The wooden pews at Saint Mary Mother of God — an inconspicuous Catholic church in the Chinatown area of Washington, D.C., that recently celebrated its 175th anniversary — are old, creaky, and hard. But this past Sunday, September 18, they were also full, as families from all around the Archdiocese of Washington (ADW) and beyond flocked to “Old Saint Mary’s” to celebrate mass in the extraordinary form for one last time. As the choir began to chant, Patrick Lally, who has been attending St. Mary’s since 1989 and helps during Mass as a master of ceremonies, could not describe the occasion as anything but “desolate.”
That’s because today, on the feast of Saint Matthew, Cardinal Wilton Gregory’s instructions for interpreting Pope Francis’s apostolic letter Traditionis Custodes take effect. These rules officially relegate the traditional Latin mass (TLM) — which has nourished Catholics since the fourth century — to “non-parochial churches distributed geographically throughout the Archdiocese.” To an outsider, such changes may seem trivial. But they’re a serious matter for the more than 1,200 Catholics who attend TLM weekly in the ADW (which encompasses D.C. and several Maryland counties). The cardinal’s order uproots their spiritual lives, alienates them from their home parishes, and leaves them as spiritual “refugees” in the words of Monsignor Charles Pope, whom Gregory named as his delegate for the pastoral care of TLM communities.
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