Cardinal Roche Announces "The Mass Race"
With Prizes for the Fastest Priests and Those Who Can Break the 13 Minute Mark
Vatican City - Does Mass ever take forever? Or at least seem to? Have you ever spent, perhaps, 30 minutes in Church due to a priest who actually fully enunciated every word?
Never fear, help is here, as the British Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, unveiled a new program today, along with a competition intended to get priests around the world to speed up their celebration of the Mass.
“Mass should really only take 20 minutes maximum,” Roche commented in an interview with the Catholic Herald. “People get me wrong, I’m not against tradition, I’m just against overly elaborate forms of celebrating the Mass taking too long. If a priest can run through a TLM faster than my boys can run through the Ordinary Form, well, have at it, folks. But to ensure that all priests have speed at the forefront of their mind as the highest priority above all those other old-fashioned anti-conciliar anti-synodal values the young-uns talk about, I talked to my buddy Pope Francis, and we’re going to put up a competition to encourage everyone to get a little faster.”
“We call it the Mass Race. We’ll probably have to have a few rounds of it, but the premise is simple. On March 25th, which is some big feast or something, I’m asking all priests to run through it as fast as they can and have someone record and time them. I want to see some great 15-minute miracles, but I think we have some really strong contenders out there who can do it even faster.
“The prize? Well, Pope Francis is handing out Cardinal’s hats like candy, so if a bishop wins the race or is at least in the top 10, he’ll be made a Cardinal, and if a priest wins the race or is in the top 10, he’ll be made a bishop. If you break 13 minutes, we’ll even make you an archbishop over two dioceses.”
While Catholic traditionalists have, as usual, decried the Vatican-sponsored competition as liturgical abuse, Roche defended himself by claiming that, traditionally, “Mass is supposed to be fast. When I was growing up, lads like me would be told by the priest, ‘Remember, boy, it’s 20 minutes, amice to amice.’ But at some parishes, Mass takes 30, sometimes even 35 minutes, and 45 minutes on Sundays. That’s unacceptable.”1
“Three, two, one, GO, I say to all priests,” Roche added. “Go out there, and allow yourself to pray with the speed of the SPIRIT!”
The USCCB and many bishops have jumped on the bandwagon of the competition, adding their own deal sweeteners with local diocesan prizes for priests who set local records and whom are are also able to maintain similar racing times beyond the formal competition.
A related “who can distribute communion” fastest award for Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion was discussed within the dicastery, according to IIT sources, yet Roche decided not to go ahead with the competition as “it would have encouraged the use of communion rails and destroyed the idea that communion in the hand is more efficient.”
American contenders such as Fr. Bob Jim of Overland Park, Kansas, who thinks he can beat 14 minutes with his signature time-saving methods like skipping an opening procession, hiring a rapper to read the readings, and preaching his homily while preparing the altar, are concerned that German bishops, who “cut out the consecration and Holy Communion entirely will have an unfair advantage over him. I know they add an LGBTQ hymn, but really, that’s just unfair. They’re going to win this race without even trying.”
“Also, he adds, TLM priests will cheat to win at this game by just claiming they prayed the entire Roman Canon. But who’s there to keep them honest? This game is rigged against poor old ‘livin’ in the spirit guys like me who have to say it out loud. Can’t we put a handicap against their score? Or let me use a recorded voice on 3x speed for all the prayers?
Traditionalists are pressuring their priests not to participate, and the FSSP has announced a parallel, “who can make Mass last the longest” competition on March 25th. Byzantine Catholics could not be reached for comment. They have not left their churches since last Sunday, as Divine Liturgy takes an average of 159 hours, and last Sunday’s liturgy won’t be over until sometime tomorrow morning. They are also expected to decline to participate and to continue to be underrepresented within what many of them call the “discriminatory, ultramontanist, and Romanist college of cardinals” regardless of the outcome of this competition.
Roche hopes to see a 20% decline in the length of the average Mass by the end of this year, although he admits they may have to come up with additional prizes and new rounds of the competition to make this “much necessary progress” sustainable.
For the serious inspiration behind this piece of satire, see:
https://wdtprs.com/2025/03/remember-boy-its-20-minutes-amice-to-amice
P.S. Also, here are some of the top CONTENDERS to win the MASS RACE!
https://wdtprs.com/2025/03/remember-boy-its-20-minutes-amice-to-amice/
Roche doesn't know the difference or pretends there is no difference between the Tridentine Mass and simply using Latin for the new order Mass. He claimed to offer the NO Mass in Latin, as if that means anything.
These men will do anything to destroy the greatest work of Christ, Our Lord. But, they probably don't believe that Christ is God and they are directly attacking God, when they attack the Holy Mass. We people will come and go, but the Mass is forever.