Where to Find A Traditional Catholic Mass

When examining the abysmal state of the US Catholic Church, and it is abysmal, the temptation is to blame some nefarious cause or conspiracy. While I don’t disagree that conspiracies exist, and sometimes they’re true!, and I don’t disagree that there are some Catholics out there who hate what the Church represents and want to transform it into something else, I think we need to resist the temptation to go down rabbit holes.

That’s not to say the rabbit holes can’t sometimes reveal truth. That’s not the point. The point is, what are you going to do about it? Suppose, for example, you go down one of these rabbit holes. And let’s say you discover the “truth” about everything, whatever that “truth” may be. What are you going to do about it? Suppose you have this “secret knowledge” that it’s all because of the Freemasons (just to name a likely scenario) and that many high ranking churchmen are indeed Freemasons, and they’re intentionally trying to destroy the Catholic Church. Okay. Now what? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to go “James Bond” and launch a secret “Mission Impossible” to expose the plot, out the perps, and somehow “save” the Catholic Church? Good luck!

Even if you manage to pull off this “Mission Impossible,” who says the mainstream Catholic Church even wants to be “saved” in the first place? Most average Catholics are perfectly content to go to their watered-down liturgies with their milquetoast pastor who never challenges them on anything. Yes, their parishes are closing and their dioceses are shrinking, but they’re perfectly comfortable with that. Yes, their old parishioners are dying off, and their young parishioners are leaving the Church, but that’s fine. They’re happy. And in the end, that’s all they really want anyway. So why are you trying to “save” them? They don’t want your “saving.” They want you to leave them alone.

Here are the brutally harsh stats…

I’m just showing you the pertinent information here. You can download the full stats by clicking this link: https://cara.georgetown.edu/s/CARAFrequentlyRequested-wf94.xlsx

As you can see, there was a huge drop in infant and adult baptisms in 1970 immediately following the implementation of the 1970 Missal and accompanying liturgies, often referred to as the Novus Ordo (Latin: New Order). This was followed by a surge in baptisms following the election of Pope St. John Paul II, who tried to take the Catholic Church in a more conservative direction after the implementation of the Novus Ordo. This started to decline again following the revelations of the sexual-abuse scandal and the death of John Paul II in 2005. In the years after that, the number of baptisms fell to a record low in 2022, plummeting to literally 35% of infant baptisms in 1965, while adult baptisms crashed to just 22% of what they were in 1965. This is a catastrophe! It’s also unsustainable. US Catholicism has only an 11% adult conversion rate, compared to Protestant denominations which have a much higher adult conversion rate. Worse yet, while the overall number of Catholics have increased in the US, equal to the rate of population growth, the overall percentage of Catholics in the US has decreased from 25% in 1960 to 22% now. That means that while the US Catholic Church is growing, in raw numbers, the US population is growing much faster, and the US Catholic Church isn’t doing much to convert people to Catholicism.

What is most striking is the number of Catholic parishes without priests, now over 3,000 in the US, and that’s with the number of Catholic parishes having gone down since 1965. The biggest sign of failure of the Novus Ordo Church is in the number of priestly vocations. We are now working with a larger Catholic population, due solely to population growth, fewer parishes to crowd them into, and almost half the priests we had in 1965. Let that sink in. That US Catholic Church is not growing. Its increase in raw numbers is only due to general population growth. Internally, the US Catholic Church is closing parishes, consolidating dioceses, having almost no adult conversions, and working with nearly half the priests it once had. How, in anyone’s definition of words, could this be considered a success? It’s not. It’s a failure. And it’s time for us to come to terms with that.

I have. It’s taken me a while. I’ve struggled with it. Seeking ways to move forward with reforms to the Novus Ordo Church, that might possibly turn things around. I’ve been encouraging that both in person and online for over a decade. The situation has only gotten worse, not better. Nobody is listening, or not enough people are listening, and it’s occurred to me that the reason is simple. It’s what I wrote above. The average Catholic simply doesn’t want to listen. The average Catholic is happy and content in aging and shrinking parishes. The average Catholic doesn’t see a problem and doesn’t want it to be fixed. The average Catholic simply wants to keep everything the way it is, and has no interest in changing a thing.

So, as of today, I have decided to give up on the Novus Ordo Church.

No, I’m not going to make some radical declaration against the pope, the bishops, the Freemasons, or whatever. I don’t need to. Pope Francis is still the pope, as far as I’m concerned. He’s just the pope of a dying Church in the West, and that’s his problem. The bishops are still the bishops. They’re just failed bishops of dying dioceses. Priests are still priests, and Catholics are still Catholics. I’m not a sedevacantist. I’m not an anti-conciliarists. I don’t deny the pope, and I don’t deny Vatican II. I’m not doing any of these radical things that other people do, because I don’t need to. It’s unnecessary. I’m just remaining Catholic and moving on.

I took care of my own issues years ago. I started an ordinariate community in my home town (see the process here). Now, to be clear, I did not do this because of any animosity I had toward the Novus Ordo Church or the local diocese. I’ve always had good relations with them, and I intend to keep it that way. Liturgical abuses are nearly non-existent in this area, and while there is always room for improvement, I prefer to let the local diocese work it out on its own. I started the ordinariate community for love of the English Patrimony and that love alone. I’m encouraging my fellow Catholics, frustrated with the state of affairs in the Novus Ordo Church, to adopt a similar attitude. For the sake of your love of Christ, put aside your frustration and anger. Stop being a complainer, and start being a builder. Maybe you can join with others who are doing the work, or maybe you’re a pioneer who can start the work yourself. Whatever the case, it’s time to move on. It’s time to start over. It’s time to build anew.

You won’t be alone. Lot’s of Catholics have gone before us. Lots of work has already been done. In spite of whatever you might have heard, the movement is only getting bigger and stronger.

While many Western Catholics have fled to the Eastern rites during this difficult time, and the Eastern churches have done a commendable job providing safe refuge for them (I only want to thank them here), our primary goal should be to rebuild Western Catholicism, and that means preserving and promoting the Roman liturgical rites, forms and uses. Therefore, the two primary forms of the Roman Rite we should focus on is the traditional form of the Roman Rite, otherwise known as the 1962 Missal or Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and Divine Worship, also known as the traditional English Form of the Roman Rite.

The Extraordinary Form is celebrated exclusively in Latin, while the English Form is celebrated in Sacral English with occasional small Latin responses.

To help my fellow Catholics in North America, I created this map to make things easier. You will notice that I included the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in this list, and that is because Pope Francis does not consider it to be in schism. If you have a problem with me including it here, please take it up with Pope Francis. If you’re looking for a Traditional Catholic mass in English, you’ll find it exclusively in the listings under the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter (POCSP). The rest are Latin Mass organizations.

Find a community that works for you, or build a new one. Maybe consider living closer to one. Either way, it’s time to move on for the love of Christ and liturgical tradition…

View the above map in a new window here. Keep in mind, this map is a work in progress. Please send corrections and updates to my CONTACT PAGE. I will require the physical address, phone number, and preferably the website of the church in question. If it all checks out, I will add to, or correct, the map. The church must be in communion with Rome, either regularly or irregularly, and must officially regard Francis as the pope. The Church must celebrate some form of the Roman Rite, and it cannot be the Novus Ordo (1970 Missal).

Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church through Anglicanism. His articles have been featured on LifeSiteNews, The Remnant Newspaper, Forward in Christ, and Catholic Online. You can read Shane’s books at ShaneSchaetzel.Com