Bearing "witness" to the Eucharistic Congress, Card Zen will also celebrate a Latin Mass

Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus will address the congress in Cebu. Catholic blogger says, "In my experience young people who participate in the Mass in Latin find that it challenges them to dig more deeply into the Catholic faith. The young like to be challenged after all!"

Cebu (AsiaNews) –Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, will celebrate the votive Mass of the Most Blessed Sacrament, according to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, on January 26, at 4:30 p.m. at Asilo de Milagrosa, Gorordo Avenue, in Cebu city, site of the 51th International Eucharistic Congress (IEC), on the theme: "Christ in you the hope of glory".

The Societas Eccelsia Dei Sancti Ioseph (Ecclesia Dei Society of St. Joseph) – Una Voce Philippines organized and sponsored the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) to be celebrated by the cardinal.

Card Zen, who regularly celebrates the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, also called traditional Latin Mass since May 2006, plans to speak today, the IEC’s second day.

The celebration in the Latin rite is authorised by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum issued by Pope Benedict XVI's on July 7, 2007, which extended to the whole Church the Motu proprio of Pope John Paul II, issued for Ecclesia Dei in 1988, which allows individual bishops to choose places where the Latin Mass can be celebrated.

"In my experience, the young who attend the TLM find that it challenges them to delve more deeply into the Catholic faith. The young like to be challenged after all," said Catholic blogger Carlos Antonio Palad. Latin does not stop those who do not speak the language because the latter was “part of the lives of Filipino Catholics for 450 years. Even when the Mass was still in Latin, Filipinos attended assiduously”.

Palad, who is part of the Defensores Fidei Foundation, said the worshipper finds in the TLM "a form of worship where the Church does not try to get along with the times." He added that with Latin, there is only "worship and the Catholic faith, without attempts to make it more 'fashionable' or more acceptable to modern tastes."

Palad said TLM attendance in the Philippines has been growing through the years since the Summorum Pontificum came into force.

"When the Summorum Pontificum was promulgated in 2007, there were only three places in the Philippines that had the TLM with the bishops' permission. Today there are 14 places with every Sunday Mass plus some other places with monthly or weekday Masses," he explained. He added that those who come are mostly "very young and enthusiastic."

Dean Louis Bascon, a 25-year old teacher at the Paco Catholic School, plans to travel to Cebu to attend this once in a lifetime celebration. He says he is drawn to the TLM because of "the sense of reverence, the sense that something great is really happening right in front of me, what people actually call the sense of the sacred, the very clear feeling that you are encountering the Lord Himself."

• philippines
• cebu
• international eucharistic congress
• latin mass
• cardinal zen