1

The Traditional Latin Mass:

Tradition, Family Values and Politics in American Catholicism

Gabriella Nyambura

Final Report for the 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Grant

Northwestern University
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On October 11, 2022, the late Pope Francis led a congregation of worshippers at St. Peter’s

Basilica in an evening Mass commemorating the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican

Council, commonly (and henceforth) referred to as Vatican II. His sermon for the Mass bore a central

theme: unity. The pope highlighted the ideological divisions that had arisen since the council’s

conclusion in 1965 and condemned this polarization as a fruit of the devil, calling on Catholics to

instead embrace joy and love per the council’s intentions.i Factionalism was a recurring issue for the

Francis pontificate, but it grew particularly relevant following his decision in 2021 to restrict traditional

Catholic communities which still hold to pre-Vatican II norms surrounding worship and faith, a move

which has sparked heated debate on the compatibility of the Church’s competing factions.

The ideological tension between traditional and mainstream Catholics is a longstanding issue for

the postconciliar Church. Despite the meticulousness with which the Church defines her doctrines,

Catholics are not immune to ideological diversity. In the United States, every presidential election since

2000 has seen Catholic voters starkly divided.ii On key political and moral issues, American Catholics

are often at odds with official Church teaching. For example, despite the Church’s condemnation of

artificial contraception, over 80% of American Catholics support its use.iii 70% of Catholics favor same-

sex marriage despite Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are unnatural and impermissible.iv v

Abortion, whose procurement comes with automatic excommunication, has 56% of US Catholics

supporting its legalization.vi Catholics also appear to be at odds with some of their Church’s most

sacrosanct dogmas, with majority not professing that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.vii

Traditional Catholics, however, do not seem to share this doctrinal variance. Informal surveys of

traditionalists instead suggest they are morally conservative, and more uniformly so, with one survey

showing approval rates as low as 1%, 2%, and 2% for abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage

respectively.viii Traditionalists also appear to attend Mass more regularly and donate more to the Church

than their mainstream counterparts. Their families appear oriented towards conservative attitudes to
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normative gender roles and sexuality, and their disapproval of contraception seems to suggest a higher

fertility rate than mainstream Catholics.ix

The Latin Mass is accessible at over 600 venues in the United States, making up about 4% of

Catholic parishes in the country.x xi xii Despite their small number, traditionalists have shown a

remarkable capacity for organizing and establishing community. For example, the largest church in

Kansas is currently a $42 million recent build by the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) which

was completed in 2023. This 1500-person Romanesque building serves the town of St. Mary’s, whose

population has grown by 50% since 1980, in part due to an influx of traditional Catholics.xiii Although

religious minorities often have a narrow sphere of influence in national affairs, they can generate

significant cultural and socioeconomic impact locally. The existence of such terms as “Amish country,”

for example, despite the Amish totaling a mere 400,000 nationally, demonstrates this.xiv

Academic research on contemporary Catholicism often focuses on postconciliar theology and its

implications, with limited work on traditionalists despite their visible role in these discourses. This

project sought to respond to this serious lacuna by asking two questions. First, given the problem of poor

catechesis in the universal Church, how doctrinally literate and doctrinally observant are traditionalists?

Second, given the role of the family as a critical social institution, how do traditionalists understand and

practice their concept of family values in the real world? It is hoped that this work will offer insight into

this small but vocal segment of the world’s largest religious institution and its implications for both the

Church and the societies in which its members are situated.

Traditional Catholics: A Brief History from 1965-2025

For purposes of this study, the term “traditionalist” refers to Catholic individuals and institutions

that have a devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass and recognize the legitimacy of post-Vatican II popes.

The latter criterion distinguishes them from sedevacantists, who denounce Vatican II as heretical and
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profess that claimants to the papacy following the death of Pius XII are invalid.xv This definition would

thus include the Society of St. Pius X, which, despite its uncertain canonical status, acknowledges the

validity of postconciliar popes.xvi

To understand the dynamic between traditionalists and their mainstream counterparts, it is

helpful to review the context in which they have emerged as a postconciliar phenomenon. Vatican II was

preluded by a surprise papal announcement in 1959, during which the recently elected Pope John XXIII

announced his wish to convene an ecumenical council. His rationale, which became the council’s

rallying cry, was that the Church of the 20th century needed to adapt to modernity—to “open the

window” and let in some fresh air.xvii Vatican II, it was hoped, would be the conduit for ushering in a

“new Pentecost” in the Church.xviii However, 60 years since the council’s conclusion, its documents and

implementation continue to be contested.

Vatican II has been dubbed the most significant Catholic event since the Protestant Reformation,

the most important religious event of the 20th century, but also among the most controversial events in

2,000 years of Catholic history.xix It has been argued to have facilitated paradigm shifts across Catholic

theology, culture, and liturgical practice.xx At its commencement in 1962, the Roman Catholic Mass was

said in Latin, with rubrics that had remained largely unchanged since their standardization in 1570. By

the council’s conclusion in 1965, the use of vernacular languages in the liturgy had been expanded,

prayers and ceremonies revised, various architectural traditions rendered moot, and the participatory role

of the congregation reimagined. By 1970 the Vatican was announcing a new liturgy altogether, the

Novus Ordo, along with the revision and excision of more longstanding feasts, rituals, and prayers.

While the Novus Ordo could be said in Latin and with the priest ad orientem (facing away from

the congregation) as had been normative for centuries, most Roman Catholics would come to hear the

entire Mass in their local languages. With the introduction of freestanding altars, priests would now offer

the Mass versus populum (facing the people). The flexibility afforded by the rubrics of the new Mass
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precipitated a new wave of liturgical experimentation, with (in)famous examples such as “clown

Masses,” which incorporated clowning and mime into the liturgy.xxi Gregorian chant, the Church’s

central musical tradition, was phased out in favor of contemporary compositions. The altar rail, which

had characterized Catholic churches for over a millennium, could now be demolished. Laity were

afforded liturgical privileges which had previously been restricted to priests and deacons, including

reading the Scriptures of the day and administering Holy Communion. Where the altar rail previously

incentivized communicants to kneel and receive Communion on their tongues, many were now standing

and receiving it in their hands.

Unsurprisingly, the rapidity and extent of these changes spurred mixed responses. While some

heralded the progressive shifts of this period as much-needed reforms, others had reservations. It is from

this discord that traditional Catholicism as a conservative faction of the postconciliar era emerged.

Although the Novus Ordo had become the standard Roman liturgy, the Vatican did not abolish the

Traditional Latin Mass. This allowed various collectives of priests and laity to, with varying degrees of

success, negotiate permission to retain pre-conciliar worship norms, either exclusively or alongside the

Novus Ordo Mass. In the decades since, traditionalists have managed to forge an organized and vocal

subculture within global Catholicism.

Still, the availability and permissibility of the Latin Mass has remained controversial. In the first

37 years following the introduction of the vernacular Mass, devotees of the old liturgy relied primarily

on indults from the Vatican, whose escalation up the ecclesiastical bureaucracy made them difficult to

obtain. In 2007, however, traditionalists found their long-desired reprieve in Pope Benedict XVI, who,

just two years into his pontificate, revoked most of his predecessors’ restrictions. By papal decree,

priests were now free to celebrate the Old Mass both privately and publicly. For parish priests,

accommodating parishioners interested in this liturgy was made a pastoral obligation.xxii Laity were now

free to request marriages, funerals, pilgrimages, and the other Catholic sacraments in the traditional rite.
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Benedict’s decentralization of the Latin Mass effectively rendered it a right to which Roman Catholics

were entitled. Under the Francis pontificate, however, this right was reduced to a privilege.

Pope Francis had a complicated relationship with the Latin Mass and traditionally oriented

Catholics. He accused traditionalists of rigidity, of hostility and of “gagging” the modernizing attempts

of Vatican II. xxiii xxiv In a 2016 interview, he stated that in authorizing the regular celebration of the Latin

Mass, his predecessor had extended “a magnanimous gesture” to nostalgic Catholics.xxv However, this

gesture was an exception, and traditionalist sentiments were never intended to become normative. In

kind, traditional and conservative Catholics were some of Francis’ strongest critics, feeling maligned by

his pontificate and accusing him of fostering the very disunity he decried through doctrinal ambiguity,

prejudice against orthodox Catholics, complicity in the sex-abuse crisis, and compromising Church

doctrine to cater to progressives.xxvi

In 2021, this tension culminated in the Francis pontificate publishing a decree titled Traditionis

Custodes (‘Guardians of Tradition’). Through this document, Pope Francis overturned his predecessor’s

permissions surrounding the Latin Mass. Where priests were previously free to offer this liturgy, they

must now obtain the approval of their local bishops, who must verify that traditionalists in their diocese

accept the validity of Vatican II. For newly ordained priests, celebrating the Old Rite now requires

formal authorization from their bishop, who must then petition the Vatican for final approval. Bishops

are further forbidden from using the ancient rituals for the sacraments of Confirmation and priestly

ordinations, with the remaining sacraments also becoming less accessible to interested laity.xxvii

The Archdiocese of Chicago, whose churches are featured in this study, responded swiftly. In a

letter published within a week of Traditionis Custodes, Chicago Cardinal Blaise Cupich welcomed the

papal document as demonstrating the pope’s concern for ecclesiastical unity.xxviii By the end of the year,

Latin Masses in the archdiocese had been banned on the first Sunday of every month, Christmas, the

Easter Triduum, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday.xxix Diocesan churches, which offer both Latin and
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Novus Ordo Masses, now had to substitute the former with the latter on the select days. One community,

however, ceased offering public Masses in Chicago altogether.

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP) is categorized as a Society of

Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right. Its constitutions were approved under Pope Benedict XVI in 2008

and confirmed under Pope Francis in 2016. This granted ICKSP clergy the right to offer the traditional

liturgy and use all of its liturgical books according to the Vatican edition of 1962. While they participate

in liturgies of diocesan importance, such as the annual Chrism Mass, and engage with priests across the

diocese, they are committed to the daily celebration of Mass according to the 1962 missal per their

Vatican-approved spirituality and charism. As such, in response to the cardinal’s restrictions, they argued

that offering the Novus Ordo Mass would run contrary to their constitutions, which predated the Francis

pontificate and identified them as a Latin-Mass-only community. The Chicago Archdiocese and the

ICKSP failed to reach a compromise, and Confessions and public Masses ceased a few weeks later.xxx

Traditionis Custodes and its implementation have left a visible impact on traditionalist

communities worldwide. As this ideological fissure continues to widen, it necessitates an investigation

of traditional Catholics to better understand their perspectives and better inform ecclesiastical dialogue.

This study was undertaken in an attempt to help fill this gap.

Methods

Participant Churches

This study partnered with three churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago that offer the Old Rite:

St. John Cantius Church, the Shrine of the Institute of Christ the King, and St. James at Sag Bridge. St.

John Cantius Church is a diocesan church in downtown Chicago that offers three Mass options: the

Traditional Latin Mass, the Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, and the Novus Ordo Mass in English. Built in
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the late 1800s, it is a Baroque building whose original architecture has been preserved thanks to the

efforts of the Canons Regular of Chicago, who have had custody over the building since 1988.

The Canons run the parish in keeping with their stated mission of “Restoring the Sacred.”

Aesthetically, at least, Cantius is a pre-Vatican II church. The priests wear black cassocks, and Masses

feature incense, ornate vestments, gold vessels, a choir with an organ, and a small army of

choreographed altar boys—never girls—clad in cassocks. With no freestanding altar, Cantian Masses are

said ad orientem. Communion is administered by priests and deacons alone, and communicants receive

it on the tongue while kneeling at the still intact altar rail. Confessions are offered in the traditional,

anonymous format at six wooden confessionals. While the three Mass offerings attract a congregation

with diverse liturgical preferences, it is one of the largest Latin Mass communities in the archdiocese.

The second community involved in this study, the ICKSP, as previously noted, ceased offering

public Masses in August 2022. However, casual interactions with former members since that time had

revealed that some responded to the Shrine’s closure by commuting or relocating near ICKSP churches

in Wisconsin, Indiana, or Rockford, Illinois—the latter being under the Rockford Diocese and thereby

not subject to Cardinal Cupich’s restrictions. It therefore seemed worthwhile to attempt to recruit them

by having their priests advertise the study through flyers, Mass announcements, and their email mailing

list. Ultimately, this only proved feasible for one Indiana apostolate, with limited success. As the results

will show, only about 6% of the total survey respondents identified themselves as ICKSP-affiliated.

As recruitment was nearing its conclusion, St. James that Sag Bridge, a mission (previously a

parish) in Lemont, IL requested to be featured in this study. St. James, like Cantius, is a historic church

that offers both forms of the Mass on Sundays. One of their members noticed the study’s promotional

flyer while visiting Cantius and informed the church secretary, who contacted me to see if the study

could be extended to St. James. Since additional perspectives are always welcome, the study materials

were shared with them. However, given their late inclusion, they too had a low participation rate.
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Design and Materials

Given the multi-faceted nature of the research questions, this project used a mixed-methods

design featuring an anonymous survey, semi-structured interviews with priests and laity, and

ethnographic observations. Each church was asked to promote the study via flyers, Mass announcements

and parish email lists, with a QR code and link to the anonymous survey. After completing the survey,

respondents could submit another online form to be considered for a 60-90-minute interview. The survey

drew 442 respondents, of whom an unexpectedly large number, 141, expressed interest in being

interviewed. Given my time constraints as a student and the depth of the interview topics, I opted to

optimize quality over quantity by holding long interviews with a small participant pool. Of the interested

participants, 16 were selected. Along with 4 priests from the featured churches, the number of

interviewees totals 20. The survey was open from June to late August 2023. Interviews were held in

summer and fall 2023, and winter 2024.

Participant Criteria

While the target demographic of this study was Latin Mass attendees, the recruiting materials for

both the survey and the interviews stated that the only requirement for participation was to be Catholic

over the age of 18. This liberal participation criterion was selected for two reasons. The first is that it is

difficult to define traditionalist affiliation in terms of the frequency of Latin Mass attendance. As will be

attested to in the results, not all Latin Mass devotees attend the Latin Mass exclusively. In fact, most

likely do not. Given the scarcity of this liturgy, it is common for traditionalists to either “church hop” or

pray the Novus Ordo to fulfill their Sunday obligation. Second, as earlier noted, diocesan Latin Mass

churches offer both forms of the Mass and thereby attract a more liturgically flexible congregation than

a Latin Mass-only church might. These nuances thus necessitated a wider criterion for participation. It

was hoped that having “Latin Mass” in the title of the study would naturally attract parishioners who

were at least involved enough with the Latin Mass that they could comfortably speak about it.
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Results and Discussion

Since many of the interview questions were designed to build on themes highlighted in the

survey, the results of this study are presented thematically, blending both survey and interview findings.

While 442 individuals responded to the first survey question, attrition at various points in the survey

means that the number of respondents for each question may vary. Finally, unless otherwise indicated,

all interviewees are assigned aliases to protect their privacy.

General Demographics

The mean age of participants was 46, with the youngest being 18 and the oldest 85 years old

(n=382). 61% of respondents were male (n=382). The racial distribution of the participant pool is as

follows: 81% White or Caucasian, 8% prefer not to answer, 5% Asian, 3% American Indian or Alaskan

Native, 2% Middle Eastern or North African, 2% Black or African American, 0% Native Hawaiian or

Other Pacific Islander (n=402). 86% of respondents were non-Hispanic (n=382).

54% of respondents were married, with 37% having never married; 8% divorced, separated, or

widowed; and 1% preferring not to answer. Respondents who identified themselves as female were

prompted about the number of children they had borne or adopted in their lifetime. 44% had borne

children; 35% had never had children; 20% had adopted; and 1% preferred not to respond (n=216). Of

the 80 women who reported having borne children of their own, the mean number of children borne was

3.31. Politically, respondents showed a conservative inclination, with 55% self-identifying as

Republican; 22% Independent; 12% Other; 8% electing not to answer; and 4% Democrat (n=380).

Parish Demographics

Of the 442 individuals who identified their parish, 53% affiliated themselves with St. John

Cantius; 6% with ICKSP churches in Illinois, Indiana, or Wisconsin; and 4% with St. James at Sag

Bridge. The remaining 37% of respondents hailed from parishes other than the target communities, with
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2.5% being from the SSPX chapel in Oak Park, IL. That more than a third of respondents are not

parishioners at any of the churches involved in this study—in fact, many listed parishes outside of the

Chicago archdiocese—illustrates the “church hopping” mentioned in the Methods section and the

importance of having a flexible participation criterion.

About 64% of respondents were cradle Catholics who had never left the faith. 16% were reverts,

and 8% were raised by at least one Catholic parent or caregiver but grew up non-practicing or lukewarm.

The remaining 13% were converts from a different belief system, with most having previously been

Protestant (42%), agnostic (19%) or atheist (12%).

Doctrines, Liturgical Norms and Other Devotional Habits

When asked about their Mass preferences, 65% of survey respondents indicated a clear

preference for the Old Rite, with the Novus Ordo in Latin being the least preferred. See Figure 1 for the

full distribution of participants’ liturgical preferences. The average age at which respondents discovered

the Latin Mass was 25.3 years, with the oldest being 75 years old (N=352). For respondents who self-

identified as regular Latin Mass attendees (N=214), the average age at which they started regularly

attending was 30.2 years, with the oldest being 78.

When asked to identify the factors that limit their access to the Latin Mass, 27% of respondents

reported having adequate access. Of the remaining 73%, living far from churches that offer this liturgy

was cited as the biggest factor (23%). See Figure 2 for a full visualization of participants’ responses to

this question.
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Number of responses

Fig. 1. Chart showing survey respondents’ liturgical preferences.

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Number of responses

Fig. 2. Chart showing factors limiting survey respondents’ access to the Traditional Latin Mass.

Given the current Latin Mass restrictions, survey respondents were asked what they would do if

this liturgy were banned altogether in their diocese. The two most popular responses, at 43% each, were

to continue to attend the Novus Ordo in their diocese and to travel to a less restrictive state or diocese to

find a Latin Mass. It is important to note that this question allowed respondents to select as many

options as they felt applicable to them. Thus, respondents who indicate that they would seek out a Latin

Mass elsewhere may also opt to attend an SSPX Mass and/or attend the Novus Ordo. Figure 3 shows the

distribution of responses to this question.

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Number of responses

Fig. 3. Chart showing how respondents would respond to a ban on the Traditional Latin Mass.

Respondents’ other beliefs and practices are listed below for ease of comparison with other

surveys of Catholics. While the difference in samples, sample sizes, and question phrasing limits direct

comparisons, it is nonetheless helpful for a broad overview of how the traditionalists in this study

contrast with their peers.

THE EUCHARIST
Traditionalists General Catholic Surveys
This Fr. CARA Pew EWTN/RealClear
Study Kloster (2023)xxxi Research Opinion
Survey (2019)xxxii Research
(2019) (2024)xxxiii
Profess the 98%** 44% 31% 52%
Real
Eucharistic
Presence*
Prefer to 95%
receive
Communion
on the tongue
Prefer to 4%
receive
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Communion in
the hand
Prefer to 94.5%
receive
Communion
while
kneeling***
Prefer to 5.5%
receive
Communion
while
standing***
CONFESSION
Traditionalist Surveys General Catholic Surveys
This Fr. CARA Pew EWTN/RealClear
Study Kloster (2023) Research Opinion
Survey (2015)xxxiv Research (2024)
(2019)
Attend 95% 98% 24% 43% 58%
Confession
once a year or
more
Attend 62% 3% 7% 16%
Confession
once a month
or more
Attend 27% 11% 14% 23%
Confession
once every few
months
Attend 6% 10% 21% 19%
Confession
once a year
Attend 5% 18% 23% 24%
Confession
less than once (Another (Another (Another 18% said
a year 57% said 28% said never)
rarely or never)
never)
Confession at 93%
their parish is
offered behind
a partition
MASS ATTENDANCE
Traditionalist Surveys General Catholic Surveys
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This Fr. CARA Pew EWTN/RealClear

Study Kloster (2023) Research Opinion
Survey (2015) Research (2024)
(2019)
Attend Mass at 97%**** 98% 17% 39% 43%
least once a
week
Attend 17%
Saturday
evening Mass
to fulfil
Sunday
obligation
For women: 7%
their church
requires them
to wear a head
covering
For women: 65%
choose to wear
a head
covering
during Mass

*The question about Real Eucharistic Presence asked whether respondents “believe Jesus to be present in the

Eucharist in a true, real and substantial way.”

**93% of respondents selected that they believe Jesus to be present in the Eucharist in a true, real, and substantial

way. Only 2% indicated believing the Eucharist to be a symbol or metaphor of Jesus’ presence, and 0.5% stated

they did not know the answer. The 5% who selected “Other” all provided statements attesting to a belief in the

Real Presence, just through different phrasing like “transubstantiation” or “Christ is thoroughly present in the

Eucharist.” Taken altogether, therefore, 98% of respondents profess Catholic teaching on the Real Eucharistic

Presence.

***This question included the note “If your current practice is due to illness, age, or injury, please select what you

typically do when in good health.”

**** This figure includes respondents who attend Mass just once a week (52.09%) and those who attend more

than once a week (45.03%). Only 2.88% of respondents attend less than once a week.
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Moral Doctrines

CONTRACEPTION*****
Traditionalist General Catholic Surveys
Surveys
This Fr. Pew Research Pew Gallup
Study Kloster (2024)xxxv Research (2012)xxxviii
Survey (2025)xxxvi
(2019) xxxvii

Aware that 98%

Catholicism
has an official
teaching
Correctly 96%
identified said
Catholic
teaching
Personally 84% 98% 15% 16% 15%
disapprove of
contraception
to prevent
pregnancy
Personally 8% 2% 83% 84% 82%
approve of
contraception
to prevent
pregnancy
Personally 6%
approve of
contraception
to prevent
pregnancy in
some
circumstances 3%
but not others
No opinion 3%
on
contraception
to prevent
pregnancy
ABORTION
Traditionalist General Catholic Surveys
Surveys
This Fr. PRRI (2025)xxxix Pew AP/NORC
Study Kloster Research (2022)xl
Survey (2025)
(2019)
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Aware that 100%

Catholicism
has an official
teaching
Correctly 98%
identified
Catholic
teaching
Personally 91% 99% 41% 9%
disapprove of
abortion
Personally 1% 1% 57% 59% 64%
approve of
abortion
Personally 7% 27%
approve of
abortion but
only in some
cases
No opinion <1%
on abortion
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Traditionalist General Catholic Surveys
Surveys
This Fr. PRRI (2025) Pew Gallup
Study Kloster Research (2020)xli
Survey (2025)
(2019)
Aware that 98%
Catholicism
has an official
teaching
Correctly 99%
identified
Catholic
teaching
Personally 92% 98% 30% 30% 31%
disapprove of
same-sex
marriage
Approve of 3% 2% 70% 70% 69%
same-sex
marriage
Believe the 2% 50%
Church
should bless
homosexual
unions like
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heterosexual
ones
PRIESTLY CELIBACY
Traditionalist General Catholic Surveys
Surveys
This Fr. Economist/YouGov Pew St. Leo
Study Kloster (2013) Research University
Survey (2025) (2019)xlii
(2019)
Approve of 15% 62% 63% 72%
making
priestly
celibacy
optional
FEMALE PRIESTS
Traditionalists General Catholic Surveys
This Fr. Economist/YouGov Pew AP/NORC
Study Kloster (2013) Research (2022)
Survey (2025)
(2019)
Approve of 9% 53% 59% 72%
ordaining
women to the
priesthood

***** With the understanding that contraceptive treatments can be administered for reasons other than preventing

pregnancy, the survey questions on this doctrine explicitly asked about “contraception to prevent pregnancy.”

What Draws People to the Traditional Latin Mass?

A typical Sunday Latin Mass at the churches featured in this study stands out from a prototypical

Novus Ordo parish on a variety of fronts. The language and choreography of the liturgy aside, the

church is filled with more incense; the altar is more embellished; and the priest and altar servers are

more elaborately dressed, down to the processional crucifix and candles they carry. The people too are

notable for their conduct. Most of the women are clad in dresses and skirts, and many cover their heads

with veils. For the men who are not inclined to wear a suit, some combination of a formal shirt or

sweater and trousers seems to suffice.

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In this postconciliar era, the question of why people would voluntarily attend the Traditional

Mass characterizes discourses on this issue both within and outside of the Catholic faith. Aside from its

recitation in a dead language, the Old Mass requires that the priest have his back turned to the

congregation for most of its duration, and it is accompanied by medieval music which has largely fallen

into disuse in the mainstream Church. Given that the premise of Vatican II was that the Church was in

dire need of modernization, the attachment to this liturgy has been viewed by some as odd, if not

anachronistic, if not outright divisive.xliii xliv

To explore this question then, survey respondents who indicated that they attend or prefer the

Traditional Latin Mass were asked to share open-ended insights into what draws them to this form of

liturgy. The breadth and depth of responses to this question were admittedly unprecedented: Taken

altogether, they filled 15 single-spaced pages. 3 key themes emerged: reverence, beauty, and tradition.

Fig 4. Word cloud showing the most popular words used in response to the question, “What draws you
to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass?”
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For older Catholics who experienced the Latin Mass in their childhood, rediscovering it has

satisfied a nostalgic sentiment, but it has also offered a solution to their frustrations with the

implementation of the Novus Ordo Mass. Such is the case for Tony, a 79-year-old who found the Old

Mass by accident. Tony was raised in an Italian American household and attended the same ethnic

Italian parish into adulthood. He was reading the newspaper one day when he stumbled upon an article

about the Holy Child of Aracœli, a 15th-century image of the Child Jesus that was stolen from its titular

basilica in Rome in 1994. According to the article, a replica of the statue was housed at St. John Cantius

Church. For Tony, the art enthusiast and Italophile, this was exciting news that mandated an excursion to

Cantius. Despite the church being closed, Fr. Frank Phillips, the then pastor and founder of the Canons

Regular of St John Cantius, invited him in. Tony reports feeling taken aback by the aesthetics of the

Baroque building. It felt reminiscent of Sicilian churches, he said, “like being inside of a jewel box.”

Following his visit, he befriended Fr. Phillips and gradually came to frequent the parish’s Latin

Mass. Over time, he switched parishes altogether. Tony’s home parish had served his family for at least

3 generations: His grandparents and parents were married there, he and his mother received all of their

sacraments there, he attended its grammar school in his youth, and he had remained an active member as

an adult. Despite this, he described the switch to St. John Cantius as having been easy, explaining:

The philosophy [of the Novus Ordo] is we’re having a communal dinner to celebrate Christ. The
Tridentine Mass is a massive sacrifice, and it's Christ being sacrificed again on the altar…. It
wasn't hard for me to walk [away], because even if I come to a Novus Ordo Mass here, it's
different than it's celebrated anywhere else. The Novus Ordo Mass here makes sense, and it's still
very pious. You can actually feel the graces that are coming down…. I also receive a great deal
of hope when I'm here for the future because so many of the people…are between 20 and 30
years old.

Tony is an active parishioner, frequently volunteering his time and resources to support the

Canons. While he appreciates the reverent liturgy—both forms of it—that he finds at Cantius, his

attachment there has been secured by his relationship with its priests. He shared the following story:
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A friend of mine went to confession, hadn't been for confession for many years...and [he] was
kind of afraid because he thought the priest was going to holler at him. And when he said,
“Father…I haven't been to confession for at least 30 years,” the first words out of, I believe it
was Father Nathan…[were], “Tonight you're making the angels dance in heaven because you've
come in.” These are people that understand what Christ is all about. They understand, and they
care, and that's important, and I learn from them every day. I'm just sad that it took me till I was
60, middle sixties, to find this peace…. I have a little [money], I have a job and I have social
security, but I can't do what I used to do. However, I have never been much at peace. I have
never had the serenity…the joy of life that I have. And that is a result of this faith community
helping me. Christ called me back to the church, but I always say the Canons swept the road.
And by their example, they have taught me.

The disposition of priests at St. John Cantius was the primary draw for another elderly

parishioner, Andrew, who started attending it in its early years when the building was in disrepair and

only offered the Novus Ordo Mass. Andrew has been a devout Catholic his entire life and was proud to

report that he has only ever missed Sunday Mass twice, both times due to illness. He discerned a priestly

vocation in his youth and spent most of his young adulthood in the seminary but ultimately opted to

remain a layman. He has spent the last few decades working for the Chicago Archdiocese. Andrew

accepts the validity of the Novus Ordo and frequents it at St. John Cantius. However, the transition from

the Old Rite to the new was difficult for him:

The new Mass has not been spiritually nourishing, at least not for me, and I regret that very
much…. I started going [to St. John Cantius] because…I didn't have to deal with the agenda of
priests. The Mass is not about a [priest’s] personality… No, I'm there for prayer…. I could give a
hell, damn, whatever, about the priest, okay? He's merely the vehicle for God's grace. And that's
another reason I like the Old Mass: The focus is God. He [the priest] doesn't need to face me. I
don't need to see him. I don't care who he is. He just has to have the proper intent….

Overall, the Latin Mass seems to attract individuals who prefer that their liturgy carry a more

somber, reflective tone than is normative at standard Novus Ordo Masses. Appreciation for the

characteristic silence and solemnity of this liturgy, as well as its limited room for priestly improvisation

came up repeatedly across both the survey and the interviews. One anonymous survey respondent wrote:

There is realization [at the Latin Mass] that the Mass is nothing about you and everything about
Him. The homilies are not merely anecdotal or stories from priests but legitimate Catholic
 23

teachings that we ought to put into practice as laity. There is a healthy seriousness about it, a call
to live radically Christian lives rooted in Tradition. People dress like this is the most important
thing they will be a part of that day, to witness Heaven on earth. The Gregorian chant music is
shot through with Scripture and elevates our senses to something beyond us, not just religious
songs that feel and sound like secular music. The word 'catholicus' in Latin means 'universal', and
when the Mass is said in Latin, no matter where you are, or what country you are in, you can all
pray together in the same language. The Latin Mass is truly universal in this sense, and this is
lost when it is said in the local vernacular. This is the sacred Mass that shaped the Saints we
admire today.

Another survey respondent echoed this sentiment:

I feel that I am attacked by beauty, solemnity, and awe from all angles when I attend the
Extraordinary Form. When I attend the Ordinary Form, it feels dispassionate, disingenuous, and
a pastiche of true worship. The Extraordinary Form naturally compels a feeling of reverence
from me before we get in the pews, until we have left the building, whereas the Ordinary Form
almost entirely puts the impetus on me to continuously attempt to summon the feeling if/when I
am able to.

Young People and the Latin Mass

Early in the Francis pontificate, the pope expressed confusion at the popularity of the old Mass

among young Catholics, who have been some of its strongest devotees. He felt that since they were born

long after the establishment of the new Mass, young traditionalists could not claim nostalgia for the Old

Rite and had no apparent reason to be so attached to it.xlv This study was therefore interested in the

perspectives of young adult traditionalists.

Carlo is a parishioner at St. John Cantius who first encountered the Old Rite at his college

Newman Center. He assumed it to be a regular Mass, just in a different language, and since it was a one-

time offering, he did not think much of it. It was not until he joined FOCUS, an outreach program for

evangelizing college students, that he encountered young traditionalists and learned that the Latin Mass

was a different liturgy altogether. Having only known the Novus Ordo, this discovery made him uneasy.

Still, hearing about the Old Rite from his peers sparked a curiosity in him that simmered over a few

years. When he moved to Chicago to pursue a second degree, he found that he lived close to St. John
 24

Cantius and decided to bite the bullet. On the Feast of the Assumption that year, he attended a Cantian

High Mass. He describes his experience as follows:

The one thing that struck me, [was] it was just beautiful…. Because even before then, I would
just be so turned off by some Novus Ordo Masses—and not saying anything bad about the
Novus Ordo; there's very many beautiful things to it in its own right—but I would just go to
some Masses, and I would feel like I'm watching a spectacle, you know? Like people are putting
on a show. They're trying to inject some sort of emotional significance by embellishing this or
making a show of that. And it always turned me off. I'm like…we should be here to worship God
and receive the Eucharist and encounter him intimately, not to be entertained…. So I just love
how unapologetic that [Latin] Mass was. It was beautiful, but at the same time, unapologetic and
not catering to our emotions…. It was completely directed to God. Even the priests and all the
servers, they faced towards God. We all faced towards God, and it was a beautiful offering to
him rather than a spectacle put on for the congregation's sake.

After this first experience, Carlo joined the parish immediately. Years later, he has graduated,

shares a house with other Cantian young professionals, and is an active parish volunteer. Another

anonymous survey respondent shared:

A big part [of what draws me] is because it's a self-selecting group of highly devout Catholics.
As a young adult in a secularizing world, the average Catholic parish church environment is both
extremely elderly and extremely lukewarm. Everyone knows that if you want to actually find
people, especially young people, practicing the faith, that you either go to the Extraordinary
Form or you go Eastern Rite.

Another parishioner, Ashley, has been attending the Latin Mass with her husband since they

moved to Chicago a few years ago. They appreciate both forms of the Mass and frequently attend the

Novus Ordo at other churches during the week. On Sundays, however, they commute into the city to

attend Mass at St. John Cantius. For her, the Old Rite has been uniquely beneficial:

One reason we started going to Cantius—I think my husband and I shared this sentiment—was
we both just felt much more nourished during the week in our faith after going to Cantius Mass.
When we went to a standard city or suburban parish and then went back to our work weeks, it
just…stuck with us less, and we were maybe less prayerful or less pious during the week,
whereas, coming back from Cantius you could just feel how it impacted our souls. I think, in that
way, it definitely impacted my faith. As far as catechizing us, I think it pointed us towards the
Eucharist as the source and summit [of the Christian faith].
 25

Since the new Mass was created in line with the conciliar call for modernization, the assumption

that it should attract more young people than its older counterpart is understandable. However, a

common critique of the new liturgy, which was raised in this study as well, is that it often comes off as

better suiting the sensibilities of the Baby Boomer generation, who were the young people around whom

this modernization formed its point of reference. For some young adults who were raised with the Novus

Ordo experiment, the aesthetics and seriousness of the Old Mass have been a reprieve.

The New Mass and the Diverse Underpinnings of Traditionalist Ideologies

As earlier noted, the Francis pontificate’s justification for restricting the Latin Mass was its

perception of traditionalists as undermining Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Mass. Unsurprisingly,

Traditionis Custodes was met with a barrage of confusion and pushback from traditionalist laity and

clergy. They argue that the extremist elements that the pope sought to curtail are in fact a minority,

making it unfair to penalize the entire community by taking away their centuries-old liturgy. A popular

comment on this issue from former Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin captures this sentiment thus:

“Upon reflection, it seems that in addressing the “problems” of the traditional Latin Mass community—

real or perceived—Pope Francis used a chainsaw when only a scalpel was needed.”xlvi

Given these differing views, what then is the traditionalist attitude towards the Vatican II and the

Novus Ordo Mass? Per the survey and interviews, this study proposes that traditionalists’ views on this

issue are much more nuanced than has been presented by both sides. Some common attitudes emerged.

First, traditionalists generally accept the legitimacy of the current pontificate, as well as its bishops.

They may disagree with or criticize the pope, but every Latin Mass at the parishes involved in this study

prayed for Pope Francis and Cardinal Cupich by name. Second, they generally believe the Novus Ordo

Mass to be valid. They might have strong opinions regarding the context in which it was created or the

various ways it is said, but the proposition that it is an invalid Mass is one more commonly found among

sedevacantists, not traditionalists. Lastly, for most traditionalists, what initially drew them to the Latin
 26

Mass was not ideological battles, but rather those of its features which they view as lacking in standard

Novus Ordo churches: beauty, reverence, and a strict adherence to the liturgical rubrics.

Taken altogether, the traditionalists featured in this study can be divided into three broad

categories. The first comprises individuals who might be called Latin Mass admirers. These are people

who love the Latin Mass but are content to accept both liturgies if recited according to their rubrics. If

they prefer the Latin Mass over the Novus Ordo, they will attribute this preference to either their

subjective experiences, such as having a reflective personality, or to specific elements of the liturgy.

They will generally avoid objective statements of one liturgy being superior to the other or of Vatican II

as having been a mistake. They are critical of liturgical abuses in the Novus Ordo but generally

disinterested in ideological battles, opting to instead emphasize obedience to the Church hierarchy.

While a ban on the Latin Mass might sadden them, they would, for the most part, continue attending the

new Mass. However, with their sensitivity to liturgical abuse, they would likely seek out reverent Novus

Ordo Masses. For diocesan churches, this category informs their workings and constitutions. For

example, Fr. Joshua Caswell, the former Cantius pastor and current head of the Canons Regular, noted:

Father Phillips [founder of the Canons Regular] didn't set out with an agenda to found a
community. He came here as a priest, and he wanted to make the church beautiful…. He's not
embittered. He's just like, “I want to make Mass pretty”…. And remember…at first, we were not
celebrating the 1962 missal. We were celebrating the new missal, but in Latin, solemnly…. It
wasn't like the Latin Mass was our charism. Our charism is to bring forth the beauty of the
Church. It became clear that we were supposed to be a bridge between one form and the other.
And so, our constitutions were written, and when they were written, it said clearly that we have
both missals, the Missal of John XXIII and the Missal of Paul VI.

Fr. Thomas Koys, pastor at St. James, also expressed an appreciation for both forms of the Mass.

In fact, he welcomed the decision to restrict the Latin Mass on the first Sundays of the month, stating:

I appreciated that request because it does challenge some of the TLM people. And when you do
the Novus Ordo reverently and with some of the rubrics, traditional rubrics, it looks a lot like a
TLM. And it makes people think, at least for me, it looks almost the same. And that's what I want
people to sort of feel…there should be an “almost the same” feeling. You go to Mass, you
worship God, you listen to the Scriptures, you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, and I want people
 27

to be able to bounce back and forth between the two. You can prefer one over the other, but I
think what we should aim for is to help our people be comfortable bouncing back between the
two. Of course, that's not as easy when there's very, very few TLMs to bounce into. It would be
better to multiply the TLMs so that people could start feeling that unity.

Among laity, an example of the Latin Mass admirer is the earlier mentioned interviewee Carlo.

When asked his views on postconciliar Catholicism and the liturgical restrictions, he grew visibly

uncomfortable. Despite his personal enrichment from the Old Rite, he accused people who pit one form

over the other of “idolizing the Mass.” In his view, the hardline members of both sides of the issue are

losing sight of what truly matters: trying to be a good Catholic. He was diplomatic in his evaluations of

recent bishopric decisions and credited his deferential attitude to his spiritual director at Cantius.

The second category is that of Latin Mass enthusiasts. These are individuals who, while

acknowledging the validity of the Novus Ordo Mass, have a strong and often vocal devotion to the Old

Rite. They are more confident in asserting their criticisms of the Church hierarchy and are actively

invested in discourses surrounding the postconciliar Church. Despite their strong opinions, however,

they will attend the Novus Ordo Mass, perhaps even frequently. They might also like weekday Masses at

standard Novus Ordo parishes, as they feel quieter and more solemn than a Sunday Novus Ordo. Were

the Latin Mass banned in their diocese, these are the individuals who, while attending the Novus Ordo,

may go out of their way to search for the Latin Mass in less restrictive dioceses and possibly the SSPX.

The last category encompasses Latin Mass absolutists, who have come to truly believe the Latin

Mass to be superior to the Novus Ordo. People in this group recognize the validity of the new Mass but

will report feeling uneasy or upset when they attend it, regardless of how reverently it is offered. They

are heavily invested in the history and politics of Vatican II and feel that the Church hierarchy maligns

conservative Catholics. Opinions on whether the two Masses can coexist will vary within this group, but

their overall sentiment will tend to be that the Old Rite should be restored as the normative Roman

Catholic liturgy. Were the Latin Mass banned in the archdiocese, members of this group would seek the
 28

Latin Mass elsewhere and only attend the Novus Ordo out of necessity. However, they would also be the

sort to consider fully relocating to another diocese or switching to an Eastern Catholic Rite.

There are, of course, individuals who might not neatly fit into any of these categories, but the

goal of this classification is to present a general sense of the communities featured in this study. The

current Latin Mass restrictions seem to be predicated on two assumptions. The first is that most

traditionalists fit into the third category. The second is that members of this third category generally hold

to their viewpoints due to prideful or malicious intent. While recognizing that bishops may have

privileged insights into the internal workings of their dioceses, this study challenges both of these views.

Overall, most traditionalists featured in this study seem to fall into the first two categories. Additionally,

this study proposes that Latin Mass absolutists have a surprising degree of nuance in their views, and

restricting the liturgy without offering room for dialogue has only ostracized them further.

To illustrate this, consider the following perspectives from interviewees Andrew, Pascal, and

Priscilla. Andrew is, as earlier stated, an elderly traditionalist. He attends the new Mass on occasion

despite not finding it as enriching, but he has also invested thousands of dollars into setting up a fully

functional Latin Mass chapel in his home, complete with an altar and everything a priest might need to

say the Old Rite. Since he is single and has no children, he has taken care of his funeral arrangements

and included a request to have his funeral Mass said in the Old Rite. As such, he would fall under the

Latin Mass enthusiast category. When commenting on Vatican II, his immediate sentiment was critical:

I knew the Council was a bad idea, even in grade school, okay? Because [of] the sisters… The
question they’d always ask is, “What is the unchangeable part of the Mass?” The answer to that
question was the Canon—the Eucharistic prayer. What is the first damn thing they changed? It
was the Canon…. Suddenly. It's like, who voted for this? You told me all these years that this
was never going to change. And suddenly, it's okay to change it! So there were all sorts of
changes and stuff going on that I was, even as a child, not comfortable with.
 29

Still, Andrew expressed dismay at the fact that many Cantius parishioners are noticeably absent

on the first Sundays of the month when the Latin Mass is unavailable. His opinions on the Vatican’s

decisions aside, he nonetheless emphasized his belief in the importance of obedience to Rome, stating:

I'm not picking and choosing in terms of religion. I was born a Catholic. I hope to die a Catholic.
I will continue to fight as a Catholic…. I'm not going to suddenly pack up and say, “I've had it….
Paco in Rome has made a huge mistake”…. The fact of the matter is that I believe that Vatican II
is a valid council, and it has the right and the obligation to make these decisions…. The Church
doesn't need to ask my opinion or my agreement. The Church has given me far more than I could
ever dream of. Certain things she does, I don't like, but there are certain things I do with the
Jewel [Osco] supermarket [that] I don't like, but I still go to the Jewel, you know?

Pascal, on the other hand, is a twenty-something in college and a self-described Latin Mass

absolutist. He grew up in an irreligious family, with a lapsed Catholic mother and an agnostic father. It

therefore came as a surprise when his father made the sudden revelation that he had been frequenting

Mass and was looking to convert to Catholicism in advance of his open-heart surgery. For a teenage

Pascal, watching his father’s conversion ignited an interest in Christianity, and they began attending

Mass together at a parish that offered both forms of the Mass. Thus, Pascal’s first encounter with

Catholic worship was a Traditional Latin Mass. He recalls:

I didn't know what Mass was, I didn't know what the Catholic Church taught. But a couple
Sundays he [my father] took me there and all I remember was the priest is facing the other way
and there's a lot of kneeling…. But...I was very lucky to sort of have that infusion of supernatural
faith where it was like, this is just true. And I just kind of accepted it and I sort of took the [Saint]
Augustine route: I believed in order to understand.

However, it was not until the COVID lockdowns that he had time to reflect and seriously

consider converting. After convincing his Muslim and Protestant friends to convert with him, he spent

months aggressively consuming Catholic apologetics so he could find answers to their theological

questions. The following Easter, now intellectually convicted of Catholicism, the three friends were

baptized and confirmed. Pascal had been content to attend Novus Ordo Masses during this period, but he

gradually came to desire the Latin Mass. He recalled:

 30

I've always had an affinity for the Old Mass. I'm a history major…. So the history, the historicity,
the connection that it has with our forefathers has always spoken to me. And pretty quickly, even
though I loved my pastor at the Novus Ordo parish I was going to, the Sunday Mass was
extremely unfulfilling for me there, just with the music and everything. And then he [the pastor]
passed away, so it went downhill, even more so because the visiting priests who were there were
just very typical [liberal] Novus Ordo, older priests…. So very quickly I went back to Latin
Mass…. I'm [now] read up on the subject of the Old Mass versus the New Mass, and the depth,
the unchangingness of it, is certainly superior, in my opinion, to the Novus Ordo.

Here, Pascal has explicitly identified his belief that the Latin Mass is better than the Novus Ordo.

When asked to expound on this, note that his response goes beyond simply liking the aesthetics of the

Old Mass. He offered the following long reflection:

Well, I certainly think that to have many rites in the Church does not make the Church any less
unified. If you look before the Council of Trent, you have [the] Sarum Rite, you have the
[variety] of ways that the Mass was said…. And in the diptychs, we still say, “We pray for our
Holy Father, Pope Francis.” There's your essence of unity… [The Latin Mass] was codified in
the 16th century. But obviously, all of the tradition, the Mass as a whole, would be near identical
to something happening in the 11th century, right? You can draw that line back to the Apostles
and all these [other] rites. The precedent for liturgical reform that happened in the 20th century—
there is no precedent for that. Something like that has not happened in the Church. So it's
unnatural. Then again, if a reform is to happen, it should be inoffensive to the tradition of the
Church. And I don't think it was intended to be offensive to the tradition of the Church. If you
look at something like the Anglican Ordinariate, there's a rite that is technically—I mean, we
have prayers written by Thomas Cranmer in there, an infamous heretic. But the Church said,
“Okay, these prayers are orthodox. These prayers work. We can use them.” So just because
something's new doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. There was a time when…the old Latin Mass
vestments were new. There was a time when certain feast days and introits and collects and all
this stuff, it was new. The reason it works is because it's in line, right?

He then explains his unease with the Novus Ordo, demonstrating that he disagrees with the logic

behind its creation and implementation:

What we have with the Novus Ordo is a stripped down…butchering of these rites of the Church.
The vestments became ugly, the churches became ugly. The prayers became removed from what
they had come from. Things that were offensive and hard for people to hear were taken out of the
Mass…. Everything was cut down, and I think that's where the problem really stems. I don't
think that there would be something wrong with writing a liturgy that's new but still also falls in
line with the tradition of the Church. The Novus Ordo just seems to have thrown away so much,
so haphazardly…. I mean, for me, language is not an issue. I don't like when people call it the
“Latin Mass” because…I don't care that it's in Latin. I care that the prayers are the way they are.
The prayers are written by the saints and the holy Fathers of the Church. I care that it hasn't been
 31

touched in 500 years. I care that it's beautiful, that it's transcendent, that the music is reverent and
that in it we are exercising the beautiful catalog that the church has. The Church says we have
Gregorian chant. We have the music that the church has sanctioned through the years. And this
music that we have in our catalog is the best music ever written, and we're not going to use it?
That doesn't make sense to me.

What Pascal is articulating here is a common point of conflict regarding the extent to which the

new Mass is, well, new. Since its introduction, Vatican officials have frequently insisted that the two

liturgies have essentially similar structures. One recent claim by Cardinal Arthur Roche, who oversaw

the implementation of Traditionis Custodes, states that 90% of the texts in Latin Mass were retained and

that the new Mass even uses “more sacrificial vocabulary” than its predecessor.xlvii As Pascal shows, this

position is thoroughly disputed in traditionalist circles. Various traditionalist commentators, claiming to

have analyzed the hundreds of prayers featured in the rubrics of the two Masses, argue that less than half

of the orations in the Latin Mass were carried into the new Mass, with some estimates proposing as low

as 17% and 13%.xlviii xlix It is these qualitative and quantitative differences between the two liturgies, real

or perceived, that make the Novus Ordo, even in its most reverent form, ultimately unfulfilling to Latin

Mass absolutists. Still, Pascal believes it to be a valid Mass. In principle, he would attend it to fulfill his

Sunday obligation. However, he would not delight in doing so:

I don't want to sound like some pious jerk here, but there's the general piety of Novus Ordo
parishes that can be hard to get with sometimes, you know? People talk before Mass. They
chatter during Mass. Someone's phone is always going off. I'm at Mass at [my old parish] for a
Sunday, and even though it's a very conservative, traditional parish, the girl in the pew in front of
me is wearing the shortest skirt on earth, and…I’m just trying to pay attention…. It's that kind of
stuff—that stuff you don't get at the Latin Mass…. Which is why I don't mind the daily [Novus
Ordo] Mass, because it's not busy and…the daily Mass people are a little bit of a different crowd
from the Sunday Mass. But…the new Mass tired me out….I got baptized on Easter. I was going
to Novus Ordo pretty much every day. Then I started working the graveyard shift, and I started
going just every Sunday, so I'd always be tired, the music would always be bad, and it…started
to wear me out.

Pascal was once able to frequent the Latin Mass, but since transferring colleges and thus

relocating, he has found the commute unsustainable. In light of his frustrations with the Novus Ordo
 32

Mass, he now primarily attends a Byzantine parish. At the time of this interview, he was discerning a

religious vocation and had visited a variety of priestly communities. He admitted that while he loves the

Roman Rite, one challenge on his mind is the current Latin Mass restrictions. If he became a priest and

his bishop barred him from ever reciting the Old Rite, he is not sure he would be able to submit. As

such, he is keeping his options open by considering Eastern Catholicism for his vocation.

Two things are notable about Pascal’s attitude. The first is that despite his criticisms of the new

Mass, he nonetheless considers it a valid liturgy and Vatican II as an ecumenical council. The second is

that he perceives his views as being perfectly rational and not at all warranting the liturgical restrictions

imposed by the Francis pontificate. Quite the opposite, he views the real culprits as being organizations

like the SSPX, which he deemed schismatic, and sedevacantists. In his view, the Latin Mass restrictions

are misguided because they are punishing the wrong, innocent people.

Enter Priscilla, an SSPX parishioner. Priscilla was a child during the aftermath of Vatican II, and

she recalls her home parish remaining largely unchanged following the Council: the altar rail retained its

place, and the priest continued to say Mass with his back to the congregation. However, in the 1970s, the

parish closed unexpectedly, prompting her family to seek out a new church. She recalls her first

experiences with the post-conciliar Church as being disorienting:

I remember asking, “Mom, do you think Father has his vestments on backwards? Because the
back looks prettier than the front.” I couldn't understand what I was seeing. My first Holy
Communion prayer book that I received had priests saying the Latin Mass…. I struggled
following along with [the] pictures, wondering why Father never looked like he looked in my
prayer book.

To such questions, her parents had no workable response. They too were confused, and she

recalls her mother exclaiming, “I just give up! I can’t tell what we’re doing at Mass anymore.” Despite

this confusion, Priscilla remained Catholic and found herself discerning a religious vocation in her late

teenage years. As she researched convents, however, she found herself having to look hard to find a
 33

community she felt was, in her words, “orthodox” given the progressive wave that overtook religious

communities after Vatican II. Eventually, she found a convent that seemed to align with her values and

moved in, only to soon depart after finding herself propositioned by other postulants. She tried to remain

engaged at her parish but grew disillusioned by the changes she was seeing in Catholic culture.

Eventually, she, like many of her generation, left the faith altogether.

As Priscilla reflects on her experience of post-conciliar Catholicism, she is unable to see Vatican

II as having met its transformative agenda. Quite the opposite. “It tore down the Church in my eyes,”

she said. “It [Catholicism] was just a belief system amongst many belief systems, you know? Who

cares? It doesn't matter. Go pick what you want.” This relativistic outlook followed her into adulthood.

She grew politically apathetic, explored other religions, and ultimately ended up in an interfaith

marriage. After facing some personal struggles, however, she found herself thinking about her old faith

and decided to attend a Mass for the first time in nearly 20 years. Yet despite her now liberal attitudes,

her first Mass left her in shock as she felt she could not recognize the religion of her childhood.

“There were no kneelers, “ she recalled. “I couldn't find the tabernacle on the altar, and suddenly

there were boys and girls serving and something called “Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers,” who were

mostly tightly clad and scantily clad females.” She thus began exploring other churches in the hopes of

finding one more traditionally inclined. Eventually, she found one—with an altar rail and priests alone

distributing Communion—and began to frequent it with her family. The parish also offered a Latin Mass

in the basement, but she had actively avoided it out of fear it was a schismatic exercise. One day, while

waiting for her son to finish altar boy training, a fellow parent approached her and struck up a

conversation. He asked her if her son had received Confirmation, to which she responded that he was

too young. He then asked her if she had ever been to the Latin Mass downstairs, and she said, plainly,

“No…I’m a Catholic.” At this, he smiled. The rest of their conversation saw him pull out his missal and
 34

begin explaining the Mass, ultimately concluding: “The Church is in trouble. You need to get your boy

confirmed now.” This prompted her first Latin Mass.

Priscilla’s initial experiences with the Old Rite were…difficult. “I thought it was insane!” She said.

“I judged the priest actively, in my mind, as being rude, mumbling; [he] had his back to us; missals that I

couldn't follow; horrible singing like dead seals. I mean, it was awful. I did not enjoy it at all, but I kept

coming.” Her turning point came when she prepared for Mass one day using the Novus Ordo rubrics,

only to attend the Latin Mass and hear the priest read a completely different Gospel. At this, she was

befuddled, recalling: “I’m flipping through the Missal and I’m thinking: “What a disastrous show down

there. Father even got the readings wrong.””

As she reflected on her experiences with the Old Mass thus far, she could not understand how a

liturgy that agitated her could possibly have any element of the divine. When she discovered that the two

Masses use different readings, therefore, she panicked. Believing that she had discovered a major

conspiracy, she sought out the priest as soon as the Mass ended and informed him that the Church was in

trouble: people were reading from totally different books. At this, the priest chastised her. While she was

surprised by his response, she nonetheless recalls feeling intrigued:

I remember standing there thinking, to myself, “Huh. Father has now talked or—actually—
lectured me for 15 minutes. He doesn't understand that I know how hard it is…to have a priest
pay the time of day to a parishioner. 15 minutes of basically telling me I don't know what I just
encountered. 15 minutes, that’s a lot of time for nothing…. And so I said, “Well, well, well. I
must figure out what the heck is going on here.” And that was my turning point. I suddenly was
much more interested in acclimating to the Latin Mass. Before, I was just trying to literally nail
myself to the pew…. From there, I began to speak with people in the Latin Mass community, and
that was my entree into what I call the confusion in the Church... Nobody openly said to me that
there was division, but I could sense fear in the people—the hesitation and the confusion.

As she continued to immerse herself in the traditionalist world, her evolving ideology gradually

created rifts in her personal life. When Priscilla initially reverted to the faith, her husband had begun

attending Mass with her and had grown interested enough in the Catholic faith that he joined RCIA at
 35

their Novus Ordo parish. Three quarters of the way through, he struck up a conversation with one of the

priests, who informed him that he did not in fact need to convert and should focus on being good at his

religion. This marked the end of his interest in the Catholic faith. With Priscilla now embracing

traditional Catholicism, her formerly liberal outlook took on a more conservative and explicitly Catholic

form. Thus began the end of her marriage.

Around the same time, Pope Francis had taken office and was receiving criticism from the more

outspoken elements of the traditionalist movement. Priscilla was initially apathetic to this and recalls

failing to understand her traditionalist friends. She recalls one particular conversation at a friend’s house:

They were talking about the weirdness of Pope Francis and some of his views. They have 8
children. They were like: “Something's wrong with the pope if he says we shouldn't breed like
rabbits”…. I'm like, “Well, yeah, but...he didn't sit there and say, “I, as the successor of Peter,
command you not to breed like rabbits…. From my vantage point, as long as the pope doesn't do
or say anything weird about marriage as a whole…we got nothing to worry about.” It couldn't
have been maybe more than a year and a half later [that] Pope Francis came out with [Amoris
Laetitia].

Priscilla would spend the next several weeks exploring other churches in the hopes of resolving

what had now become a crisis in her faith. It was thus that she discovered an SSPX church. Having

found a community that she feels speaks to this ideological tension, she has remained a parishioner. For

Priscilla, the rejuvenation that Vatican II promised did not translate into her life. Instead, she feels that

the progressive inclination of the council created such radical shifts in Catholic culture that it pushed her

away from the faith at a stage in her life when the Church should have been forming her. Her unease

with the Novus Ordo comes less from a place of spiritual superiority and more as a product of the

cognitive dissonance she experienced watching this ideological rupture in the Church hierarchy.

With the above in mind, restricting the Latin Mass is a measure that ultimately does little to

foster unity. Quite the opposite. It penalizes people whose liturgical preferences have no factional

underpinnings while simultaneously doing little to address the issues in the Novus Ordo which push
 36

Catholics away. At the same time, it further alienates individuals who feel that the Church hierarchy

opposes conservative viewpoints. For those traditionalists who propose conciliar ecclesiology to have

been a conspiracy against Catholic tradition, restricting said tradition only reinforces this sentiment.

How Have Chicago Catholics Responded to Latin Mass Restrictions?

The Vatican’s concerns about traditionalist communities promoting rebellion make it worthwhile

to consider Chicago traditionalists’ response to their diocese’s restrictions. The two diocesan churches

featured here, St. James and St. John Cantius, both responded with near immediate submission. St.

James managed to maintain its 12 pm Sunday Latin Mass but expressed its willingness to “incorporate

aspects of the Missal of 1962 into our beautiful Novus Ordo Masses.”l Fr. Joshua, through a public letter

to the Cantian community, expressed feeling saddened by the restrictions but reported having expressed

the Canons’ submission to the cardinal in an earlier meeting. His only clarion call was for readers to pray

for the Canons’ discernment on serving as a unifying bridge in the Church.li Soon afterward, parish

bulletins began reflecting the adjusted Mass offerings.

What is most notable, however, is that the ICKSP, which suffered the worst of these restrictions

by losing their Shrine’s liturgical and Confession privileges, has been the most silent. Traditionalist

media started circulating news of the Shrine’s impending closure just two weeks in advance. The source

of this news was not the ICKSP itself, but rather a rumor that started circulating on social media and was

later supported by laity who claimed to be close to the situation.lii liii At Mass the following Sunday,

Canon Matthew Talarico, who heads the ICKSP in the United States, made minimal comment on the

matter during his sermon and instead invited the congregation to attend Eucharistic Adoration after Mass

and pray. On the following Sunday, parishioners were greeted with a simple sign on the door stating that,

effective the following day, public Masses at the Shrine would be suspended and Confessions

discontinued. Two years later, the Shrine’s website, while active with updates about ICKSP activity in
 37

other dioceses, has no commentary on the situation in Chicago save for the same forthright notice: “As

of August 1, 2022 the celebration of public Masses is suspended.”liv

From speaking with former Shrine attendees, it seems the ICKSP Canons have made a concerted

effort to be as uncontroversial as possible. One interviewee shared that after news of the Shrine’s closure

was announced, the Canons instructed their visibly angry congregation not to post their reactions on

social media. Another interviewee said she wishes that ICKSP priests would be more forthcoming about

how laity can support them. So far, they have largely been stoic and avoided discussing the issue as

much as possible. In spite of this, many ICKSP devotees continue to attend Mass at their churches in

Indiana, Wisconsin, and Rockford, IL, ostensibly because some of them had been commuting from

various parts of the Chicagoland area to attend Mass at the Shrine anyway.

Among traditionalists more broadly, responses to the restrictions have been critical. Within days

of Cdl. Cupich’s decree in winter 2022, some laity organized Rosary Rallies in protest. This initiative

saw some several hundred Catholics gather outside Holy Name Cathedral—where the cardinal says

Mass—on the first Sunday of every month to recite public rosaries. Accompanying these protests were

banners and, at one point, a billboard truck calling on God to save the Latin Mass and bishops to stop

persecuting its devotees. The rallies began in February 2022 and have continued through 2025.lv

Traditionis Custodes is similarly unpopular among the interviewees of this study, who were

aware of the Vatican’s reasoning but thought it overblown and inconsiderate of the benefits that the Mass

has facilitated. One interviewee, Philip is a sixty-something who has been attending the Latin Mass

almost exclusively for over a decade. Following the Shrine’s restriction in 2022, he and his wife, who

was a cancer sufferer, began commuting to the ICKSP in Indiana every Sunday. He explained his

frustration with the current state of Catholicism thus:

I think the whole genesis of the Novus Ordo Mass started out really badly. And I think St. John
Cantius, for example, I think does the Novus Ordo Mass the way it’s supposed to be said…[as
 38

intended by] Paul VI.… I can’t judge people’s intentions…. Some may argue that they [the
conciliar fathers]…thought that people should have more participation, they thought it was better
for evangelizing the non-Catholics and all that. But Our Lord talks about just look[ing] at the
fruits, and if you look at the fruits, I’m not seeing it. We still have…fairly full churches in the
United States, which I don’t think is the case in Europe. But we have…Catholics who think
abortion is okay, contraception is okay, they don’t believe in the Eucharist…the divorce rates are
very high. So all the fruits that seem to have occurred since then are not going the right way. Not
to mention the priest shortage has just gotten worse and worse…. And then when I look at the
Latin Mass communities around, I do see a different liturgy which I think is beautiful, but I see
Catholics from the past. I feel like, generally speaking, they’re following their faith much
more—not totally; I know people who go to Novus Ordo that are very good Catholics and may
be more devout than people who go to the Latin Mass…. Usually though, they have a lot of
traditional type values in regards to the liturgy as well, so they’ll only go…certain places [for the
Mass].

With respect to Traditionis Custodes, while he reported being well-versed in current

ecclesiastical affairs, he could not understand the logic behind restricting the Latin Mass, saying:

I respect what’s going on with the hierarchy—I always have—but…they talk about unity and
[how] we should all be doing things the same way, but Novus Ordo parishes are not all done the
same way…. There’s not a…universality there. Whereas with the Latin Mass…there’s very little
differences…. Also, I feel like it unites people from all over the world, all cultures, all languages,
and I have experienced that firsthand….[Y]ou know the Mass and you can follow it, and it
doesn’t matter [if] the person sitting next to you is from wherever—what languages they
speak…. Why would you want to stop the momentum of something where you have families
who are having children, who believe in all the things the Church has always taught, their faith
life is generally central to their life—why would you want to stop that? They don’t believe in
contraception. They do believe the Eucharist is Jesus. They don’t believe in divorce…. It doesn’t
make any sense to me. And you can’t use the excuse… “it’s causing a rift, it’s not good for the
Church at large.” Well, what church are we talking about? It’s difficult for me to talk about the
Catholic Church without talking…specifically about the traditional Church…. I mean let’s be
honest. We have a…majority of liberal-minded Catholic hierarchy and we’ve had bad problems
with priest scandals in the ranks, which has upset people.... Pope Francis has asked bishops to
teach their faithful about Adoration. I mean that’s a wonderful thing because most people don’t
even know what it is…. But traditional Catholics know what it is.

This sentiment was shared by Alicia, a single twenty-something who, at the time of this

interview, had been attending the Latin Mass for a year after discovering it through a popular

documentary called Mass of the Ages. Alicia was born and raised Catholic but reported being lukewarm

about her faith for most of her life. While her reversion began shortly before her discovery of the Latin

Mass, she credits it for solidifying her faith and sees its restriction as a break from Catholic heritage:
 39

One of the biggest differentiators of the Catholic Church…is the fact that we have the saints,
right?.... Well, what formed these saints? I would say the vast majority… were raised by the
Traditional Latin Mass. We admire all these qualities of these saints, and then at the same time,
we profess that the Eucharist is the source and the summit. And so we know that that must have
greatly impacted these saints. So, how can we hate or not like a Mass that has shaped these saints
that we also turn to and look to?.... It's interesting when you look at the history of it, because the
Latin Mass, at least officially, I think, was documented or whatever the appropriate word is…[in]
the 1500s. I mean, that's a long time…500 plus years. And so to then turn your back on that
within a span of a decade and create a whole new Mass—I think we ought to take a step back
and say, “What happened?”.…This is not about…”I attend a Latin Mass and I think I'm a better
person than you.” It's this is how I truly feel like the Lord is honored the most.

With this in mind, Alicia feels that rather than restricting the Latin Mass, the Novus Ordo should

instead incorporate more traditional elements, as is done at churches run by the Canons Regular. Still,

she was willing to submit to her bishop, stating that “no matter how heartbreaking it is, Jesus himself

said, the gates of hell shall not prevail. And so whatever happens, He has allowed or permitted it to

happen. We can certainly make efforts to live traditional Catholicism and just put it in the Lord's hands.”

Cantian superior Fr. Joshua confirmed seeing a decline in Mass attendees on the first Sunday of

every month when the parish offers the Novus Ordo in lieu of the Latin Mass. He also indicated being

aware of critical responses to his community’s submission to Traditionis Custodes and the existence of

competing ideological camps both locally and in the universal Church. While appreciative of his

congregation’s ability to coexist despite their varying views, however, he was critical of these divisions:

The word diabolical comes from the word to divide in Greek, right? And so when you ask the
question: there are camps, camps, camps—I am not interested in camps. I want people to
worship Christ…. I would counsel people…to not be involved in the camps, not because we're
burying our head in the sand, but because we have to focus on Jesus Christ…. Everything is a
means to an end. The only thing that is not a means to an end and is an end in itself is the Holy
Eucharist….because it's both God and a pledge of future glory to Heaven…. I'm aware that there
are people who feel that Cantius has compromised or that we have buried our heads in the sand,
but they don't know what happens behind the scenes…. I know that our priests do address the
issues like the gay pride month and all of that. But to what end? To what end? To feed anger.
Anybody can go online and see anything they want and get their anger roused from Church
Militant [a popular traditionalist news site] or from the blogs….[If] you come to church and
you're angry, and then you find out the priest is also angry, well, what does that do?
 40

At St. James, on the other hand, Fr. Koys, acknowledged the existence of some traditionalists

whom he feels hyperfocus on liturgical minutiae and miss the more important elements like his sermon.

However, he was critical of bishops’ apparent lack of interest in curbing worse issues in the Novus Ordo:

The hierarchy of the Church these days doesn't seem to care if you do your own adaptations to
the Novus Ordo. But for some reason, a lot of people in the hierarchy…care if the Novus Ordo is
used or if the TLM is used, just plain and simple. I find that odd. I find that inconsistent, where
perhaps some of your [readers] will see different videos of Catholic Masses where…one priest
blessed the people with his guitar instead of a monstrance where you're supposed to put the
Blessed Sacrament. There's a Christmas midnight Mass that didn't look at all like a Christmas
midnight Mass and had all sorts of singing and dancing, and the Eucharistic prayer wasn't using
the same words that are in the book. Those things are allowed, whereas the TLM is not allowed.
And it just seems like a strange inconsistency.

Here, he is referring to some viral videos of priests deviating from the rubrics of the Novus Ordo

Mass. He also pushed back against accusations of traditionalist rebellion, arguing that his parish, with

both forms of the Mass, is more unified than any of his prior assignments at Novus-Ordo-only churches:

[I] think both crowds have a sense that the moral issues unite them. And when the moral issues
unite the people, it doesn't affect you so negatively if they like bells and the other people don't…;
some people like incense, and other people don't…; some people like Latin, some people don't.
Those kind of things then become more trivial, and you say, well, it's a matter of preference.... I'll
tell you where the tension comes in. First…is when you're in a parish with three or four
languages, if you have Spanish at one Mass, English at another Mass, Polish at another Mass,
Lithuanian, Vietnamese, all the different languages, it's almost impossible to unite people around
one Mass that incorporates all those languages. Because everybody's going to want to go to their
own language…. That's one of the reasons why I learned Spanish: so I could preach and pray in
Spanish to the people who love Spanish. But it is divisive. It's hugely divisive. And you just hope
and pray that the doctrine and morals unite people where the language divides them. But another
way, even in an all-English parish, what is more divisive is the Catholics who reject a number of
the Catholic moral principles and those who defend the Catholic moral principles. That's when a
divisiveness…hurts the most, you know?

Despite him seeing the cardinal’s restrictions as an opportunity for traditionalists to engage with

the Novus Ordo, he was nonetheless critical of Traditionis Custodes overall, stating: “I would encourage

any bishop who does prohibit a priest from saying it [the Latin Mass]…to base that prohibition on a very
 41

clear, elaborate statement of what heresy he's preventing or what error, what false doctrine, he's trying to

stop. If you're just saying “disunity,” that's not very clear. It's too ambiguous.”

Latin Mass Restrictions: Paradoxes, Politics, and Other Problems

According to a recent study of the religious landscape of the United States, Catholicism has

suffered among the highest attrition rates of all Christian denominations. For every 100 people who

convert to the Catholic faith, 840 leave.lvi The Archdiocese of Chicago has seen its priestly population

plummet by half over the last 50 years, leaving its 2 million Catholics at the service of just over 1,000

shepherds (a figure which includes retired priests). Citing declining Mass attendance, a priest shortage,

and the high maintenance costs of its churches, the Chicago archdiocese has spent the last several years

undertaking a massive parish restructuring. In 2018, the archdiocese comprised 344 parishes. As of

2025, that number stands at 216.lvii

In 2019, Cdl. Cupich announced a restorative effort named ‘Renew My Church,’ which aims to

mitigate these issues. The program invites Chicago Catholics to imagine a parish that is “fully alive and

growing”, which “attracts fallen away Catholics…[particularly] our young adult children,” which

supports parishioners on a personal level, and which “shows you how to share your faith.”lviii It is

interesting to consider this vision alongside the observations of the churches featured in this study.

For example, as the archdiocese closes churches it cannot maintain, St. John Cantius has

undertaken multiple six-figure restorations over the last four years alone, including regilding two altars

in 24k gold leaf and installing new stained-glass windows. The financial engagement of the parish is

perhaps better noted in its everyday upkeep: The annual cost of its sacred music program alone, which is

independent of parish funds, sits at $125,000.lix Since the church is run by a resident religious

community, it is staffed with enough priests to offer confessions before, during and between its five

Sunday Masses, in addition to its regularly scheduled time on Saturdays. Laity frequently join the
 42

Canons in reciting their daily morning and evening prayers—Matins, Lauds, and Compline—as well as

daily rosaries and other devotions. The church also offers a variety of programming: an active youth

group, multiple music programs, pilgrimages, retreats, affinity groups, prayer groups, and enough

interest to sustain yearlong classes in ecclesiastical history, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.

The ICKSP apostolate in Chicago has seen its historic church suffer two devastating fires over

the last 50 years. On both occasions, parishioners supported rebuilding efforts while hopping between

makeshift venues to hear the Latin Mass. Prior to August 2022, public Masses were not held in the

church proper due to ongoing construction but rather were offered in a small room in a former school

building adjacent to the church, which the ICKSP had purchased and converted into a chapel. In the

leadup to Traditionis Custodes, some 300-500 people had been overwhelming the small space and

spilling over into neighboring rooms to hear Mass on Sundays.

A glance at old church bulletins from the shrine paints a picture of a highly engaged

community.lx Parishioners were offered daily Masses, three every Sunday; Confessions before and

during Mass; a monthly 9-day novena culminating in a monthly Mass to honor their eponymous Infant

King; weekly devotions to a variety of saints; adoration and benediction at least 3 times a week; a

weekly educational conference; and more. In addition to its youth’s, men’s, and women’s groups, the

parish would liaise with the regional and national ICKSP apostolates to facilitate community dances,

picnics, summer camps, local and international pilgrimages, volunteering opportunities and music

workshops. The weekly parish email list featured devotional reminders, invitations for prayer intentions

and a variety of literary and meditative resources. In the winter, parishioners went ice skating with their

priests—the latter perpetually garbed in their quintessential black ankle-length cassocks.

With the archdiocese’s restructuring project disproportionately affecting parishes in poor and

minority neighborhoods, the Shrine’s closure, given its location in one of the most dangerous and poor

parts of the city, drew the attention of the local Alderwoman, Jeanette Taylor. Taylor, who is a
 43

democratic socialist, published an open letter to Cdl. Cupich, in which she argued that the growth of the

Shrine had attracted significant resources to a neighborhood whose crime and poverty rates had made it

difficult to capture investor interest.lxi According to assistant priest Canon Luke Zignego, the apostolate

had attracted an ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse congregation, with stable Filipino,

Italian and Hispanic Catholic devotional traditions. The Canons were also known to collaborate with

other parishes to expand pastoral opportunities within and sometimes outside the archdiocese. It was not

uncommon for assistant priests to be absent for weeks at a time.

To account for this paradox, this study proposes that at the heart of the tension between

traditionalist and mainstream Catholics is not merely liturgical preference, but an ideological conflict

whose roots lie within the Church hierarchy itself. An old but infamous anecdote illustrates this. When

Pope Benedict XVI expanded permissions for the Latin Mass in 2007, one of his high-ranking bishops

responded, with tears in his eyes, that he was going through “the saddest day of my life as a priest, a

bishop, and as a man.”lxii Coming from a man who lived through fascist Italy and the Second World War,

this was a weighty statement. The bishop in question, Luca Brandolini, was a protégé of the late

Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who is widely considered to be the architect of the Novus Ordo Mass and

had spent the 12 years leading up to Vatican II overseeing significant edits to the rubrics of the Old Rite.

Brandolini, who self-identified as Bugnini’s disciple and was proud to have inherited his episcopal ring,

felt that in making the Latin Mass more accessible, the Vatican had “canceled” Bugnini’s work.

While Bishop Brandolini clarified that he would submit to the pope’s decision, his statement

nonetheless shows that the existence of competing visions for Vatican II and its aftermath is an issue

whose roots lie primarily in the Catholic hierarchy. Despite the ideological rupture following the

Council, the Vatican has reiterated that the conciliar documents share continuity with the 2,000 years of

tradition that precede them. Given the minority status of the traditionalist movement and the fact that

Brandolini himself stated he was certain that no one in his diocese would be interested in it, the idea that
 44

expanding access to the Latin Mass undermined Vatican II itself therefore carries significant

implications. One might dismiss Brandolini’s views as the opinion of one bishop, but to do so would be

myopic. These discordant visions exist across the clergy and reach the highest levels of the Vatican.

In the months leading up to Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis overhauled the leadership of the

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the arm of the Vatican which

handles liturgical issues. The Congregation’s new secretary is Bishop Vittorio Viola, who is a protégé of

the now retired Brandolini and current wearer of Bugnini’s ring.lxiii Viola reports to the new head of the

Congregation, Cardinal Arthur Roche, who oversaw the implementation of Pope Francis’ restrictions on

the Old Mass. Since taking on this role, Roche has stated that the Latin Mass was abrogated by the

Novus Ordo.lxiv Aside from contradicting Pope Benedict XVI, whose primary argument for increasing

access to the Latin Mass in the first place was that it was never abrogated, this statement would imply

that the Latin Mass has been illegal since 1970. He has further critiqued the Latin Mass as clerical, and

its use as encouraging “a liturgy at variance with [Vatican II] Conciliar reform…and an ecclesiology that

is not part of the Church’s Magisterium.” lxv Unsurprisingly, these statements have been met with

indignant pushback from traditional Catholics.lxvi lxvii

Thus, the place of the Latin Mass and traditionalist values in the post-Vatican II era are questions

whose answers are unclear, primarily because they are subject to ideological vagaries within the

Catholic hierarchy. It is, therefore, unsurprising that factionalism has trickled down to the laity, the vast

majority of whom are not seasoned theologians and lack the bandwidth to pore through hundreds of

Church documents to inform their opinions on these issues. The normative Catholic response would be

to defer to the pope and his bishops, but when the hierarchy’s ideological tides can shift dramatically

within a handful of years, this is not a sustainable solution. Ostensibly, if Pope Francis’ successor were

more conservative a la Benedict XVI, the pendulum would once again swing in the opposite direction.
 45

For an institution that claims doctrinal consistency and infallibility, this liturgical debate goes far beyond

aesthetic preferences—it is a symptom of a serious existential issue for the Catholic Church.

Family Values Among Traditional Catholics

This study has found the traditional Catholic framework for family values as, broadly speaking,

idealizing a heterosexual, married couple that is “open to life” in the sense of avoiding contraception and

bearing children if God sees it fit to make them parents. In keeping with the survey results, this is a pro-

life, anti-contraception worldview. However, this is also the standard Catholic perspective. Despite the

progressive trends that followed Vatican II, postconciliar popes have reiterated the Church’s

longstanding anti-contraception stance, referring to artificial birth control as sinful, intrinsically evil, and

degrading to human life.lxviii The same has held true for the impermissibility of same-sex unions and

abortion.lxix lxx Thus, doctrinally speaking, “traditional Catholic” appears to be a redundant descriptor for

these perspectives. They are simply Catholic.

For purposes of this study, however, the “traditionalist” qualifier is necessary. For one, as earlier

discussed, the fact of most American Catholics being at odds with Catholic moral doctrines puts

traditionalists in the awkward position of being orthodox with respect to Catholic teaching but extreme

outliers in the American Catholic population. Additionally, while non-doctrinal issues, such as stay-at-

home motherhood, are points of discourse among mainstream Catholics, their ideological divisions

result in them having polarized and nonuniform opinions. Therefore, if this study associates a particular

value with traditional Catholics, it is not intended to imply that it is absent among mainstream Catholics,

just that it is more normative and uncontroversial among their more ideologically uniform peers.

Gender Relations Among Traditionalist Couples

With the emergence and spread of feminism in the 20th century, the relationship between the two

sexes has become a polarizing issue in Catholicism, whose patriarchal orientation is embedded into its
 46

organizational structure. Catholicism, while fondly titling the Church “Mother” and the “Bride of

Christ,” nonetheless identifies both ecclesiastical and familial headship as male offices.lxxi lxxii For

traditional Catholics, it is normative to idealize marriages that feature a sole or main male breadwinner

and a stay-at-home mother. The sentiment that marriage and parenthood, especially motherhood, are

privileged callings that trump academic and professional aspirations is frequently articulated in

traditionalist sermons, podcasts, and publications.lxxiii lxxiv

However, much like global Catholicism, the practical form that these ideals take in everyday life

appears to be socially constructed. Consider, for example, Ricardo, who is half-Filipino, grew up in the

United States, and married a woman from the Philippines. Ricardo described Filipino culture as being

socially conservative and oriented towards normative gender roles. lxxvAs such, his wife was primed to

have her husband take headship over the household, and she was willing to do more of the household

labor. However, this does not translate to total stay-at-home motherhood. Quite the opposite, both

Ricardo and his wife work full-time as nurses and do not find the prospect of homeschooling their

children particularly attractive.

For Southeast Asians like Ricardo and his wife, multigenerational households were normal, and

they replicated this dynamic for their four children by inviting Ricardo’s mother-in-law to live with

them. With the children attending formal schooling and the household having an extra set of hands to

help with childcare and chores, Ricardo’s wife has more flexibility to contribute to the family income

through full-time work. This approach to organizing families, called familism, is common in non-

Western cultures and emphasizes intra-familial support.lxxvi However, it is less common among white

middle-class Americans, who make up much of the traditional Catholic population.

While the expectation that wives and mothers manage most of the housework and childcare

certainly has historical precedent in the United States, the 1950s-inspired stay-at-home motherhood that

is idealized in ideologically conservative communities today is a modern and uniquely American

 47

concept.lxxvii Over the last several decades, as the United States has grown increasingly individualistic,

American life has come to center the nuclear family as an independent and primary societal unit. Parents

are incentivized to rely on their own expendable income to account for the deficits that arise from

having limited social support from other family members. Where “traditional” societies featured

intergenerational homes and communities, the prototypical American family resides in a single-family

home and outsources social support through paid resources such as daycare and babysitting.lxxviii

Thus, by idealizing larger families and fewer breadwinners, traditionalists are attempting to

reconfigure their families to fit structures that no longer have the social buttressing of the past. Most of

the families featured and observed in this study have nuclear, suburban families. While some reported

having help from their parents, their lack of intergenerational homes means that such support is

constrained by locational proximity and their relatives’ commitments to their own nuclear families. The

traditionalist opposition to limiting family growth through contraception further necessitates an even

stronger reliance on non-familial community members for social support.

The families observed in this study demonstrate a strong sense of solidarity, with many

homeschoolers exchanging resources and collaborating through co-operatives. However, the scarcity of

the Latin Mass means that many, if not most of its attendees are often skipping multiple parishes, towns,

and sometimes states to get to Mass, creating a community that is ideologically unified but

geographically scattered. For families that live farther away, connecting with their peers thus

necessitates additional time and resource investments. This sentiment was attested to by Ashley, who

lives about 20 miles from St. John Cantius. She and her husband have been attending Cantius for a few

years but have struggled to consistently connect with other traditionalist families because their friends

live in different parts of the city or Chicagoland area.

Parish resources such as children’s choirs, catechism classes, and parish picnics help to fill this

gap by bringing families together for extended amounts of time, but they still require time commitment
 48

and reliable transportation. The priests interviewed in this study attested to their awareness of this issue

but noted that the onus is ultimately on parents to keep their communal needs in mind when deciding

where to live. Most of the parents featured in this study are middle class and hail from areas in the city

and suburbs which, often through serendipity, happen to be home to other traditionalist families.

Unfortunately, the options pursued by less privileged families are less clear.

With the social construction and cultural underpinning American traditionalist values, it is

unsurprising that most interviewees articulated family dynamics which feature a sole male breadwinner

and a nuclear family structure. For example, Angela is a stay-at-home mother of six and began

frequenting the Latin Mass in 2020, after feeling that Novus Ordo churches, many of which were closed,

were not treating the Eucharist with due reverence. Although her family loves the Latin Mass, they

typically attend the Novus Ordo at St. John Cantius as it better suits her children’s catechism and choir

commitments. Despite the recency of her traditionalist inclination, she has been a practicing Catholic

and politically conservative her entire life.

In her youth, Angela attended an elite university, where she met her now husband, and was

inclined to continue working after she got married. However, after having to return to work six months

postpartum, she was overwhelmed by being away from her baby. Angela recalls her mother as having

returned to the workforce after the youngest child started school because their working-class family

needed the second income. Despite working full-time, however, she still handled most of the housework

and was chronically exhausted. For this reason, she encouraged Angela to quit her job and rely on her

husband’s income. When Angela’s oldest was four months old, she left the workforce and has been a

stay-at-home mother since, working as a part-time music teacher when she is able. Based on her

experience, she believes that mothers should stay home whenever possible, stating plainly:

Somebody has to raise the babies…. [W]hen you're at the point where…your outside job is
pulling you away from the family—and this is what I experienced because I did work—you feel
this pull where the workforce wants you to do this, and then your family needs you, but you're
 49

always going to go with the job that is paying you. It's just how it's going to be. And who's going
to suffer?…. There's no job that's going to be more important than what you do with your
children…. And I don't share that opinion with a lot of moms because I think they get their
feelings hurt really easily because they're trying to do the best they can…. They spent all this
money on their education. They want to use that…and they want to help the dad bring in
money…so pressure is off him, but it doesn’t work out. It just doesn't.

Angela, like all the interviewees who were queried on this issue, believes it important for young

women to be educated regardless of their vocation, as she was. She also feels that women have the same

intellectual capabilities as men to study demanding fields like engineering and that they can always put

what they studied to use somehow, particularly in the upbringing of their own children. Furthermore, she

recognized that not all women who desire a family will find a husband or have children—whether per

their desired timeline or at all. Additionally, should the breadwinner of the family pass away or be

rendered unable to work, she believes formal education offers women a backup plan. Where children are

concerned, however, she feels that they constitute a mother’s primary vocation. As far as career

ambitions go, she quoted her mother: “You can always do that stuff later.”

Still, she acknowledged the difficulty of sacrificing one’s personal ambitions. Her adolescent

daughter, for example, aspires to be a doctor, and Angela recalls her saying, “Mom, I don't know how I

could be a doctor and have my 13 kids.” She and her daughter have discussed the feasibility of juggling

the two pursuits, citing Catholic pediatrician and saint Gianna Mola, but she notes that Gianna was only

able to do so because her sister assisted her with childcare. Overall, she feels that the feminist pull of

women away from the home is “bizarre, not natural” and has damaged the family, saying:

[W]hen you have moms that are willing to kill their children, to think it's okay, it's a good thing,
to kill their children, and they don't want to be taking care of them in a home, you have a culture
that is not going to survive…. I think that Blessed Mother is just weeping, like, all the time…. I
mean, there's no defense for it at all but that women have been tricked. I mean, it's just the voice
of the devil. It's just so evil. But society can't last that long with that attitude, and it's what is
making the family suffer.
 50

Angela firmly believes in the division of gender roles prescribed by Ephesians 5, which calls on

wives to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, noting:

I think it's really, really important that you have a head of the household. You have to have a
leader…[A]nytime you get in a room full of people, they're trying to make a decision [and] you
have to have a leader. I mean, this is just how human beings are… And God made men stronger.
He just made them physically stronger. And their whole makeup is to protect and to look after the
family and materially provide for their family. I really don't have a problem with wives
submitting to their husbands because, I mean, the husband has to lay down his life…for his wife.
I mean, that's, that's a much greater commitment—command. So I personally don't have a
problem with that. My husband and I both have strong personalities, but in the end, the family
doesn't work unless the father is leading.

Nonetheless, she grants that marriage requires teamwork and can be configured in a variety of

ways depending on a couple’s skill sets. In her marriage, for example, her husband does his own

laundry. Her father was a blue-collar worker who taught her to use tools, so she is content to manage

repairs in her own home since her husband is more intellectually inclined. She considered herself lucky

to have a supportive husband and is content to have chosen homemaking over a career.

A similar sentiment was shared by Philip, who, as earlier mentioned frequents the ICKSP. Philip

and his wife have been together for over 40 years, and he recalls stay-at-home motherhood as having

been normative when he was growing up. His wife wanted to be a homemaker and has been content to

remain one. Philip has long understood the Catholic teaching on spousal submission as follows:

The submit [part of Ephesians 5] is the woman’s role is going to be to support her husband. She’s
going to be there foundationally to help him play the role that he needs to play in the family. It is
not “Yes honey, whatever you say”…. The husband…his job is probably even more difficult
because he’s being called to die for his wife, to take the bullet.... I could probably go talk to some
priests and they might say that’s not what it means, but that’s what my understanding of it has
been for many, many years.

Like Angela, he believes this framework maintains the wife’s autonomy and accommodates the

different configurations that may arise as a function of temperamental differences, stating:

 51

I have never said “You’re going to follow what I say or else.” That has never come out of my
mouth, nor do I think it should…. I think for us…we’re on the same page spiritually. And I think
we do have conversations about little things as well as big things, and we may not always agree
on them, but I think she does support me in what I’m doing very well…. That’s kind of the way
it’s worked for us…. It’s probably a little different for everybody. And it depends on your
personalities. You might have some people where the man is really…phlegmatic and the wife
could be very strong… But again…that’s where the faith comes in. If you’re following it really
well, it’s going to be your lens and you’re also going to make sure you have reasons why you
think a certain way or reasons why you want to do things a certain way…. That’s why that’s so
important. It’s just most people don’t care about that anymore.

One explanation of Ephesians 5 from a popular traditionalist YouTube channel features a priestly

sermon on the Thomist view that a husband’s authority over his wife pertains only to matters affecting

the common good of the family.lxxix The priest proposes that Catholic families should approach familial

decisions within this framework. Thus, mothers should view stay-at-home parenting as a worthy

sacrifice of their personal ambitions for the common good of their children. While arguing that the

feminist rejection of this spousal hierarchy runs contrary to the will of God, the priest nonetheless states

that women retain autonomy after marriage and that a husband whose decisions are motivated by self-

interest is a tyrant. One priest at St. John Cantius, to give an example of this dynamic in action, shared

an anecdote of a longstanding parishioner:

[He] serves…Mass every single morning. He's 80 years old and still gets up there to open up the
church and everything…. But his wife was slowing down. She had a walker, she had oxygen
tank, and he was really having a hard time taking care of her. And he was thinking, “I think we
might have to move into some place where you can get better care….” And then she would say,
“Oh, maybe next year. I'm comfortable here. Maybe another six months. All the kids are nearby,
[they’ll] take care of us” … And he was seeing his wife decline and struggle in so many ways,
and finally he got to the point where he said, “No, honey, as the head of this household, I am
stating that we are moving for your own good.” And she was amazed…but she realized if he was
that serious about something like that, then, okay, I need to listen. And he said that was the first
time in 50 years of marriage that he ever felt the need to absolutely put his foot down as the head
of the household.

Still, others felt that Ephesians 5:22-24 can be overemphasized at the neglect of the next verse,

which calls on husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Alex, for example, is slightly

older than Philip, and he modeled his marriage after the dynamics he observed in his own family as a
 52

child of the 50s and 60s. Although he was raised with the Latin Mass, he grew lukewarm in his faith in

his youth and became a Protestant later in life. His process of reversion to the Church saw him seek out

the liturgy of his childhood, and he has been a devotee of the Latin Mass in the seven years since. While

remaining a believer in the traditional headship of men over their families, he contends that his

understanding of this role was misguided and ultimately led to the end of his marriage. He recalled:

[M]y father, back in the fifties, he went to World War II. [For] that Great[est] Generation, the
men went off to work, the women stayed home, raised the children and there was dinner on the
table, there was a beer waiting for him when he got home…. [M]om always used her, “Wait till
your father gets home,” you know…and sure enough, that’s certain death when she said
something like that…. [W]omen never had any input…in my family and I know my aunts…they
were just silent partners… [O]f course that was taken to an extreme too much, I do believe, to
where men, they were [saying] “I'm the king”…. Yes, you are. But also…you have a valuable
asset in your wife.... And that's the way I was brought up and this is what I bought into my
marriage, which was a mistake…because it was my way or the highway, which wasn't really….
[O]nce you get divorced…it behooves you, to sit down and take an inventory of what happened.

While regretting his approach to heading his own family, he nonetheless believes there is a

rightly ordered way to exercise the gender roles prescribed in Catholic teaching, and he views young

families at his Latin Mass parishes as living out this approach well. On the other hand, interviewee

Priscilla argued that traditionalist men are not adequately instructed on how to practice Ephesians 5:25:

People don't place enough emphasis on “Husbands, love your wives.” If I'm not mistaken, the
command is, husbands, love your wives; wives, submit to your husbands. Why? Because as
women, not naturally…ordained by God to lead, what will we do? Follow…. I'm going to follow
what I hear…. I'm going to follow the man who leads. Our men aren't leading…. Someone needs
to corral those men and say, “Men, are you loving your wives?.... What sacrifice did you make
for her today? Did you hold your tongue because she once again was up all night and she's a little
bit crabby this morning, or did you try and correct her? You should hold your tongue…. Yeah,
you got 14 hours’ worth of work coming home [but]…at least [take] that young one, even if you
got to fall asleep on the couch with the baby. Why? Because you're dying for [your wife]…. Did
you ask her, even if in your mind you're only half listening, did you at least make the eye contact
and say, “How was your day, sweetheart? What can I do to help you?”… [If] you die for her,
she’s going to follow you.”…. We live in a secular world, but we live in a Protestant country by
heritage. So too much hitting hard on how women need to submit to men.
 53

Priscilla also takes issue with what she perceives as being an excessively liberal use of natural

family planning in the traditionalist community. Natural family planning (NFP) broadly refers to various

methods of avoiding pregnancy by timing intercourse around the woman’s menstrual cycle. It is widely

promoted in Novus Ordo circles, with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops offering a

variety of NFP resources on its official website and many dioceses across the country having “NFP

ministries” for instructing engaged and married couples.lxxx An interesting dichotomy emerged in this

study, where diocesan traditionalists, such as those at St. John Cantius, tended to favor NFP usage

whereas their ICKSP and SSPX counterparts criticized its liberal usage. Angela, for example, spoke

favorably of her parents for educating her and her siblings on NFP. Ashley, the young mother who was

mentioned earlier, said she and her husband used NFP for months after their wedding because they did

not feel ready to have children. Both Angela and Ashley are Cantian parishioners. ICKSP and SSPX

traditionalists like Priscilla view this attitude as a grave issue:

Catholics can't contracept, period. The end. Natural family planning used, from my observational
standpoint, by Catholics is legit Catholic birth control. And when you read the documents the
Church has put out and what the popes have said, the answer is, it cannot be used that way. As a
matter of fact, in the objective order, it's easy for the couple to fall into grave mortal sin. I mean,
the Church says that if you really want to do that, you got to come and meet with the priest. The
priest is the one who's going to say how you're going to govern your sex life, not the two of you.
And it has to be for a grave issue….

Children’s Education

The communities featured in this study have many parishioners who homeschool their children

and others who have established educational co-operatives or schools of their own. From conversations

with homeschooling parents, various reasons emerged: a perception that the quality of education in

schools is declining, fears of bullying, and concerns of children being unproductively overworked.

However, one other important motivator was ideology. Many traditional Catholics perceive educational

institutions as having become too politically progressive and not ideal for the raising of children.
 54

This was attested to by Jerome, a lifelong educator whose career spans public schools,

universities, and Catholic schools under the archdiocese. Jerome put his now adult children through

school, but he has grown so disillusioned with the education system that he would homeschool them if

he had to raise them today. While noting a preference for homeschooling organizations with designated

instructors over parents themselves serving as educators, he criticized the education system for the

decline in academic outcomes among students and the current standards of instruction on gender and

sexuality. He noted: “I'm not in favor of teaching about transgenderism to a six…seven, eight-year-old

kid….[D]on't push it down that this is an acceptable way of life for everybody. I don't know what the

story is. I'm not gonna judge. But don't influence my children with it.”

One of the priests interviewed for this study noted that the priests themselves do not go out of

their way to facilitate alternative educational resources for their congregations. Rather, they leave it up

to parents’ discretion and to the organic informational exchange that occurs among families after Mass

and other parish events. For those parishioners who have managed to set up functioning co-operatives

and schools, the priests have little involvement in their everyday workings but are generally happy to

spread word of them to interested parents. What is notable is that despite traditionalists’ demonstrated

attachment to Catholic systems and traditions, many of these parents and priests do not see established

Catholic schools as a better alternative.

Take Ashley, for example, who, at the time of her interview, had a toddler and was pregnant with

a second child. Ashley’s interest in homeschooling was first piqued when she met her now husband, who

was homeschooled by his mother. This interest solidified over time as she grew uncomfortable her

perception of the political climate of the current school system. When she and her husband started their

family then, they agreed they would pursue homeschooling. For them, the Catholic school system does

not live up to the values that she would like to instill in her children, citing bullying and the same child

sexualization that she finds problematic about contemporary secular culture. Thus, while traditionalists
 55

demonstrate a persistent distrust in contemporary secular institutions, their general attitude towards

Catholic ones is one of ambivalence at best. Given their geographical scattering, this flexible and

decentralized approach to raising and educating their children is likely to persist.

Atypicality in Traditionalist Circles

One notable theme which emerged across some interviews was the problem of atypicality in the

traditionalist community. With most baptized Catholics leaving the faith by their 18th birthday and many

traditionalists discovering the Old Rite in adulthood, many reverts and converts with a devotion to the

Latin Mass have, ostensibly, spent much of their lives outside the traditionalist fold. The adoption of

such a conservative ideology after having already made critical life decisions can thus be a difficult

transition for both the individual and their relationships.

One interviewee, for example, Guadalupe, was at a loss when I asked her views on traditionalist

family values. Guadalupe discovered the Old Rite during COVID-19 after feeling frustrated by the

unavailability of the sacraments and community at her Novus Ordo parish. Despite her strong devotion

to the Latin Mass and her solidarity with the community, she said she does not understand traditionalist

family values and has not found an explanation for how they could apply to her. Despite growing up

Catholic and remaining devoted to her faith, she is a low-income single mother who, at the time of her

interview, had a son in prison. Although her church had a significant Hispanic representation, many of

them were married and had large families. With most programming targeting young people and families,

she did not have a sense of where she fit in the community.

On the other hand, there are some traditionalists like Agnes who feel they have done everything

right with respect to orthodoxy and chastity but still struggle to fit in. Agnes is a cradle Catholic who

was diagnosed with autism in adulthood—a fact that she mentioned repeatedly because she felt it

explained much about her life and identity, including her strong need for what she termed “stability,
 56

order, and predictability.” Having grown up attending a Novus Ordo parish, Agnes often felt

overwhelmed by the liturgical experimentation and flexibility afforded by the new Mass, with seemingly

minor things, like the unpredictability of the Preface selection, leaving her frustrated. When she attended

her first Latin Mass—a Low Mass at an ICKSP church—she felt she had finally found a liturgy that both

nourished her spiritually and accommodated her cognitive sensitivities. Given her lack of a car, she was

unable to frequent the Old Rite for several years. However, her struggles with the Novus Ordo Mass led

her to switch to a local Ukrainian Catholic church in pursuit of a more solemn and ancient liturgy. Since

obtaining a car 8 years ago, however, she has become a frequent Latin Mass attendee. Still, despite her

religiosity and conviction, she struggles to find community.

Agnes fits rather awkwardly into traditionalist spaces. She is a forty something woman, but,

unlike typical traditionalist women her age, is unmarried, has never borne children, and works in a male-

dominated industry. She struggles with an assortment of health problems, including hormonal disorders

which have rendered her infertile. Her body produces unusually high levels of male sex hormones

resulting in, among other issues, an unusually high libido. For most women in her situation, this would

be a difficult struggle. For Agnes, who is celibate and believes in waiting until marriage, it is a uniquely

heavy and lonely burden. She described her frustration thus:

Priests, they’re given unique graces for that [celibacy] because that is their calling in the Roman
Rite…. And it's hard to tell someone who married at 19 that you're struggling with this because,
again, women usually just don't talk about that…. And so there's not really a lot of sympathy for
that struggle. There's sympathy for the men who have a struggle, but not so much the women
because usually we're [supposed to be] the [ones with] better [sexual] control…. So even when
I'm at the [Latin] Mass, I do kind of feel like I'm in my own little island here because I do have a
job, [but] I don't have a husband, I don't have kids…. I would love to get married. I would
absolutely love to. And I always thought I was called to it, but it hasn't happened. And the Lord's
done just about everything short of ending my life to make sure it doesn't.

Agnes has struggled to find a place for herself across essentially all spheres of traditionalist

socialization. In her view, the women, many of whom married young, don’t understand her; the priests,
 57

while orthodox, are hypercautious of their interactions with women, especially unmarried ones; and the

nuns seem primarily preoccupied with children and families. When Agnes first started attending the

Latin Mass, one of its draws was that she perceived traditionalist priests as understanding the reality of

hell and being more invested in their congregation’s salvation than Novus Ordo priests. While she

appreciates this straightforward approach to preaching and pastoral care, she nonetheless feels alienated

because much of it is geared towards categories that do not include her. “The priests, in the sermon,” she

said, “they'll be going through their laundry list of states in life, and guess who got left out?”

Despite this, Agnes loves the Latin Mass. Aside from it offering her the stability, order, and

predictability she desires, other seemingly minor details about the Mass and its habitus have been

beneficial. For example, her discomfort with eye contact is eased by having a screen between her and

the priest during confession, a practice that is normative in Latin Mass churches but varies in

mainstream churches. The lack of prompts for the congregation to touch each other in the Latin Mass is

another welcome feature. At the Novus Ordo, she often feared that other worshippers would mistake her

autistic aversion to physical touch as malicious or rude. Should the Latin Mass be banned, she feels she

will likely return to her old Ukrainian Catholic parish. While she struggled to fit in with its ethnically

Ukrainian congregation and culture, her primary concern is to have a “good liturgy;” she has not been

able to reliably find one in the Novus Ordo.

Another interviewee, Caleb, shared a different form of alienation. Raised in a Catholic family,

Caleb recalls quintessentially feeling dragged to church as a child before ultimately abandoning the faith

as a teen. In college, he joined a Protestant church and was baptized again, an action which he now

regrets and has since confessed. After committing a “major sin” later in his adulthood, he tried returning

to his Catholic roots but could never quite commit. It was not until the COVID lockdowns that an

unexpected source drew him back to religion: conservative political commentator Dr. Jordan Peterson.

Peterson, while not a staunch follower of one religion, nonetheless has a popular online lecture series on
 58

the Bible. After watching them and reading more Scripture, Caleb underwent a highly emotional and

disorienting reversion to the Catholic faith. Further research introduced him to the Latin Mass, and a

Google search revealed that he lived within walking distance of St. John Cantius.

After being initially awed by the church’s aesthetics and Baroque architecture, he joined the

parish soon afterward. In his pursuit of traditionalist ideals, however, discovering his faith after having

already committed to major life decisions has made his reversion a bittersweet experience. On one hand,

Caleb was one of the most enthusiastic interviewees in this study. His responses were punctuated by a

litany of common traditionalist figures: St. Thomas Aquinas; G.K. Chesterton; and online personalities

like Fr Dwight Longnecker and Taylor Marshall. He is an active consumer of traditionalist media and

says rosaries with online friends on X (formerly called Twitter). For his birthday, he got five volumes of

the Summa Theologica. Most military veterans use their G.I. Bill benefits to pay for college; Caleb used

his to enroll in an online theology program. Still, he finds himself feeling like an outsider.

Caleb has been happily married for years. However, he and his wife were, in his words, “a

product of secular dystopia” in their youth. Despite having a Catholic wedding, they opted to go child-

free, and his wife forged a highly successful corporate career. Caleb was a secular conservative for most

of his life, but with his religious disposition undergoing such a radical transformation, some of his

values have had to rapidly evolve. He spoke highly of his wife and his appreciation for her many gifts

which allow them to approach marriage as a team, but he feels he is failing at being what he referred to

as “the spiritual head” of his family. While they both attend Mass, he feels frustrated that she is unable to

fully appreciate the traditional Mass and the issues in the postconciliar Church. Most importantly,

despite now desiring children and deeply regretting his decision to forego them, he and his wife cannot

bear any. Comparing his family with others in the traditionalist community, Caleb put it bluntly:

It’s not the ideal Catholic family, I know it…. I believe this topic has been the most difficult truth
I've had to face as I continue my journey embracing the true Catholicism…. We have done
 59

everything wrong in regards to Catholic patriarchy, natural law, and ultimately the truth. I
pray…[and] strive daily to reconcile what we have.

He noted that Cantian parishioners have been kind and approachable, but he is sensitive to the

fact that unlike many of his peers, he does not have children, much less enough to form a large family.

As such, despite being an active parishioner, he feels insecure about his position in the community.

Despite this, Caleb abides by the motto “To live is to suffer.” He describes his feelings of alienation as a

painful but much-needed spiritual cleanse which he feels will better his soul in the end.

Overall, traditionalist parishes do not appear to know what to do with members who do not or

cannot fit into their idealized frameworks. Such members are not necessarily shunned, but rather

because parish resources are primarily oriented towards families, children and single young adults,

people outside those demographics end up with few or no organized opportunities to find community.

While individuals in these situations still report feeling convicted in their beliefs, it nonetheless makes

for a lonely experience for which there does not appear to be much targeted support.

Limitations and Future Directions

This study has attempted to better understand and illustrate the beliefs and practices of Latin

Mass attendees by surveying, interviewing, and observing Latin Mass communities in Chicago. What

has, hopefully, emerged is that traditionalist Catholics, despite their near-uniform adherence to Catholic

morality have nuanced viewpoints which are often missed in the ideological battles of postconciliar

Catholic discourse. Still, this project was not without its limitations.

While the engagement of over 400 people is deeply appreciated, this sample was smaller than

hoped. Traditionalists have been wary of journalistic and academic interest in their community, most

notably following an FBI memo leak in 2023 which revealed that the agency had been investigating

traditionalists in Virginia for violent extremism. The document was swiftly condemned by bishops and
 60

lawmakers, and the FBI retracted it from its systems, claiming it did not meet agency standards.lxxxi

Despite this, traditionalists remained wary of external surveys, and a variety of popular traditionalist

figures and news sites encouraged their readers to avoid them.lxxxii I had hoped that distributing the

survey through the churches’ official communication channels would legitimize this project, but I

received feedback of suspicion persisting.

Aside from the small sample size, there is a limited diversity of perspectives across the churches

featured, particularly along ethnic and economic lines. St. John Cantius, while attracting people with

diverse backgrounds, nonetheless has a significant population of white, middle- and upper-class

parishioners, a fact attested to by the high cost (and continued success) of its aesthetic projects and the

variety in its programming. As earlier noted, participation from St. James and the ICKSP was low,

largely due to timing for the former and the geographical limitations of the latter. The SSPX church in

Oak Park was invited to participate, but since the parish priest was unable to secure his superior’s

permission, the only SSPX-affiliated laity I encountered were those who stumbled upon the survey

flyers while visiting one of the featured churches. As such, it is difficult to capture the extent to which

dynamics such as stay-at-home motherhood have proven feasible for less privileged families.

When this project was initially conceived, one of its goals was to investigate whether people’s

beliefs and practices were modulated by the type of traditionalist church they frequented. As earlier

noted, for example, there appears to be disagreement among diocesan and Latin-Mass-only

traditionalists on the morality of NFP as an alternative to contraception. Other differences extend to

church conduct. For example, Cantian Novus Ordo Masses, while solemn, seem to attract a slightly

more casual congregation than their Latin Masses, with less veiling and more people in informal

clothing. People at Cantius also seem more inclined to talk inside the church after Mass; at the ICKSP

and SSPX, such behavior is reportedly rare and met with glares when it does occur. A comparative study

of traditionalist communities could facilitate a better understanding of their subcultures.

 61

Finally, my orientation as an undergraduate student and sole researcher, coupled with the depth

and breadth of the topics covered, was both a gift and a limitation. The long interviews allowed me to

capture both participants’ faith stories and their beliefs on the specific issues under consideration.

However, this also meant a more limited bandwidth. This report, while long, has attempted to distill over

30 hours worth of conversations into brief quotes and summaries. Thus many of the respondents’ unique

perspectives have been limited to their relevance to a small set of themes. Given the scarcity of

academic literature on traditionalists, future researchers may consider targeting fewer topics and

privileging life story interviews.

Acknowledgements

This study was made possible by the Office of Undergraduate Research at Northwestern

University and the Alumnae of Northwestern University, who graciously awarded me a Summer

Undergraduate Research Grant. In addition to their financial support, the guidance I received from OUR

director Dr. Peter Civetta in particular is a testament to the University’s commitment to empowering

students and advancing knowledge in the world. I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to

my faculty advisor, Dr. Robert Orsi, for his invaluable encouragement and wisdom. Special thanks are

due to soon-to-be-Dr. Courtney Jones, who kindly set up additional office hours to review my

methodology despite this project bearing no relevance whatsoever to the psychology class for which she

was my instructor. I am further indebted to my poor family and friends upon whom I saddled the

unfortunate task of reviewing this very long report. Finally, I am grateful to the members of the

communities featured in this study for their co-operation, candor and time. That so many people were

willing to spare their time and share their stories with a stranger was truly humbling. I am fortunate to

have had the privilege of undertaking this work, and I hope it proves edifying.
 62

Bibliography

i
Francis, Homily for the 60th Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 11
October 2022,
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2022/documents/20221011-omelia-
60concilio.html.
ii
Thomas Reese, “Pollsters Confused about Catholic Voters,” National Catholic Reporter,
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/pollsters-confused-about-catholic-voters.
iii
Patricia Tevington and Gregory A. Smith, “Most U.S. Catholics Say They Want the Church To Be
‘More Inclusive.’” Pew Research Center, April 30, 2025,
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/04/30/most-us-catholics-say-they-want-the-church-
to-be-more-inclusive/.
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