argues in “A Short History of the Roman Mass” that neither the reform of St. Gregory the Great in the 6th century nor the reform of St. Pius V in the 16th century gave us a new liturgy, meaning that the Latin Mass has been virtually the same since the 6th century and maybe earlier.
[3] Suggested reading:
https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/chapel-veil-womans-rights/
https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/theology-women-veils/
https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/traditional-latin-mass-honors-womanhood/
“The Privilege of Being a Woman” by Alice von Hidlebrand
[4] “10 Reasons to Attend the Latin Mass with Eric Sammons and Dr Marshall.” YouTube, 11 December 2018. I did not transcribe this podcast, so these words are my paraphrasing of Dr. Marshall and Eric Sammons, but I want to give credit to them for this point about the purpose of altar servers.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “If any one saith, that, besides the priesthood, there are not in the Catholic Church other orders, both greater and minor, by which, as by certain steps, advance is made unto the priesthood; let him be anathema.” Council of Trent, Session 23, Canon 2.
[7] Davies, Michael. Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II: Destruction of the Faith through Changes in Catholic Worship. 2003, TAN Books. In this book, Michael Davies details the massive decline in Mass attendance, vocations, sacraments, and more after the introduction of the new Mass.
Image: Christophe117 via Wikimedia Commons.
