After SSPX schism, some Catholics urge greater access to the older Latin Mass

(RNS) — Every week, Bill Guelker, 78, travels 30 miles each way to attend an older Latin Mass celebrated in the woods by a retired priest.

Before “Traditionis custodes,” the 2021 guidance from Pope Francis that restricted the older liturgy, Guelker was attending Little Flower parish in St. Louis, Missouri, but then that Mass was canceled, he said.

For Guelker, staying put was not an option after Little Flower switched to the more contemporary English-language liturgy, approved in the wake of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, which aimed to modernize the church .

“I accept that it’s a valid Mass, but it’s a pathetic Mass,” said Guelker, who said he attends the older Latin Mass not because of nostalgia, but because the text is “much better and much more helpful in understanding the sacraments.”

Guelker is one of over a million U.S. Catholics who attend the older Latin Mass every week, according to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey that found 2% of U.S. Catholics attend the liturgy, sometimes known as the traditional Latin Mass, weekly.

Catholics like Guelker surmount considerable obstacles and disapproval from the Catholic hierarchy to attend the older Latin Mass, often…