Earlier this month I participated in a round table discussion on the Veritatis Vox YouTube channel, run by Matt Gaspers. The topic of discussion was the legacy of Vatican II on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Council's close this year. It was a very solid discussion, very balanced, and lots of great insights from all the participants. Here is the link if anyone wants to check it out.
Towards the end of the discussion, we got to talking about the engagement of Gen Z with Catholic Traditionalism. It is generally agreed that interest in Catholic tradition is surging among younger Catholics. This is due in part to the expansion of traditionalism within the Church in particular, as well aso Gen Z trending more conservative in general. The demographics of TLM attendees continue to skew younger. At an Extraordinary Form liturgy I recently attended at the St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit (ICKSP), probably 70% of those in attendance were Gen Z.
While this is certainly good news, it does raise an interesting question: what, exactly, is drawing them, and how strong is their attachment to the old liturgy? In our discussion, Mr. Nicholas Cavazos, speaking from the perspective of the SSPX—and himself the only Gen Z of the group—opined that Gen Z's interest in the old Mass can be attributed to aesthetics. They are drawn to the beauty and reverence of the old Mass because it speaks to them on an emotional level. From Mr. Cavazos' perspective, it is good they are coming, but the aesthetical motive is also a matter of concern. The youth are engaged, but not educated; they love the Traditional Latin Mass, but lack the arguments to know why they ought to love it (rather than speak for him, if you want to hear Nick's observations, they begin at 1:03:32 in the video and go on from there. I recommend watching; it was an interesting discussion).
As many of you know, I have spent a lot of time working with Catholic youth in my life. I don't know a lot of things, but one thing I certainly do know is how to read the spiritual and intellectual barometer of Catholic young people. And I entirely agree with Cavazos on his observation: the youth of today are, by and large, drawn to the Traditional Mass because of its aesthetics. In 2024, I helped put together the book The Latin Mass and the Youth: Young Catholics Speak About the Mass of Ages. I collected over forty essays from young Catholics explaining why they love the Traditional Latin Mass. From reading these essays, it seemed clear to me that their love for the old Mass is strongly grounded in what I would call aesthetics—the superior music, use of Latin, elevated ritual, potent symbolism, etc.—all of which work together to overwhelm the senses with the conviction that something holy is happening here. They fell in love with the traditional Mass on in experiential manner.
This is entirely different than how I discovered the old Mass. I became Traditionalist by reading books by Michael Davies, Klaus Gamber, and Ralph Wiltgen. I waded through essays by Martin Mosebach, and John Vennari. I learned about traditional liturgical forms from New Liturgical Movement and was entertained reading Ryan Grant argue with trailer-park Sedes. In college I studied Vatican II's conciliar daybooks (records of the daily interventions of the bishops at the Council), read the Ottaviani Intervention, and eagerly devoured The Ratzinger Report to understand Joseph Ratzinger's critique of the post-Conciliar world. I meticulously studied the texts of the traditional liturgy for two years before I ever had the occasion to attend one (as this was all pre-Summorum pontificum). I spent countless hours reading about pro multis, Bugnini, the Third Secret of Fatima, and every conceivable topic I thought might be germane to situation in the modern Church.
The point being, my adoption of Traditionalism was heavily academic, grounded in "the arguments." In fact, it was so academic that when I finally attended my first Traditional Latin Mass, there was a bit of cognitive dissonance as I suddenly realized that the study of the Mass is profoundly different from the experience of it.
Today's young Catholics who grew up in the post-Summorum era did not need these experiences. For me, pre-Summorum, the Latin Mass was a very deliberate choice, often attended only at great personal sacrifice. For them, post-Summorum, Latin Masses were vastly more plentiful, often just a choice of driving to one side of town than the other or attending Mass at one time slot over another. For many young people, their exposure to the TLM began rather routinely, often from their normie parents just looking for a more reverent liturgy without any "arguments" or ideological rationale beyond simple aesthetics.
The question then becomes whether this state of affairs is good?
Here Nick Cavazos and I diverge, for where he sees Gen Z's aesthetic apprecitation for the old Mass as a vulnerability, I see it as progress. When The Latin Mass and the Youth was released, people commented to me about how non-ideological the book's essays were—the young people discussing the old Mass were not making arguments so much as describing an affection grounded in their own experience. From my perspective, this represents true progress. The entire reason I advocate for the old Mass on the plane of reason is precisely because I believe it has a superior ability to touch men on the plane of affection; in other words, that it provides a superior experience of worship. This does not mean the arguments don't matter; I think the arguments have their place, and for many of us the doorway to the old Mass was through the arguments. But I think the doorway of aesthetics is superior, and many people throughout history have become devoted to the old Mass in just this way. It is, after all, better to love the old Mass because one recognizes it's importance even if one cannot articulate why. This is why the Traditional Latin Mass has such a broad appeal, even to unlikely populations such as strippers and the homeless. I argue for the old Mass, yes, but in the service of love; I argue for it that more may experience it and love it even as I do. But once it is loved, the arguments are not as important, just as it is a higher thing to love someone than to be able to explain why we love them.
This is entirely different than how I discovered the old Mass. I became Traditionalist by reading books by Michael Davies, Klaus Gamber, and Ralph Wiltgen. I waded through essays by Martin Mosebach, and John Vennari. I learned about traditional liturgical forms from New Liturgical Movement and was entertained reading Ryan Grant argue with trailer-park Sedes. In college I studied Vatican II's conciliar daybooks (records of the daily interventions of the bishops at the Council), read the Ottaviani Intervention, and eagerly devoured The Ratzinger Report to understand Joseph Ratzinger's critique of the post-Conciliar world. I meticulously studied the texts of the traditional liturgy for two years before I ever had the occasion to attend one (as this was all pre-Summorum pontificum). I spent countless hours reading about pro multis, Bugnini, the Third Secret of Fatima, and every conceivable topic I thought might be germane to situation in the modern Church.
The point being, my adoption of Traditionalism was heavily academic, grounded in "the arguments." In fact, it was so academic that when I finally attended my first Traditional Latin Mass, there was a bit of cognitive dissonance as I suddenly realized that the study of the Mass is profoundly different from the experience of it.
Today's young Catholics who grew up in the post-Summorum era did not need these experiences. For me, pre-Summorum, the Latin Mass was a very deliberate choice, often attended only at great personal sacrifice. For them, post-Summorum, Latin Masses were vastly more plentiful, often just a choice of driving to one side of town than the other or attending Mass at one time slot over another. For many young people, their exposure to the TLM began rather routinely, often from their normie parents just looking for a more reverent liturgy without any "arguments" or ideological rationale beyond simple aesthetics.
The question then becomes whether this state of affairs is good?
Here Nick Cavazos and I diverge, for where he sees Gen Z's aesthetic apprecitation for the old Mass as a vulnerability, I see it as progress. When The Latin Mass and the Youth was released, people commented to me about how non-ideological the book's essays were—the young people discussing the old Mass were not making arguments so much as describing an affection grounded in their own experience. From my perspective, this represents true progress. The entire reason I advocate for the old Mass on the plane of reason is precisely because I believe it has a superior ability to touch men on the plane of affection; in other words, that it provides a superior experience of worship. This does not mean the arguments don't matter; I think the arguments have their place, and for many of us the doorway to the old Mass was through the arguments. But I think the doorway of aesthetics is superior, and many people throughout history have become devoted to the old Mass in just this way. It is, after all, better to love the old Mass because one recognizes it's importance even if one cannot articulate why. This is why the Traditional Latin Mass has such a broad appeal, even to unlikely populations such as strippers and the homeless. I argue for the old Mass, yes, but in the service of love; I argue for it that more may experience it and love it even as I do. But once it is loved, the arguments are not as important, just as it is a higher thing to love someone than to be able to explain why we love them.
There is a second reason why I am pleased with Gen Z's aesthetic appreciation for the old Mass, which is simply that it signifies that tradition is being restored. A long time ago I wrote about the different stages tradition goes through as it grows, matures, and dies. It's called "The Three Stages of Tradition" (April, 2008); it's an older post, but it checks out and you should definitely take a look at it if you have time. In that post I opined that tradition is most vibrant when it is reflexive, implicit, and unthinking—when it is "simply what we've always done." No extra effort is needed to explain nor defend it; it is simply part of our social fabric. In fact, it is so integral to our lives that we may not even perceive it as a tradition at all. Tradition, at the height of its brilliance, is seldom defended by argumentation, just as no one today makes apologetics for the custom of shaking hands because it's simply what we do. In my 2008 article I wrote:
So is our case hopeless? No, but it is a far bigger task than we understand. We are struggling and praying and fighting just to do things right. But, once we start doing them right, we'll have to do them that way for a long time. How long? So long that they are passed on to our children unthinkingly, and from them to our grandchildren in a similar way; until our Tradition becomes "simply" who we are; until people do not see us as Traditional Catholics anymore but just Catholics; until so much time has elapsed that nobody can imagine a time when we would have done otherwise.
I personally do not think it is a step up if Gen Z traditionalists have to become educated in all of the same stuff I did. In fact, I wish I could have come to the Latin Mass the way they have. From my perspective, it would have been a more wholesome, organic experience—something much more akin to how my ancestors would have encountered it.
Nevertheless, I am thankful for the path the good Lord has led me down, and while I don't think Gen Z needs to become versed in all the arguments, I certainly do agree that one should take care to nourish and protect one's love of the Latin Mass, and I think this is what Mr. Cavazos was ultimately getting at. There is a fear that if Gen Z does not "know the arguments" then they will be vulnerable—vulnerable to someone who does have arguments; vulnerable to the next Lofton or Lewis or whoever comes crawling out of the woodwork. And I definitely do not want our young people to be vulnerable. But at the same time, from reading the essays in The Latin Mass and the Youth, it seems clear to me that the devotion of Gen Z, even if it began as aesthetic, is far more than that. It might have a strong aesthetic component, but it is not merely aesthetic. What took root in the garden of aesthetics has blossomed into a fully mature tree of devotion, and the tender fruit thereof will not easily be plucked away with argumentation—even the implementation of the post-Conciliar reform took raw force, because the rank and file did not buy the arguments that the new Mass was "better". Were someone to assail these Gen Z devotees with arguments trying to prove that the local Boomer Novus Ordo is equivalent to the Traditional Latin Mass, I am fairly certain the Gen Z'er would respond with a mixture of laughter and derision at the suggestion that he should deny the plain evidence of his senses for what is, at best, an abstract argument. He will not be easily convinced that he should exchange his bread for a stone, especially after he has tasted of its warmth and sweetness.
Nevertheless, I am thankful for the path the good Lord has led me down, and while I don't think Gen Z needs to become versed in all the arguments, I certainly do agree that one should take care to nourish and protect one's love of the Latin Mass, and I think this is what Mr. Cavazos was ultimately getting at. There is a fear that if Gen Z does not "know the arguments" then they will be vulnerable—vulnerable to someone who does have arguments; vulnerable to the next Lofton or Lewis or whoever comes crawling out of the woodwork. And I definitely do not want our young people to be vulnerable. But at the same time, from reading the essays in The Latin Mass and the Youth, it seems clear to me that the devotion of Gen Z, even if it began as aesthetic, is far more than that. It might have a strong aesthetic component, but it is not merely aesthetic. What took root in the garden of aesthetics has blossomed into a fully mature tree of devotion, and the tender fruit thereof will not easily be plucked away with argumentation—even the implementation of the post-Conciliar reform took raw force, because the rank and file did not buy the arguments that the new Mass was "better". Were someone to assail these Gen Z devotees with arguments trying to prove that the local Boomer Novus Ordo is equivalent to the Traditional Latin Mass, I am fairly certain the Gen Z'er would respond with a mixture of laughter and derision at the suggestion that he should deny the plain evidence of his senses for what is, at best, an abstract argument. He will not be easily convinced that he should exchange his bread for a stone, especially after he has tasted of its warmth and sweetness.
At any rate, it is wonderful that so many young Catholics are discovering the Traditional Latin Mass, despite the renewed persecution ushered in by our late pontiff. It is my prayer that their love will only be deepened, whether from an affection born of aesthetics or from a rational mastery of the arguments in its favor.
Click here if you'd like to get a copy of The Latin Mass and the Youth: Young Catholics Speak About the Mass of Ages and read first hand what young people are saying about the Traditional Latin Mass.
If you want to give Nick Cavazos a follow, you can find him on Instagram and on YouTube @theTraditionalThomist.
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