--> Wow! Great job, Michelle! You've given us four articles for the price of one. Each section is worth it's own careful read. But, having them all together really paints a good picture of the various concepts of Catholic/Christian community-building.
--> There is so much to like about each of the models. For me, the St. Aubin village is the most attractive, but mostly that's because I already live in something similar to the Lincoln model.
--> I have to admit that at first the idea of the Alleluia Community made me .... I don't know, suspicious? Certainly it didn't strike a chord with me. But, as I kept reading I began to ask myself why I felt that way. By the end of the section, although I'm not "sold", I have to admit that if the community is still growing after 50+ years, something must be right with it.
I live in SE Michigan and know many families love the Shrine. It is beautiful. But I also see the fracturing that the EF Mass has had on our local communities. This was part of what Pope Francis mentioned in TC. Our parish is very traditional and was among the first to use Latin, ad orientem, communion rail, only boys as altar servers, etc. To be honest, our parish membership also draws from a wide distance with few parishioners in our boundaries (the boundaries are horribly drawn, but that's another issue). After a priest change and the EF started up at a neighboring parish, our parish numbers were pummeled. It hasn't been the same since. Reading this article, I was immediately struck by the "he experienced what a blessing strong parish life could be." Exactly. Imagine if these families stayed put and ran bible studies and discussion groups in their homes or at the parish. Or imagine if they moved to be closer to an existing parish. Parish life is more than Sunday Mass. That's a huge component of it. But when there's a meal train for a new mom or meals that need to be made for a funeral mass or when we want to have a youth group, who's going to be willing to make an extra drive or two per week to support that Parish life? In our experience, people haven't been willing to do this. Maybe they will get their planned community off the ground. But at what cost to existing parishes and communities? The laity are called to be the levan in society, we aren't supposed to be monks or to hold up in a bunker.
On the one hand, we need community as support for growth and deepening of our spiritual lives. Community which does not provide that support can effectively starve peoples' spiritual lives, and even without such extremes, there's room for some holy impatience regarding getting what you need to progress well. On the other hand, in order to maintain a community long-term, people absolutely must be willing to sacrifice some forms of support that are available in other communities, but not in the one they are currently members of. Otherwise no community will be able to survive. These two principles will always exist in a certain tension, and require good discernment to properly balance them.
People drawn to tradition desire a community that is faithful to Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium, promotes the pillars of the spiritual life, and provides a good environment for mental prayer. That's EF, because the OF removed or altered so much of the actual texts of the Mass, and because the EF is far more natural about silence. There are ways to adjust without the EF, but I didn't know what any were until after being in the EF for quite a while, and I'm not eager to test them out.
But what the EF is definitely NOT, is a group of elite Catholics who could, if only we were willing, reform any parish we commit to, run Bible studies, ignite hearts, and convert all the cafeteria Catholics, beyond what any regular old OF parishioner could hope to achieve. Nonsense. When there were worries about the TLM getting shut down, the idea was for our parish to agree on one, maybe two other parishes to all switch to, so that we would still have the support of our community (which I wholeheartedly agree is about much more than Sunday Mass) in living a basic Catholic life. Otherwise, we'd be separated between over 2 dozen parishes, and the flames would go out. We came from those parishes. We know our inability to live well in them from having tried. EF parishioners have as much chance of turning a parish around as the current parishioners do.
EF *parishes* are the reason that OF parishes move back toward tradition, as they keep it alive and visible to others. That's being leaven. Monasteries do the same. While EF parishioners are hardly holed up in a bunker (jobs, grocery store, neighbors), and a neighborhood of them would be going outside for the same things, being leaven and being cloistered actually do go together (e.g. the Little Flower). Faithful prayer and right worship, even when done in isolation from society on a visible level, are what make the world go round. That's part of why EF parishes joyfully give up members to cloistered or monastic religious orders.
Well they're either going back to ad orientem, altar rails and male altar servers because they remember that was how it was done in the TLM before 1970, or because they see (or hear) that is how it is done in the TLM now, and start asking questions. They're certainly not doing it because of the zeitgeist.
I'm certainly not going back to ad orientem or altar rails. Before female altar servers were allowed a number of parishes had female candle holders and male servers, so children of both sexes could participate. That strikes me as a useful alternative to female altar servers.
> and provides a good environment for mental prayer.
Let's take a break and review St Teresa telling her nuns that mental prayer includes remembering who you are talking to while you are praying the Our Father. The vernacular is a tremendous aid to many of the laity in this regard if they are taught to do it.
Silent prayer is a category of mental prayer and the bulk of it should occur outside of Mass (but yes, people should not talk in the church itself immediately after Mass, so that there is silence for folks to pray in for a while) since our prayer life should be more than an hour a week. OF if the documents are followed (reform of the reform) is not a terrible environment for contemplatives.
Well stated! And I’m a contemplative too. I actually feel detached from the Mass and alienated from it at the EF and I think that active participation, properly understood the way Sacrosanctam concilium actually intended it, is a good and important thing.
I recommend readers check out Pope Benedict XVI’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy if they haven’t read it already.
Silence (as in the physical absence of noise) is helpful for all the categories of mental prayer. Usually. I did hear about one guy who could not manage even basic meditation in silence until the monk who was helping him took him to a circus. He could meditate in the middle of a noisy crowd... The bulk of mental prayer should be outside the Mass. But I don't think that means you shouldn't be doing mental prayer during the Mass. Padre Pio is a sound, albeit extreme example.
As far as meditation is concerned, I don't know how you do that in a language you don't know. But you can meditate alongside a prayer you know, said in a language you don't know. Latin is actually very helpful in getting me to slow down and think about what I was saying and what it meant and who I was saying it to, when English starts to become thoughtless. (so is French) My lack of focus needs all the help it can get.
I can't really speak to the OF reformed and sans liturgical abuses. But I think I can say that if you're trying to pray, God will teach you how, wherever you are. Even if a better environment would help you progress faster.
> But I don't think that means you shouldn't be doing mental prayer during the Mass. Padre Pio is a sound, albeit extreme example.
I am concerned that you and I might mean different things when we use the word "meditation" or "meditate", and also that we might mean different things when we say "mental prayer". I am reflecting , though, on a tangent, that St Pio, stigmatic, is an amazing reminder of what the Mass is and what our part in it is and how that might sometimes feel: a consoling thought for mothers bringing difficult children; my willing participation in the one sacrifice can feel painful, fruitless, and like I have suffered defeat and humiliation (and have kept the mystics around me from experiencing the heights of ecstasy, if any) and this just means that I have put in the two copper coins I had and been given in return the kind of closeness to Christ (crucified) that we really do not like.
Fifteen minutes in silence at home *every* morning before anyone else wakes up made an indescribable or indeed catastrophic difference in me, eventually. But this also is often unpleasant (feels fruitless and dry; full of distractions or worse; constant itch to get up and do something "productive", which is acedia or the noonday devil.) I am surprised I stuck with it, but then the road that led me to it had also led me to expect literally nothing from it (except that it would eventually make me a more patient person) which probably helped, since what I could see was what I expected.
The terminology does seem to be all over the place, depending on which spiritual tradition you follow. I can't really keep them straight, and I wouldn't be surprised if the way I think of them is wrong, I don't really know what I'm doing. In "mental prayer", I include meditation (thinking about God or the things of God, with God), and affective prayer (the good desires and resolutions that arise from meditation) and contemplation (prayer of silence, or just resting in one thing with God).
Parents taking wailing children out of Mass has got to be one of the primo sacrifices offered in union with Jesus'. And if they're disturbing enough, all the surrounding mystics can offer a tangentially related sacrifice.
I heard someone describe distractions as an opportunity to choose to refocus on God, for love of Him. The more distractions, the more opportunities to say "I choose you, I love you" to God. I, of course, figure out I'm distracted after about 5-10 minutes of being distracted, which ruins most of the opportunities.
I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I agonized about this question for years before ultimately deciding to leave my territorial parish. There is something very Catholic about staying where you are and trying to sanctify the place.
That being said when your local parish is a mega parish run by pastors who are all put there one after the next to reinforce the status quo liturgically and pastorally what
can you do? There was even a young parochial vicar who attempted to break out of the box and was ultimately hindered at every attempt. I loath to be "that guy" who pastor dreads to talk to because he always has "suggestions" that mean work or friction. The reality is that a majority in the parish either don't want change or are ambivalent. This puts the pastor in an impossible position - and he's really in the position he's in because he's a capable manager and the bishop wants him to keep the peace. Managed decline
Then I started to realize that by the time anything substantive happens my kids will be grown. And my kids need like minded friends and liturgical formation if their faith is going to survive modern secular as well as (unfortunately) modern Catholic culture. It's simple human nature and the numbers bear out what's happening to Catholic youth brought up in typical parishes. That's not a universal statement of course. There are many wonderful Catholic kids in typical parishes, but it feels a bit like the roll of the dice to me.
What is a parent concerned about their kids, as well as their own, faith supposed to do in a circumstance like this? This situation, I believe, is the norm. First of all, there are no rules that govern it. Lincoln is the exception. Canon law allows for going to whatever parish. Therefore people in good conscience are going to make different decisions. I think we're forced to accept it even when we disagree
All I can say is I don't regret making the decision I did. It's been amazing for our family, and we take our responsibility to the community seriously. I think the best thing we can do with our relatively little community is provide an example to those around us. If we bear fruit, hopefully other parishes will adopt some of what works. We're in a time and place where grand changes from the inside may not be feasible
Finally I'll note one thing about monks. Traditionally most monks weren't priests. They were lay people who took vows. Benedict himself wasn't a cleric and encouraged other monks to follow his example. Monasteries were first of all places where people went to save their own souls. Then they were centers where others gathered around to live in community and benefit from the spiritual and material fruits of the monastery. Then they went on to hallow the ground and people there for centuries and centuries. Maybe we need to follow a similar model today?
I always encourage people I know to attend their territorial parish if at all possible as long as it’s not heretical and work to make it better and bring renewal there. My parish was run for decades by some very “spirit of Vatican II” priests and the pastor there now used to be at my hometown parish and he turned that parish around and now he’s doing the same for this parish. It’s a challenge, because many of the parishioners there were not well-formed, and the pastor has had to move much more gradually than I would have liked to, but slowly but surely things are getting better, and there are immigrants from Africa and Latin America who have joined the parish that are solid and orthodox and helping bring renewal as well.
It can be tempting to go to one of the “commuter parishes” that already has the reverent Mass of Pope St. Paul VI that I’d like to see there, but if all of us went there, who would be left to support the priests seeking to bring renewal at the rest of the parishes? That’s a big reason why I’ve stayed. I know I’m needed, and I’m excited that we’ve expanded Eucharistic Adoration opportunities at the parish, the line for Confession on Saturday mornings is long, and we have a small group for young adults and young professionals that is only a few months old that I co-lead. And, during Lent, we did the Agnus Dei in Latin for the first time I can ever remember (we also did the Pange Lingua in Latin on Holy Thursday). Good things are starting to happen. 🙂
I can see some very good arguments for childless adults staying in a "false spirit of V2" parish provided the pastor is attempting reform, and provided the adults are employing plenty of mitigations for the effects on themselves. But children get a lot of formation at Mass, and that formation is highly dependent on the smells, bells, posture, and reverence side of things, and that formation cannot simply be undone as teens and young adults when the last of the resistance in the parish has finally been gently re-catechized and brought around by Father. They learn and grow fast, and they learn and grow based on the current practice, not the practices the reforming groups are aiming for.
My six younger siblings and I did not attend the Tridentine Mass and all of us are orthodox Catholics. All of them who were called to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony married Catholic spouses and were married in the Church. None of us attend the Tridentine Mass and my nieces and nephews and godchildren who attend the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI are just as orthodox as the kids of people I know who attend the Tridentine Mass.
I also have a friend who is now an atheist whose mother homeschooled him and his siblings and dragged him and his siblings to every novena and liturgy and they attended the Tridentine Mass. He knows the Baltimore Catechism forward and backwards and he served as an altar server but now his parents are divorced and he and his dad and all of his siblings are now atheists and his mother is the only one who remains a practicing Catholic.
I also know a young man who grew up attending the Tridentine Mass in the St. Mary’s, KS area at an ICKSP parish and he says from his experience that a lot of the young people raised in that environment end up leaving the Church and becoming atheists as adults.
While I, too, appreciate and desire reverent liturgy, and I think BXVI’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy and Fr. Blake Britton’s thoughts on properly implementing Vatican II in parishes points at how to accomplish that, I think there is no magic formula for ensuring your kids remain joyfully Catholic in adulthood. And, as far as I know, there is no data that shows that kids attending one form of the Mass are more likely to remain practicing Catholics in adulthood than kids attending a different form of the Mass. I worry that we Millennial generation Catholics are responding to the “spirit of Vatican II crowd” mentality of our parents’ generation by viewing Vatican II with the same “hermeneutic of rupture” that the Magisterium has warned is heretical and drawing the exact opposite conclusion from the one they drew. It’s the flip side of the same coin.
What I have suggested to people I know who are trying to raise kids in the Faith are to enforce the minimum requirements and invite the kids to go deeper if they wish, don’t make the Faith as just a bunch of formulaic rules, have good Catholic children’s books available in your home library (Word on Fire, OSV, and Ignatius Press have some excellent ones, and MagnifiKid is a great publication for kids), and model for your kids what holiness looks like.
Also, rather than seeking to shelter and isolate your kids from the world, teach them how to engage with it in an age-appropriate way, so that, when they’re grown, they can be missionary disciples in their homeland who draw others to Christ and Holy Mother Church through their love and know how to talk to non-Catholics and engage with them.
And, most importantly, storm Heaven with prayers for your kids and entrust them to the Blessed Mother. Also pray for the future spouses of your kids that God will eventually call to Holy Matrimony.
I recently heard an interview with a Catholic psychologist who researched what families who successfully raised children who became faithful Catholic adults did to make it so. My main takeaways were a) married parents b) weekly Mass participation c) faith that is truly lived and not just isolated to Sunday d) discipline that included guidance not just punishment. Seems like that can happen regardless of which form of the Mass a family attends.
I think raising them rationally, and through appeals to their reason (guidance not just punishment), is underrated. I've not heard it mentioned as a means to faithful Catholic adults before. But Catholicism is a rational religion, so it makes sense that a formation that both subjects the children to reason and clearly shows them that it is itself subject to reason would be very helpful.
The study was discussed by Gregory Popcak on a Catholic Answers call in show. I believe he is the author or at least co-author of the study. A copy is available via the Peyton Institute, I think.
It makes sense from what I've heard of Thomistic philosophy saying that reason is the faculty that rules (so to speak) the other faculties. Appealing to lower faculties and emotions like fear or wanting to be loved, or whatever, to overcome the child's reason, would seem to be inherently disordering (although appealing to the same emotions *through* the child's reason is not).
Not being spiritually abused (or otherwise abused) as a child, is extremely helpful to not leaving the Church as an adult. But I know people who were abused and are still Catholic. A somewhat startling number, actually.
I did not say, and certainly didn't mean to imply, that the only way to get orthodox Catholic adults is to take the children to the TLM. I'm somewhat curious how you got that impression. I am an orthodox Catholic who was raised in the OF, in a parish with altar girls (like me!), no kneelers at all, no tabernacle in the church, and certainly no ad orientem. There's a fair number of Saints who were raised badly, or as pagans. God can use whatever we've got, whether it's awful, less good than it could be, or nearly perfect. My point was that liturgy is formative, especially for children, and all other things being equal, good liturgy is worth extra effort and sometimes a different parish. It should not be underestimated.
As far as the separate topic of how parents can best keep their kids Catholic, my suggestion would be to teach them mental prayer. It gets them attached to God, who is ultimately the one who keeps them Catholic, and it's doable regardless of the resources available and the circumstances you're subject to. It also has the advantage of requiring the parents to learn mental prayer, which is very helpful for raising kids lovingly - especially if the parents were abused and are trying to break the cycle. Many of the Saints have said that practicing mental prayer would be sure to get you to heaven, while not practicing mental prayer would invariably land you in hell.
Thank you kindly for your question and for further elaborating. I will elaborate below in an attempt to best answer your question.
The way you were talking about Tradition and the Magisterium seemed to imply to me that you think the Tridentine Mass/EF is ontologically better or confers more grace than the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI/OF (which is what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski says, erroneously, in my view) and so I inferred from that that you were saying that kids that attend the EF are more likely to remain Catholic in adulthood than if they attend the OF. I’m glad to hear that I misinterpreted what you said.
And I have, admittedly had a very different and 95% negative experience with the Tridentine Mass in general and especially with people I’ve encountered who attend the Tridentine Mass, and I still have emotional scars from those experiences.
For instance, I rarely ever wear a suit, and I normally wear business casual attire to Mass on Sundays, but from my encounters with one or more guys who attend the EF, they frowned on me not wearing a suit to Mass (on a normal Sunday).
Likewise, many of the people I encountered were very negative and would complain about the state of the Church and bash Vatican II and were very nit picky people in a bad way.
Additionally, for recreation, the guys would smoke and drink, and I cannot partake in either of those things because of my health conditions, so I was ostracized as a result.
Lastly, there was an atmosphere of arrogant, snobby snootiness and “I know better than the Magisterium” mentality among many of the people there that was very off-putting to me (and the Spirit of Vatican II crowd folks I’ve met, ironically, have these same issues even though they have very different theological and liturgical preferences).
As for the Tridentine Mass itself, I do love the Ad Orientem, communion rail, chant, incense, and receiving the Eucharist on the tongue.
What I don’t like about it is there were people waiting in line for Confession while Mass was going on, and there were people praying the rosary while Mass was going on.
But the biggest problem I had with it was I felt disconnected from the Mass. I think full, conscious, and active participation in the Mass is a good thing, and, while I agree it’s important for children to see that, I think it’s easier for them to do that through programs like Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and a reverently celebrated Mass of Pope St. Paul VI that has the spoken prayers and responses.
On one final note, I think it’s actually an effort by bishops and priests and laypeople to correctly implement Vatican II in general and Sacrosanctam concilium in particular, and not the Tridentine Mass, that is leading to renewal in so many parishes here in the USA.
I kind of assumed you'd had bad experiences with traditionalists. A lot of people have, and they subsequently allow it to color their interpretations of what any traditionalist says. The reverse is also true: a whole lot of traditionalists have had bad experiences with mainstream Catholics, and they subsequently allow it to color their interpretations of what any mainstream Catholic says. Being refused Holy Communion for kneeling, or having people assume that wearing a veil means they are arrogant snobs, or deciding that any preference for the TLM is indicative of disobedience and schism... If we don't start forgiving, and taking people as individuals, the cycle will never be broken.
I do think that kids raised in the EF are, *all other things being equal*, more likely to be faithful Catholics as adults. That is because I think liturgy matters, and what we do and what we see and hear and smell are very formative, as we are physical beings by nature, not souls trapped in a weird biomechanical prison. You seem to think the same. But all other things are never equal, and I certainly don't think liturgy is enough to make up for anything and everything else that happens to you, or that you choose. If it were, simply receiving Holy Communion ought to be enough as well, and it's pretty obvious that's not true.
I've never really been bothered by the Confession lines or by the rosary. I don't do either during the Mass that I'm attending for my obligation (couldn't claim that I've never been in Confession line during Mass...). It's not my business what others do, or why. I know some people there have really hard lives, time constraints, and children to wrangle, often enough without the other spouse present to help. About the only time I get mad is when they are over the age of 7 and and their dress or behavior is disrupting to those around them for no good reason. Otherwise, not my circus, not my monkeys.
I do think it's more important for kids to be at sung/high Mass vs. low. For the little ones, the smells and bells seem very effective at helping them participate. As they get older, they need to be taught what everything means. But "active" doesn't mean "doing/saying something", it means praying with the Mass, and I think it's good to learn different ways we do that, whether physical, emotional, intellectual, etc. When life beats you up, sometimes one or the other of those gets a lot harder, and it's good to have the others to fall back on.
Beyond the occasional use of Latin and Gregorian chant, it is not possible to correctly interpret Sacrosanctam concilium without knowing something of the TLM. SC did not mention ad orientem, altar rails, receiving the Eucharist on the tongue, or incense at all, so you can only understand that the Council Fathers expected us to have them by looking at the Mass they celebrated, and observing that they didn't say to stop doing all these things. There have been a lot of people trying to find the middle ground between the false spirit of V2, and the rejection of V2, which has been very good to see. I think it relies a lot on Pope Benedict's hermeneutic of continuity, and interpreting the Council in light of what came before.
Thank you for further elaborating on that. And I agree that the hermeneutic of continuity is the key. I actually got to see Pope Benedict XVI at a few Masses and multiple papal events when I was studying abroad in Rome from late September of 2008 through January of 2009, and I look to him as a spiritual grandfather.
And two close friends of mine and their families are attendees of the Tridentine Mass as well, so I know there are good, solid people there too, such as yourself.
Lucky you! While I like Papa Bene a great deal, and have enjoyed several of his books, my spiritual grandfather slot is reserved for Scott Hahn. Dude is the only person who I've seen announce that he said this thing, and was subsequently inundated with people telling him he was wrong (charitably and definitely not charitably) and that they were quite correct and that he was very grateful to them *all* for pointing it out. And then proceeded to explain exactly why he was wrong. He's like a walking, talking caritas in veritate.
Anyway, it was good talking with you, and I hope you have a lovely evening!
I agree with you on mental prayer. My spiritual director in college had me read Conversation with Christ (I think Rohrbach was the last name of the author), and that was very life-changing and eye-opening for me and really helped me build a deeper relationship with Our Lord.
spiritualdirection.com has been very helpful to me. A lot of resources on Jesuit and Carmelite spirituality, and on what to do, what not to do, and especially to avoid mistaking the method for the goal.
Absolutely. "Evangelii Nuntiandi" should really be read by concerned parents and applied in the family. The Gospel ought to be proclaimed, and joyfully, to the modern world.
That is a far better strategy than building the castle, the moat (with the aligators) and having archers on the walls. (As tempting as that all sounds)
Michelle, do you have Venmo? I want to buy you a beer/beverage of choice. Great work on this deep dive!
"Instead of moving to a new area based on a job prospect, Haigh noted that he personally has met more and more people who say they are moving to an area with a strong Catholic core, and will then look for a job in that area."
This is something that has been rolling around in the back of my mind lately: whether to try to find a different job where I am or look in one of the more vibrant Catholic areas of my diocese and try to reboot my life from there. Problem is, the parishes I like are in a city I'm not really fond of, and the city I'm fond of has parishes that I don't really like. Can't win!
I teach at a small, rural-but-urban* public school in Cajun south Louisiana. Last year, we got a brand new teacher, who moved here from Florida. He's a convert who intentionally sought out an area with Catholic roots so that he and his family could practice the Faith. There were other reasons, but that was one of the main ones. He, his wife, and their baby are happy and settled in. In fact, his grandmother and parents (all still Protestant (for the time being?)) are moving here, too. So, if you're looking for a place that steeped in Catholicism, I suggest south Louisiana.
*We're definitely rural, but with cell phones and social media, all of the city problems are here and in full force. Unfortunately.
South Louisiana is definitely near the top of places I’d love to visit someday, especially the Lafayette area, since I’m 1/4 French-Canadian (my paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Raymond).
And when I do visit, Nicholas, I’d love to meet you.
For sure! Before you head over, I could even advise on a projected itinerary.
A word of advice: If you can avoid the summer - by which I mean late-April to late October - stay away. It's hot and muggy. The best time to come is March 15-20, lol.
Seriously, though, the early-to-mid Spring is the best. Temps are cool in the mornings and warm up in the afternoon. Flowers are at their best. And crawfish season is getting in full swing.
*Looks at Nick and giggles to self that what those of us in the Gulf South mean by “cool” means “why is it spring in the winter” to others.* Where visitors look and see 1.5 seasons, we see four, maybe even seven seasons. We are an optimistic/heat deluded people.
I'm not on LinkedIn. There's a way to direct message people through the Substack environment, though. Up at the top right of the page, there's a Chat option.
For a while the Our Lady Star of the Sea Shrine in the Diocese Lake Charles was on my list of potential road trip sites, and then Hurricane Laura wiped it off the face of the earth (essentially).
Lake Charles and the surrounding area have gotten more than its fair share of hurricane damage in the 2000s. My brother lives just north of Lake Charles, in Moss Bluff. The church there, St. Theodore, still hasn't been renovated since Hurricane Laura. The problem with the insurance is stopping a lot of renovation across the diocese.
Even though you can't to to OL Star of the Sea, you should still come down here if you get a chance. We don't have much in terms of sites, but our culture and food are second to none.
If the city you like is SB, I would suggest you check out some of the parishes here. I have found most of them excellent. If the city you like is FW, I can't help you find a good parish but I presume they have them. Both cities have an FSSP parish.
The city is FW, but I was up in SB/Mish to do the seven churches pilgrimage on Holy Thursday and then for the Way of St. Joseph walk a couple of weekends ago. And I'm eying the St. Hildegard concert this Friday. ... I put a lot of miles on my car. LOL!
From the group's website: "The Saint Hildegard Project seeks to communicate the beauty of the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition through the Church's rich treasury of sacred music. Comprised of men and women who share a fervent devotion to the music itself, The Saint Hildegard Project strives to teach with integrity and perform with excellence for the edification of souls and the glory of God."
Michelle, JD, and Ed, an article I’d love to hear about is Catholic community at public universities, and also private secular universities such as Princeton and Harvard. I’ve heard that Texas A&M, Iowa State University, Princeton, and Harvard all have thriving Catholic communities and I’ve love to hear about how they both maintain that Catholic community and engage the broader university community.
If The Pillar does do an article on this topic, what are some other vibrant Catholic communities at public universities and private, secular universities that would be good ones for The Pillar to research and write about?
Michigan Tech - Fr. Ben lurks around here. The number of men from St. Al's who are currently in priestly and religious formation is mind boggling to me. They have also developed a number of vocations to FOCUS (including my daughter's!) and of course, many holy marriages and large RCIA classes. For a relatively small, remote, public school, they punch way above their weight for the Church
Yale / New Haven has a thriving Catholic community, not just among students, but also among the hundreds of Catholic homeschooling families based at St. Mary’s. Recent press has focused (maybe to the point of encouraging division) on the abrupt departure of the Dominicans from the local parish, perhaps missing the vibrant community both at Yale’s Catholic Center and throughout the city (and the ways in which these communities overlap and intersect in beautiful ways).
There is a VERY vibrant Catholic community at the University of Louisiana (Lafayette). Centered around Our Lady of Wisdom parish on the campus, the group is known as Ragin' Cajun Catholics. They are super active; the parish is alive, not only with college students, but with all demographics; and they're producing great vocations. My current parish priest came from that ministry, even having served as parochial vicar there.
I'm not as sure about LSU. My daughter went to graduate school there, and I know that Christ the King parish was full of good stuff (she was active there and made life-long friends there); but I'm more familiar with the UL-Lafayette ministry as it's in my diocese.
“I’d love to hear about how they both maintain that Catholic community and engage the broader university community.”
The answer is pretty much always FOCUS missionaries, and a pastor and staff that works well with the FOCUS style. In most of these places, it also helps that all Catholic activities, events, groups, etc, run through a single Church/Chapel/Center and a single university-recognized student organization, rather than being dispersed (as is more common at a Catholic college).
When I was in college at the University of St. Thomas up here in MN from 2005-2009, the “Catholic Studies” Catholics (who tended to be nerdy, brainy, more contemplative Catholics, and I was part of that group) and the “Saint Paul’s Outreach” Catholics (who tended to be more emotional, sanguine, and loved guitars and praise and worship music) tended to hang out in their own enclaves and not interact. Those of us who were Catholic leaders on campus tried to get the two groups of Catholics to interact by cohosting events, and now, in 2024, they work together to put on a regular event called Tommie Catholic, which is pretty darn awesome!
We may have different ways we pray and different musical tastes and a different sense of aesthetics, but we’re still brother and sister Catholics.
This sounds like "modified" "Benedict Options" solutions.
All great if you have the money to buy land and build. I'm not saying these are bad ideas but limited in who can afford the situations mentioned in the article.
More suitable for many are active mutually supportive Domestic Church circles or Intentional Dispersed Communities based on the shared Catholic Faith (usually in the same town or city).
We all have to live somewhere. Where we do is a choice. Most of the examples weren't a rural move away from the city type example or one that required a lot of money. I live in a community where people are freely choosing to buy homes close by. Others commute. It's not a run to the hills sort of thing
I sympathize with you. This article could definitely have been broken into a 4-parter. Each part would have been a manageable length. But, would the overall effect have been the same?
In these days of reading online, I find myself getting frustrated when articles take me "long" to read. But, I think back to the days before the internet - and even in the first decade of the 2000s - and I remember reading articles of similar length in printed magazines all the time. Or sitting with a Sunday newspaper for an hour to read. Today, I wonder about my/our capacity to sit and read for more than 10 minutes at a time.
In these days of Reels, Shorts, and TikTok, everything needs to be quick and to the point, even our articles. As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message."
You make a valid point about our ability to sit and read. In this case I found myself reading several articles wrapped up and one and scrolling through the rest took a surprising amount of time. I appreciate the Pillar's commitment to good stories...but brevity is also a virtue.
I probably spent about 15 minutes reading this article before I realized I was not even halfway through. Like...The point was made with the first two examples.
Please break it up, it harkens back to reading dense theological books that boorishly clamor on for one hundred pages too much because the author had nothing better to do. Like, I read the entirety of C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" over the course of a few hours, because it was engaging and didn't blather on for forever. I'm not saying my opinion is the gospel truth, or that I'm even right, just that this could have been done well with much less text.
The Pillar is my favorite news source, but my goodness, who has time to give their good journalism this long of a read all the time? I miss out on so many good articles because the time crunch is real.
Agreed. I read about as long as you, became impatient, scrolled ahead and found it far too long to finish on first read. I'll probably go back now and skim. Long can be fine, but when I gave it up it had been string after string of thoroughly unmemorable quotes. Quotes should, I think, be used sparingly and selectively, only if the speaker's language and thought rise above the pedestrian. But of course, de gustibus non est disputandum and YMMV.
I had a similar feeling. I started reading and at one point I wondered if I had accidentally jumped to a second very long article. This article could have been divided naturally into a two or four part mini series. And it would have made it much easier for readers to comment specifically on each community.
But some issues demand space for a proper treatment, to present the evidence and a well structured argument. My favourite is the British Anglican theologian Alastair Roberts who is nearly always worth reading. It is just that his thoughtful and well researched discussion of an important topic is often 6,000 words long and the reader has to be prepared to put the time and work in to properly engage with it.
I would be happy for The Pillar to have a minority of similarly solid articles from Catholic authors. Perhaps once a week or once a month, with a noticeable generic title such as "Long thoughts". I have seen such headings on other websites.
What a wonderful idea for Catholic renewal of a ruined city. I lived in Detroit from 1998 to 2000 and have very fond memories of my time there. The fondness is helped by the fact that I lived out in the pleasant area of Farmington Hills and seldom ventured downtown.
I had been in Bosnia in 1996, shortly after the end of the civil war. Mostar, which had been on the front line, was in much better shape than central Detroit. At least Mostar did not have vast open spaces where prosperous communities once lived. The devastated Detroit areas still existed 30+ years after the 1967 riots, when the overbombed German cities had been rebuilt in a much shorter time.
Mark Binelli's 2010 book "The last days of Detroit" is, in part, as depressing as its title. But it also includes fresh ideas about reviving the ruined, abandoned and crime ridden areas. Such as extensive urban horticulture, which becomes practical when the urban wasteland can be bought for peanuts. It was even conceivable that Detroit could become the first city in history to feed itself from food produced within its own borders. But, as other sections of the article describe, rural life is no rural idyll. My parents could not wait to leave their family farms in 1940s Ireland and returned only for holidays.
The plan for St Aubins includes an urban farm. But you can't help noticing that it also includes mansions and small houses, like the old Detroit.
Still, we have this beautiful idea of a walkable Catholic village within a city. This could become a prototype for all kinds of intentional communities in Detroit and in other cities which need spiritual, psychological and economic rebirth.
Detroit has some remarkable Catholic glories. Like Solanus Casey, a simplex priest of prodigious sanctity. And the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica out in Royal Oak. Its controversial 1930s pastor Father Charles Coughlin could hardly be forgotten. But reconciliation is possible. Like the day in 1998 when I went to the Little Flower to hear a talk by a local rabbi. Such an event would once have been unimaginable.
The intentional community is a pleasing picture, at first blush. But the current American culture is far too mobile, I think, for it to endure. Children will not stay in one place; really, they cannot. And when it begins to dissolve, as it will, what will you have left?
But keep thinking. Physical community may not be essential for the human spirit to flourish, but it has a strong pull on the heart.
Minor quibble. The article refers to "Polish masses" in areas of Detroit. I guess this means Hamtramck/Poletown where there were seven "Polish" churches at one time. But surely for decades the Masses would have been in Latin, with perhaps sermons and announcements in Polish?
I have fond memories of the Polish Day celebrations in Hamtramck in 1998, which was not far from my apartment. But, according to Wiki, Hamtramck is now the first Muslim majority city in the USA. Another intentional community, like parts of Bradford and other English cities. And parts of my own town, where there were firework celebrations after 9/11.
--> Wow! Great job, Michelle! You've given us four articles for the price of one. Each section is worth it's own careful read. But, having them all together really paints a good picture of the various concepts of Catholic/Christian community-building.
--> There is so much to like about each of the models. For me, the St. Aubin village is the most attractive, but mostly that's because I already live in something similar to the Lincoln model.
--> I have to admit that at first the idea of the Alleluia Community made me .... I don't know, suspicious? Certainly it didn't strike a chord with me. But, as I kept reading I began to ask myself why I felt that way. By the end of the section, although I'm not "sold", I have to admit that if the community is still growing after 50+ years, something must be right with it.
The Alleluia community sounded like The People of Praise or The Word of God.
I had to google People of Praise. You're right: they sound alike.
I live in SE Michigan and know many families love the Shrine. It is beautiful. But I also see the fracturing that the EF Mass has had on our local communities. This was part of what Pope Francis mentioned in TC. Our parish is very traditional and was among the first to use Latin, ad orientem, communion rail, only boys as altar servers, etc. To be honest, our parish membership also draws from a wide distance with few parishioners in our boundaries (the boundaries are horribly drawn, but that's another issue). After a priest change and the EF started up at a neighboring parish, our parish numbers were pummeled. It hasn't been the same since. Reading this article, I was immediately struck by the "he experienced what a blessing strong parish life could be." Exactly. Imagine if these families stayed put and ran bible studies and discussion groups in their homes or at the parish. Or imagine if they moved to be closer to an existing parish. Parish life is more than Sunday Mass. That's a huge component of it. But when there's a meal train for a new mom or meals that need to be made for a funeral mass or when we want to have a youth group, who's going to be willing to make an extra drive or two per week to support that Parish life? In our experience, people haven't been willing to do this. Maybe they will get their planned community off the ground. But at what cost to existing parishes and communities? The laity are called to be the levan in society, we aren't supposed to be monks or to hold up in a bunker.
On the one hand, we need community as support for growth and deepening of our spiritual lives. Community which does not provide that support can effectively starve peoples' spiritual lives, and even without such extremes, there's room for some holy impatience regarding getting what you need to progress well. On the other hand, in order to maintain a community long-term, people absolutely must be willing to sacrifice some forms of support that are available in other communities, but not in the one they are currently members of. Otherwise no community will be able to survive. These two principles will always exist in a certain tension, and require good discernment to properly balance them.
People drawn to tradition desire a community that is faithful to Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium, promotes the pillars of the spiritual life, and provides a good environment for mental prayer. That's EF, because the OF removed or altered so much of the actual texts of the Mass, and because the EF is far more natural about silence. There are ways to adjust without the EF, but I didn't know what any were until after being in the EF for quite a while, and I'm not eager to test them out.
But what the EF is definitely NOT, is a group of elite Catholics who could, if only we were willing, reform any parish we commit to, run Bible studies, ignite hearts, and convert all the cafeteria Catholics, beyond what any regular old OF parishioner could hope to achieve. Nonsense. When there were worries about the TLM getting shut down, the idea was for our parish to agree on one, maybe two other parishes to all switch to, so that we would still have the support of our community (which I wholeheartedly agree is about much more than Sunday Mass) in living a basic Catholic life. Otherwise, we'd be separated between over 2 dozen parishes, and the flames would go out. We came from those parishes. We know our inability to live well in them from having tried. EF parishioners have as much chance of turning a parish around as the current parishioners do.
EF *parishes* are the reason that OF parishes move back toward tradition, as they keep it alive and visible to others. That's being leaven. Monasteries do the same. While EF parishioners are hardly holed up in a bunker (jobs, grocery store, neighbors), and a neighborhood of them would be going outside for the same things, being leaven and being cloistered actually do go together (e.g. the Little Flower). Faithful prayer and right worship, even when done in isolation from society on a visible level, are what make the world go round. That's part of why EF parishes joyfully give up members to cloistered or monastic religious orders.
"EF *parishes* are the reason that OF parishes move back toward tradition" - Sorry, but I don't see that as being my parish's experience
Well they're either going back to ad orientem, altar rails and male altar servers because they remember that was how it was done in the TLM before 1970, or because they see (or hear) that is how it is done in the TLM now, and start asking questions. They're certainly not doing it because of the zeitgeist.
I'm certainly not going back to ad orientem or altar rails. Before female altar servers were allowed a number of parishes had female candle holders and male servers, so children of both sexes could participate. That strikes me as a useful alternative to female altar servers.
> and provides a good environment for mental prayer.
Let's take a break and review St Teresa telling her nuns that mental prayer includes remembering who you are talking to while you are praying the Our Father. The vernacular is a tremendous aid to many of the laity in this regard if they are taught to do it.
Silent prayer is a category of mental prayer and the bulk of it should occur outside of Mass (but yes, people should not talk in the church itself immediately after Mass, so that there is silence for folks to pray in for a while) since our prayer life should be more than an hour a week. OF if the documents are followed (reform of the reform) is not a terrible environment for contemplatives.
Sometimes we pray the rosary aloud in church right after Mass. Other than that, or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy likewise, it should be quiet.
Well stated! And I’m a contemplative too. I actually feel detached from the Mass and alienated from it at the EF and I think that active participation, properly understood the way Sacrosanctam concilium actually intended it, is a good and important thing.
I recommend readers check out Pope Benedict XVI’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy if they haven’t read it already.
Silence (as in the physical absence of noise) is helpful for all the categories of mental prayer. Usually. I did hear about one guy who could not manage even basic meditation in silence until the monk who was helping him took him to a circus. He could meditate in the middle of a noisy crowd... The bulk of mental prayer should be outside the Mass. But I don't think that means you shouldn't be doing mental prayer during the Mass. Padre Pio is a sound, albeit extreme example.
As far as meditation is concerned, I don't know how you do that in a language you don't know. But you can meditate alongside a prayer you know, said in a language you don't know. Latin is actually very helpful in getting me to slow down and think about what I was saying and what it meant and who I was saying it to, when English starts to become thoughtless. (so is French) My lack of focus needs all the help it can get.
I can't really speak to the OF reformed and sans liturgical abuses. But I think I can say that if you're trying to pray, God will teach you how, wherever you are. Even if a better environment would help you progress faster.
> But I don't think that means you shouldn't be doing mental prayer during the Mass. Padre Pio is a sound, albeit extreme example.
I am concerned that you and I might mean different things when we use the word "meditation" or "meditate", and also that we might mean different things when we say "mental prayer". I am reflecting , though, on a tangent, that St Pio, stigmatic, is an amazing reminder of what the Mass is and what our part in it is and how that might sometimes feel: a consoling thought for mothers bringing difficult children; my willing participation in the one sacrifice can feel painful, fruitless, and like I have suffered defeat and humiliation (and have kept the mystics around me from experiencing the heights of ecstasy, if any) and this just means that I have put in the two copper coins I had and been given in return the kind of closeness to Christ (crucified) that we really do not like.
Fifteen minutes in silence at home *every* morning before anyone else wakes up made an indescribable or indeed catastrophic difference in me, eventually. But this also is often unpleasant (feels fruitless and dry; full of distractions or worse; constant itch to get up and do something "productive", which is acedia or the noonday devil.) I am surprised I stuck with it, but then the road that led me to it had also led me to expect literally nothing from it (except that it would eventually make me a more patient person) which probably helped, since what I could see was what I expected.
The terminology does seem to be all over the place, depending on which spiritual tradition you follow. I can't really keep them straight, and I wouldn't be surprised if the way I think of them is wrong, I don't really know what I'm doing. In "mental prayer", I include meditation (thinking about God or the things of God, with God), and affective prayer (the good desires and resolutions that arise from meditation) and contemplation (prayer of silence, or just resting in one thing with God).
Parents taking wailing children out of Mass has got to be one of the primo sacrifices offered in union with Jesus'. And if they're disturbing enough, all the surrounding mystics can offer a tangentially related sacrifice.
I heard someone describe distractions as an opportunity to choose to refocus on God, for love of Him. The more distractions, the more opportunities to say "I choose you, I love you" to God. I, of course, figure out I'm distracted after about 5-10 minutes of being distracted, which ruins most of the opportunities.
Either the itch to get up and do something "productive" or to roll over and go back to sleep.
I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I agonized about this question for years before ultimately deciding to leave my territorial parish. There is something very Catholic about staying where you are and trying to sanctify the place.
That being said when your local parish is a mega parish run by pastors who are all put there one after the next to reinforce the status quo liturgically and pastorally what
can you do? There was even a young parochial vicar who attempted to break out of the box and was ultimately hindered at every attempt. I loath to be "that guy" who pastor dreads to talk to because he always has "suggestions" that mean work or friction. The reality is that a majority in the parish either don't want change or are ambivalent. This puts the pastor in an impossible position - and he's really in the position he's in because he's a capable manager and the bishop wants him to keep the peace. Managed decline
Then I started to realize that by the time anything substantive happens my kids will be grown. And my kids need like minded friends and liturgical formation if their faith is going to survive modern secular as well as (unfortunately) modern Catholic culture. It's simple human nature and the numbers bear out what's happening to Catholic youth brought up in typical parishes. That's not a universal statement of course. There are many wonderful Catholic kids in typical parishes, but it feels a bit like the roll of the dice to me.
What is a parent concerned about their kids, as well as their own, faith supposed to do in a circumstance like this? This situation, I believe, is the norm. First of all, there are no rules that govern it. Lincoln is the exception. Canon law allows for going to whatever parish. Therefore people in good conscience are going to make different decisions. I think we're forced to accept it even when we disagree
All I can say is I don't regret making the decision I did. It's been amazing for our family, and we take our responsibility to the community seriously. I think the best thing we can do with our relatively little community is provide an example to those around us. If we bear fruit, hopefully other parishes will adopt some of what works. We're in a time and place where grand changes from the inside may not be feasible
Finally I'll note one thing about monks. Traditionally most monks weren't priests. They were lay people who took vows. Benedict himself wasn't a cleric and encouraged other monks to follow his example. Monasteries were first of all places where people went to save their own souls. Then they were centers where others gathered around to live in community and benefit from the spiritual and material fruits of the monastery. Then they went on to hallow the ground and people there for centuries and centuries. Maybe we need to follow a similar model today?
Wow. What a great piece. So much to think on. I’ve only known one parish in my diocese to readily provide information on its geographic boundaries.
I like how the author embraces the Magisterium of Francis. In other words, "embrace and deal with the concrete reality in front of you."
There's no such thing as a "Magisterium of Francis", despite his hints at one. There's just one Magisterium.
I always encourage people I know to attend their territorial parish if at all possible as long as it’s not heretical and work to make it better and bring renewal there. My parish was run for decades by some very “spirit of Vatican II” priests and the pastor there now used to be at my hometown parish and he turned that parish around and now he’s doing the same for this parish. It’s a challenge, because many of the parishioners there were not well-formed, and the pastor has had to move much more gradually than I would have liked to, but slowly but surely things are getting better, and there are immigrants from Africa and Latin America who have joined the parish that are solid and orthodox and helping bring renewal as well.
It can be tempting to go to one of the “commuter parishes” that already has the reverent Mass of Pope St. Paul VI that I’d like to see there, but if all of us went there, who would be left to support the priests seeking to bring renewal at the rest of the parishes? That’s a big reason why I’ve stayed. I know I’m needed, and I’m excited that we’ve expanded Eucharistic Adoration opportunities at the parish, the line for Confession on Saturday mornings is long, and we have a small group for young adults and young professionals that is only a few months old that I co-lead. And, during Lent, we did the Agnus Dei in Latin for the first time I can ever remember (we also did the Pange Lingua in Latin on Holy Thursday). Good things are starting to happen. 🙂
I can see some very good arguments for childless adults staying in a "false spirit of V2" parish provided the pastor is attempting reform, and provided the adults are employing plenty of mitigations for the effects on themselves. But children get a lot of formation at Mass, and that formation is highly dependent on the smells, bells, posture, and reverence side of things, and that formation cannot simply be undone as teens and young adults when the last of the resistance in the parish has finally been gently re-catechized and brought around by Father. They learn and grow fast, and they learn and grow based on the current practice, not the practices the reforming groups are aiming for.
My six younger siblings and I did not attend the Tridentine Mass and all of us are orthodox Catholics. All of them who were called to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony married Catholic spouses and were married in the Church. None of us attend the Tridentine Mass and my nieces and nephews and godchildren who attend the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI are just as orthodox as the kids of people I know who attend the Tridentine Mass.
I also have a friend who is now an atheist whose mother homeschooled him and his siblings and dragged him and his siblings to every novena and liturgy and they attended the Tridentine Mass. He knows the Baltimore Catechism forward and backwards and he served as an altar server but now his parents are divorced and he and his dad and all of his siblings are now atheists and his mother is the only one who remains a practicing Catholic.
I also know a young man who grew up attending the Tridentine Mass in the St. Mary’s, KS area at an ICKSP parish and he says from his experience that a lot of the young people raised in that environment end up leaving the Church and becoming atheists as adults.
While I, too, appreciate and desire reverent liturgy, and I think BXVI’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy and Fr. Blake Britton’s thoughts on properly implementing Vatican II in parishes points at how to accomplish that, I think there is no magic formula for ensuring your kids remain joyfully Catholic in adulthood. And, as far as I know, there is no data that shows that kids attending one form of the Mass are more likely to remain practicing Catholics in adulthood than kids attending a different form of the Mass. I worry that we Millennial generation Catholics are responding to the “spirit of Vatican II crowd” mentality of our parents’ generation by viewing Vatican II with the same “hermeneutic of rupture” that the Magisterium has warned is heretical and drawing the exact opposite conclusion from the one they drew. It’s the flip side of the same coin.
What I have suggested to people I know who are trying to raise kids in the Faith are to enforce the minimum requirements and invite the kids to go deeper if they wish, don’t make the Faith as just a bunch of formulaic rules, have good Catholic children’s books available in your home library (Word on Fire, OSV, and Ignatius Press have some excellent ones, and MagnifiKid is a great publication for kids), and model for your kids what holiness looks like.
Also, rather than seeking to shelter and isolate your kids from the world, teach them how to engage with it in an age-appropriate way, so that, when they’re grown, they can be missionary disciples in their homeland who draw others to Christ and Holy Mother Church through their love and know how to talk to non-Catholics and engage with them.
And, most importantly, storm Heaven with prayers for your kids and entrust them to the Blessed Mother. Also pray for the future spouses of your kids that God will eventually call to Holy Matrimony.
Those are my thoughts on the topic.
I recently heard an interview with a Catholic psychologist who researched what families who successfully raised children who became faithful Catholic adults did to make it so. My main takeaways were a) married parents b) weekly Mass participation c) faith that is truly lived and not just isolated to Sunday d) discipline that included guidance not just punishment. Seems like that can happen regardless of which form of the Mass a family attends.
I think raising them rationally, and through appeals to their reason (guidance not just punishment), is underrated. I've not heard it mentioned as a means to faithful Catholic adults before. But Catholicism is a rational religion, so it makes sense that a formation that both subjects the children to reason and clearly shows them that it is itself subject to reason would be very helpful.
The study was discussed by Gregory Popcak on a Catholic Answers call in show. I believe he is the author or at least co-author of the study. A copy is available via the Peyton Institute, I think.
It makes sense from what I've heard of Thomistic philosophy saying that reason is the faculty that rules (so to speak) the other faculties. Appealing to lower faculties and emotions like fear or wanting to be loved, or whatever, to overcome the child's reason, would seem to be inherently disordering (although appealing to the same emotions *through* the child's reason is not).
I'll have to look it up.
It is linked in this overview https://www.peytonfamilyinstitute.org/research-projects?hsCtaTracking=01749f8c-c4d7-4fc1-a31b-da6abd7dfd0f%7Ceb8e2f3f-6275-45d5-a2b0-4c0591432f95
Not being spiritually abused (or otherwise abused) as a child, is extremely helpful to not leaving the Church as an adult. But I know people who were abused and are still Catholic. A somewhat startling number, actually.
I did not say, and certainly didn't mean to imply, that the only way to get orthodox Catholic adults is to take the children to the TLM. I'm somewhat curious how you got that impression. I am an orthodox Catholic who was raised in the OF, in a parish with altar girls (like me!), no kneelers at all, no tabernacle in the church, and certainly no ad orientem. There's a fair number of Saints who were raised badly, or as pagans. God can use whatever we've got, whether it's awful, less good than it could be, or nearly perfect. My point was that liturgy is formative, especially for children, and all other things being equal, good liturgy is worth extra effort and sometimes a different parish. It should not be underestimated.
As far as the separate topic of how parents can best keep their kids Catholic, my suggestion would be to teach them mental prayer. It gets them attached to God, who is ultimately the one who keeps them Catholic, and it's doable regardless of the resources available and the circumstances you're subject to. It also has the advantage of requiring the parents to learn mental prayer, which is very helpful for raising kids lovingly - especially if the parents were abused and are trying to break the cycle. Many of the Saints have said that practicing mental prayer would be sure to get you to heaven, while not practicing mental prayer would invariably land you in hell.
Thank you kindly for your question and for further elaborating. I will elaborate below in an attempt to best answer your question.
The way you were talking about Tradition and the Magisterium seemed to imply to me that you think the Tridentine Mass/EF is ontologically better or confers more grace than the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI/OF (which is what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski says, erroneously, in my view) and so I inferred from that that you were saying that kids that attend the EF are more likely to remain Catholic in adulthood than if they attend the OF. I’m glad to hear that I misinterpreted what you said.
And I have, admittedly had a very different and 95% negative experience with the Tridentine Mass in general and especially with people I’ve encountered who attend the Tridentine Mass, and I still have emotional scars from those experiences.
For instance, I rarely ever wear a suit, and I normally wear business casual attire to Mass on Sundays, but from my encounters with one or more guys who attend the EF, they frowned on me not wearing a suit to Mass (on a normal Sunday).
Likewise, many of the people I encountered were very negative and would complain about the state of the Church and bash Vatican II and were very nit picky people in a bad way.
Additionally, for recreation, the guys would smoke and drink, and I cannot partake in either of those things because of my health conditions, so I was ostracized as a result.
Lastly, there was an atmosphere of arrogant, snobby snootiness and “I know better than the Magisterium” mentality among many of the people there that was very off-putting to me (and the Spirit of Vatican II crowd folks I’ve met, ironically, have these same issues even though they have very different theological and liturgical preferences).
As for the Tridentine Mass itself, I do love the Ad Orientem, communion rail, chant, incense, and receiving the Eucharist on the tongue.
What I don’t like about it is there were people waiting in line for Confession while Mass was going on, and there were people praying the rosary while Mass was going on.
But the biggest problem I had with it was I felt disconnected from the Mass. I think full, conscious, and active participation in the Mass is a good thing, and, while I agree it’s important for children to see that, I think it’s easier for them to do that through programs like Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and a reverently celebrated Mass of Pope St. Paul VI that has the spoken prayers and responses.
On one final note, I think it’s actually an effort by bishops and priests and laypeople to correctly implement Vatican II in general and Sacrosanctam concilium in particular, and not the Tridentine Mass, that is leading to renewal in so many parishes here in the USA.
I kind of assumed you'd had bad experiences with traditionalists. A lot of people have, and they subsequently allow it to color their interpretations of what any traditionalist says. The reverse is also true: a whole lot of traditionalists have had bad experiences with mainstream Catholics, and they subsequently allow it to color their interpretations of what any mainstream Catholic says. Being refused Holy Communion for kneeling, or having people assume that wearing a veil means they are arrogant snobs, or deciding that any preference for the TLM is indicative of disobedience and schism... If we don't start forgiving, and taking people as individuals, the cycle will never be broken.
I do think that kids raised in the EF are, *all other things being equal*, more likely to be faithful Catholics as adults. That is because I think liturgy matters, and what we do and what we see and hear and smell are very formative, as we are physical beings by nature, not souls trapped in a weird biomechanical prison. You seem to think the same. But all other things are never equal, and I certainly don't think liturgy is enough to make up for anything and everything else that happens to you, or that you choose. If it were, simply receiving Holy Communion ought to be enough as well, and it's pretty obvious that's not true.
I've never really been bothered by the Confession lines or by the rosary. I don't do either during the Mass that I'm attending for my obligation (couldn't claim that I've never been in Confession line during Mass...). It's not my business what others do, or why. I know some people there have really hard lives, time constraints, and children to wrangle, often enough without the other spouse present to help. About the only time I get mad is when they are over the age of 7 and and their dress or behavior is disrupting to those around them for no good reason. Otherwise, not my circus, not my monkeys.
I do think it's more important for kids to be at sung/high Mass vs. low. For the little ones, the smells and bells seem very effective at helping them participate. As they get older, they need to be taught what everything means. But "active" doesn't mean "doing/saying something", it means praying with the Mass, and I think it's good to learn different ways we do that, whether physical, emotional, intellectual, etc. When life beats you up, sometimes one or the other of those gets a lot harder, and it's good to have the others to fall back on.
Beyond the occasional use of Latin and Gregorian chant, it is not possible to correctly interpret Sacrosanctam concilium without knowing something of the TLM. SC did not mention ad orientem, altar rails, receiving the Eucharist on the tongue, or incense at all, so you can only understand that the Council Fathers expected us to have them by looking at the Mass they celebrated, and observing that they didn't say to stop doing all these things. There have been a lot of people trying to find the middle ground between the false spirit of V2, and the rejection of V2, which has been very good to see. I think it relies a lot on Pope Benedict's hermeneutic of continuity, and interpreting the Council in light of what came before.
Thank you for further elaborating on that. And I agree that the hermeneutic of continuity is the key. I actually got to see Pope Benedict XVI at a few Masses and multiple papal events when I was studying abroad in Rome from late September of 2008 through January of 2009, and I look to him as a spiritual grandfather.
And two close friends of mine and their families are attendees of the Tridentine Mass as well, so I know there are good, solid people there too, such as yourself.
Thank you again for the good conversation!
Lucky you! While I like Papa Bene a great deal, and have enjoyed several of his books, my spiritual grandfather slot is reserved for Scott Hahn. Dude is the only person who I've seen announce that he said this thing, and was subsequently inundated with people telling him he was wrong (charitably and definitely not charitably) and that they were quite correct and that he was very grateful to them *all* for pointing it out. And then proceeded to explain exactly why he was wrong. He's like a walking, talking caritas in veritate.
Anyway, it was good talking with you, and I hope you have a lovely evening!
Thanks, Same to you! And Scott Hahn is wonderful too!
I agree with you on mental prayer. My spiritual director in college had me read Conversation with Christ (I think Rohrbach was the last name of the author), and that was very life-changing and eye-opening for me and really helped me build a deeper relationship with Our Lord.
spiritualdirection.com has been very helpful to me. A lot of resources on Jesuit and Carmelite spirituality, and on what to do, what not to do, and especially to avoid mistaking the method for the goal.
Absolutely. "Evangelii Nuntiandi" should really be read by concerned parents and applied in the family. The Gospel ought to be proclaimed, and joyfully, to the modern world.
That is a far better strategy than building the castle, the moat (with the aligators) and having archers on the walls. (As tempting as that all sounds)
Michelle, do you have Venmo? I want to buy you a beer/beverage of choice. Great work on this deep dive!
"Instead of moving to a new area based on a job prospect, Haigh noted that he personally has met more and more people who say they are moving to an area with a strong Catholic core, and will then look for a job in that area."
This is something that has been rolling around in the back of my mind lately: whether to try to find a different job where I am or look in one of the more vibrant Catholic areas of my diocese and try to reboot my life from there. Problem is, the parishes I like are in a city I'm not really fond of, and the city I'm fond of has parishes that I don't really like. Can't win!
I teach at a small, rural-but-urban* public school in Cajun south Louisiana. Last year, we got a brand new teacher, who moved here from Florida. He's a convert who intentionally sought out an area with Catholic roots so that he and his family could practice the Faith. There were other reasons, but that was one of the main ones. He, his wife, and their baby are happy and settled in. In fact, his grandmother and parents (all still Protestant (for the time being?)) are moving here, too. So, if you're looking for a place that steeped in Catholicism, I suggest south Louisiana.
*We're definitely rural, but with cell phones and social media, all of the city problems are here and in full force. Unfortunately.
I love it. Holy Spirit, light that fire of conversion!
South Louisiana is definitely near the top of places I’d love to visit someday, especially the Lafayette area, since I’m 1/4 French-Canadian (my paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Raymond).
And when I do visit, Nicholas, I’d love to meet you.
For sure! Before you head over, I could even advise on a projected itinerary.
A word of advice: If you can avoid the summer - by which I mean late-April to late October - stay away. It's hot and muggy. The best time to come is March 15-20, lol.
Seriously, though, the early-to-mid Spring is the best. Temps are cool in the mornings and warm up in the afternoon. Flowers are at their best. And crawfish season is getting in full swing.
*Looks at Nick and giggles to self that what those of us in the Gulf South mean by “cool” means “why is it spring in the winter” to others.* Where visitors look and see 1.5 seasons, we see four, maybe even seven seasons. We are an optimistic/heat deluded people.
lol
I’m on LinkedIn if you want to connect via there and I can give you my e-mail address through there.
I'm not on LinkedIn. There's a way to direct message people through the Substack environment, though. Up at the top right of the page, there's a Chat option.
Thanks! I found it and I messaged you.
For a while the Our Lady Star of the Sea Shrine in the Diocese Lake Charles was on my list of potential road trip sites, and then Hurricane Laura wiped it off the face of the earth (essentially).
Lake Charles and the surrounding area have gotten more than its fair share of hurricane damage in the 2000s. My brother lives just north of Lake Charles, in Moss Bluff. The church there, St. Theodore, still hasn't been renovated since Hurricane Laura. The problem with the insurance is stopping a lot of renovation across the diocese.
Even though you can't to to OL Star of the Sea, you should still come down here if you get a chance. We don't have much in terms of sites, but our culture and food are second to none.
Wow, that's so generous of you! Thanks! I'll send you a message :)
If the city you like is SB, I would suggest you check out some of the parishes here. I have found most of them excellent. If the city you like is FW, I can't help you find a good parish but I presume they have them. Both cities have an FSSP parish.
The city is FW, but I was up in SB/Mish to do the seven churches pilgrimage on Holy Thursday and then for the Way of St. Joseph walk a couple of weekends ago. And I'm eying the St. Hildegard concert this Friday. ... I put a lot of miles on my car. LOL!
What St. Hildegard concert? I did part of the St. Joseph walk, but I went to Mass and adoration at my parish and then caught up with it.
From the group's website: "The Saint Hildegard Project seeks to communicate the beauty of the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition through the Church's rich treasury of sacred music. Comprised of men and women who share a fervent devotion to the music itself, The Saint Hildegard Project strives to teach with integrity and perform with excellence for the edification of souls and the glory of God."
https://www.hildegardproject.org/ (The website's Press page links to a CC Watershed article that has a few recordings. Yay, sound!)
They're having a concert called "Te Deum: Sacred Music of the English Church" at 7 p.m. May 10 at Holy Cross Parish (South Bend).
Thank you.
Michelle, JD, and Ed, an article I’d love to hear about is Catholic community at public universities, and also private secular universities such as Princeton and Harvard. I’ve heard that Texas A&M, Iowa State University, Princeton, and Harvard all have thriving Catholic communities and I’ve love to hear about how they both maintain that Catholic community and engage the broader university community.
If The Pillar does do an article on this topic, what are some other vibrant Catholic communities at public universities and private, secular universities that would be good ones for The Pillar to research and write about?
Michigan Tech - Fr. Ben lurks around here. The number of men from St. Al's who are currently in priestly and religious formation is mind boggling to me. They have also developed a number of vocations to FOCUS (including my daughter's!) and of course, many holy marriages and large RCIA classes. For a relatively small, remote, public school, they punch way above their weight for the Church
Yale / New Haven has a thriving Catholic community, not just among students, but also among the hundreds of Catholic homeschooling families based at St. Mary’s. Recent press has focused (maybe to the point of encouraging division) on the abrupt departure of the Dominicans from the local parish, perhaps missing the vibrant community both at Yale’s Catholic Center and throughout the city (and the ways in which these communities overlap and intersect in beautiful ways).
Oh wow! That would be a great story for The Pillar to cover!
@Nicholas Jagneaux, do you know what the Catholic community is like at LSU, for instance?
There is a VERY vibrant Catholic community at the University of Louisiana (Lafayette). Centered around Our Lady of Wisdom parish on the campus, the group is known as Ragin' Cajun Catholics. They are super active; the parish is alive, not only with college students, but with all demographics; and they're producing great vocations. My current parish priest came from that ministry, even having served as parochial vicar there.
I'm not as sure about LSU. My daughter went to graduate school there, and I know that Christ the King parish was full of good stuff (she was active there and made life-long friends there); but I'm more familiar with the UL-Lafayette ministry as it's in my diocese.
I’d submit the University of Wisconsin-Madison to this list as well!
x10000
From your finger tips to the Pillar's front page :) https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/college-chaplain-on-protests-these
“I’d love to hear about how they both maintain that Catholic community and engage the broader university community.”
The answer is pretty much always FOCUS missionaries, and a pastor and staff that works well with the FOCUS style. In most of these places, it also helps that all Catholic activities, events, groups, etc, run through a single Church/Chapel/Center and a single university-recognized student organization, rather than being dispersed (as is more common at a Catholic college).
When I was in college at the University of St. Thomas up here in MN from 2005-2009, the “Catholic Studies” Catholics (who tended to be nerdy, brainy, more contemplative Catholics, and I was part of that group) and the “Saint Paul’s Outreach” Catholics (who tended to be more emotional, sanguine, and loved guitars and praise and worship music) tended to hang out in their own enclaves and not interact. Those of us who were Catholic leaders on campus tried to get the two groups of Catholics to interact by cohosting events, and now, in 2024, they work together to put on a regular event called Tommie Catholic, which is pretty darn awesome!
We may have different ways we pray and different musical tastes and a different sense of aesthetics, but we’re still brother and sister Catholics.
This sounds like "modified" "Benedict Options" solutions.
All great if you have the money to buy land and build. I'm not saying these are bad ideas but limited in who can afford the situations mentioned in the article.
More suitable for many are active mutually supportive Domestic Church circles or Intentional Dispersed Communities based on the shared Catholic Faith (usually in the same town or city).
Excellent article.
We all have to live somewhere. Where we do is a choice. Most of the examples weren't a rural move away from the city type example or one that required a lot of money. I live in a community where people are freely choosing to buy homes close by. Others commute. It's not a run to the hills sort of thing
What a fantastic article- and comments! Thank you. May all of our parishes fruitful.
Great work. A home run.
For the love of all that is good, please don't write another book length article.
I sympathize with you. This article could definitely have been broken into a 4-parter. Each part would have been a manageable length. But, would the overall effect have been the same?
In these days of reading online, I find myself getting frustrated when articles take me "long" to read. But, I think back to the days before the internet - and even in the first decade of the 2000s - and I remember reading articles of similar length in printed magazines all the time. Or sitting with a Sunday newspaper for an hour to read. Today, I wonder about my/our capacity to sit and read for more than 10 minutes at a time.
In these days of Reels, Shorts, and TikTok, everything needs to be quick and to the point, even our articles. As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message."
You make a valid point about our ability to sit and read. In this case I found myself reading several articles wrapped up and one and scrolling through the rest took a surprising amount of time. I appreciate the Pillar's commitment to good stories...but brevity is also a virtue.
I probably spent about 15 minutes reading this article before I realized I was not even halfway through. Like...The point was made with the first two examples.
Please break it up, it harkens back to reading dense theological books that boorishly clamor on for one hundred pages too much because the author had nothing better to do. Like, I read the entirety of C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" over the course of a few hours, because it was engaging and didn't blather on for forever. I'm not saying my opinion is the gospel truth, or that I'm even right, just that this could have been done well with much less text.
The Pillar is my favorite news source, but my goodness, who has time to give their good journalism this long of a read all the time? I miss out on so many good articles because the time crunch is real.
Agreed. I read about as long as you, became impatient, scrolled ahead and found it far too long to finish on first read. I'll probably go back now and skim. Long can be fine, but when I gave it up it had been string after string of thoroughly unmemorable quotes. Quotes should, I think, be used sparingly and selectively, only if the speaker's language and thought rise above the pedestrian. But of course, de gustibus non est disputandum and YMMV.
I had a similar feeling. I started reading and at one point I wondered if I had accidentally jumped to a second very long article. This article could have been divided naturally into a two or four part mini series. And it would have made it much easier for readers to comment specifically on each community.
But some issues demand space for a proper treatment, to present the evidence and a well structured argument. My favourite is the British Anglican theologian Alastair Roberts who is nearly always worth reading. It is just that his thoughtful and well researched discussion of an important topic is often 6,000 words long and the reader has to be prepared to put the time and work in to properly engage with it.
https://alastairadversaria.com/writings-elsewhere/
I would be happy for The Pillar to have a minority of similarly solid articles from Catholic authors. Perhaps once a week or once a month, with a noticeable generic title such as "Long thoughts". I have seen such headings on other websites.
What a wonderful idea for Catholic renewal of a ruined city. I lived in Detroit from 1998 to 2000 and have very fond memories of my time there. The fondness is helped by the fact that I lived out in the pleasant area of Farmington Hills and seldom ventured downtown.
I had been in Bosnia in 1996, shortly after the end of the civil war. Mostar, which had been on the front line, was in much better shape than central Detroit. At least Mostar did not have vast open spaces where prosperous communities once lived. The devastated Detroit areas still existed 30+ years after the 1967 riots, when the overbombed German cities had been rebuilt in a much shorter time.
Mark Binelli's 2010 book "The last days of Detroit" is, in part, as depressing as its title. But it also includes fresh ideas about reviving the ruined, abandoned and crime ridden areas. Such as extensive urban horticulture, which becomes practical when the urban wasteland can be bought for peanuts. It was even conceivable that Detroit could become the first city in history to feed itself from food produced within its own borders. But, as other sections of the article describe, rural life is no rural idyll. My parents could not wait to leave their family farms in 1940s Ireland and returned only for holidays.
The plan for St Aubins includes an urban farm. But you can't help noticing that it also includes mansions and small houses, like the old Detroit.
Still, we have this beautiful idea of a walkable Catholic village within a city. This could become a prototype for all kinds of intentional communities in Detroit and in other cities which need spiritual, psychological and economic rebirth.
Detroit has some remarkable Catholic glories. Like Solanus Casey, a simplex priest of prodigious sanctity. And the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica out in Royal Oak. Its controversial 1930s pastor Father Charles Coughlin could hardly be forgotten. But reconciliation is possible. Like the day in 1998 when I went to the Little Flower to hear a talk by a local rabbi. Such an event would once have been unimaginable.
I read a book about urban homesteading and it made it sound as though there was a huge amount of vacant ground there to farm.
Will this make it to the TL;DR section of The Pillar?
Thanks for considering.
Yes, it's exactly these longer articles that I would most like to have available in an audio format. Thanks for considering, Kate!
A community cannot be master planned, full stop.
THis is a really interesting article, thanks so much for it.
The intentional community is a pleasing picture, at first blush. But the current American culture is far too mobile, I think, for it to endure. Children will not stay in one place; really, they cannot. And when it begins to dissolve, as it will, what will you have left?
But keep thinking. Physical community may not be essential for the human spirit to flourish, but it has a strong pull on the heart.
Minor quibble. The article refers to "Polish masses" in areas of Detroit. I guess this means Hamtramck/Poletown where there were seven "Polish" churches at one time. But surely for decades the Masses would have been in Latin, with perhaps sermons and announcements in Polish?
I have fond memories of the Polish Day celebrations in Hamtramck in 1998, which was not far from my apartment. But, according to Wiki, Hamtramck is now the first Muslim majority city in the USA. Another intentional community, like parts of Bradford and other English cities. And parts of my own town, where there were firework celebrations after 9/11.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamtramck,_Michigan