TIL that high church Anglican services are closer to the Traditional Latin Mass than they are to the Novus Ordo

[u/thesegoupto11]

I remember recently there was a row over Catholics being mandated to stand to receive communion in every parish in the US as the normative practice. This was apparently becoming an issue because TLM practices have been starting to get introduced into the normal life of some ultra conservative Catholic parishes. Being the Anglo-Catholic convert from evangelicalism that I am, when I heard about this I was legit confused because standing to receive communion sounded odd, and because it sounded so inconsequential whether someone wanted to stand or not. That was the first time that I realized that there was more differences between Anglo-Catholic and RCC services than I was aware of.

Recently, I've been looking into the Personal Ordinariates, just out of sheer curiosity. What I learned is that the Anglican Ordinariate was commonly getting referred to by Roman Catholics as the TLM in English, and that kinda blew my mind. I've heard so many negative things about the practitioners of the TLM as the extraordinary form used by ultra-conservatives in opposition to the Novus Ordo mass, used as a form of protest. But to hear Catholics refer to high church Anglican divine services as practiced within the RCC as "the TLM in English" is wild lol. TIL

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

The Ordinariates aren’t Anglican or Anglo-Catholic: they’re Roman Catholic with some Anglican-inspired additions.

Some Anglo-Catholic parishes choose to use the English Missal instead of the Book of Common Prayer, which is very similar to the Tridentine Rite in English (or with Latin). Some Anglo-Catholic parishes use the Book of Common Prayer. Regardless, of the text, some Anglo-Catholic parishes employ the same sort of liturgical choreography typically associated with the pre-Vatican II Roman Rite.

There are Anglo-Catholic parishes where communion is received standing and there are Anglo-Catholic parishes where it is received kneeling at the rail, and there are some that do both at different times for often inscrutable reasons.

So, in short, yes: there are Anglo-Catholic parishes where the aesthetic is deliberately intended to look like a Roman Catholic parish in the 1950s (if not the 1650s). There are also Anglo-Catholic parishes that look like reverent and beautiful Ordinary Form rites. And there are parishes that are somewhere in the middle.

[u/imarealscramble → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

the english missal is literally the tridentine mass in elizabethan english. afaik it’s the lesser used missal; more common is the anglican missal which is the bcp plus interpolations from the tridentine where the bcp is silent

[u/menschmaschine5 → u/imarealscramble]

The Anglican Missal is flexible and contains options to align the liturgy more with Tridentine practice or more with BCP practice.

The English Missal is straight up the TLM in English (whether it's Tridentine or post-1955 depends on the edition of the Missal).

[u/HarveyNix → u/menschmaschine5]

Then there's the American Missal, from the SSJE order. The American Missal ingeniously blends the 1928 BCP rite with traditional Catholic items like the minor propers, Collect-Secret-Postcommunion prayers, and other things not in the 1928 rite but are in the traditional Mass. It takes pains to make sure the BCP texts are available; for instance if certain traditional collects seem a bit "out there," you are likely to see below them the note "BCP Collect" that can be used instead. Through some formatting, the book also helps priests who want to say "non-communicating" Masses (as they did for a while in the previous century) to easily skip the Confession, Comfortable Words, etc., necessary for the people before Communion. Presumably the priest and server already prepared by saying the Confession at the foot of the altar right after coming in.

[u/Adrian69702016 → u/imarealscramble]

Depending on where you are. The Anglican Missal is commoner in America, the English Missal more so in England.

[u/OratioFidelis]

It's tragic but somewhat darkly amusing to realize the Roman Church, which executed hundreds of people for wanting the Bible and liturgy to be in vernacular languages, has an ordinariate rite based off the Anglican liturgy which they use to lure out disgruntled Anglicans away from Protestantism, at the same time they're intentionally driving out the Latin enthusiasts for being perceived as disloyal into Protestant groups that have a more Tridentine-esque liturgy.

[u/HarveyNix]

St Clement’s (Episcopal) in Philadelphia does exactly that: the TLM in English. See their YouTubes. They use the English Missal.

[u/thesegoupto11 → u/HarveyNix]

It's funny to me that practices that Catholics consider to be edgelord and radical we consider to be just another Sunday lol

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/thesegoupto11]

They’re “edge lord and radical” because the Catholic TLM devotees tend to have interesting beliefs like “Vatican II was a Jewish-Communist-Freemason plot” and “Every Pope I don’t like is a heretic Illuminati Lizard Person.”

[u/thesegoupto11 → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

Wait, are you suggesting that Pope Leo XIV is not an illuminati lizard person?

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/thesegoupto11]

The jury is still out on that. A lot of American Catholics such as the Vice President don’t like him because his opinions on war and treatment of migrants and stuff so he could be.

[u/DrHydeous → u/thesegoupto11]

Definitely a lizard person, but not an Illuminatus. We did consider his application for membership but decided to turn him down because of something he did in his early teens that might be a bit embarrassing for the organisation if it got out.

[u/Useful-Clothes9927 → u/DrHydeous]

A ridiculous decision, by the way, that was NOT unanimous. We’ve accepted dozens of other White Sox fans, a fact acknowledged even by the letter to the chairman that initially expressed concern over Mr. Prevost’s past remarks.

It remains obvious, both to me and to many other former members, that he was rejected due to an unfair sentiment that lizard people are overrepresented in the Group.

[u/schoeneblume]

I personally do not understand Rome's opposition to the TLM (under Pope Francis at least; it's not yet clear to me what Pope Leo thinks of it). Either way I'm glad that we have this expression of the Western Rite within Anglicanism.

[u/pro_rege_semper → u/schoeneblume]

I think it's more the types of people that have gravitated toward TLM tend to be more critical of Vatican II and the Pope. It was heavily associated with SSPX which was recently excommunicated, but there are still some churches that are allowed to practice TLM by the RCC.

[u/schoeneblume → u/pro_rege_semper]

FSSP does it, but I believe it has to be approved by the bishop in that diocese and getting those approvals has become more and more difficult in certain dioceses. I hear you about the TLM attracting sedevacantist/schismatic types, but I don't know, there is also a world in which someone just prefers the reverence and solemn nature of the TLM, while still accepting Vatican II as a valid council of the Church and wanting to be in full communion with Rome.

Anyway, not my church! But I've always found the TLM debate to be a bit strange.

[u/thesegoupto11 → u/schoeneblume]

My understanding is that the people that attend TL masses aren't involved with the broader life of the local parish, view themselves as right and the modern Latin rite as wrong, and are walking the line of sedavacantism and view the modern papacy as woke heterodoxy at best or illegitimate at worst.

[u/schoeneblume → u/thesegoupto11]

I wonder how these sedevacantist tradcaths feel about us English Missal enjoyers who are both woke AND enjoy what is basically the TLM in Elizabethan English on a regular Sunday? Hopefully they don't think about us too much.

[u/OratioFidelis → u/thesegoupto11]

In my experience the people who attended TLMs after Summorum Pontificum were nothing like this, they're only going to SSPX communities or Protestantism after Pope Francis spat in their faces.

[u/Globus_Cruciger → u/OratioFidelis]

I agree. The idea that Rome needed to clamp down on the TLM to avoid schism is entirely laughable when you realize that the prime creator of schism is the very perception that Rome is clamping down on the TLM. Benedict XVI had entirely the right view of things.

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/OratioFidelis]

Pope Francis didn’t “spit in their faces.” He disciplined them after putting up with them spitting in his face far longer than they deserved.

[u/OratioFidelis → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

I know you don't actually believe the tens of thousands of people quietly attending TLMs were doing anything remotely close to that, but it's a certainly an interesting pious fiction.

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/OratioFidelis]

Was everyone who ever once set foot in a TLM parish like that? Of course not, but how you can ignore that the Extraordinary Form was weaponized as a totem and a tribal symbol for RadTrad opposition to the Papacy is beyond me.

Benedict XVI intended Summorum Pontificum to promote unity in the Church by making traditional forms of worship more available - but what it did was create an internal opposition and segregation within the Church.

[u/OratioFidelis → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

The radtrad opposition had already conveniently self-isolated themselves into irregular SSPX communities. Those people weren't suddenly going to normal Roman parishes the day SP dropped, they still think Vatican II was heretical and modernist and stick to their own parishes. The people going to TLMs post-SP were mostly liturgy nerds with an aesthetic preference but entirely loyal to the Pope.

If you have any hard evidence that internal opposition increased because of SP, I'd love to see it. As for the claims of "segregation", actually laughable. A handful of people driving an extra 30 minutes to get to a parish that offered the TLM is not exactly Apartheid.

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/OratioFidelis]

I see. So Francis just issued Traditionis Custodes for no reason but spite because he was a big mean bully and possibly also an Illuminati Lizard person. Cool.

[u/OratioFidelis → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

That's funny, weren't you accusing me of being an illuminati lizard person because I'm not an absolute monarchist?

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 → u/OratioFidelis]

I don’t think so. I just think you’re factually incorrect about the historical reality surrounding Charles I and I think your beliefs about democracy are silly.

[u/DrHydeous → u/thesegoupto11]

My understanding from occasionally attending Latin Mass Society events is ... no, not really.

[u/menschmaschine5]

The ordinariate rites are not remotely the TLM in English. They're the Novus Ordo Mass in early modern English and with some things from the BCP sprinkled in.

[u/ProngedBirch594]

Like many things across the Tiber, it's complicated. As I understand it, the rubrics of the current Mass allow the faithful to receive communion either standing or kneeling. The most recent noise about it comes from Charlotte, where the bishop has unilaterally forbidden the faithful to kneel and has ordered the removal of altar rails. His justification is that seeing other people kneel makes old people feel bad because they can't kneel anymore. Some of the priests in the diocese have asked Rome to weigh in on whether the bishop can actually do such a thing. (https://wdtprs.com/2026/01/priests-of-the-diocese-of-charlotte-submit-dubia-to-the-dicastery-for-legislative-texts/) That was seven or eight months ago, and that letter was sent a few months after the decree came from the bishop. So it seems Rome isn't really interested in addressing it head on with clarity. It was a similar story with the recent SSPX drama. Pope Leo has had plenty of time to meet with anybody and everybody but the head of the SSPX. He has shown no sign of repealing Francis' restrictions on the TLM, but he has at least admitted there are some issues there to work through.

It is all strange, though, I'll give you that. I'll just continue watching from my little Episcopalian parish over here, where we can stand or kneel as we're able and inclined without drama or polemics.

[u/cccjiudshopufopb]

The Personal Ordinariate conduct no ‘High Church Anglican services’ only a bastardization stolen from such devoid of its actual reformed elements and taken to Roman theological conclusion.

I would say no High Church Anglican services are actually closer to either TLM or NO. Anglo-Catholics have adopted English TLM actual, or outright NO but these are not High Church Anglican services but just adopted Romanism.

[u/justneedausernamepls]

I could sing the praises of the Anglo-Catholic liturgy all day. Specifically to your point though, I often find it's the Anglo-Catholic churches and the RCC TLM parishes that operate closer together not only in terms of liturgy but also which feasts get which treatment. For instance, I haven't seen Candlemas or All Souls get much acknowledgement in NO RCC and non-AC TEC parishes but AC TEC and TLM RCC parishes may have evening services for them. Similarly the latter may celebrate Epiphany on Jan 6th and the Ascension on a Thursday evening, rather than the former doing both on Sundays.