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ATTLEBORO - A form of Roman Catholic Mass that has not been celebrated regularly for decades may soon be offered in the city.

A group of 45 parishioners at St. Joseph's Church in Attleboro has asked for the celebration of the Tridentine Rite, often referred to as the Latin Mass, and their pastor, the Rev. Michael Carvill, has begun preparations.

Carvill said he has started meeting regularly with interested parishioners to study the Rite, read the prayers and learn the responses, and will now await guidelines from the Fall River Diocese before starting to celebrate the Latin Mass at his parish.

Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree in July to allow the celebration of the Tridentine Rite if a group of parishioners comes forward and requests it. The decree took effect in September.

The Tridentine Rite has not been regularly celebrated in the Church since the 1960s, when a new, modernized Mass was adopted. Since then, the old Rite could only be celebrated with a bishop's permission. Over the years, that has happened only sporadically. In Massachusetts, the Latin Mass has been celebrated regularly only in a few locations, such as Our Lady of Grace Chapel in Chatham on Cape Cod.

Since Benedict's decree, St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford has decided to celebrate the old Rite monthly.

Interest has been limited so far among Catholics in the Attleboro and Mansfield area, according to local pastors, but at St. Joseph's, the desire is strong among some parishioners, Carvill said.

John Kearns, spokesman for the diocese, said the Latin Mass was discussed by pastors at a recent meeting, and the diocesan priests council is now considering guidelines to address the implementation of the pope's decree in the diocese.

Once those guidelines are issued, Carvill said his intent is to start offering the Latin Mass monthly on a weekday, and then to gauge the interest before deciding if it should be celebrated on Sundays.

Those who have requested the Latin Mass have expressed a number of reasons, he said, but one is the sense of reverence of the Tridentine Rite, which requires more concentration. For them, he said, "the attention to adoration is easier to accomplish in the Latin Mass."

The celebration will require only minimal adjustments in the church sanctuary. The plan, Carvill said, is to use a removable step in front of the altar so the priest can face the altar as is required in the Tridentine Rite.

The Rite differs in a number of ways from the modern Mass:

It is celebrated mostly in Latin, which traditionally is the official language of the Church, while the modern Mass is celebrated in the local language.

The prayers are different, and lay members are not involved as readers and Eucharistic ministers as they are today. The priest faces the altar rather than the congregation, as he would do in the modern Mass, and communion is distributed only by the priest and cannot be placed in a person's hand, as is done today.

As of now, girls cannot be altar servers for a Latin Mass, a restriction that was in place until recent times.

Some Catholics who favor the Latin Mass see it as more sacred and spiritual, while those who do not want to see its resurgence see it as a step back to a time before the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, when the role of the laity was minimal compared to what it is today.

Pope Benedict has said that one of his reasons for easing restrictions on the Latin Mass is to appeal to the traditionalists in the Church who are discontented with modernized practices.