Tomorrow will be the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum. This Society was organized shortly thereafter; in September of 2007 we sponsored the first Mass pursuant to SP in the Archdiocese of New York.
How many things have changed since then! We have since sponsored so many masses in New York, Connecticut, Brooklyn and New Jersey. We have welcomed so many great speakers and priests to this area – amazingly, some for the first time.
And it is not just what we ourselves have done, but what the movement of which we have been a part has accomplished. For in the indult days the traditional mass, aside from the Ecclesia Dei communities, had remained largely an affair of low masses celebrated in inconvenient locations at odd hours and often on a semi-clandestine basis. Traditionalists remained a community under official suspicion. Today, just in this region, there are diocesan parishes that regularly celebrate the Traditional Mass, in one case daily (Holy Innocents), in another as a Solemn Mass every Sunday (St. Mary’s Norwalk). Several more are proceeding in this direction – and individual celebrations of the Traditional Mass are proliferating as well. We have been blessed to witness the celebration of the Traditional Mass in the cathedrals of New York, Brooklyn and Newark – as well as in so many other churches where the Traditional liturgy would have been inconceivable prior to SP.
We have been heartened to see how new societies and initiatives have arisen to further advance the cause of liturgical (and artistic and musical) excellence. Even more important, an entire new generation of priests and laity has arisen to carry Traditionalism on into the future. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on those who fought the good fight through the long bleak years preceding SP, when I share my conviction that this younger group often displays a level of knowledge, self-confidence, maturity and courage rarely encountered in the past. They combine these qualities with the ability to work together with other “factions” within Catholicism and with the establishment itself.
It has been a great pleasure to chronicle these developments over the last ten years. If you search this blog’s archive you can see for yourself the dramatic increase in activity that’s also reflected in the traffic volume, which is four or five times the number of hits even five years ago.
In this post, we present photos from our archives of the first year of Summorum Pontificum—it was already an event-filled year. Tomorrow we will post highlights from the subsequent years.
Sept. 9, 2007: Our Society sponsored the first Traditional Mass under Summorum Pontificum in New York City—a Solemn Mass at the Church of Our Savior. Father Uwe Michael Lang was the celebrant and Fr. Richard Cipolla, the Society’s chaplain, was the deacon. David Hughes organized a schola. After the Mass, the Society sponsored a presentation downstairs by Fr. Lang and Martin Mosebach (his first speaking engagement in the New York).
Above: Martin Mosebach autographs a copy of his book Heresy of Formlessness.
Sept. 14, 2007: Father Robert Boyd celebrates one of the first Traditional Masses under Summorum Pontificum in Connecticut for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in St. Mary Church, Greenwich (downstairs chapel). Fr. Boyd had contacted us to ask for assistance. We provided altar cards and other items plus several altar servers, including the MC.
Nov. 2, 2007: At St. Vincent de Paul Church, New York, a priest of the Institute of Christ the King celebrates a Missa Cantata for All Souls Day.
Nov. 18, 2008: Our Society provided support for the first Traditional Mass at Immaculate Conception, Waterbury, CT. Fr. Cipolla was celebrant; Society member Michael Boyd was MC. Seminarians from Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell provided the chant. The pastor announced the start of a weekly Sunday Traditional Mass at the church at 6 pm, which remains on the schedule to this day.
Dec. 2, 2007, Fr. Greg Markey institutes weekly Sunday Traditional Masses at 9:30 am at St. Mary’s Norwalk, CT. The Traditional Mass had to be celebrated in the downstairs chapel, because under Bishop Lori’s rule, a Traditional Mass could not replace a Novus Ordo Mass in a church’s schedule. For about a year, at St. Mary’s, a Novus Ordo Mass (upstairs) and a Traditional Mass (downstairs) were celebrated simultaneously at 9:30 am.
Father George Rutler celebrates a Missa Cantata for the Feast of Immaculate Conception at the Church of Our Saviour in New York. Our Society provided support for the Mass. Fr. Rutler would soon schedule weekly Sunday Traditional Masses at Our Saviour.
Feb. 24, 2008. Our Society provided support for a Missa Cantata at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, New York. Traditional Mass had been celebrated here every Sunday since the promulgation of Ecclesia Dei in 1988. The church was now scheduling a Missa Cantata on the last Sunday of every month.
May 2008: The Corpus Christi procession at St. Mary’s Norwalk, CT through the neighborhood, became a yearly event.
June 2008: Solemn Mass at the Church of the Guardian Angels, New York. Msgr. Gilles Wach of the Institute of Christ the King was the celebrant.
Aug. 2, 2008: A Solemn Requiem Mass for Gerald Luff at St. Mary’s Norwalk—the first of its kind under Summorum Pontificum. A Traditional Requiem Mass has remained an option at St. Mary’s, as has a Traditional Nuptial Mass.
Sept. 9, 2008: Sunday Traditional Mass moves upstairs at St. Mary’s Norwalk.
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