Bishop Gainer discusses the positive impact of the Traditional Latin Mass on vocations at the 4:00 minute mark of the video – July 25, 2018
Bishop Gainer first visited the Lancaster Latin Mass community just a year after his installation as the eleventh Bishop of Harrisburg in 2014. On Nov 1, 2015, he offered a pontifical Solemn high mass and conferred First Holy Communion to several of our children at St. Anthony of Padua Church, our former home in Lancaster city. This was the first Traditional Latin Mass offered by the ordinary in our diocese in over 40 years!
He visited us again in the autumn of 2016 in our new home at St. Joseph Church. He kindly deferred his annual visitation in 2017 at our request so that he could offer mass for the 10th anniversary of our community in May 2018.
On October 27, 2019, Bishop Gainer returned to his tradition of an autumn visit to our community on the Feast of Christ the King. He offered a beautiful Solemn Pontifical High Mass at the Faldstool and conferred the Sacrament of Confirmation on eight of our children. See promotional flyer here.
This was the first time our community was offered the traditional form of Confirmation and the first time it was offered in a parish church in the diocese in more than 50 years. His excellency remained for a reception afterward and visited with our confirmandi. For a complete review of the entire day’s memorable events, please read the special Pontifical Edition of our newsletter linked here.
To view the professional photos taken by Allison Girone that day, please click:
Lancaster Pontifical Mass with Bishop Gainer – Allison Girone
To review our schola and choir’s playlist please click here.
As bishop, he founded a Traditional Carmelite Hermitage in Fairfield and gave permission for an unprecedented second Traditional Carmelite monastery of cloistered nuns in Fairfield while also maintaining the original foundation in Elysburg, PA. His generosity to Catholics attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite is gratefully acknowledged.
