On a mission…

Do we still believe in the Latin Mass Society? Asks Fr Bede Rowe

This is going to be my last column. I have greatly enjoyed writing for the LMS magazine for the past goodness knows how many years but, as they say, all good things come to an end. So, in order to bow out on an interesting note, let me pose the question: “Do we still believe in the LMS?”

We all know that the Latin Mass Society has kept alive both the practice and devotion for the Traditional Form of Holy Mass. For far too many years, the only chance there was to worship God in this rite of the Church was if the LMS had arranged it. The LMS reps were the interlocutors with often truculent and unhelpful bishops. Through these terrible wilderness y ears after the reforms and the ruthless suppression of the Traditional Rite of Mass, the LMS organised and sustained this offering of the Sacred Liturgy. Without their sterling work, countless Catholics would not have come across the Mass of their parents, and their parents’ parents. They would never have seen or experienced the awesome majesty which spurred on the martyrs of our country to their death, in defence of the bloodless sacrifice of God to God. And, as Priests, we can never forget that many of our number were taught to offer this Mass, not in the place of our formation, but through the generosity and provision of the training courses offered by the LMS.

With the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, we entered into a new universe. Now, it was possible for any and every Priest to offer the ‘Extraordinary Form’ of Mass, and indeed, many of us did. What then was the place for the organisation which had fought for the Mass’ preservation, which had bargained with Bishops, which had put its money where its mouth was, which had travelled hundreds of miles, so that the Latin Mass could be offered on our altars? What role was the LMS to have, now that every parish was free to hear the Mass of Ages said and sung in its Churches? This existential question is intriguing, and I know that it was discussed in meetings and social gatherings up and down the county. Was the LMS like UKIP – both having to question their existence when the thing they campaigned for came about?

It is a valid line of argument. Is the LMS an interesting throwback to a moment in our history when the Old Rite was outlawed at worst, and sidelined at best? In our brave new world, is it just an historical curiosity which points to the bad old days, but which limps on through inertia or nostalgia?

In a way I would love that to be the case. I would love it if the LMS had done itself out of a job and was simply not needed, and would never be needed again, but I simply do not believe that we are in a ‘brave new world’. I do not believe that the restoration which we have experienced is safe. I do not believe that at the stroke of a pen, the freedoms that we have been granted could not be reversed.

We are fools if we think that we can relax and dismantle the defences with which we preserved the Latin Rite. The LMS’ role may not be current, in the sense of having to preserve the ancient forms of worship, but it must be vigilant… It must constantly be ready to spring into action if and when enemies of right religion try again to suppress and destroy the Latin Mass.

I am not a conspiracy theorist (in fact the most paranoid conspiracy theorist could not have come up with the terrible situation in the Church today) but I would say that I am a realist. A suspicious realist perhaps, but a realist nonetheless. Do we still believe in the LMS? Sadly, ever so sadly, yes. We shouldn’t have to, but we must. The LMS is as needed now as it ever was, and cannot be put off its guard. If persecution of the Old Mass comes again, then it must be ready to spring into action with its old fervour and in its old role.

How I wish this were not the case, but it is.

And so I sign off with a cheery sayonara and goodbye. The next columnist can pose the question that we have all been really asking… ‘Do we believe in Fr Rowe… or was he the figment of someone’s dark imagination’!