Generational shift over worship roils some Twin Cities Catholic congregations

One Sunday, facing the people. The next, facing the altar.

The Rev. Andrew Brinkman has started alternating how he celebrates Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the St. Paul Catholic church where parishioners are so divided over changes that some held a public protest late last year.

It's an olive branch of sorts to the longtime parishioners who said Brinkman's traditional practices — facing the altar, including Latin chants and encouraging women to wear veils during Mass — left them feeling unwelcome at Minnesota's first Mexican parish.

These parishioners also clashed with Brinkman, who joined the church six years ago and became pastor in 2018, over holding Aztec dancing and scholarship ceremonies in the worship space and including personal eulogies in funeral Masses.

Many of the young immigrant families who have joined Our Lady more recently, however, said they are inspired and energized by Brinkman's traditionalist approach.

"My culture? I'm proud to be Mexican," said Gloria Moreno during a listening session with Archbishop Bernard Hebdaabout the parish's divide. "But here in a church I come to learn about my faith."

The heated debate at Our Lady is unique, driven by complicated generational and cultural factors. But it's part of a growing polarization about what it means to be Catholic.

Catholic congregations across the Twin Cities are confronting increasingly differing views about the Latin Mass, whether a worship space should be used for community events and even wearing masks and getting COVID-19 vaccines. Several churches have also struggled with dissension in their congregations after a change in priests.

Toward the traditional

The discord is driven in part by a generational shift, said Massimo Faggioli, a former theology professor at the University of St. Thomas who now teaches at Pennsylvania's Villanova University.

"The fact that younger priests tend to be more traditional or more conservative than the ones who are now 60 or 70 is a global trend. In the United States, it's much more extreme," said Faggioli. "It is very hard to imagine what will happen to liberal Catholicism in this country, because it's not producing a new generation of clergy that can sustain it."

Many young priests are embracing a return to forms of worship that pre-date the Second Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s, he said. These new traditionalists are alienating some older church members accustomed to priests who welcomed the reforms and gave lay members a greater role in shaping their parish.

At the same time, many worshipers find a strong connection to the ancient rites.

"For some, including some young Catholics, there's this appeal that comes with feeling like, 'Wow, maybe church should feel different,'" said sociologist Tricia Bruce, an affiliate of the University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society. "There's something really different about veiling and about bringing in Latin, a language that is not spoken anywhere anymore. And it feels special."

Pope Francis, who has spoken often about the increasing divide among Catholics as a "disease," limited the use of the Latin Mass last summer, saying it was being "exploited to widen the gaps." The Vatican went further in December, releasing a document that clarified Latin Mass restrictions and urged seminary teachers to give "an understanding and experience of the richness of the liturgical reform called for by the Second Vatican Council."

Modern Mass, said in the local language, has been the norm for most of the world's Catholics — including the estimated 1 million in Minnesota — for more than half a century. However, support for the old Latin Mass has not only endured, but has become a rallying point for some ultra-conservative Catholics. At least seven Twin Cities churches have regular Latin Masses. Others often include Latin portions.

Hebda created a task force last July to determine whether Latin Masses are undermining the unity in Twin Cities Catholic churches. He has yet to release recommendations, but he issued a letter to clergy stipulating that "no new public liturgical celebration" of the Latin Mass should be introduced without his written permission.

Mourning a loss

Less dramatic changes in liturgy have also caused rifts.

At Guardian Angels Catholic Community in Oakdale, some of the modifications introduced this summer by a new priest were unsettling to churchgoers including Mike Hansel, a longtime parishioner and former trustee.

"It's hard to go to Mass there," Hansel said. "You come away not fed. You come away not whole. You come away angry, or disappointed. There's lots of emotions flying."

Instead of saying "for us and our salvation" during the creed as the congregation used to, the Rev. Joseph Connelly reverted to the traditional, non-inclusive language: "for us men and our salvation." Connelly also included Latin chants during Advent and told church volunteers the worship space could no longer be used for fundraisers that had been held there for decades.

In an e-mail, Connelly said he was following church law requiring a sanctuary be used only for things that promote "piety, worship, or religion," and that he was using the translation of the Nicene Creed "approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and by Rome."

"It's what unites Catholics throughout the English-speaking world," he said. "I do understand that change is difficult for some and embraced by others."

The Rev. Michael Tix, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis' vicar for clergy and parish services, said Connelly "has the full support of the Archbishop," and noted that "not even the Archbishop has the freedom to change the language of the Creed for Mass. The directives on the use of sacred space are similarly governed by the universal law of the Church and are both clear and reasonable."

Sociologist Brice said the divisions Catholics are experiencing are connected to wider cultural polarization.

"There's a pushback, and a feeling of, 'We don't have to just go with the winds of the culture like a weather vane. We are the Catholic Church,' " she said. "But then that has consequences and that will welcome some and push others out."

For now, Hansel is still on the rolls at Guardian Angels. But he's not sure what's next. He's feeling what he called "ambiguous loss" over what had been his spiritual home for decades.

"The church is still there, but it isn't. It's not the same," he said.