The Latin Mass: A Postscript

Friday evening, we here at man with black hat published an essay entitled “The Latin Mass: Why You Can’t Have It” which was fairly well received. We had nearly five hundred visitors in the 24 hours that followed. For us, that is doing very well. It's what happened the next day that has left us completely at a loss.

About two or three times a month, we get lucky and are featured at Big Pulpit. But it didn't stop there this time. One of our correspondents suggested where we might send a link to the article. With nothing to lose, we obliged them. We got picked up by Rev Mr Greg Kandra, author of The Deacon's Bench at the Patheos Catholic Channel, essentially the "cool kids table" of the Catholic blogosphere.

One blogger, David Alexander, in the Diocese of Arlington, has taken a pretty exhaustive and detailed look at that question and offers some hard numbers about how many people actually want the “Latin Mass” — and what can be done about it.

We've also heard from several priests who have basically said we're right on the money. But the big surprise came early this afternoon, when yours truly got a phone call from one of his research assistants. The following headline (and you can click on the image to see for yourself) was "above the fold" at New Advent:

Why can't you have the Traditional Latin Mass? It comes down to supply and demand ...

About an hour ago, as this is published, we received OVER ONE THOUSAND VISITORS TODAY. That's another walk in the park if you're with Patheos, but we're lucky to get that many visitors in a week, never mind a day. On top of that, it was on the weekend.

And the evening is still young. So now I want to speak from the heart.

In the past week or two, I was actually beginning to wonder if this venue was worth pursuing, writing things that very few people, if anyone, really wants to read, when someone else who posts cheap Photoshop stunts of nuns in full habit riding skateboards, whines about what crazy stunt Father Fezziwig pulled at Mass last Sunday -- "Oh, oh, stop me if you've heard this one!" -- or simply regurgitates what they read elsewhere, can get invited on EWTN, or a prominent podcast, or otherwise be elevated to international Catholic pundit status. With this recent success, and knowing that "all glory is fleeting," I just might reconsider.

But first, I want to thank Tito Edwards, Deacon Greg Kendra, and Kevin Knight for giving this venue the biggest audience it has ever had, a projected TWO THOUSAND visitors in one weekend.

And ... most important, my long-time faithful research assistant, Sofia Guerra, who has since launched her own blog, AlwaysCatholic.com, for her continued advice and support.

But I'm still keeping my day job, just to be on the safe side.

(POST-POSTSCRIPT: This weblog gets 1400 visits in a really good week. As of 10:30pm local time, we got that many in one day. I believe Sally Field said it best when she ... nah, never mind.)