On May 25, before even departing, Michael Matt, editor in chief of The Remnant, who led the group of American pilgrims, said to Edward Pentin: “The fact that the pilgrimage has reached maximum capacity this year, is nothing less than a stunning testimony to the popularity of the Latin Mass among young Catholics.”
He went on to state: “It is our sincere hope that the Vatican will see in this event a non-polemical and joyful expression of the youth, vitality, and unitive power of the Latin Mass.”
An Ambivalent Response
On the day of departure, Saturday, May 27, Jean-Marie Guénois published in Le Figaro the responses of several pilgrims on their attachment to the traditional liturgy. The French journalist noted that many of these young people were wearing “a t-shirt with this words printed on it: ‘Guardians of Tradition’ a translation of the title of the papal decree Traditionis custodes. It could be bought from the pilgrimage online store.”
But one pilgrim, Osmane Caillemer, 23 years old and a future lawyer, clarified: “We are not making a 100 kilometer pilgrimage on foot to protest! We are not in a spirit of protest; this is not a militant march. It is an act of personal deepening in and being a witness to the Faith. My generation is no longer in this combat dimension.”
“It is attracted by the beauty, the sense of the sacred, the silence of the traditional Mass. This recollection is not found elsewhere, and it attracts young people who attend the ordinary Mass in parishes as well. Our generation is especially lacking in formation, in transmission. We feel we are fully in the Church. There is no ambiguity in this: the chaplaincy of the pilgrimage is provided by the Fraternity of St. Peter, which has chosen fidelity to Rome and to the Pope.”
In addition, Fr. Julien Durodié, parish priest of Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile, commissioned by the Archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, to celebrate the departure Mass on Saturday morning in Saint-Sulpice, stated: “The impetus of this pilgrimage must not be reduced to the question of the liturgy alone. These young people have a thirst for formation. They seek to get out of doctrinal confusion.”
“If the organizers are overwhelmed by success, it is because the pilgrimage is not that of a traditional world curled up in itself. This is not the Catholic bourgeois pilgrimage. Far from ideologies, it attracts people who are rediscovering the Christian faith in all social settings.”
Jean-Marie Guénois adds, “For this pastor, who had to learn to celebrate according to the ancient rite, this ‘traditional’ world is little known. It arouses fear and there are wounds on both sides. But dialogue is not always obvious between priests. We find it difficult to address the theme of the liturgy.”
Concerning the Second Vatican Council, Fr. Durodié said: “I do not observe any questioning of it as such, but questions about its interpretation and application. These faithful are very attached to the Catholic Church, so I see no risk of rupture. But it’s the balance that’s hard to find.”
Participating in the pilgrimage is a matter of showing fidelity to the Pope, the author of Traditionis custodes, and the traditional Mass, so stated Osmane Caillemer. It is therefore understandable that dialogue on the theme of the liturgy is not evident between priests, and that the balance is difficult to find for the faithful, as Fr. Durodié recognizes.
A poll published in La Croix on May 25 reinforces the impression of disparate adherence to Tradition on the part of these young people attracted by the Tridentine Mass. Matthieu Lasserre asks: “Can one conclude from this that the ‘traditional’ Mass is truly being followed among young people? It arouses at least the sympathy of some of them.”
According to the survey carried out by La Croix among the participants of World Youth Day in Lisbon [scheduled for August 2023], 38% of them say they appreciate this liturgy: 8% say it is their favorite mass, 11% that they like it as much as the Mass in French, and 19% occasionally attend.”
Historian Paul Airiau notes that there is now a hybridization between “trad” and “non-trad” youth. And the French daily completes the thought: “Out of a dozen young people interviewed by La Croix, very few say they attend only the Tridentine Masses. The vast majority go to the ordinary Mass more or less regularly, for reasons of taste or geography.”
In La Croix on May 31, editor-in-chief Isabelle de Gaulmyn worked to reassure her clerical and aging readership. Under the title, “The Mass in Latin Will Not Save the Church,” she considered that the relative appeal of the traditional liturgy to young Catholics is not due to a Conciliar liturgy that is desacralized and not conducive to recollection, but to “the considerable anthropological rupture we have experienced since the 1950s, which has completely upset our relationship with the divine, the body, and institutions.”
Without the slightest hesitation, she notes that “the model of an ecclesial institution mobilized only around Sunday celebrations and the great sacraments of life (birth, marriage, death) no longer holds true in our secularized society.” In other words, France is now secularized, and the conciliar reform has nothing to do with it.
However, in the face of the enthusiasm of some young people for the traditional Mass, Isabelle de Gaulmyn is ready to make a concession in favor of a certain pluralism. “Without a doubt, we must accept other ways of praying, of gathering, of being together, of being engaged. Rather than getting lost in mutual and sterile accusations, we must show creativity – what Benedict XVI had theorized – and dare to be different, plural, without a single model, forgetting the labels of reactionary or progressive [Catholics].”
The Paris to Chartres Pilgrimage, the chaplaincy of which is assured by priests from the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), brought together 16,000 participants for Pentecost 2023. This exceptional growth was presented by the organizers as a resounding response to the motu proprio Traditionis custodes (July 16, 2021), which severely reduced the possibility of celebrating the Tridentine Mass.