As a growing number of young people are leaving regular diocesan parishes, and some of them are leaving the Catholic Church entirely, I would like to propose a challenge to any priest who is willing to give it a try, and I strongly encourage bishops to support them in this experiment. For a period of one year, and only one year, try scrapping your regular Novus Ordo celebrations, and instead do it this way…
At least once a week, celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin like this. Preferably, try this on a Sunday morning or a vigil mass, whichever works best, and then maybe once a week for a weekday mass. That means you’re going to have to get your choir to learn how to chant and you’re going to have to learn how to say the Novus Ordo Mass in Latin.
Then, the rest of the time, both on Sundays and weekdays, do your regular celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass in the vernacular language of your parish like this…
Don’t cut corners or try to improvise. Celebrate ad orientem. Use only altar boys, not girls. Get the altar guild disciplined to do it right, and get that choir to do real Gregorian chants. Lastly, always preach homilies that challenge the Faithful to live up to the teachings of the Catholic Church in every way, including her sexual teachings.
To help promote parishes where the traditional celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass is taking place, I am adding a section to my map on where to find traditional liturgy, specifically for the traditional celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass…
If, after one year of celebrating the Novus Ordo Mass in this way, you don’t see at least a 10% increase in mass attendance, and a similar increase in donations/collections, regard the experiment as a failure and feel free to go back to the way you were doing it before. Be sure to send me an email, after one year, and let me know how it went.
Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and he is an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church. 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
