One Rite, Two Forms: The Liturgical Life of St. John Cantius

Interview with Fr. Dennis Kolinski, S.J.C., an associate pastor of St. John Cantius Catholic Church in Chicago, Illinois, courtesy of the Church Music Association of America:

"Bi-ritual” is what these parishes have been called. Here the 1962 Missal and the 1970 Missal live side by side, precisely as Pope Benedict XVI envisions in Summorum Pontificum, the Moto Proprio liberalizing the use of the 1962 Missal. But the term bi-ritual is now problematic. The Motu Proprio clarifies a long-standing issue: there are not two rites but one rite with two forms.

Can the two forms live coexist in peace, even in the same parish? The Pope writes: “the fear was expressed in discussions about the awaited Motu Proprio, that the possibility of a wider use of the 1962 Missal would lead to disarray or even divisions within parish communities. This fear also strikes me as quite unfounded.”

The first attempts at two-form parishes came about in response to John Paul II’s first round of liberalization of the Missal of 1962, and they have been working their way toward the cultivation of serious scholas and an active liturgical life in both the new and old forms of the Roman Rite.

No parish in America has taken this model as far as St. John Cantius in Chicago, Illinois. Their Sunday Mass schedule is itself the evidence:

6:30 a.m.—Matins (Office of Readings) & Lauds (Morning Prayer)
7:30 a.m.—Tridentine Low Mass (Latin)
9:00 a.m.—Missa Normativa (1970 Missal in English)
11:00 a.m.—Missa Normativa (1970 Missal in Latin)
12:30 p.m.—Tridentine High Mass (Latin)
2:00 p.m.—Rosary, Solemn Vespers (Evening Prayer), Exposition and Benediction
6:00 p.m.—Compline (Night Prayer)

This model is not only on display on Sunday. Every weekday includes Mass in the old and new forms, plus regular praying of the Divine Office.

Read the interview!