Transnational Religious Practices as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Complex Case of the Traditional Latin Mass

Peter Kwasniewski, Izabella Parowicz, Joseph Shaw and Piotr Stec ()
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Peter Kwasniewski: Independent Scholar, Lincoln, NE 68502, USA
Izabella Parowicz: Chair of Strategies for European Cultural Heritage, European University Viadrina, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
Joseph Shaw: Associate Member of the Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
Piotr Stec: Institute of Law, University of Opole, 45-040 Opole, Poland

Laws, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-29

Abstract: The 2003 UNESCO Convention definition of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) covers religious practices and rites, as can be seen from normative descriptions and dozens of actual examples, many of which are Catholic religious traditions. The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), practiced in one form or another for over 1500 years by an ever-increasing number of peoples and nations and in possession of a common stable set of rules, meets the UNESCO criteria for listing as ICH; in fact, it is arguably the best possible example. It is also a complicated one. After the Catholic Church’s liturgical reform in the 1960s and 1970s, new rites were introduced and the old rites were officially abandoned; nevertheless, a minority of clergy and laity continued to celebrate the TLM, and, over time, the legitimacy of their attachment to it was recognised by several popes, who also spoke regularly of the great value of the Church’s cultural and artistic patrimony and recommended that it remained joined with its religious origins. In contrast, the current pope, Francis, has recently become opposed to the continuation of the old rites. Be this as it may, it is quite possible that such a threatened but deeply appreciated international ICH as the TLM could be proposed for listing by several states that (unlike the Holy See) have signed the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, to give it a recognition appropriate to its immense historical and present-day cultural value.

Keywords: Traditional Latin Mass; intangible cultural heritage; UNESCO; transnational heritage; Catholic Church; Catholic heritage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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