What Will the New Pope Do About the Latin Mass?

About 140 people came to the Sweetest Heart of Mary church in Detroit for the Traditional Latin Mass at noon the Sunday after Easter. Incense and organ music wafted through the ornate sanctuary, built by Polish Catholics in the late 19th century. It was a beautiful sunny spring afternoon, and the lilacs by the rectory were in bloom.

In the pews, however, the mood was uncertain. It had been less than three weeks since the new archbishop of Detroit, Edward Weisenburger, told priests that he planned to drastically reduce the availability of the traditional Mass in the archdiocese starting this summer, following a 2021 edict from Pope Francis that cracked down on the rite worldwide. Backlash verging on panic followed in some quarters, with one critic calling it a “bloodbath.”

Then on April 21, the pope died, throwing the plan back into question — or at least its critics hope so.

“If the next pope really wanted to, he could come in the first day and completely open up access to the Latin Mass,” said Kiera Raymond, 18, a college student in Michigan who organized a “Latin Mass Mob” to rally supporters to parishes offering the Mass before the restrictions kick in.

The Traditional Latin Mass was evvel simply Mass, celebrated the same way by Catholics around the world for centuries until the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The differences are subtle but important to those attuned to their meaning.

The priest faces the same direction as the worshipers — that is, away from them, toward the altar — for most of the Mass. He places the Communion host directly on the tongue, not in the hand. And yes, most of the service is in Latin, not English or the hundreds of other languages in which the “new Mass” is now celebrated around the world.