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| About Una Voce New Jersey: |
| Why the Latin Mass: |
| For nearly 1,400 years, the traditional Latin Mass was the Liturgy of the Roman Catholic world. It was the Mass at which practically every Pope, and Saint, and Christian of the West worshipped from 600 A.D. to 1970 A.D. It was the Mass that Catholic martyrs gave their blood to preserve during the Protestant Reformation. It was the Mass that united Christians across Continents and across centuries. It has been described as “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.” At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Catholic Church dramatically changed the way Mass was celebrated. The Church’s goal was to make the Mass more accessible to the modern world. Today, both young and old yearn for a return to the traditional Latin Mass, a Mass which captures a sense of the sacred like no other. Both young and old seek an alternative to the “modern world,” returning in droves to the wisdom of the ages, to things tested and timeless. Recognizing these as “rightful aspirations,” in his Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, Pope John Paul II has called for the “wide and generous” availability of the traditional Mass in Catholic dioceses around the world. * * * “The [Latin] Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God… there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours.” --- Father Adrian Fortescue "If we examine each prayer separately, it is perfect; perfect in construction, perfect in thought, and perfect in expression. If we consider the manner in which they are brought together, we are struck with the brevity of each, with the sudden but beautiful transitions, and the almost stanza-like effect, with which they succeed one another, forming a lyrical composition of surpassing beauty. If we take the entire service as a whole, it is constructed with the most admirable symmetry, proportioned in its parts with perfect judgment and so exquisitely arranged, as to excite and preserve an unbroken interest in the sacred action." --- Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman |
| Una Voce is an international lay movement dedicated to maintaining the Roman liturgy codified by Pope St. Pius V (the traditional Latin Mass, otherwise known as the "Tridentine Mass") as one of the universally recognized and honored forms of Eucharistic celebration. Una Voce also promotes the use of Latin, the official Church language, and Gregorian chant, the official music of the Church, despite many years of neglect. Founded in 2001, Una Voce Jersey City (UVJC) is a local chapter of the Una Voce American Federation (UVAF). Taken from Article II of its charter, the complete aims of UVJC are as follows: 1) to offer structural unity to various associations and individuals in the Jersey City area which pursue aims identical with or similar to those of UVJC as defined below; 2) to represent their common interests with the UVAF, and through the UVAF, with the central authorities of the Church; 3) to serve as a means of communication, exchange and information between the members of UVJC and to assist in their development; 4) to provide evaluations and reports on new liturgical legislation and developments within New Jersey; 5) to work as a lay movement within the Church for an organic restoration of the liturgy in conformity with its nature and with the Latin tradition; 6) to ensure that the traditional Roman Mass as codified in the Missale Romanum edited by Pope John XXIII is maintained – both in practice and in law – as one of the forms of eucharistic celebration which are recognized and honored in universal liturgical life; 7) to obtain freedom of use for all other Roman liturgical books enshrining "previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition" (cf. "Ecclesia Dei", n.5); 8) to safeguard and promote the use of Latin, Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church; 9) actively to encourage the establishment of non-territorial parishes and/or chaplaincies in which only the liturgical books used in 1962 are employed; 10) to serve the Church by helping the members of the movement and, through their apostolate, all the Christifideles better to understand, and more fruitfully to participate in, the Catholic liturgy as a sacred action; and 11) to fight against the heresy, apostasy, and uncertainty that has plagued the Church in America since the Second Vatican Council; and 12) to rebuild a traditional Catholic faith and culture in the United States. UVJC is headquartered at beautiful and historic Holy Rosary Church in Jersey City. Membership is open to all faithful Catholics in the NYC / NJ area. For more information, or to join Una Voce Jersey City, contact UVJC at: uvnj@att.net |