Rorate Caeli, a conservative blog with a big fondness for the traditional Latin Mass, reports that Pope Francis told a group of visiting Czech bishops that while he is sympathetic to older folk who miss the Mass they grew up with, for younger people he sees it as "just a kind of fashion." Alas, I encountered this fashion yesterday. I woke up late and did not have time to go downtown to my parish and went to Mass at the nearby chapel on the campus of the University of Maryland. At the end of Mass, we were invited to all recite the Prayer to St. Michael, which used to conclude the traditional Latin Mass. The priest was younger than myself so he could not remember the traditional Latin Mass from his youth. At another nearby parish, the pastor, one year older than myself, also has the congregation recite the prayer at the end of Mass. This "fashion" is making a comeback with some of our younger priests, and I do not think it bodes well. I am all for a Marian hymn after Mass. But, bringing my namesake into strikes me as evidence of an agenda or, perhaps, an ideology.
