Priest & Server Training returns

After a break of a year, the Latin Mass Society will be resuming its residential conferences for teaching the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form, as Paul Waddington explains

Priest and Server Training Conferences were started in 2007, the year in which Pope Benedict XVI issued his motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, enabling the widespread use of the older form of the Mass.

Conferences were held in 2007 and 2008 at Merton College, Oxford; and later at various venues, including Ushaw College, Downside Abbey, Buckfast Abbey, Belmont Abbey, Ratcliffe College and All Saints Pastoral Centre in the Westminster Diocese.

In 2016, the event found a regular home at Prior Park College in Bath. Prior Park has a beautiful chapel with several side altars making the venue very suitable for our purposes. However, it is not available to us in school term time, which in some years precludes our favoured Low Week. This happened in 2019 and will happen again in 2020.

A new venue has been found for 2020: Theodore House, the newly opened Christian Heritage Centre, situated alongside Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. The adjacent St Peter’s Church will provide a fine setting for the daily Masses, and its side altars are suitable for the tuition.

Over the years, nearly 200 priests have attended these conferences, with some returning several times. Our most distinguished student was Bishop Slattery from Lincoln in the USA. We have also had priests from Australia, Spain, Italy, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and the West Indies, as well as all parts of the British Isles.

The Christian Heritage Centre associated with Stonyhurst College

The Latin Mass Society will be offering training for priests and servers wishing to learn to celebrate or assist at Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Tuition will be given by priests who have extensive experience of celebrating Mass in the older form, or, in the case of servers, laymen with similar experience.

According to the requirements of the students, there will be groups studying Low Mass, Missa Cantata and Solemn Mass. Both priests and servers will be expected to be proficient at Low Mass before progressing to the more complicated forms.

Theodore House is the newly opened Christian Heritage Centre associated with Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school. It has a full range of modern facilities, and all rooms are en suite.

The Priest and Server Training Conference will be held at Theodore House, Stonyhurst, Lancashire BB7 9PT from Monday, 20 to Thursday, 23 April 2020.

The conference will begin at lunch time on the Monday and end at lunch time on the Thursday.

Cost is £120, which includes full board and lodging. Participants willing to share a room will be charged £100, and seminarians will be accepted free of charge if they are prepared to share a room. Non-residents may attend for £30, which will include lunch.

Applications to attend should be made via the Latin Mass Society website: lms.org.uk

St Peter’s Church will provide a fine setting for the daily Masses