As the Rev. Justin Wylie took the pulpit at the Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan last month, anger and anxiety emanated from the pews. The church is the only one in New York City to offer a daily traditional Latin Mass, but an archdiocesan panel had recommended that it be closed.
Father Wylie, a visiting priest, urged parishioners to be obedient but also to speak up, as traditionalist Catholics, for a place in the church, saying they should not be “turned out like squatters.”
It was an unusual moment of open criticism by a Roman Catholic priest of church policy in New York. And the reaction was swift. Within two weeks, Father Wylie was reprimanded by the New York Archdiocese, and in short order he was dismissed from his job at the Mission of the Holy See at the United Nations.
The episode has underscored the nervousness among conservative Catholics, who were embraced by Pope Benedict XVI, about where they stand under the less doctrinal papacy of Francis. Many liturgical traditionalists are closely watching the situation at Holy Innocents. Some of them simply prefer the old liturgy and music, and others want to roll back the changes of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.
They fear the punishment of Father Wylie may signal a return to a broader suppression of the 444-year-old Tridentine, or Latin, Mass after a period of encouragement under Benedict.
In the Latin Mass, the priest faces the altar instead of the pews and recites some blessings in a whisper. Women, who are not permitted to be altar servers, often veil their heads to pray.
Benedict in 2007 affirmed that all Catholics had the right to celebrate the Latin Mass whenever they wished, lifting restrictions that followed the Second Vatican Council. The next year, the Rev. Thomas Kallumady, then pastor of Holy Innocents, invited a lay group of traditionalists to begin offering one Latin Mass a week at the church, a historic Gothic structure on West 37th Street. The experiment was successful, and by 2010, the church was the only one in the city to offer the Latin Mass daily.
Nationally, about 440 churches celebrate the Latin Mass at least once a week, double the number that did so in 2007, according to Coalition Ecclesia Dei, an organization that promotes the Mass.
At Holy Innocents, the Latin Mass helped bring a renaissance, parishioners said, and transformed it into a beloved institution among a small but vocal community of traditionalist Catholics across the country. The church, which dates to 1869 and has about 300 registered parishioners, operates at a surplus, driven in part by generous collections and a thriving thrift shop in the basement, according to church documents. Attendance at Sunday Mass has nearly tripled since 2009, and the church recently paid $350,000 to restore an 1870s mural behind its high altar.
Faced with a shortage of priests and a declining number of parishioners, the New York Archdiocese — which includes the Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and seven counties north of New York City — has been determining which of its 368 parishes it will shutter through a planning process called Making All Things New. Though the initial recommendations of an archdiocesan advisory panel, released in late April, were meant to be confidential, Holy Innocents printed them in its church bulletin.
The parish was advised to consolidate with St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street, at St. Francis’ site. But the letter from the archdiocesan panel made no mention of what would happen to the Latin Mass when Holy Innocents closed.
Parishioners were angry and fearful when Father Wylie, a 40-year-old priest from South Africa who had been the lead human rights negotiator for the Holy See, arrived on May 18 to celebrate the Latin Mass, as he did monthly. Parishioners said he decided to address the plight of the congregation extemporaneously, hoping to calm them.
While he urged them to be obedient to any decree, Father Wylie also told them in his sermon that he believed the archdiocese had a responsibility to provide them a stable place to worship, according to a transcript made by a parishioner from a recording.
Some dioceses dedicate a priest and a parish for the celebration of the Latin Mass. But in New York the laity must organize traditional Masses themselves, seeking out volunteer priests “hither and thither as though we were seemingly still living in Reformation England or Cromwellian Ireland,” Father Wylie said, calling it an “injustice.”
“Isn’t it high time for the church to take pastoral responsibility also for these sheep?” he said.
Edward Hawkins, a parishioner, said he felt Father Wylie had intended to encourage traditionalists to stay loyal to the wider church. “He was very specific to say that we have to understand that choices have to be made, but don’t be afraid to ask for care,” Mr. Hawkins said. “Where is the charity for this priest?”
Posted online, Father Wylie’s words ricocheted through the traditionalist community. Then someone sent the New York Archdiocese a link to an Internet radio program on which the host read the transcript aloud.
On May 30, Bishop-elect John O’Hara of New York, who is overseeing the parish consolidation process, sent Father Wylie a stern reprimand for criticizing the archdiocese, with copies to Father Wylie’s superior at the Vatican Embassy in New York, Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt; Father Wylie’s archbishop in Johannesburg; and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, said a spokesman for the diocese, Joseph Zwilling.
“It reminded the father that he is a visiting priest, that we need priests who don’t criticize or attack the local diocese, that we need priests who work to build up the church rather than try to bring disunity,” Mr. Zwilling said, adding that Father Wylie should have shared his concerns with the archdiocese in private.
The letter also threatened to revoke Father Wylie’s ability to celebrate Mass in New York, a rare punishment, according to a person who had seen the letter but spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from church officials. Mr. Zwilling said he did not know whether the letter went that far.
Archbishop Chullikatt dismissed Father Wylie after receiving the letter in early June and told him he should immediately cease all public appearances in New York. Archbishop Buti Tlhagale in Johannesburg is now recalling him to South Africa.
Regarding the Latin Mass, Mr. Zwilling said that lay groups in the diocese were welcome to organize such Masses but that the diocese did not think a special parish needed to be assigned. He said it was premature to discuss what would happen to Holy Innocents until Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, made the final decisions on church closings in September.
The archdiocesan priest who officiated at the Latin Mass at Holy Innocents on a recent Sunday asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
Father Wylie, reached by email, said, “I am confident of having tried faithfully at all times to serve the best interests of the Archdiocese of New York.”