Boston

It turns out that a story announcing two parish closures is actually an announcement of the death knell for Holy Trinity Boston, the city and New England’s only German ethnic parish and the home of the indult Mass. The Globe says that the [traditional] Mass draws about 100 worshippers and the German Mass draws about 50. The traditionalists will move to Mary Immaculate of Lourdes in Newton. The Germans are being offered a place at Holy Cross Cathedral up the block. I understand the economics — Holy Trinity draws a small number of people but sits on prime South End real estate — but it is incredibly sad to think of this landmark, where the Christmas tree was introduced to America and the von Trapp family worshipped on visits to Boston, being demolished to make way for yet another condo development.

Bostonians certainly loved their rattled off Low Masses... Peter Gomes, speaking of the historic low churchmanship of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, once told those of us in his preaching seminar that Massachusetts was a place where Anglicans convinced themselves that they were just Congregationalists who read their services out of books. There is much truth in that about Boston [Roman] Catholics as well.

— A friend writing anonymously