Marianist Father Francis Nakagawa celebrates the only Tridentine Mass now authorized in Hawaii. He estimates about 65 attend the liturgy every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Honolulu, though he said the number fluctuates.

He described his congregation as “sincere and devout” and “on very good terms with the bishop.” It includes young families with children, whose parents would not necessarily be old enough to remember the Latin rite when it was celebrated prior to the Second Vatican Council.

Father Nakagawa, himself, has personal familiarity with the Latin Mass. Ordained 50 years ago this year, it was the rite he celebrated for about eight or nine years before the promulgation of the present liturgy. He has been celebrating the Latin Mass again since February 2006.

The late Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario granted permission in 1990 for the Latin Mass to be celebrated in Hawaii.

Today’s congregation has organized itself as the Hawaii Tridentine Mass Community. It’s president and spokesman is Thomas Herndon.

“I would say we try to function like a regular parish,” Herndon said, while acknowledging that they are not a “real parish.”

From its collection, the group tithes its host parish $75 a week, he said. The rest goes toward a variety of things including gifts to the bishop, for charity, to buy new vestments and altar clothes and to pay for the occasional social event.

Growing up in Alabama as a Southern Baptist, Herndon, 59, got his first taste of the Latin Mass at age 9 at the wedding of a cousin.

The liturgy was “wonderful,” he said, and put him on a path to conversion. Ironically, he said, when he became a Catholic as a young adult, the Mass had already changed to English.

He said he welcomes Pope Benedict XVI’s July 7 instructions loosening the restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine rite. It is a “treasure of the church worth saving,” he said.

Herndon said his group has “pretty much the age dispersion found in just about any parish Mass.” Some are there because of an attachment to the Mass of their youth, while others discovered the rite in its limited pastoral reemergence allowed by Pope John Paul II.

Included are a “good number of younger folks,” he said, including families of five to 10 children each which results in “somewhat very active youth group.”

Herndon estimated that the congregation has swelled to about 100 on occasion. The group is loosely associated with “traditionalist movements” elsewhere and regularly attracts tourists and island visitors.

He said his group has a good relationship with Bishop Larry Silva and meets with him once a year. The bishop has also attended one of their Masses, though not as a celebrant.