Catharina Oxoniensis and I made for the indult in Syracuse on Sunday. While we prefer to attend Mary, Mother of God SSPX chapel, which is right across the street from St. Stephen, King of Hungary, I wanted to make a confession, and though I think that there is a strong counterfactual type argument to be made for the validity of confessions heard by SSPX priests, I don’t see the need to invoke it when there’s a sure thing across the street. (For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of driving down North Geddes Street in Syracuse, the SSPX chapel and the church of the Sunday indult are literally right across the street from each other.)

So by dint of being present at St. Stephen’s this Sunday, we heard the news announced by Msgr. Peter Gleba from the pulpit before the Mass: St. Stephen’s is one of the three parishes which Bishop James M. Moynihan has ordered closed, effective as of 16 August 2007 (at least in the case of St. Stephen’s). Of course, Bishop Moynihan didn’t use that sort of forceful language in his letter to Msgr. Gleba, which letter Gleba read to us; instead, it was full of endless effeminate talk about crossing bridges and facing new challenges. (Why can’t the man call a spade a spade? “There are no more priests and no more people, so we’re closing up shop.”)

As of when Msgr. Gleba spoke to us on Sunday morning, another home for the indult in Syracuse had not yet been found. Msgr. Gleba mentioned several options which were under consideration. He seemed to indicate – a baby started to scream at this point and I couldn’t quite make out what he said – that the bishop had turned down a request for moving the indult to some other particular place. Msgr. Gleba also explained why it couldn’t be moved to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which is nearby: something to do with the tight schedule of Masses on Sundays and something about devotions during the afternoon during some months. Msgr. Gleba seems like a nice, sincere man, but those sounded like phoney baloney reasons to me: not that they were made up reasons, just that they were the kind of reasons which indicated that no one at the Basilica (or, at least, the bishop) was willing to lift a finger to accomodate the old Mass. (On the other hand, Msgr. Gleba is the rector of the Basilica, so maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Indults – by which I mean weekly Masses which have no true parish home, unlike FSSP or Institute arrangements – are difficult things. I imagine that many bishops think of them as the ugly step-children, nominally under their care and even at times visibly so, but not really a source of pride, certainly not a source of revenue, and hopefully temporary arrangements which would have gone away if only Cardinal Martini had been elected pope.

The indult in Syracuse – this is my humble estimate of it, which does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other members in this Society – is particulary beset by the maladies of which the indult is susceptible. I would identify two factors: the music is horrible (when there is music) and the priests, though well-meaning, are old and difficult to understand – they all have Polish as their native language, as far as I can tell.

Why should the music be a problem? After all, the indult in Syracuse has a steady number of parishioners – as far as I can tell – and they seem dedicated, loyal, and the young ones among them appear to be having children. These are all great things, but in terms of attracting first time visitors to come back, I think that beautiful music makes a big difference. As some wise person has said, the old rite low Mass is a crash course in the contemplative theology of the Church. It can be a beautiful thing, in complete silence, once one has gone down the road aways, but at first, it can be a turn off. If you can come to an old Mass and be enveloped in the centuries’ old chant, even if you have no idea what’s going on at the altar and are failing miserably in following the progress of things in the worn, red missalette, you can come away with a positive aesthetic impression which should compare favorably to the “Here I am, Lord” music (or worse) at the local Novus parish.

With only indult-level existence, if you will, you have to be expectionally blessed to put together, from the handful with which you start, a good musical package.

One thing St. Stephen’s has going for it is the time on Sunday when the Mass is said, 10:30AM. This is a normal, sane Mass time – as opposed to 5AM or 4:30PM or some such thing. But one thing that they don’t have in their favor is the age and English speaking competence of their priests. I don’t know their names, but they all seem elderly and very Polish. The shorter man is fiery and a sassy confessor, which is great, but I just can’t make him out from the pulpit. Well, I can, if I really try, but for my wife, who is not a native speaker, the task is very, very difficult.

If an indult is going to have any chance of thriving in the long term, it needs, I think, some good preachers. The indult in Detroit, for example, has a nice set-up: they announce the schedule of the celebrating priests weeks in advance and the men they bring in, though often non-native speakers, are not elderly and are extremely competent speakers.

The thought about discontinuity in preachers and celebrants bring us to what I think is the greatest difficulty of an indult arrangment: it lacks a parish life. It’s not a place where Latin Mass goers can have recourse throughout the week. The building is theirs only on Sunday mornings or afternoons. How many people are married in indult parishes? How many are buried from them? Even for baptisms one might be inclined to go elsewhere, either back home, to one’s parents’ place, or to an FSSP parish (or some such thing) which is too far for travel every Sunday.