Conference Teaching Priests the Latin Mass Concludes

The four-day residential training conference, which was organised by the Latin Mass Society (LMS), was held at Merton College in Oxford, England.

LONDON (The Catholic Herald) - Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham received a standing ovation when he addressed priests gathered at Oxford last week to learn the traditional Latin Mass.

The four-day residential training conference, which was organised by the Latin Mass Society (LMS), was held at Merton College.

It was the second such annual event and attracted 60 priests, up from 47 last year.

At the conference Lauds, Mass and Vespers were celebrated daily according to the 1962 Missal, which was the text used by the Church before the changes introduced after the Second Vatican Council.

It culminated with Pontifical Vespers, after which Bishop McMahon drew applause for saying he supported Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, and the Pope's liturgical renewal.

He said the two forms of the Roman Rite should enrich each other in line with the Holy Father's wish, and joked that perhaps the new had more to learn from the old.

The bishop, dressed in a purple ferraiuolo, received a standing ovation from the priests, who spontaneously sang "Faith of Our Fathers" and "God Bless Our Pope" after his comments.

The conference included training sessions for complete beginners as well as for those with some knowledge of the old Mass. It featured training in the Low Mass, the Missa Cantata and Solemn Mass, singing the Mass and training in all the traditional sacraments from baptism to funerals, and also Vespers and Benediction and the Breviary, Daily Mass, Lauds and Vespers.

Before the bishop's speech Julian Chadwick, chairman of the Latin Mass Society, told the gathered clerics that the Second Vatican Council had been misinterpreted as a belief that the liturgy did not matter, and he said that bad liturgy made for bad Catholics.

He said: "The LMS's aim is to ensure that the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite is freely available in all the dioceses. To this end we will step up our training of priests, seminarians, choirs and servers. "We will liaise closely with the bishops and seminary rectors to ensure that all who wish to learn and worship in the traditional rite are able to do so."

Bishop McMahon was one of two bishops who accepted the invitation to attend. Auxiliary Bishop David McGough of Birmingham was also planning to go but was prevented by his sister's death.

Among the priests there were representatives from Africa, Australia and the United States. There were four monks from Belmont in North Carolina.

Among those in attendance were five of the country's most popular priestly bloggers - Fr Ray Blake, Fr Tim Finigan, Fr Paul Harrison, Fr John Boyle and Fr Sean Finnegan.

Fr Blake, parish priest at St Mary Magdalen, Brighton, said it was "one of the most enjoyable weeks in my 24 years of priesthood", adding that he did "not normally enjoy clerical gatherings".

Fr Finigan, parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen, Kent, said Bishop McMahon's speech was "warm, humorous, inspiring and - most significantly - a genuine, positive, generous affirmation of all that the conference was trying to achieve."

He added: "What I think Bishop McMahon's heartwarming speech did most of all was to convey to those gathered that he was not simply there as a token prelate but that he really enjoyed taking part actively, that he supported our work, and that he was prepared to crack some jokes that he knew we would enjoy, being entirely on our wavelength and, as they say, reading from the same page.

"Bishop McMahon has certainly won the hearts of the priests who came to Merton. All of a sudden, there is someone that many priests loyal to Pope Benedict will be watching closely and including in their mementos at the Mass."

The Pope's Motu Proprio, issued last year, granted priests greater freedom to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass, otherwise known as the Tridentine rite. It allowed priests to celebrate the Mass without the permission of their bishop.