Providence Auxiliary Bishop Robert McManus, who has been appointed the next bishop of Worcester, is shown above celebrating the Tridentine Mass in 1999 at Holy Name Church in Providence.

Will his arrival in Worcester bring hope for a wider application of the Indult in Central Massachusetts?

The Latin Mass tradition at Holy Name in Providence was spotlighted this past weekend in the Providence Journal (free registration required):

No matter what one's position is on the old Tridentine Mass, one thing is clear: the Mass that many Catholics thought had gone out of existence in the wake of Vatican II has been back, and back for a long time, at Holy Name of Jesus Church on Camp Street on the city's East Side.

"Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam . . . . I will go to the altar of God. The God of my gladness and joy."

While it's true that the Tridentine rite has begun to fade from Catholics' collective memory -- since most younger Catholics weren't even born yet when the rite was replaced -- a small but growing cadre of believers has come on the scene convinced that the Latin Mass is not only good for their own souls, but that it can help others as well.
They were among the more than 500 people who turned out last week for a special celebration of the Latin Mass at Holy Name. Though the traditional rite has been celebrated every Sunday at 11 a.m. for all of the last 10 years, parishioners pulled out all stops for this celebration since it marked the 10th anniversary of the official return of the Tridentine Mass to Rhode Island.

There were the bells and the incense, of course, and the worshipers kneeling at the altar rail to receive communion. But more than that, this was to a liturgy unlike any other celebrated in Rhode Island in at last 40 years: a Pontifical Solemn Mass at the Faldstool, celebrated by Bishop James C. Timlin, the recently retired bishop of Scranton, Pa., and a longtime supporter of the Latin Mass.