“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. ”
– Letter of Pope Benedict XVI accompanying the publication of the apostolic letter “Motu Proprio Data” Summorum Pontificum
If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter 4, “The Ethics of Elfland“
Have you ever had the experience of sitting in a car that is stopped, only to feel as though you’re moving backwards when the vehicle next to you pulls forward? You haven’t moved at all, but from a purely subjective point of view, you can’t help checking to make sure your foot is on the brake pedal. The analogy isn’t perfect, but this example helps shed light on what it’s like to be a Catholic traditionalist in the modern Church. It’s the feeling that you haven’t left the Church, the Church left you.
If you were a part of some bible-belt, ever-evolving form of Protestant Christianity, that might make sense. It’s incomprehensible, though, when you’re a member of the one faith which possesses truths unchanging and immutable. I think it’s high time we address this issue. It’s time to stop the use of the identifying label “traditionalist” to describe what earlier generations would have recognized merely as a Catholic. In allowing ourselves to be labeled — and worse, to embrace the label — we have made it incredibly easy to simply be marginalized.
In a discussion on Karl Keating’s Facebook page, Keating himself made the comment:
1980 was nearly half a lifetime ago. Things inside and outside the Church are much changed. The big rift among orthodox Catholics caused by self-styled Traditionalists was still years down the road. Yes, there was some noise from some particularly overheated folks prior to 1980, but almost no one was aware of it in the larger Church.
In response, Jeff Culbreath responded with what I found to be a very poignant analogy:
The “big rift” was not caused by “self-styled Traditionalists”. That’s like saying an amputation was caused by the severed limb. And how dare the severed limb accuse the hatchet, that’s just plain uncharitable.
I have written on more than one occasion about the attitude problems inherent in the Catholic subculture which favors the Church’s Traditional Mass. I have also highlighted one group which I think represents a positive future for such Catholics, if they could only serve as the model. But I would like, for the sake of timeliness, to briefly quote something I wrote six years ago on the topic of this “amputation”, since I don’t think I can articulate it any more clearly now than I did then:
In his homily on October 21, 2007, the first time his parish would celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form following the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum, Rev. Franklyn McAfee, pastor of St. John the Beloved in McClean, Virginia, offered an insight:What flowed from the promised renewal of the Mass in the late 60s was something entirely new. The American Theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles has pointed out that the new rite of the Mass violated every norm for liturgical renewal prescribed by Vatican II. He said it was the only Mass in history that was put together by a committee. As a result . . . many people stopped going to Mass. Some even left the Church. My parents were shaken but they did not abandon the Church. But my older sister did. In the 50s, more than 80 percent of parishioners attended Mass in their parish church. Today it is far less than 30 percent.
It is not my purpose here to prove causality, but the fact that the change in the liturgy of the Roman Rite and the exodus of Catholics from the Church coincide is hard to dispute. People were hurt, immensely, by the drastic nature of the change. The liturgy on which they had been nourished their entire lives became something unrecognizable — a Mass as alien to them as my first experiences with the old form were to me. Some, like Sts. Padre Pio and Josemaría Escrivá, asked and obtained permission from Rome to continue saying the older form of the Mass. And a group of intellectuals, artists, writers, and actors from England petitioned Rome not to change the Mass at all. Throughout the Catholic world, there was controversy and upheaval over the changing shape of the liturgy. Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani asked during the first session of the Second Vatican Council if the gathered fathers wanted to “stir up wonder, or perhaps scandal among the Christian people, by introducing changes in so venerable a rite, that has been approved by so many centuries and is now so familiar?” Following the Council, in his famous Intervention, the good cardinal, along with “a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls,” urged Pope Paul VI not to replace the venerable Mass of the Church with the new creation that was the Novus Ordo Missae. Their study showed
quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent (emphasis added).
Despite all of the objections, exceptions, and petitions, Rome moved ahead with the new rite. The old liturgy was effectively suppressed, leaving innumerable Catholics shanghaied in a new Mass that adopted a different form, different postures, a different language, and a different theological focus than that to which they had been accustomed their entire lives. They felt alienated and forgotten.
If someone is suffering from schizophrenia, there is always a point in time where the first break from reality happens. Vatican II was a warning that the break was coming. The full tearing in two of the Church’s mind happened upon the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae. This, and no other origin point, is where we find the root of the rift which now so plagues orthodox Catholicism. If we trace it back, we find that the Church split its worship in two in an absolutely unprecedented act of liturgical rupture.
By now, everyone has heard the old saying, “Lex orandi, lex credendi” — the law of prayer is the law of belief. Worship matters. It impacts our way of thinking. And, of course, it wasn’t just the liturgy that was changed, but the sacramental forms, the various blessings, the disciplines, the holy days, the penitential requirements, etc.
Holy Mother Church had a face lift so extreme, she no longer looked like herself.
It is not the point of this essay to prove the superiority of what came before or to condemn all that came after. It’s not that simple. My purpose here is to highlight the fact that when you suddenly and without warning change everything a religion has been doing for the past 1500 years, it’s going to cause problems. Combine the massive overhaul of the Church’s worship and sacraments with the bombshell that the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control set off in anticipation of Humanae Vitae — a countercultural movement within the Church that was never corrected and has accelerated in the present day — and you have the ingredients for exactly the sort of crisis we’re experiencing right this very moment.
The problem we are facing is that when you tell someone that you are “Catholic” in 2014, it has no universally accepted or understood meaning.
Some call this tribalism. Some factionalism. We can try to find words for it, but the fact is clear: one of the Church’s four marks — unity — is no longer in evidence, either in worship or in doctrine. Catholics who understood what the Church taught before are running up their bar tab right now trying to keep pace with the divergence from those teachings playing out in the Vatican and beyond. Catholics who were born into the post-conciliar Church or came into it as converts seem to have pegged their wagon to the person of the pope. If he moves the goalposts on a doctrinal issue, that’s where they should be, regardless of the permanence with which they had been previously planted.
Both camps believe that the Catholic faith is the True Faith. Both believe in the sacraments, the ministerial priesthood, magisterial authority, apostolic succession, devotion to Mary, the communion of saints, and a few other essentials. But both don’t believe the same things about…well, a lot of other things. Including the necessity of Catholicism for salvation. I’m attempting to create a Venn diagram to try to sort this out, but it’s going to take a while. The inescapable conclusion as I work through the list of things on either side is that The Catholicism of Before ≠ The Catholicism of Now.
Parties on both sides sense the divergence inherent in the Church’s identity crisis. This is why the two positions have become intractably opposed. Pope Benedict XVI’s arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, a “hermeneutic of rupture” is in evidence. This is why we fight. It’s not traditionalists vs. conservatives vs. liberals, etc. It’s the Catholic Church before 1960 vs. The Catholic Church after 1965. There aren’t supposed to be such start contrasts and, dare I say it, contradictions. I’ve talked to people who have lost their faith in the Church and in God because indefectibility seemed to them nothing more than a construct when evaluated in light of these contradictions.
I choose to believe. I choose to throw some doubt under the veil of the mystery of iniquity. I choose to hope that some day, God will make it all clear. But without clarification from the Church herself on how the irreconcilable can be reconciled, I don’t know how this conflict will end. Any common sense evaluation of the Church’s claims, however, should make one thing clear: “Catholic” meant one thing for the better part of 2000 years, and now that meaning has bifurcated and turned in on itself and become a big stinking mess.
Traditionalists aren’t a subculture of Catholicism. They are Catholic, full stop. The novelty and innovation which has followed has lasted less than half a century. We don’t need to justify our adherence to the Church’s perennial teaching and worship, nor our skepticism of those new things which seem to stand in opposition to them. We think with the mind of the Church.
The problem isn’t us. It’s the “small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about”.
Good post, and agree. But one quibble. You said,
“It’s the Catholic Church before 1960 vs. The Catholic Church after 1965.”
I disagree. Keeping with your point of avoiding the traditionalist label, I think that what we have is the Catholic Church, timeless, vs. the lacuna of 1965-2014 or whenever sanity returns. What we have now is the aberration, the novelty. It is unsustainable. Whether by restoration (please God, and help, Mary!) or by the unavoidable end of schism, the “progs” or “neo-caths” who tie their whole position to thisPope will have to move to or from the actual Catholic faith.
I believe we are quite near this moment, but of course it is in God’s hands. And I expect Catholics who adhere to the faith to suffer persecution greater than we currently do.
It is interesting that Pope Francis I, in his well advertised search for “unity” has met and embraced religious leaders from Protestant sects, Jewish rabbi’s, Orthodox prelates and even some muslims, continuing and expanding this activity of his immediate Papal predecessors. Now I read where Pope Francis has sent a message to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill saying he [Pope Francis] is “willing to meet at any place.” Yet Pope Francis will not meet with the SSPX members, but will embrace heretical groups such as Orthodox heretics as his “beloved brothers in Christ.” Why treat a group like the SSPX who teach no heretical doctrines, but rather teach what the Catholic faith has taught down through the years, who are clearly Catholic, as pariahs when you embrace,and publicly meet with the religious groups who teach heresy? The answer is that these heretical religious groups support much of Vatican Ii, whereas SSPX questions whether some of the statements in Vatican II document represent a change in Catholic teaching or if you prefer, Catholic “praxis.”
The Orthodox are not heretics. They are in a state of schism, but not heretics. Heretics are those Protestants who deny the Sacraments and have made up weird doctrines like “The Rapture” and “Once save — Always Saved” and deny purgation after death.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith.” [CCC 2089]
The Orthodox deny Papal Infallibility, and that qualifies them as heretics. The Orthodox are both schismatics and heretics.
DJR
The absolute adherence of Orthodoxy to Tradition is what has kept them from going off the rails. Don’t think they’re fans of Vat2! They see us as fascinated with novelty and not much different from Protestants. Can you blame them? Wouldn’t surprise me if their traditionalism (sorry, need to use some word for it) became, in some way, a part of whatever will bring the True Church back to its senses.
(I say this knowing that the attitudes of members of the various Orthodox churches in the US on many issues are not much different from the average Catholic.)
naaaaah…there’s nothing different about this….
http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2014/06/circus-horses-in-catholic-cathedral.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FZMRq+%28Catholic+Church+Conservation%29
…you’re seriously paranoid.
June 5, 2014
Archbishop Lefebvre’s book Against the Heresies is heretical?
The SSPX’s Angelus Press is publishing another book with a factual error. Against the Heresies contains statements by Archbishop Lefebvre which indicate he assumed that the baptism of desire was an explicit exception to the literal interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.Unaware of the Cushingite mistake, he then interpreted Nostra Aetate 2 as referring to explicit cases, which are an exception to all needing to convert into the Church to avoid Hell.
The Angelus Press has also published Is Feenyism Catholic by Francois Laisney with the same error. It is inferred that the baptism of desire is relevant to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.Why is it relevant? As usual they were following the lead given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.He thought that these cases were visible in the flesh.So they had to be exceptions to Fr. Leonard Feeney.
Fr.Francois Laisney cites Tradition in which the baptism of desire is mentioned.Yet none of the sources he quotes states that the baptism of desire is visible to us or an exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. It is Fr.Laisney who infers that these cases are explicit in the present times.
Recently in the Letter to Friends and Benefactors Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Suprior General of the Society of St. Pius X assumed that Nostra Aetate etc were exceptions to the traditional teaching.He was following the error of Archbishop Lefebvre on extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2014/06/bishop-lefebvres-book-against-heresies.html#links
and this….
http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2014/06/will-it-never-end-homosexuality-in.html
and this…
http://gloria.tv/?media=521702
and this…
http://en.gloria.tv/?media=16608
all SO in keeping with the hermeneutic of continuity. Seriously Steve…you just like to see snakes where there’s only teddy bears and unicorn farts…(that last has no methane and thus doesn’t contribute to global warming….a BIG central tenet in Church teaching back to the earliest years, as no doubt will be expounded upon in the B of R’s upcoming encyclical).
A slew a links and colorful metaphors. Being an infrequent visitor here, I have no idea what you’re saying, since your comment (itself) has no content, other than your assignation of “paranoid” to Steve (personal attack, however mild). It’s the sort of thing that keeps people from even reading comments on blogs. Very effective.
She was being sarcastic. She wasn’t really calling Steve paranoid. The links were to pics of gross liturgical abuses.
Great. No way to know, or time for the links. Must remember not to read comments.
That might be a very good idea indeed in your case vta.
Good zinger. Reinforces my resolve, oh gentle fellow Catholic. Pardon if I missed your sarcasm, irony or whatever.
…caffeine?
What is the ninth article of the Creed?
The ninth article of the Creed is, ‘the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints’.
… only adjective here: Holy …
From Chapter 4 of the Commonitorium | The “Vincentian Canon”, AD 434 | St. Vincent of Lerins:
quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus
(3) Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly ‘Catholic,’ as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We shall hold to this rule if we follow universality [i.e. oecumenicity], antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.
I believe that there will be a time when the beauty and purity of our Catholic Faith, in its worship, in its Holy Prelates and people, will shine again in all clarity to the glory of God, having cleansed and swept away all the novelties that tend to creep in.
In meantime, in the period leading up to Pentecost, let’s beseech the LORD to send His Spirit with His Gifts: Piety, fear of the LORD, …
Thank you fmshyanguya and St. Vincent of Lerins! Beautiful!
This is our vision of the future “time of peace” when Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart triumphs.
Thank you and God bless you @indignus famulus(what does it mean?)! Let’s keep up the good fight!
fmshyanguya, God Bless you too. indignus famulus means “unworthy servant”, and happens to be part of the Latin Mass Offertory prayer: Sucipe Sancte Pater
–another example of the beauty of the old Liturgy and how it teaches the faith and our relationship to God:
Accept, O Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting Fod, this unspotted Host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto thee, my living and true God, to atone for my countless sins, offenses, and negligences: on behalf of all here present and likewise for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail both me and them as a means of salvation, unto life everlasting. Amen
Everlasting God– where’s spellcheck when you need it?
Thanks be to God and thank you!
I think our Eastern Catholic bishops wised up when they saw what Vatican II did to the Latin Church. Instead of a wholesale change, they came out with a new pew book that snuck in minor changes — for instance, instead of the Creed saying “For us men and our salvation” it simply says now “For us and our salvation”.
Mankind has been changed to read “humankind” or in Ambon prayers, it speaks of Christ who “loves us all” (instead of “loves mankind”)
Yeah, we had a few folks jump out the windows and start running, but most are still around and this liturgical abomination continues. One can only hope that some Archbishop in the future, after receiving his pallium, makes it his first order to have all the “teal terrors” burned and the old language restored.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh!
Edward, totally agree. Best example we’ve come across of the lengths these pronoun-Nazis go to–(I think it was in a booklet attending a Catholic wedding) They actually wrote “God, Godsself” in order to avoid any reference to “him”.
I’d like to see some hard evidence as to the incidence of, say, traditionalist vs. neo-Catholic vs. liberal types among preconciliar, postconciliar and convert Catholics. Some say that converts are more prone to be neo-Catholics. But that isn’t my personal experience. For example, I’m a convert who is a traditionalist. My two siblings are “converts” who are pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage liberals. I personally know no converts who are neo-Catholics. By contrast, the neo-Catholics I know seem to be cradle-Catholics. Are preconciliar Catholics more likely to be traditionalists? I don’t know. I do know that just by tallying up the ages at my traditionalist church, it’s clear that 95% plus are either postconciliar or converts. On the other hand, some say that the young are flocking to traditionalism. I’d like to think that’s true, but I’m not completely sure. My traditionalist church has a large and obvious young crowd, but then so does Holy Name-our neo-Catholic rival. I’m not arguing with anyone, only saying that I don’t think things are that clear cut on these things.
Yes! Thank you.
I’ve spent most of my years since I converted to the faith secretly longing for the True Mass and the true teachings of the faith. I have been force fed the message that the Church was very mean and nasty in the old days, but thanks to Vatican 2, it is now happy and friendly. I kept my mouth shut because I was the new kid. But I am not hiding it anymore.
I ache for the day when I can walk into any old Catholic Church and find the Mass said in the Old Rite. I long for it to be the norm again. I feel jealous of my grandmothers who went to Mass in the true form and never dreamed it would suddenly be snatched away. (Did they lose their faith during the confusion?)
Maybe God allowed the Mass to be taken away so that we would once again burn with the desire for it. I know I need it like I need food and water. It is a passion that I carry within me every moment of the day.
The oddest thing in my view is that there seemed to be virtually no resistance to changes that were perhaps more sudden and jarring than anything during the Reformation. Sure, as Steve reminds us, there were a few prominent holdouts and petitioners. Yes, there were those prominent British intellectuals (not all Catholics and not even all theists), SSPX was fortified, the brothers Matt parted and various sedevacantist groups germinated. But much of this was at least initially on the “fringes”. Was it shock, passivity, enthusiasm, loyalty? I really have no idea. And honestly, when I ask 70+ year old Catholics about it (or their children) I rarely get a clear answer. It’s almost as if it was just a change in the weather or something. Again, I don’t mean to criticize anyone. I wasn’t there. But I still don’t really understand.
Yes, my father-in-law never really gives a clear answer either. He says he thought it was weird how things changed, but he also likes having a “greater role” now (he is an EMHC). Really, I don’t think he has given it much thought because he just assumes he is being obedient. Here and there I think (hope) he listens to us, but mostly I don’t think he wants to adjust to changes again. Also, I wonder if people of his mindset don’t want to face that they basically went along without a fight.
My mother-in-law (RIP) told my husband once that when The Vatican didn’t reveal the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960 that it really shocked and dismayed her (and I would imagine other Catholics as well). They had been praying and waiting their whole lives and nothing was revealed to them at the time it was rightfully expected. Then came along Vatican II and all of the other “changes”; so I don’t know … maybe some were still in shock from the letdown of no secret (feeling a bit betrayed?), others probably wanted and welcomed the changes, others just went along because they trusted that the shepherds wouldn’t/couldn’t lead them over the cliff.
Whatever the case, God allowed it for some reason. It will be interesting one day to see for what greater good.
What is EMHC?
In the New Mass it is the term used for laypersons that distribute Holy Communion … Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
I can give you anecdotal data from my own family. Vatican II basically coincided with their move out of the urban irish “ghetto” and into the suburbs, where my father got a government job. Their urban irish “ghetto” became a real ghetto, i.e. the South Bronx. I have never visited the church my parents grew up in and got married in. I am utterly unfamiliar with the entire neighborhood, even though both sides of my family hail from there. None of their friends remained either. So there was a social as well as liturgical rupture, and those coincided. I’m sure that made the changes in the church less noticeable: everything was changing. Also, there are very few fond stories of nuns and priests from the old days. The only story I can recall being told about a priest from my parents’ youth is that one hit my father on the head with a hanger when he was an altar boy. But the church provided great social cohesion: no one missed mass and everyone went to catholic school. It only took one generation for all of that to disappear. I have three siblings and am the only practicing catholic.
in sum, they viewed the changes as the church as part of “movin on up”, a la the Jeffersons, taking the social and family cohesion for granted. they didn’t realize they were throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Oakes…we were teens when the changes hit in the 60’s, and observed faith being lost all around us. The changes hit like a tsunami. It wasn’t like anyone saw it coming and had time to prepare a defense or object. And Catholics of our generation were raised with the idea we go out into the world and counter the evil with the light of truth. We turned to our priests for guidance in total trust. The betrayal of that trust left nothing but shock and dismay and confusion. We were in no way prepared for the attack to come from within. And it was done in such calculated and subtle ways, that you literally would have had to interview each person in positions of authority to determine what they really believed, and sort out the victims from the perpetrators.
Later, raising a family, we went to pastors and Bishops, only to be ostracized. One told us he wished all families were like ours, and then invited us to leave his parish, and find a place where we were comfortable. The bishop said they were “experimenting with our parish” to try to reach “fringe” Catholics, and urged us to leave it too. We didn’t give up, but got used to the run-around and phrases like “you’re the only ones who have a problem with this…” and “I hear where you’re coming from, but I have just as many people who want the oppositie…” etc.
We learned to lie low and wait for opportunities to challenge concepts they publicly teach, with calm, reasoned, finely tuned truth, expressed in ways that challenge their ideas, and always with the idea in our hearts and minds that they have been misled.
Growing up we used to wonder how the holocaust could have been allowed, too, Then we tried battling the legalization of abortion in the U.S. We’re still battling it, but now we understand.
Wow … I am speechless! … I am thinking of the angel’s cry, ‘Penance, penance, penance!’
Just finding this post today. These are the same replies my husband and I are still getting from friends who are Novus Ordo parishioners. They don’t want to even consider that something is going wrong. I found myself going head to head with the Director of Religious Education and the High School Youth Ministry Director (both paid positions) over the watered down teachings and the low standards.
So many people tried to explain that we had to keep the parishes as “pastoral” as possible and understand that “not everyone is in the same place on their faith walk.” Apparently it was asking too much for the First Communicants to actually genuflect before taking their seats. No one was terribly surprised when we left for an FSSP parish, but several advised us that if we did leave then what examples would be left for others. It was the same thing I had been told so many times by public school parents when we decided to homeschool. Basically I was supposed to sacrifice my children’s formation for the greater good.
I like this blog.
Want to make just one comment regarding the article. It has to do with the following quote:
“If someone is suffering from schizophrenia, there is always a point in time where the first break from reality happens. Vatican II was a warning that the break was coming. The full tearing in two of the Church’s mind happened upon the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae. This, and no other origin point, is where we find the root of the rift which now so plagues orthodox Catholicism. If we trace it back, we find that the Church split its worship in two in an absolutely unprecedented act of liturgical rupture.”
My comment is this: It is not quite accurate to say that the “full tearing in two” came with the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae. For those of us who lived through “the changes,” we can testify to the fact that the tearing in two occurred prior to the promulgation of the new missal.
For most Catholics around back then, the major changes started in Advent 1964 and proceeded non-stop, resulting in the new missal. However, at least in my parish, in 1969 there was little difference between the Mass we attended and the Mass we began attending once the new missal was promulgated. By the time 1969 rolled around, my parish had been standing for Communion for three years. Mass was completely in the vernacular, and the priest faced the people. There were four “Eucharistic prayers,” and were had begun singing Protestant hymns on a regular basis. Women were in the sanctuary. Mistranslations of the missal were heard.
We did not yet have Communion in the hand here in the States, at least not legally, but it was occurring in Canada and Europe. Nor did we have “Eucharistic ministers”; however, they were just around the corner.
All this to say: The Novus Ordo Missae was the logical consequence of what had come immediately prior, but the break had already taken place by the time that missal was promulgated. I doubt whether anyone who calls himself/herself a “Traditional Catholic” in our day would want to assist at Mass the way it was done immediately prior to the new Mass coming on the scene in my parish back in 1969/1970. I know I wouldn’t. As the saying goes, been there, done that.
The break had already taken place.
Keep up the good fight. DJR
Thanks for the perspective. It’s a little bit shocking to me to hear that things were changing so fast before the new missal. I wonder what was driving it? Where was it coming from? Pretty bold and brazen stuff.
I know things weren’t hunky dory before the council. If they were, they wouldn’t have come down so fast. Something was going on. I don’t know if it was a post-war thing, a zeitgeist thing, or what.
Something I meant to mention in the post (but I was pressed for time and forgot) was that solid liturgy is to the Church what a good suit of armor is to a warrior. It’s solid, impenetrable, even beautiful. It keeps enemies out and important things in. It goes a long way toward protecting its occupant.
But its useless against viruses. Gangrene. Disease. A man can rot away inside a suit of armor and unless you get real close, you’ll never even know it.
In the days when I was attending Byzantine Liturgy — because there wasn’t a good Roman Catholic Mass to be found — I once met up for lunch with a deacon who gave fantastic homilies and did a great job celebrating the liturgy with reverence.
He turned out to be a bloody heretic.
You’d never have known it. He kept his game face on when he was in the sanctuary. Outside, he was challenging the moral precepts of the Church.
Proper and fitting liturgy is an enormous safeguard on the sensus fidei. It does the lion’s share of the work in keeping the bad out and the good where it belongs. But by itself, it’s not enough.
Going into the Second Vatican Council, if I may be so bold as to paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s Joker, “This Church needed an enema!” It was needed in order to flush the toxins which had been building up from the system. Instead, what came out was all gathered up and thrown at everyone after being labeled, “The Spirit of Vatican II.”
It seems clear to me that the Church needed some things addressed by 1960, but it got a whole bunch of new problems instead. People who look back with their rose-tinted, Pollyanna-issued glasses don’t do anybody any favors. It was still better then — and the statistics were there to prove it — but not exactly the golden age of Catholicism that some wistful trads would like to think.
“But by itself, it’s not enough.” Spot-on!
The external if true, publicly and properly expressing the Mystery of Christ (and His Church) that it manifest.
If true Faith is lacking, then the external is empty be it in Latin or vernacular …
The Prelates who thought it to tinker with the Liturgy preserved and faithfully handed down to them, well, did they have Faith?
Some thoughts from Ecclesiastes 7:10-15
Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this.
Wisdom is as good as an inheritance
and profitable to those who see the sun.
For the protection of wisdom is as the protection of money; and knowledge is profitable because wisdom gives life to those who possess it.
Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what God has made crooked?
On a good day enjoy good things, and on an evil day consider: Both the one and the other God has made, so that no one may find the least fault with him.
Well, this is just going to be painful…can only imagine what’s going to be invoked.
http://weaselzippers.us/188794-no-joke-for-first-time-islamic-prayers-to-be-held-in-the-vatican/
Dear Steve,
This is something we just posted today on Louie Verrecchio’s blog, http://www.harvestingthefruit.com/category/blog/ , (I Told You So), after reading a 90 comment discussion illustrating everything you just wrote of here. We’re delighted to see your commitment to
the Faith, and totally sympathetic to the feelings you share with all of us faithful Catholics in agony over the disunity going on in the Church. We wrote this in response to those who are considering
leaving her for schismatic groups which appeal to them for the reasons you mentioned – they offer a semblance of what was. We hope this encourages you and others who read your blog and
appreciate your candor, perseverance, Faith and special gifts in verbally hitting the nail on the head. Edu and Peter are two who posted on Louie’s blog.
Edu’s referring to the prophecy in Genesis of the woman crushing the head of the serpent, (Our Lady bearing the Messiah) should remind us all of Mary’s continuing role in salvation history, helping us through this time, by appearing at Fatima in 1917 and prophetically addressing modernism and the apostasy in the Church hierarchy, which are the subjects of most of the above discussions.
Our Lady and Our Lord each gave us their examples, of persevering in union with the Roman Catholic Church, despite various Popes’ and many others’ personal errors and misuse of authority – including the scorning of her prophecies and ignoring her call for the consecration of Russia, while preferring man-made, worldly solutions to the Church’s problems.
“Private revelations”, are not required belief, but once the Church investigated and confirmed they were of Divine origin, and seeing that their messages are so directly for the good of all souls and
designed to guide the Pope in particular, it becomes sheer folly at best to ignore or dismiss them, (which always pleases the Devil immensely and helps him further his aims).
Our Lady submitted all her requests to the Roman Pontiff, and continues to do so, and consequently the promised time of Peace to come after the consecration and conversion of Russia
depends entirely on the cooperation of the Roman Pontiff in union with all the Bishops of the Roman Church -which in turn will come about from the prayers and sacrifices of the Faithful.
Since the Orthodox Church had been living in schism for over 800 years when she came, the fact that she appeared to three Roman Catholic children and so directly involved the Pope(s), should
answer all of Peter’s questions about whether the Roman Church is still the same one Jesus founded and promised to remain with till the end of time. Our Lady and He have patiently waited
almost 100 years for her Fatima requests to be granted, well aware of what is going on, and we need only imitate them in our actions, and remain patient in our sufferings.
The collegial consecration is no small thing. It brings submission to the will of God as expressed by the Blessed Mother, honoring her as she deserves and reversing the post-conciliar closeting of her in favor of pleasing and not offending non-Catholics who consider her a false goddess or idol. With that one blow, it re-establishes the importance of the hierarchy, and ends democratizing of
the church and false ecumenism. The Russian (Orthodox) conversion will be a miracle noticed by all, which demonstrates the power of God working through His True Church to convert by Grace
and declaration of Truth. It’s really one great proselytization done by the Body of Christ today -contrary to Pope Francis’ “NO, NO, NO.. we don’t proselytize!” and turning back to the mandate of
Christ – Go teach all nations, Baptizing….
Two of the greatest “proofs” that Our Lady of Fatima came as God’s direct answer to this modernism and apostasy in the Church, are her request that the third secret be revealed to the world in 1960, because “by then it would be evident”, and Sister Lucia’s warning the Faithful not to wait for the call to do penance to come from the Bishops.
In 1960, when Pope John XXIII read the third secret, he immediately refused to publish it, saying “this does not apply to my pontificate”. He then included the following words in his opening
address to the Council :
“In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.” “We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In the present order of things, Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by men’s own efforts and even beyond their very expectations, are directed toward the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church. ”
– DIVINE PROVIDENCE LEADING US TO A NEW ORDER ..MEN’S EFFORTS… GREATER GOOD OF THE CHURCH….Each of his successors followed in his footsteps to varying degrees.
Proof that Our Lord is still with this Roman Church, despite the errors of Papal modernism, came when He appeared to Sister Lucia in Rianjo, in 1931, after the Pope and others had rejected
Mary’s request for the Consecration of Russia and said, “Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will
follow him into misfortune. Later Our Lord complained: ‘They did not wish to heed My request! … Like the King of France they will repent of it, and they will do it, but it will be late…”
For Him to be displeased with His ministers’ disobedience, they have to STILL BE CONSIDERED, HIS MINISTERS. Like the “Roman Catholic” kings of France, He gives them all ample time to do His will — just as the Israelites were always given time after the Prophets warned them of impending punishments for idolatry . Free will is a gift for eternity. We can continue abusing His
patience, but He limits the time for our evil actions for the sake of those who will still come to Him, and for the elect who are suffering its results.
When Peace finally comes to the whole world, all mankind will be able to see, (though still free to reject), the Roman Church as the Bride of Christ, now repentant of sin and denial of Christ, like St.
Peter, forgiven and made the rock on which the Church was built, bearer of His greatest Graces and blessings to all souls, keeper of the keys to Heaven which honors it’s King and Queen.
We urge everyone to avoid letting knowledge and lofty “logic” become a tool of Satan, which leads you to reject the true Church. Our Lord and Our Lady are staying with it, as they obviously are
from what they’ve said during and after Fatima, so we need not wonder what to do while this Diabolic disorientation at the top plays out. Run to our Holy Family and imitate them.
Keep identifying and renouncing falsehood, but don’t leave.
You are all in our prayers,.
God Bless you.