Twenty-eight years after the former St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, one of three churches in this Northumberland County borough that closed their doors after falling victim to the consolidation by the Harrisburg Catholic Diocese, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has returned. 

The homecoming in many ways is bittersweet.

If it wasn’t for the Elysburg monastery—no longer in the Catholic hands of the papally-enclosed Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph Discalced Carmelite nuns—St. Peter’s, a once historic Italian/Tyrolean parish would still be inactive. The nuns who lived within the 63-year-old cloister – an infant in monastic years – moved to a newer, more sequestered venue in Fairfield, Adams County.

Nearly three generations of Latin Rite baptized Catholics know of no other Mass than the present-day Novus Ordo liturgy, also known as Pope Paul VI’s Mass, which was the result of the Second Vatican Council.  However, that Mass is not being celebrated at St. Peter’s – rather it is the Traditional Latin Mass.

Over the last twenty-eight years, old St. Peter’s has served as additional storage space and for various social functions for Divine Redeemer Church that was known as Mother of Consolation prior to the diocese’s 1995 incorporation that also included St. John the Baptist and Holy Cross churches in Mount Carmel.

Nearly three generations of Latin Rite baptized Catholics know of no other Mass than the present-day Novus Ordo liturgy, also known as Pope Paul VI’s Mass, which was the result of the Second Vatican Council. However, that Mass is not being celebrated at St. Peter’s – rather it is the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) also known as the Tridentine Mass – this Mass of the ages and saints was celebrated throughout the Western end of Christendom prior to Vatican II for over 1,500 years where its rubrics date back to the original Apostles of Jesus Christ.

In order to get St. Peter’s back online as a suitable and worthy place of worship, the work is great, and the laborers few. Such things do not discourage Rev. John Szada, as Divine Providence has allowed the TLM to not only continue uninterrupted with a new venue, but also to thrive. Father Szada who is the daily celebrant of the TLM was ordained a priest for the Harrisburg Diocese by Bishop Joseph Daley in 1978 and is a veteran pastor who has celebrated four of the Church’s liturgies.  

He has been a daily celebrant of the TLM ever since becoming the monastery’s chaplain in 2011, while serving at Divine Redeemer in Mount Carmel. In addition, he also serves as the diocese’s resident exorcist. A native of Harrisburg who grew up in Steelton, Fr. Szada served the TLM as an altar boy in the pre-Vatican II days of Pope Pius XII having witnessed first-hand the introduction of the contemporary Novus Ordo Mass.  

In 2007, Pope Benedict’s apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum permitted greater use of the TLM throughout the world in addition to the current Novus Ordo liturgy.  However by 2021, eight years into the pontificate of Pope Francis, he countered Benedict when he wrote his own apostolic letter Traditiones Custodes, which, in effect, reversed Summorum Pontificum. Pope Francis, a predictable fruit of Vatican II, has put the TLM on notice that it may not be celebrated in any diocesan parish church. 

A number of congregants are old enough to recall all the changes that seemingly happened overnight. It commenced in the late 1960’s – the perfect liturgical storm – as the edicts of Vatican II collided with the height of the Sexual Revolution and the lingering war in Vietnam. 

However, since St. Peter’s is no longer on the Harrisburg diocese’s active church rolls, Bishop Timothy Senior has allowed this time-honored liturgy to be celebrated once again in Mount Carmel. Ironically, St. Peter’s celebrated the TLM more than any other liturgy long before consolidation rendered the 118-year-old church to close its doors.  The church’s ancient liturgy is replete with glorious paradox that G. K. Chesterton interpreted as “truth standing on its head to attract notice.”

The Catholic Church is nearly six decades into this post-Vatican II epoch and maintains a front row seat in reaping its contentious fruit that includes a significant drop in priestly and religious vocations, the closings of churches, schools, seminaries, convents, hospitals and even monasteries like the one in Elysburg.  The only numbers increasing in the Church are those leaving and the doors closing. 

God’s Kingdom is meant to expand, grow, and proclaim. Ironically, that is what Vatican II had hoped for, but its results have proven just the opposite.

A number of congregants are old enough to recall all the changes that seemingly happened overnight. It commenced in the late 1960’s – the perfect liturgical storm – as the edicts of Vatican II collided with the height of the Sexual Revolution and the lingering war in Vietnam. 

The smells, bells, and chants of traditional Catholicism with its grandiose marble back altars and stately, centered majestic tabernacles, and regal communion rails were removed and exiled to warehouses.  Time-honored and traditional statues were replaced with felt banners and Gregorian Chants and Latin hymns took a back seat in favor of folk guitar duets. 

The altar and tabernacle would be regulated as a backdrop to a new table facing the congregation with all Latin sidelined for a liturgy now spoken in the local vernacular.  Reception of the Holy Eucharist would be in the hand and received from lay “Eucharistic ministers.” Girls would assimilate into the role once reserved solely for boys (that acted as a precursor of sorts to the priesthood) and became “altar servers” that over time, in some parishes, actually outnumber their male counterparts. 

It is not hard to comprehend why nearly 70% of Catholics do not believe in the Holy Eucharist – the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ – a foundational dogma of the Church that was foreshadowed by the Old Testament’s manna of the Israelites.

Throughout all of this it is not hard to comprehend why nearly 70% of Catholics do not believe in the Holy Eucharist – the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ – a foundational dogma of the Church that was foreshadowed by the Old Testament’s manna of the Israelites. The Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of Catholicism.  To believe that this most central dogma of the faith has fallen to such depths is the biggest indictment of the church’s present hierarchy that one could conceive.

Even Martin Luther, a one-time Catholic priest, would find all of this quite bewildering and perhaps even mystifying.  

Although the call to follow Christ is universal, our ability to respond is strictly a personal one. For some the TLM will seem foreign or even distant. This is the result of the poisoned fruit of poor catechesis that has manifested itself to a cancer of indifference that has reaped a healthy crop of Catholic light over at least three generations and counting. 

Many young people who are starving spiritually for God’s love, grace, forgiveness, and affirmation walk away from the faith not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church instructs and edifies. The recent Synod on Synodality at the Vatican only seemed to amplify such sentiments.  

Most have been secularized and no longer understand the breadth of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium having lost their way being blinded by the prevailing culture seeking happiness and fulfillment in everything but God.

For those that do remain in the pews, their weak formation of the faith has resulted in a much distorted and unknowledgeable appreciation of the majestic liturgical history of the time-honored devotions of their forefathers. 

Lost among many of the faithful is how tradition stands as a bulwark against worldly or even diabolical innovations. Tradition offers and anchors a sense of proper worship that transcends not only the generations that have gone before us but time itself.  

Under the seasoned direction of Headmaster Ted Huerena, the young men from St. Louis de Montfort Academy in Herndon make the 46-mile daily roundtrip in their jackets and ties armed with their rosaries not only on Sundays but also for daily weekday Mass. The 34 strong chorus faithfully supplies a seasoned and distinct harmonious baritone to the time-honored Gregorian Chants and Latin hymns that provide the liturgy with an ageless feel of Vaticanesque ambience echoing throughout the ages in a timeless fashion. 

The 28-year hiatus has left St. Peter’s in desperate need of pews, which Bishop Senior promised he would supply. The longstanding stained-glass windows are gone but the back altar that rested at the Elysburg Monastery now stands at St. Peter’s, just a quick jaunt from where the original Carmelite convent stood down the same street before the nuns made the move to Elysburg in 1961.

Locust Gap native Georgetta Shaffer clarified it was no coincidence but as her sister would always say, “a God incident” that the TLM has found a new home just down West Avenue in Mount Carmel.  As a young girl Shaffer, along with her mother, assisted the nuns in various capacities at their Mount Carmel convent and then later with her husband Bob Shaffer at their Elysburg locale. Bob even assists at Mass, taking up the cassock of an altar boy despite being an octogenarian. The couple were sad to see the cloistered Carmelites depart for Fairfield during Holy Week in March 2021 and witnessing the monastery exchange hands, but are happy they have a new venue that is able to celebrate the TLM.

The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Pennsylvania and affiliated regions in the USA bought the monastery and its surrounding grounds in October.     

Faithful acts of obedience echo throughout Heaven. In each ensuing generation, an unapologetic and impassioned Christianity is needed to challenge a sleeping, self-satisfied, and indifferent people that for too long have forgotten that they belong not to Caesar but to God.  

Doug Croley, an Orwigsburg resident, concisely summed up why he makes the trek to Mount Carmel every Sunday, “The Latin Mass is God orientated, while the Novus Ordo Mass is more people orientated.”  He is far from alone. Croley explained, “It is no wonder that so many polls reveal how so few today believe in the real presence of the Holy Eucharist – the pinnacle of the Mass.” Another worshiper, who makes the trek each Sunday from Bloomsburg, noted sentiments that were a common thread that runs deep through every congregant interviewed: the reverence of the liturgy and in particular for the Holy Eucharist that is obviously reflected in the modestly-dressed faithful. 

No shorts, flip-flops, or any tee shirts are to be found. Dungarees and sneakers, forget it. The venerable phrase “Sunday best” makes an uncompromising and unapologetic return. The women and girls wear traditional veils that were commonplace prior to Vatican II and the introduction of the Novus Ordo Mass.

This eclectic congregation is not limited to any particular locale and their reasons for praying the traditional Latin prayers of the Mass are as varied as the venues they journey from. One of the devout has been coming to the monastery for the past six years, making the trek every Sunday from State College. The move to Mount Carmel may have extended their trip, but any and all obstacles are taken in stride as it is not the journey but the destination understanding that the Mass is where Heaven converges with Earth.  

Other intrepid members of this burgeoning flock traverse from as far north as Lycoming County, in the east from Schuylkill County, while the south has drawn worshipers from not only venues throughout Northumberland County but Snyder and Montour Counties that include to two transplanted New York City native sons and their families.  

Catholicism is a religion of faith and reason – a deep-dish faith, and not everyone desires the thin crust version that seemingly was the result of Vatican II. The TLM must be experienced and studied to be truly understood and appreciated for its time-honored significance of divine adulation. Lost among many of the faithful is how tradition stands as a bulwark against worldly or even diabolical innovations. Tradition offers and anchors a sense of proper worship that transcends not only the generations that have gone before us but time itself.  

For 1500 years, Mass was celebrated in Latin, which made the Mass truly universal or Catholic.  Kurt Schmitt, who journeys from Muncy to worship and is also a student of Latin pointed out how the ancient languages retain the context of the faith better. “All Muslims are encouraged to read and pray in Arabic, while Jews send their kids to Hebrew School,” explained Schmitt, a captain in the Pennsylvania National Guard. 

Latin is far from dead. Further proof can be found at the local high school – Mount Carmel Area – that still offers Latin as part of their curriculum. What has been lost on many is that before Latin was the language of medicine, science, and the law, it was the Church’s liturgical tongue that spoke to and converted, sustained, and fostered Western Civilization for centuries. 

Without the unity and tongue of Latin, the integrity of biblical traditional worship has become subject to local rituals, which opens the pandora’s box to liturgical abuses that have become all too common among the contemporary and overtly secular new world order generation.

Reverence for the TLM is an inspiring discipline, where Latin can be understood by anyone making the effort.  Vatican II never sought to displace the TLM.  The human pride that wants to see it ignored is at the heart of an unwillingness to recognize or appreciate God’s Church of transcendent, unchanging truths.  According to Fr. Szada, both pastors of the remaining two Catholic churches in Mount Carmel: Our Lady of Mount Carmel pastored by Father Frank Karwacki, a Mount Carmel native and Divine Redeemer’s pastor and Ugandan native Father Bernard Wamayose, A.J., have welcomed this longstanding and historic liturgy with open arms.

None of us can take the true measure of the eternal significance of present faithfulness. Faithful acts of obedience echo throughout Heaven. In each ensuing generation, an unapologetic and impassioned Christianity is needed to challenge a sleeping, self-satisfied, and indifferent people that for too long have forgotten that they belong not to Caesar but to God.  

At its spiritual core, the TLM is an atavistic rite of muscular Catholicism – a triumphant assembly of worship. The TLM is celebrated at Saint Peter’s along West Avenue in Mount Carmel daily at 7 a.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday at 8 a.m., and at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

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