Reviving a Latin past

While a breath of fresh air to many of the world's Catholics, the change shocked millions of others who had assumed that the Mass was divinely ordained, or nearly so, and immutable.

In 1988 Benedict's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, granted diocesan bishops special permission to provide an occasional Latin Mass. Many chose not to do so, out of concern that their dioceses, or the whole church, might form into modern and traditionalist camps.

"This fear . . . strikes me as unfounded," Benedict wrote in his Saturday decree, further adding that by allowing greater use of the old rite, he hoped to restore to the mainstream the "not small number" of alienated Catholics who never warmed to the new Mass.

Pasley said the impact of Benedict's decree will be gradual. "Many priests don't know Latin and don't have an interest in it," he said, but "down the line, as they become more exposed to it, that will change."

For a video of high Mass at Mater Ecclesiae Church in Camden County, along with the pope's decree, go to