Mary Kenny
I have no strong opinions, either way, about the practice of the traditional Latin Mass. My instinctive feeling is – let people have Mass in whatever form they chose, providing it follows the basic tenets of the faith.
So, visiting the lovely old spa town of Vichy in France this month, I took the opportunity to attend a Latin Mass, at the imposing local Church of St Louis (consecrated in 1865).
The experience took me back to my childhood in the 1950s. The priest, who was probably in his late 30s, faced the altar, not the people. He entered from the south transept area, wearing a flowing green cope and the square-shaped biretta. He partly disrobed by the side of the altar – assisted by two young men – and donned a Roman chasuble over his surplice. The surplice had guipure trimmings in the lower panels – an intricate embroidered lace.
Formality
Proceedings had an air of formality. The sung parts of the Mass were undertaken by a lay choir – mostly composed of women – who stood in a group in the right transept. They seemed very dedicated. The church, which is large, wasn’t full, but it was reasonably well-attended: at least one woman wore a mantilla, and a family of four young children behaved impeccably, focused on their little missals.
The Latin Mass has a certain dignity, and the Latin words of prayers like the Pater Noster reverberate with historic universality”
The sermon was delivered with tranquillity, though in content unremarkable – a reflection on the gospel. No lay people participated in the readings. There was no “peace” gesture amongst the congregation.
At Communion, the two male aides slid a movable Communion rail towards the chancel, at the front of the altar, covered in white linen. Everyone was expected to kneel and take communion on the tongue, not in the hand. It’s a long time since I’ve done that and I felt a little apprehensive. But the priest knew what he was doing and it was all carried out with a surprising air of efficiency. The Mass, which took an hour and a quarter, ended with a Salve Regina.
As we left the church, one of my companions, who is French, waxed critical. “That is so reactionary,” she said. “So Pius X! These people are intolerant – they don’t live in the modern world!”
Well, I said, didn’t Jesus say his kingdom was not of this world? If people want to worship in a traditional way, let them. And how can we judge whether individuals we don’t know are intolerant?
The Latin Mass has a certain dignity, and the Latin words of prayers like the Pater Noster reverberate with historic universality. All the same, I found it more warming, more participatory, to return to the post-Vatican II rite the following Sunday.
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Female saints and faith practice
St Bernadette – and St Thérèse of Lisieux – are evidence of the importance of French women saints in our calendar. Stained-glass windows in French churches often illuminate the lives of a repertory of female saints, including St Jeanne de Chantal, St Margaret-Mary Alacoque, St Catherine Labouré, and, of course, St Joan of Arc (along with Bernadette and Thérèse).
The Catholic church may have a patriarchal tradition in priesthood and hierarchy, but the many images of these visionary holy women also attest to the strong participation, and wide acknowledgment, of females in faith practice.
As well as the French saints patriotically portrayed in artistic vitrines, the Italian St Rita often features prominently. She was (like Jeanne de Chantal) a married woman whose husband was what we would now call a domestic abuser. We would nowadays counsel such a wife to seek shelter from domestic violence, but St Rita of Cascia, by her goodness and holiness, apparently won her brutish spouse back to repentance before he died.
She’s seen in images with roses and the thorns of Christ, and prayers to St Rita often seek support in distressing circumstances. An enduringly popular saint in Continental Europe.
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I hear comments to the effect that Catholic schools have gone too “woke”, especially on matters touching sex education. But will “wokery” soon be out of date? According to reports in The Economist magazine, “wokeness” has now peaked.
The fashion for DEI (“Diversity, Equity, Inclusion”) is cooling – often because in business, it loses money (“Go woke, go broke”). Budweiser, the beer company, lost a shed of cash for promoting transgender polices, rather than their ale product. The public, literally, wasn’t buying it.
In America, businesses have lost legal cases in which DEI policies added to discrimination: if someone is hired just for token reasons, this may unjustly discriminate against a candidate who genuinely deserves the job. In Britain, scores of corporate bodies are unsubscribing from “Stonewall” because compulsive wokery is seen as a form of bullying.
Fairness and diversity are fine intentions, but the public doesn’t like it when it gets silly and extreme. And parent-power, like public reaction, can defeat educational wokery.