Fr. Robert Skeris, chaplain to the Tridentine community in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, reads the epistle during celebration of the Latin Mass on April 15 at St. Stanislaus Church, Milwaukee. On July 7, Pope Benedict XVI issued a letter calling for greater use of the Tridentine Mass. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)
CNS: Pope makes access to Tridentine Mass easier. Read story.
CNS: Unofficial translation of papal text. Read story.
Interested? Mass is said in Latin every Sunday, 10 a.m., at St. Stanislaus Church, 524 W. Historic Mitchell St., Milwaukee. Further information about the Mass and the Tridentine community in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is available here.
PDF download: 20 questions on the pope's apostolic letter. Download here.
MILWAUKEE — Nearly three months before Pope Benedict XVI issued his “motu proprio” on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan touched upon the importance of unity when he welcomed the Tridentine community to its new home — St. Stanislaus Parish on Milwaukee’s south side.
“We’re all one — one in our faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; one holy, catholic, apostolic, Catholic faith, and one in unity with our Holy Father,” he said April 15.
Mass in the Tridentine Rite had been said in Mater Christi Chapel at the Cousins Center from 1985-1995. For the last 12 years, the community worshipped at St. Mary Help of Christians, but the move to St. Stanislaus, with a capacity of 800, was necessitated by the closing of the West Allis parish in February of this year.
In an interview with your Catholic Herald in April, Fr. Robert Skeris, who serves as chaplain to the Tridentine community and says the Latin Mass at St. Stanislaus, noted that the historic church is a fitting location for the Mass.
“It was left as (Msgr. Raymond) Punda had it in 1968,” Fr. Skeris said. “What’s there is what it was.”
In the interview, as well in his sermon at the April 15 Mass, Fr. Skeris touched upon a point mentioned in Pope Benedict’s letter.
“Our long-range goal is to become a parish,” the priest said.
Joan Patzer, who was 10 years old when the liturgical changes approved by the bishops of the Second Vatican Council began to be instituted, echoed Fr. Skeris’ thoughts.
“We’re grateful to the archbishop in letting us come here,” she said. “We look forward to it becoming an oratory and our own Tridentine parish.”
Patzer began attending the Tridentine Mass in 1970 when it was said at the then-St. Lawrence Church on the south side. Fr. Skeris directed the choir of which Patzer was a member. Worshipping in the Tridentine Rite is “just how you’re supposed to feel at Mass,” she said.
“This Mass enables me to actively participate with my whole heart and soul while silently praying from my missal along with following the words and actions of the priest; and since I am a member of the choir, I am privileged to praise God through Gregorian chant, polyphony and hymns,” Patzer wrote in a follow-up e-mail.
For those who attend the Tridentine Mass, like the Goldrings, Jeff, 39, Cheryl, 37, and their five children, St. Stanislaus is not their neighborhood church. They live in Franklin and are members of St. John the Evangelist, Greenfield, where their children attend school. The couple, according to Cheryl, “wanted an even more traditional Mass” and likes the Trindentine community to which they have belonged for more than 18 months.
“There are more young people (coming to this Mass), and the older people are welcoming them,” said Cheryl. “They are very helpful. They explain things we don’t understand.”
For Erika Zignego, a 41-year-old convert to Catholicism, the trip from the Holy Hill area to the Tridentine Mass with her husband and their seven children — two of whom are servers — is worthwhile.
“It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. Very reverent, very focused on the faith,” she said.
According to its pastor, Franciscan Fr. Anthony Cirignani, St. Stanislaus Parish has 80 families, most of whom are elderly. The presence of the Tridentine community is a twofold help to the church.
“It generates $5,000 to $6,000 quarterly,” he said, “and we are happy that it is used for sacred use.”
