A forceful article by Jim Zebora about the last Latin Mass in New Haven.
The news struck traditional Catholics in south central Connecticut like a dagger to the heart.
The Latin Mass said every Sunday, and many feast days and holidays, by the Saint Gregory Society of New Haven was being shut down. This Mass had been celebrated for 38 years, through the reigns of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, who had both encouraged its use where there were Catholics who wanted it as their form of Sunday worship.
I frequently attended this Mass when I lived in Meriden (about 20- 30 minutes driving – SC), seeking what I felt was a more reverent and prayerful observance than the new Mass. The Society’s Masses were indeed beautiful and purposeful, giving honor to God and engaging worshipers in the sacred and soul-comforting rituals that live on in the Traditional Latin Mass. These Masses touched me in a way that the new Mass did not, and I felt spiritually richer for attending and receiving Communion at them. I still attended Mass in the vernacular when that was the only thing available, but the sense of reverence was missing.
You would think a sacred Mass that draws devout worshippers would be encouraged by Catholic leaders, but it is instead being suppressed. The Society’s final approved TLM in New Haven was celebrated Jan. 14 after the priest administrator of St. Stanislaus Church and the pastor of the Blessed Michael McGivney mega-parish petitioned Hartford Archbishop Leonard P. Blair to let them shut it down. No matter how it was positioned as a bottom-up request, the forced cessation of the Latin Mass in New Haven was a direct result of the pope’s hostility.
The last celebration was a Solemn High Mass with three priests (actually two – SC), a full complement of altar servers, and the highly regarded Schola Cantorum offering Gregorian chants.
In 2021, when Pope Francis reversed Pope Benedict’s policy of allowing the Latin Mass whenever and wherever it was requested, eminent Catholic writer and apologist George Weigel called Francis out on marginalizing traditional Catholics and their preferred mode of worship.
Weigel said the pope’s decree suppressing the Latin Mass, ironically named Traditionis Custodes, meaning “guardians of tradition,” “was theologically incoherent, pastorally divisive, unnecessary, cruel.”
Today, the actions of the Archdiocese in suppressing the Latin Mass and Saint Gregory Society are indeed the same.
Zebora, Jim, “End of the Latin Mass in New Haven a Direct Result of the Pope’s Hostility,” Greenwich Time, 1/25/2024
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