Today was the official announcement by Bishop Matano that St. Thomas the Apostle (STA) Church in Irondequoit, after about 4 years of effective closure, will “reopen” on Sunday, November 30th for Mass in the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo) at 9:00 AM and for each Sunday thereafter. Moving from St. Stanislaus Church on Hudson Avenue in Rochester to the STA location will be Mass in the Extraordinary Form (The Latin Mass; TLM) on Sundays at 11:15 AM, also beginning November 30th, and thereafter. In addition there will be Holy Day Masses, yet to be defined. The date of Sunday November 30th is the first Sunday of Advent, and thus the beginning of the new Church Year.
Show below (click to enlarge) are the five pages distributed at the TLM this afternoon. The combination of the two communities makes much strategic sense, and we praise God for hearing the prayers of so many for STA to reopen for worship, and TLM’s long time desire to have a ‘home.’ The picture shown above was from July 3, 2014 when Bishop Matano visited STA and celebrated a Mass for the patron saint’s feastday, which many attended to pray for such reopening. That our prayers were answered is an incredible witness for which to give thanks to God. It is truly remarkable for any church to reopen after that much time of closure. And we also received the Good News that Bishop Matano will be at both Christmas Masses this year at St. Thomas the Apostle Church.
The D&C article:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2014/11/10/st-thomas-apostle-church-catholic-diocese/18807297/
links to a pdf version of the above document:
http://kateriirondequoit.org/tasks/sites/SKTP/assets/File/Letter_to_Faithful-LatinMassCommunity2014.pdf
And the challenge has been made. From the facebook comments of the D&C article:
Pretty cheecky to kvetch about numbers when the DOR only just emerged from a 33-year reign of progressivist terror resulting in the DOR being bottom of the barrel in the country on just about any measurable scale of health.
I noticed some changes in the on-line version ….reflecting the quibble about whether or not STA had been closed or not. To me, a church with no Mass, the locks changed and the people not welcome is CLOSED. And it was closed for 4 years, regardless of the rare funeral, like the time Fr. English reluctantly opened it for a funeral but left the bathrooms locked!
Also, the story mentions an unidentified person saying “Parishioners who left said at the time that they had done so because the congregation had grown more orthodox and out of step with younger families.” The word Orthodox belies their own misunderstanding that Orthodox is another church entirely; what I think they meant was “too reverential; too faithful.” How can anyone ever be too respectful of God and His House? This is often said by people who want to talk loudly before Mass, skip prayers of thanksgiving, and get out of the parking lot and off to breakfast before anyone else. But I suppose if that is what those “young families” want to teach their children, that indeed is what they are doing. I’ll take reverential any day, and the absence of those who aren’t respectful of a church will be another asset to STA. Wonder why those folks didn’t want their names used?
No, orthodox (small “o”) is the correct term, meaning “correct thinking” “right belief” “right praise” or “correct practice/worship”. Upper case “O” refers to the Orthodox Churches which also means “right belief/practice/worship” or “true belief/practice/worship”. Orthodox –small o or O– has a deeper, more fundamental meaning than merely “conservative”. Much of contemporary Catholic worship today reflects “heterodox” belief.
We’re there really only about fifty people showing up on Sundays? If so, how could they even heat the building? I’m sure no one who left ever said, “Parishioners who left said at the time that they had done so because the congregation had grown more orthodox and out of step with younger families.” No one who would have left would have used that terminology. Someone who left might have said, “out of step” but would not have said orthodox. Come on, would anyone say they left because the congregation was too orthodox? It kind of casts doubt on the report.
Having attended St. Thomas, there were certainly more than 50 people there on a Sunday! Fr. Tanck took away our 10:00 Mass and switched the Mass schedule to one that would seperate the congregation: one Mass at 7:00 am, and the other one at 11:00 am. That pretty much made a dent in the number of people attending, but there were still a lot of people who came to Mass on Sunday, at both of the Masses.
I suppose most people would not say “orthodox”. A liberal leaning person would probably say ” conservative”; most traditionalists would also probably say ” conservative”. Some –some– traditionalists would say “orthodox”. But, “orthodox” is used by some Catholic traditionalists (conservatives) to draw a distinction between them and those Catholics who are heterodox ( wrong belief and practice). It’s not just a term for the Orthodox Churches. Traditionalists ( also a term subject to interpretation), or conservatives, are also know as orthodox Catholics.
I’m sure there are many people who are happy about this development. Unfortunately, the new time for TLM doesn’t work for me – I appreciated the fact that it was available on Sunday afternoon. Now I won’t be able to attend TLM any longer (at least not currently). But you can’t please everyone. I do hope it works out so that the presence of TLM in the D of R can be maintained.
A couple thoughts:
1. FYI… Page 1 of the Bishop’s letter (actually image 2) has a broken link. You can’t click on it, but you can go to one of the other pages and then edit the URL to make the last digits “002.jpg”, which will get you there.
2. Referring to the Q&A page…St. Stanislaus was not “spacious” enough for Latin Masses? Huh? People have made semi-reasonable arguments for relocation, but this is a profoundly goofy one. I don’t recall a lack of space ever being an issue! Completely daft.
3. The Bishop’s letter is a bit odd in that most of it is merely justification for the Extraordinary Mass in the first place. I could understand if the Rochester Diocese were finally permitting one, but that’s not the case here. The legitimacy of the Latin Mass was settled years ago via the Motu Proprio. And even before that Bp. Clark (perhaps reluctantly, but whatever) permitted it at St. Stan’s. It’s a curious defense of something no longer in question. I’m not arguing anything he’s saying, but it is strange.
4. Wow, $200K per year is a lot of money for just RENT on a building they don’t own? So, $4000 per week in collection revenue is needed to merely cover the rent. Does TLM publish their current weekly receipts and are have they historically been in the ballpark? This arrangement is frankly a *phenomenal” deal for St. Kateri, which is otherwise sitting on an unused white elephant of an aging megachurch. Talk about a boost to their cashflow and income statements without giving up a nick of equity! It’s obvious who the big winner of this arrangement is.
5. I sincerely hope *other* parishes will consider the Extraordinary Form as well. There is no reason that STA needs to be the only venue in town for a regular Latin Mass.
Re #5 above:
It would be wonderful if more parishes offered Mass in EF.
But because it hasn’t been common practice for a good many years, my question is, how many of today’s priests actually know the EF, or would be willing to learn it?
I don’t have the best pulse on this, but there are some who already occasionally offer an EF Mass (including Bp. Matano himself). More importantly, there is a new wave of priests who are enthusiastic about tradition, and traditional liturgy. So, I think the situation is looking up. I do get the feeling that priests who are sympathetic to the EF Mass are a bit reluctant to infringe on what might be seen as TLM Community’s “turf”. I take a different view, namely that the Latin Mass should be widely available in the diocese, not ghettoized into a single personal parish. I think the market is bigger than most people realize.