I—the editor—am a Lutheran. So, I have no “skin in the game” when it comes to pronouncements made in Rome. Nevertheless, I still want to talk about the recent controversy surrounding Pope Francis’s changes to the Latin Mass. Personally, I find the Latin Mass is just one example of how Christianity thrives better when it rejects modern culture. The traditional Liturgies found in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and confessional Lutheran congregations run completely counter to the 1980s & 90s “Seeker-sensitive” movement in “pop American Christianity”. In short, the Latin Mass shows how the future of American Christianity is to embrace tradition—not what’s relevant.
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
Eternal Beauty
A few weeks ago, Pope Francis—head of the Roman Catholic Church—announced new restrictions on the Latin Mass. His decision is going to make it fairly difficult to celebrate the Latin Mass. A Roman Catholic congregation now can only celebrate the Latin Mass if their local bishop permits it, and priests cannot start new parishes to celebrate the Latin Mass.
Pope Francis’s edict upset many traditional, conservative Catholics around the world. Unbeknownst to many, there are a fair amount of Roman Catholics who still celebrate the Latin Mass—even after the Church Council Vatican II normalized celebrating the Mass in the vernacular. About an estimated 150,000 Roman Catholics in America attend a Latin Mass on Sundays–over a vernacular mass.
In my hometown of New Orleans, there’s seven locations where Roman Catholics can attend the Latin Mass on a Sunday morning. Fortunately, the Archbishop of New Orleans is in full support of the Latin Mass congregations in the New Orleans Diocese. So, they should be able to continue celebrating the Latin Mass as they see fit.
You might think that the attendees of the Latin Mass are a bunch of septuagenarians who hate Vatican II. Surprisingly, many Latin Mass attendees are younger Roman Catholics.
Let’s think about this fact. In modern America, all of life is devoid of transcendent beauty and the eternal. Life is about making as much money as possible, passively consuming whatever entertainment you can get your hands on, and repeating the process ad nauseam.
The Latin Mass and other traditional Christian liturgies give you something that rampant consumerism can’t give you: the holiness of Christ’s presence, the beauty of tradition, and the utter distinctiveness of eternal life—in comparison to our secular, material culture.
The numbers spell out this reality. According to a survey in 2019, 98% of Roman Catholics aged 18-39 who attend a Latin Mass report attending every single Sunday. While on the other hand, only 25% of American Roman Catholics ages 21-29 attend Mass weekly (in 2017).
You’re Not Making Christianity Better
I personally have a bone to pick with Contemporary Worship in American Christianity.
The character Hank Hill from the TV Show King of Hill perfectly sums up Contemporary Worship in this single quip: “You’re not making Christianity better. You’re making Rock ‘n Roll worse!”
I hate making TV Show references (because I don’t watch TV anymore). However, that quote gets at the whole point of the “Worship Wars” within American Christianity—in both Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches.
What’s the future of American Christianity? Is it in producing a worse version of the entertainment that the broader culture offers in concerts and sports? That’s what many Christian Churches provide on Sunday mornings.
Let’s be honest. The desire to remain “relevant” is what drives the Sunday morning worship services of many American Christian Churches. While many Churches make their worship services look more like concerts, young Americans have dropped out of the pews.
According to findings in 2014 from the Barna group, over half of Millennials did not attend a Church service or function in the prior six months. Clearly, the contemporary worship movement of the last several decades has not worked. It has parallel a significant drop in the Church attendance of Americans.
I’m not saying that Contemporary worship is the only/main reason why Young Americans have dropped out of Christianity. I’m just saying that it hasn’t kept them, and it won’t bring them in on Sunday mornings.
What the Latin Mass is doing for young Roman Catholics gives me hope. Indeed, the historic Christian liturgy gives young people a taste of the eternal—the truth, goodness, and beauty found in the Christian faith.
To close, let us hold fast to the gift that God has given us in the traditional worship service/liturgy. It’s a treasure worth keeping. In fact, it might just help us bring in more young Americans who have found nothing in secularism, hedonism, and consumerism.