If you’ve found this webpage, you probably have some questions about the traditional Mass and why certain Catholics attend it. You may have been talking about the situation in the Church with a Catholic friend who attends the “Latin Mass.” Or you may have wandered into a church where the traditional Mass is celebrated.

For people new to the traditional Mass, its language – Latin – is its most striking feature. So too, they are impressed by the beauty of the ceremonies, and how the rites evoke images of ages past.

But Latin, beautiful ceremonies and nostalgia for “the old days” are not the principle reasons why we have retained the traditional Mass. Our purpose, rather, is to preserve the integrity of Catholic doctrine and to offer God pure and reverent worship. The traditional Latin Mass achieves this end, we believe, and the modern or “New” Mass does not.

We hope that you will come to understand more about Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass from what you read here. And we pray that, through the grace of God and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you will become one of them, and “stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned…” (II Thess. 2: 14)

If you’ve been attending the modern “New” Mass created in the 1960s, you’d probably describe it as mostly a man-centered “celebration.” On the other hand, the Latin Mass is best described as an act of adoration and sacrifice directed towards God.

There are many other differences between the modern Mass and the traditional Mass that are readily apparent to even the most casual observer.

In a typical modern parish on a Sunday, the entire service is conducted in English. The priest sits or stands facing the people throughout, and often makes spontaneous remarks to them during the course of the service. Lay people in the sanctuary add comments or proclaim the Scripture readings. Part of the service takes place at a table. The tabernacle is never on the table, but at the priest’s back, or off in a corner. The Sign of Peace is an occasion for handshaking, emotionalism or socializing. The priest gives Communion in the hand to most people, and he is assisted by lay men and women. The priest makes few genuflections, if any.

It is rare that two celebrations of the new Mass are exactly alike. They vary from priest to priest and from parish to parish. In many places some bizarre things have been incorporated into the Mass: there are “Clown Masses,” “Puppet Masses,” “Balloon Masses,” and Masses featuring movies, slide shows, skits, and popular music.

Contrast this with the traditional Latin Mass. It is celebrated in the ancient and venerable language of the Catholic Church. The priest faces Our Lord in the tabernacle throughout. He makes no spontaneous comments on his own, but recites exactly the same prayers that priests have used for centuries. The priest alone touches the Sacred Host with his hands. The people kneel for Holy Communion before their Lord and Savior, and receive Him on the tongue alone. There is no handshaking and socializing before the Blessed Sacrament. The people follow the Mass silently and reverently with Missals (Mass-books) which translate the words of the priest. The gestures of the priest are reverent and restrained, and include numerous genuflections out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament.

The texts and rites of the traditional Latin Mass are the same everywhere and do not vary from priest to priest or church to church. Everything is governed by uniform and very specific rules.

Even the casual observer would conclude that the modern Mass and the traditional Mass seem to send out radically different “signals” about what the Mass is, what it does, and what those present believe. The new rite leaves the impression that the Mass is a common meal or instructional service; the old rite, that it is an action primarily directed at adoring an all-holy God.

This brings us to a principle which is a key to understanding why some Catholics adhere to the traditional Mass: liturgy of its nature expresses doctrine. Pope Pius XII spoke of this in his Encyclical on the liturgy: The worship she [the Church] offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous profession of the Catholic faith…. In the sacred Liturgy, we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly.

Liturgy not only expresses common doctrine; it also influences what people believe. Prayers and ritual gestures expressing adoration of Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, for instance, reinforce and reaffirm our common faith in that doctrine. If you remove from public worship prayers and gestures that allude to a particular truth such as this, you can be fairly sure that in time worshippers will cease to believe in it.

Because liturgy both expresses doctrine and influences what people believe, the Church down through the centuries has closely guarded the text of the Missal, in order to insure that it accurately reflected her beliefs and excluded anything that compromised them.

The Catholic Church has always first and foremost spoken of the Mass as a “sacrifice.” It is infallible teaching that Christ left a visible Sacrifice to His Church “in which that bloody sacrifice which was once offered on the Cross should be made present.” (Council of Trent)

The doctrine that the Mass is primarily a sacrifice offered to God is wonderfully and precisely expressed in the traditional Latin Mass. So too are Catholic teachings on countless other points, such as the Real Presence, the nature of the priesthood, purgatory, the identity of Christ’s true Church, and the intercession of the saints.

Since Vatican II, Catholics throughout this country have banded together to preserve the traditional Mass and sacraments. In some areas traditional Catholics have acquired and furnished splendid churches to give their Lord and Master a home. In other areas, the Holy Sacrifice is offered in rented rooms, just as the first Mass, the Last Supper, was offered in a rented room. In either case, it is the Mass that matters, and it is the Mass, as St. Leonard said, upon which the sun rises and sets.

If what we have said here has filled you with the desire to assist at the traditional Latin Mass, we invite you to join us the next time Mass is celebrated.

What we have said here is necessarily only a brief exposition of the position of Catholics “who stand fast and hold the traditions.” For this reason, we invite you to investigate the matter further through traditional books and periodicals which offer an explanation and a defense of our position.

Finally, we invite you to pray, and to seek the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. May you be granted the grace to be true to the one, true Faith, till death.