Latin Mass supporters flock to British shrine looking for 'firm convictions'

British supporters of the traditional Latin Mass have welcomed an unprecedented youth turnout at their annual pilgrimage, three months after record participation was also reported at a larger event in France.

"If we want to draw people to the Church, we have to present something attractive and distinctive, with links to a cultural tradition and artistic heritage," explained Joseph Shaw, chairman of the London-based Latin Mass Society.

"No one has been canvassing or knocking on doors. Instead, young people have discovered something they can aspire to and move towards. Though numbers are still small, I think this is contributing to a Catholic faith revival."

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The lay Catholic spoke after organizing the Aug. 27-30 pilgrimage to the national sanctuary of Walsingham close to eastern England's North Sea coast, which was violently suppressed during the Reformation but revived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In an OSV News interview, Shaw said many "older-generation Catholics" appeared "baffled and confused" by the preference for more traditional forms of worship shown by many younger contemporaries brought up with "modern attitudes to sexuality, money and religion."

"It's very difficult to be a serious-minded young Catholic today, whether at school, university or work -- you need to be tough and in solidarity with fellow Catholics," said Shaw, whose LMS belongs to an international network of traditionalist Catholic groups.

"Whatever their mainstream contemporaries might say, people attending the traditional Mass have chosen to go against normal expectations. This makes them nonconformist and counter-cultural by definition."

Organizers said almost 250 pilgrims had braved heavy rain to complete the 54-mile route from London, reciting devotions, chants and hymns along the way.

They added that 500 had also joined a final Aug. 30 "Mass for the conversion of England" in the ruins of Walsingham's medieval priory, built on the site where the Virgin Mary reputedly commissioned a local noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, to build a replica of the Holy Family's Nazareth house in 1061.

The pilgrimage, staged annually since 2010, followed a traditionalist Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres in France, which was joined May 18-20 by close to 20,000 young Latin Mass enthusiasts, with hundreds of Catholic priests and religious, and closed by U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, formerly prefect of the Vatican's Supreme Tribunal.

Other traditionalist French pilgrimage routes have also developed in Brittany, Normandy and Provence, while a new English route also runs from Oxford to the ruins of an eighth century Benedictine abbey at Evesham.

More and more young people are drawn to the Latin Mass in what they see as not only spiritual, but also counter-cultural move.

James Allen is one of them. Allen, a recent Catholic school graduate, said most of his nonreligious friends respected his faith, which had given him "inner peace and something to live for," adding that he now planned to attend other traditional Masses and pilgrimages.

"It's great to tap into this rich Church tradition -- to see so many peaceful people who love the Church and are ready to sacrifice something for it," Allen told OSV News.

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"I know many young Catholics who are full of hope and want to tell others how the Lord has impacted their lives. If this spiritual fire is allowed to develop, I see a great revival coming," he added.

Allen said he was beginning a yearlong "Gospel mission" with other young Catholics to Scotland in September, and hoped Pope Leo XIV would prove "more sympathetic" to the Latin Mass as "a prayer and act of worship."

"While no one wants division and unrest, I don't think it was a good idea to repress the Mass -- if something brings people closer to Christ, I think it should be allowed," he told OSV News.

"The biggest obstacle to faith among young people today isn't hostility or atheism, but indifference and the worldly pleasures constantly being thrown at you. You need firm convictions, as well as guidance from the Holy Spirit."

Growing participation in traditionalist events has strengthened calls for an easing of restrictions on the Latin Mass, imposed by Pope Francis in a July 2021 apostolic letter, "Traditionis Custodes", praised by some critics that have accused Latin Mass enthusiasts of rallying against wider Church changes.

However, multiple statements and petitions, including a 2024 open letter by British public figures, have called for curbs on the Mass to be relaxed, while hopes of a new approach were raised when a traditional Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Burke with papal permission in St. Peter's Basilica in October 2025.

Among recent statements, Cardinal Robert Sarah, former prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, told Italy's Il Giornale daily Aug. 27 he believed going to "war" with the Latin Mass was "destructive to the Church."

Meanwhile, Britain's Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe said Aug. 31 he "deeply sympathized" with people "whose love of the Tridentine Mass has led them into tension with the hierarchy," but believed its celebration should not be "a source of division."

In a July 29 interview with Britain's Catholic weekly, The Tablet, however, the prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arthur Roche, said Pope Leo XIV had no plans to "change 'Traditionis Custodes.'"

In his OSV News interview, Shaw said the Latin Mass had "increased sharply in popularity" since Pope Francis's apostolic letter, with a projected 20% annual increase in the Walsingham pilgrimage, adding that young people from different social and educational backgrounds had used it to gain access to the Catholic faith.

"There are many enthusiastic youth movements across today's church," the LMS chairman told OSV News.

"What makes ours unique is that it comes from the Church's heart, is totally liturgical and doesn't pump people up with ephemeral emotion."

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Known as "England's Nazareth," Walsingham became one of medieval Europe's four major pilgrim destinations alongside Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela, after an Augustinian priory of the Annunciation, housing a statue of the enthroned Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus, was established there in the mid-12th century.

The Catholic shrine was robbed and destroyed under King Henry VIII in 1538, when its sub-prior and 10 others executed for alleged high treason, but restored in 1897 and recognized as a minor basilica in 2015.

(Jonathan Luxmoore writes for OSV News from Oxford, England.)