New Life

The Saint Louis Today featured a nice story about the rebirth of Saint Francis de Sales Oratory, an iconic German-gothic church located in Saint Louis.

Instead of tearing down the building, then-Archbishop Raymond Burke decided to turn St. Francis de Sales over to the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, an order dedicated to the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass.

Instead of a neighborhood parish, St. Francis de Sales became an oratory, the place where Catholics could come for celebration of the 1,600-year-old Latin liturgy.

The traditional Mass, thick with pageantry, was largely set aside by the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. It's longer and more formal than the modern Mass and in a dead language, but some area Catholics want the option. That gave St. Francis de Sales a new lease on life.