Museum pieces?

I went to York yesterday (Saturday) for the annual Latin Mass Society pilgrimage. Part of it involves a procession through the city centre past the shrine of St Margaret Clitheroe in the Shambles, saying the Rosary as we go. It's always instructive to hear the comments- mostly bemused, some offensive- from bystanders. Yesterday as we entered the Shambles I heard 'Dunno. Must be summat to do with Museum'.

There's food for thought. What we think of as bearing witness to our faith (mis)understood as an exercise in historical re-enactment. Well, there were the men leading it in birettas and cassocks, but the rest of us looked pretty early-21st century. People are so used now to seeing re-enactment whether it's on TV where no historical documentary is complete without it or at historic sites, where women in crinolines and men in powdered wigs try to engage you (I still treasure the memory of the 'footman' at one establishment who greeted us with 'Hi guys'). So obviously this must be what people doing something inexplicable but clearly religious and in 'costume' must be up to.

So is that how people view religion now? Something to do with 'heritage' that a few nostalgics engage in? And is there a risk ( I know there is) that attachment to the older forms of Catholic devotion is in part an exercise in nostalgia for a time when the Church was so much more certain and solid?