Why ‘Church Unity’ is Not Worth Sacrificing the Latin Mass | Part 1
Part 1 of a complete response to Fr Reese's case against the Traditional Latin Mass By: Thomas Colsy
It’s not a rare occasion when, as a Catholic, you hear a presentation of matters pertaining to the Faith so questionable you find it rouses your convictions in protest more than a perfectly orthodox homily ever could.
Such was the case when Fr Thomas Reese SJ, a veteran in the Catholic media world who served as editor-in-chief of America Magazine and worked with the Obama administration, decided to wade in once again on the issue of Church unity and the Traditional Latin Mass. This frustrating article was written by an influential cleric (no obscure ecclesiologist with only his opinions to show for) and is a window into how the minds of a certain generation – who presently occupy top institutional positions in the Catholic world – work.
His article, which was published in National Catholic Reporter, is full of sweeping, unfair, and erroneous generalisations about the old rite of the Mass, the people who attend it, and the introduction of the Novus Ordo. Pope Leo XIV is known to read the Reporter. The record needs correcting.
Bear with me. There are numerous uncorrected and simply false assertions here – and unless blatant untruths are challenged, they have a way of hardening into received wisdom. Each of Fr Reese’s arguments therefore warrants a serious and complete response, not least because these are precisely the claims which have been prevailing, formerly used to justify an ongoing and draconian suppression which harms the wellbeing of souls as well as the life of the Church.
Once again, I must clarify – this is an extended takedown, because each of his contentions, which carry weight among the senior ranks of the Roman Curia, and are often used as a stick to beat traditionalists with, need their own riposte.
Fr Reese opens by framing the article within the context of a divided Church, and the example of King Henry IV, a Protestant who supposedly laudably put aside his religious convictions for a greater cause, converting to Catholicism in order to ascend to the French throne. His famous remark, in popular history, is “Paris is worth a Mass”.
Is Reese really holding up Henry of Navarre, a shameless opportunist whose eternal convictions were disposable for worldly gain, as an example to be emulated? Questionable start.
Indeed, there is something faintly magnificent about a cleric who begins with Henry IV of France and ends by decreeing that seminarians who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass should not be ordained. It is the sort of journey only modern Catholic commentary can take: from “Paris is worth a Mass” to “ordination is not worth a Latin Mass” in under 1,500 words.
Fr Reese: “Today, the Eucharist, which is supposed to be the sacrament of unity, is too often a battlefield between Catholics who support the Traditional Latin Mass and those who want to see it disappear. Both sides need to ask themselves whether the fight is worth something more important than Paris: the unity of the church.”
Which is more important? That the Church marches in lockstep or is one in her devotion, fidelity, purity, and orthodoxy?
If Reese is right and the Eucharist is supposed to be about unity, we must ask – unity around what? The Church has certainly never thought this unity was supposed to include unrepentant grave sinners, who are denied the Eucharist. Is unity therefore to be around truth and goodness? Or around mindlessly enforced aggregation for its own sake?
