Getting it done in Cincinnati

Catholic group looks to form Latin parish
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20101225/NEWS01/12260342/Catholic-group-looks-to-form-Latin-parish
By Dan Horn
dhorn@enquirer.com

The first time Ashley Paver stepped into St. Mark's Church in Evanston, he knew he'd found the right place.

The tile mosaics, soaring arches, marble steps and lush stained glass windows gave the church the look and feel of an Italian basilica. As he walked through the empty church, Paver could almost hear the Gregorian chants and Latin prayers that defined Catholic Mass for centuries, from the Middle Ages to the 1960s.

He could think of no better place to celebrate that ancient Mass again.

"It really is perfect," Paver said.

Paver is part of a group of Cincinnati Catholics that wants to transform St. Mark's into a parish dedicated exclusively to celebrating Mass, baptisms, marriages and other sacraments the way Catholics did more than a thousand years ago.

The new parish would be the first of its kind in Cincinnati and would restore the Latin Mass and other practices that were set aside over the past 40 years following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

The reforms, which took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s, phased out Latin and other traditions in an effort to make the Mass more accessible. They also alienated some Catholics who missed the Latin services and believed the church was losing some of the things that set it apart from other Christian faiths.

For years these conservative Catholics tended to be from older generations that longed for the Mass of their childhoods. Now, however, they include a small but growing number of young Catholics intrigued by their faith's ancient traditions.

"It's something we're coming back to," said Mary Kraychy, executive director of the Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei, an Illinois group that favors wider use of the Latin Mass. "It's just more meaningful to a lot of people."

She said the number of Latin Masses offered in the United States has climbed from about a dozen in the late 1980s to more than 400 today. While that's a small fraction of Catholic services nationwide, supporters of the Latin Mass say the trend suggests a desire among some Catholics for another, more traditional option.

Una Voce, the group behind the effort at St. Mark's, wants to give them that option.

The group mounted a campaign to raise about $2 million to buy and repair the 94-year-old church, which closed in July after the shrinking parish merged with three others.

Group members want to revive the church as the home parish for Catholics from all over the Archdiocese of Cincinnati who want to return to a more traditional form of worship.