Mass began at 6 pm on a Friday. The church was the double-barrelled Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory. Located in Soho, it is the oldest Catholic church in England. Yet the congregation for the service aren’t pensioners. Those genuflecting and filling the pews are all in their 20s.
The chaps wear their Sunday Best: suit, tie and, completing an unofficial uniform, a Barbour jacket. A solitary young woman in the front pew wears a black mantilla veil. Rosary beads are fondled, candles are lit and silence falls. The organ begins the entrance hymn to Our Lady: ‘For Mary, mother of our Lord, / God’s holy name be praised…’
Ironically, you may have heard of this phenomenon: The Quiet Revival. The young are returning in legion to the church. Converts, reverts, the curious and the once damned. Specifically, Gen-Z Catholics may soon help the Roman Catholic Church to surpass the Church of England in active attendance for the first time since King Henry VIII’s bigamous impulses created the latter in 1534.
The Sign of the Cross delivered, Father Christian de Lisle begins the Penitential Act: ‘Confiteor Deo omnipotenti et vobis…’ What is it about Catholicism? The Latin, the incense, transubstantiation. Evelyn Waugh once summed it up as ‘the Alice-in-Wonderland side of religion’. In fact, Waugh attended the very church we are gathered in this evening.
Those of us that were raised Catholic may remember the aching legs during Holy Communion, the confession box, and the dreaded Easter Mass that dragged on for three hours with Father So-And-So’s homily. (Need I say I’m lapsed?) But now, from Silicon Valley to Soho, Catholicism is drawing in new generations in pursuit of the sacred. Martin Luther rolls in his grave.
The Eucharist this evening is being administered old style. Rows of young devotees kneel before the altar and the Body of Christ is placed upon each stuck-out tongue (yes, old style). Those kneeling are members of The Challoner Club. It is a private member’s social club for Roman Catholics in London. Founded in 1949, and closed in 1997, this year it has had a Lazarian resurrection.
There’s a post-Mass reception at the Oxford and Cambridge Club. Guests are allowed a Holy Trinity of three glasses of wine each. Down a quiet corridor, the chairman of the club, Calder Claydon, tells me membership is nearing 80 – enough to safely pack out a Sunday service.
Claydon converted to Catholicism aged 14. Why go on to revive a club? ‘I noticed there was a distinct lack of Catholicism in clubland. There are clubs for everything – different nationalities, different political beliefs – but there wasn’t anything of that kind for Roman Catholics.’
