
Jessica Harvey used to worship in a church with stained glass and a soaring ceiling. The Catholic parish gave Harvey and her family a sense of community as they settled into their new hometown in Virginia. But a year later, they started worshipping at a Catholic school four miles away, in a cramped space that used to double as a ballet studio and storage room. Instead of stained glass, colored images cover the windows. Exposed ductwork hangs overhead. Why the downgrade' Harvey's parish was forced to relocate its traditional Latin Mass, an ancient version of the Catholic liturgy that has set off one of the fiercest controversies in modern Catholicism. In 2021, Pope Francis restricted access to the old rite and required that priests get special permission to celebrate it. The parishes that are still allowed to offer the traditional Mass can't advertise it in their bulletin. And many Latin Mass devotees, like Harvey, no longer worship in their churches, which are largely reserved for...
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