Some of you know that I went to Quito, Ecuador, this past week to celebrate a Nuptial Mass for one of our former parishioners, Matthew Balkey (a singer in our Viri Galilei group) now married to Maria de los Angeles Sanchez Lopez. The wedding was in the Jesuit church of La Compañia de Jesús. The churches of Quito are each amazingly beautiful, and La Compañia is certainly an amazing example of Spanish colonial baroque. It is a feast for the eyes and the soul. The Traditional Mass that I celebrated was the first such Mass celebrated in that church since the imposition of the Novus Ordo in 1970. This is significant in so many ways, but for me it was so meaningful to celebrate the Mass for which this church was built.
I was struck by the genuine piety of the Ecuadorian people. Even at daily Masses in these splendid churches there were often 100 people there. The altar rails are intact in every church, even though the Masses are at a table altar facing the people. But the same problems are there as well that afflict the rest of the Catholic world. The Mass is often celebrated sloppily or perfunctorily. The celebrant often grandstands and is constantly talking. The music is typical sentimental praise songs. This is depressing when one thinks of the glorious Church music that South America produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Novus Ordo is out of synch with the beauty and spirit of these beautiful churches.
In the town of Ibarra we visited one parish church as Mass was ending. They had their version of a coffee hour after Mass. A young priest appeared in a cassock. People flocked around him, and by the expression on his face it was obvious that he loved being a priest and that he loved people. He is the future.
Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla
