The change has come under scrutiny from some priests and members of the Catholic community, who want to see the tradition preserved for future generations.
During his sermon at St Patrick’s, Father Glen Tattersall assured the congregation it wouldn’t be the end of celebrating traditional Latin Mass at the church, which has been held weekly since 2011.
From left: Young worshippers Luca Maher, Kiara Perera, Gabriela Ponce Moya and Lachlan Rourke Holden. Credit: Eddie Jim
He referred to the views of then bishop George Pell, who led a traditional Latin Mass at St Patrick’s in 1992.
“Bishop Pell acknowledged the widespread interest in the Mass he was celebrating,” Tattersall said.
“It was the first traditional Mass celebrated by a bishop in an Australian cathedral since the early 1970s,” Tattersall said.
“From 1970 or so to 1985, the old Mass had been under a putative ban until the more enlightened and tolerant approach of John Paul II began to reverse this.
“Bishop Pell continued: ‘This is a precious inheritance. It is not ours to improve or to prune, it is the source of faith, repentance, the source of everlasting renewal. To the extent that we depart from this central tradition of worship and conversion, that we damage or pollute this core, we are weakened and enfeebled.’”
Pell, later a cardinal, who died in 2023, was Australia’s most prominent Catholic cleric. In 2020, the High Court unanimously quashed historical child sexual abuse convictions against him.
Speaking about the end of Latin Mass, Catholic priest Andrew Hamilton, who has taught theology at the United Faculty of Theology, said the modernised liturgy made it more available to people.
“The Vatican Council revised the old Mass and then put it into everyone’s language,” Hamilton said.
He said that during traditional Latin Mass, some of the prayers are in Latin, while the priest turns his back to the congregation and looks to the front of the church. Incense is used and traditional garments are worn, and there is a preference for the taking of communion in the mouth from the priest.
A worshipper enters St Patrick’s Cathedral on Wednesday night.Credit: Eddie Jim
“Because of the emphasis on community and communication in the New Mass, the priest now turns towards the people. The play is the same, but the choreography is different,” he said. “Latin has antiquity, but it was first used because it was modern. It is no more a sacred language than English.”
Hamilton said much of the current resistance to change within the church, whether it be in worship or other, is “really a rejection of the changes that took place at the Vatican Council”.
On Wednesday night, at the end of the Latin Mass, a group of young Catholics emerged smiling from the cathedral’s doors.
They, like others, had heard about the final service and felt compelled to attend.
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Luca Maher, a 19-year-old from Newman College, a Jesuit residential college affiliated with the University of Melbourne, said it was his first traditional Latin Mass. He said he was awed by the number of faithful who attended, but found the service “difficult to follow”.
“There was so much less kneeling in what we would normally do [in the New Mass] … even the priests just not facing you was a drastic change that I had not experienced, and it was so difficult to follow,” said Maher.
But for some young people, the beauty and spirit of the traditional Latin Mass was still intriguing, said Lachlan Rourke Holden, 20.
“It’s such an ancient tradition. The history and the beauty and the culture of it has been running on for so long, for it to come to such an abrupt end now … feels like it’s blowing out the candle on such a beautiful spectacle,” he said.
“Seeing all these other people who are our age there as well, who were covering their hair and were all taking it very seriously … is a huge inspiration coming from places that have mostly empty pews.”
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