1P5 Article "More and More, It Looks Like Tradition is the Future of the Church"

[MagdalenaRita]

In my area there is nearly zero demand for the EF, so not unexpectedly, there’s only OF Masses. People who want “tradition” and Gregorian chant seem more than satisfied by our local abbey which offers all that, but ONLY in the OF.

I think you have a pretty special place there, unfortunately it is rare for most Catholics that attend the ordinary form to have that type of Mass, least ways what I have experienced here in the United States. Don’t get me wrong there are many priests who are doing their best to offer beautiful traditional OF Masses. In my mid western rural area though, most all parishes play what I call hippie music from the 60’s and 70’s or a lot of Catholic praise from the 80’s. If I want Gregorian chant, I go to the internet.

There are many here where I live who have asked for the EF, we are just short of priests and so the one’s that know how to offer the EF, get moved around frequently to satisfy many, so the EF comes and goes in my area.

 

[OraLabora]

Well in the neighbouring archdiocese (I live on the border between dioceses), I sing in a small schola that does the rounds of local parishes to sing Gregorian chant at Mass and sometimes the LOTH.

We sing once a month… or did before the pandemic… and we rotate around the parishes. So they see us as a special treat and it doesn’t overwhelm them. We’ve had older parishioners and priests in tears when they hear us. I hope it’s not because we sound awful! I think not because we even have a few « groupies » who always seem to show up at the parish we’re singing at.

Have you considered putting together a small group and singing chant? Once you’ve mastered a few pieces you could ask the parish if you can sing them at Mass.

 

[Maximian]

It isn’t divisive it is simply analytical .

 

[commenter]

Maximian:

If you can’t see what’s at stake, I don’t know what to say.

Actually I can see what’s at stake. Labeling priests “Novus Ordo” vs “traditionalist”, is divisive, and division in the Church is not a good thing.

True.
In fact some take it further. I see posts dividing “diocesan priests” and diocesan Masses from FSSP priests and “FSSP Masses,” apparently more authentic TLM…
Until…
You find other posts claimed the FSSP priests are insufficiently hostile towards the “No Mass”, so support only SSPX Masses.

Of course the Resistance visits my city periodically to try and pull folks from the compromised SSPX. It never ends.

The TLM group in my city split between those who only like the TLM, against those who like the TLM and OnePeterFive. Sadly neither group is big enough to build a parish around.

 

[27lw]

…
In my area there is nearly zero demand for the EF, so not unexpectedly, there’s only OF Masses. People who want “tradition” and Gregorian chant seem more than satisfied by our local abbey which offers all that, but ONLY in the OF.

Sorry, I just don’t accept that anyone can really know the demand for the EF Mass unless there were some study or survey.
How can you possibly know that there is nearly zero demand for the EF in your area?
If elderly people weep when they hear your chant group, don’t you think that is meaningful to them?

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

I don’t think we need a survey in my area. Regular Sunday Mass attendance (Pre-COVID, OF) is approximately 4,000 people among the parishes in my town. There are about 75 who attend the twice monthly TLM. Ergo, I have a pretty good idea that the demand is roughly 2%.

 

[CathoRick]

There’s an inevitable shift towards tradition with the younger generations. I know some don’t wish to see it happen, and fewer still are politicizing this shift as being a “far-right” takeover, but I’d encourage anyone with that mindset to participate in a TLM and note those in attendance - not a dwindling minority of tattooed white supremacists, but overwhelmingly young singles and families of all colors and backgrounds.

 

[27lw]

I don’t think we need a survey in my area. Regular Sunday Mass attendance (Pre-COVID, OF) is approximately 4,000 people among the parishes in my town. There are about 75 who attend the twice monthly TLM. Ergo, I have a pretty good idea that the demand is roughly 2%.

What if EF were offered in more locations and times per month? I wonder if more people would go?

 

[OraLabora]

How can you possibly know that there is nearly zero demand for the EF in your area?

I’'ve lived in the area for 36 years. I reverted to the Church 23 years ago and have been active since, especially in the oblates of our abbey. In our active oblate group of about 40 people (there are 200 in total but many too elderly to participate), there is zero demand for the EF. It ranges from indifference to hostility. We had one oblate in my 18 years of involvement who pined for the EF Mass. He was from France and has since passed away. He had been a postulant at Fontgombault.

Moreover I live in a very rural diocese. Our parishes around here struggle to have one Mass per parish every Sunday. It requires priests to binate and even trinate and drive many miles between Masses. Even if there was demand, there’s no capacity to accommodate it. There might be at the cathedral… 60 miles away on poor roads. But I know few very people willing to negotiate them in winter to attend an EF Mass although there’s an SSPX chapel and seminary about half-way. I won’t go there and nor will most faithful Catholics. So I don’t need statistics to see the wider picture.

If elderly people weep when they hear your chant group, don’t you think that is meaningful to them?

Absolutely. However, Gregorian chant does not equal EF Mass only. Gregorian chant remains fully licit in the OF, and there are approved chant books in the OF for Gregorian chant. Some may be nostalgic for the music, most are not nostalgic for the era. And many, if not most, conflate the two. Some parishes are hostile to us.

In the neighbouring archdiocese, the one our chant group works in, there is an EF Mass in a very rural and isolated parish about 100 miles from here. It is centred around a large traditional extended French Canadian family that live in semi-isolation. The parish also serves the wider Catholic community in the OF. One pastor provides both. It is horribly divided, the two sides hardly acknowledge the other exists, and the poor priest is caught in the middle. We once proposed to chant Vespers there on a Sunday. To unite the two groups, and since several of us are oblates, we proposed to use the most ancient Vespers in existence in the Latin Church, the Monastic Vespers of St. Benedict, in continuous use for over 1500 years. And since there are both licit pre- and post-Vatican II versions, we thought it would be nice to bring the two groups together.

The priest was sympathetic, but alas he said he could not accommodate the two groups in the same church at the same time. There would be either open hostility, or refusal to attend.

That really broke my heart, and emphasized how much this “OF” vs “EF” divide can hurt the Church.

I’m not averse to Latin and Gregorian chant. Quite the contrary, I sing in a schola and chant the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin Gregorian chant almost daily (some busy days or when traveling I just recite the Office). I am however, increasingly hostile to the division that all this is causing.

 

[27lw]

I’m confused.
You said there is ZERO demand for the EF “in your area”, then you gave me examples of people who go to EF Masses.

I think you’re also extrapolating a lot about the wider Church due to your particular experiences in Quebec, which, as we discussed yesterday, is a bit of an anomaly in terms of the Church as a whole.

“By the 1970s, many within Quebec’s Catholic Church were forced to recognize that what they had really signed on to was, so to speak, their own death warrant. “We did not realize how much would be destroyed, or how quickly,” Neuhaus records one old priest as saying. “We wanted to liberate [Quebeckers] from the oppression of the Church and we ended up liberating them from the Church.” Rarely in modern times has well-intentioned but misguided zeal cost so much.”

Quebec After Catholicism

 

[OraLabora]

I’m confused.
You said there is ZERO demand for the EF “in your area”, then you gave me examples of people who go to EF Masses.

The group I told you about is not in my area, not in our pastoral unit and not even in our diocese. It is over 100 miles away.

think you’re also extrapolating a lot about the wider Church due to your particular experiences in Quebec, which, as we discussed yesterday, is a bit of an anomaly in terms of the Church as a whole.

I wasn’t talking about the wider Church. My area is not the “wider Church”. I’m talking about the Québec local Church, and more locally, my own diocese.

Many Francophone Quebecers, of which I am one, often fail to recall that they owe their survival to the Church. The Church openly forced a high birth rate on us, “La revanche des berceaux” (the “Revenge of the Cradles”) to shore up our population against the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture. By and large it worked, we’re still here. Moreover we’ve completed our economic emancipation. Most wealth in Québec is now generated by Francophone Quebecers. I agree though that we did throw out the baby with the bathwater. The problem is that by the 1950s, our form of Catholicism was no longer compatible with the modern economic world (I won’t get into the morality part of it here). People were fed up with enforced poverty. Hence the Quiet Revolution. Yes, it did leave a spiritual vacuum that we’ve failed to fill. Nature abhors a vacuum and the Muslim faith is growing here (through immigration only so far). In fact I’ve found far more sympathy for my counter-cultural Catholicism through Muslim colleagues than Francophone Quebecer colleagues.

It’s a hugely complicated issue but suffices to say that in this context the demand for the EF is… very very low.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I’'ve lived in the area for 36 years. I reverted to the Church 23 years ago and have been active since, especially in the oblates of our abbey. In our active oblate group of about 40 people (there are 200 in total but many too elderly to participate),

So, I have read many of your posts over the years and I have to say what I hear you say happens at your Catholic abbey, in your rural area, is very far from what most Catholics experience. Much of what you say you have is what Catholics are seeking in the EF. You are blessed to be in that abbey and able to experience “a very reverent OF”. I can think of one Catholic church in my area that has anything close to that and that is because it is a Cathedral and many of the younger priests are doing what they can to bring back reverence to the Mass. One did know how to say the EF but has since been transferred.

there is zero demand for the EF

Many Catholics will not voice their desire for the EF or for other changes. Many will just be obedient and as I have heard some elderly say, “take what they can get”. I heard that being said when we had a priest who refused to do a weekly novena for the parishioners and another time when we were being told we could no longer pray the rosary after Mass. Fortunately the rosary issue didn’t last long.

I agree with the thought that without a poll or survey among all the Catholics in a particular diocese or parish, it is just hard to say there is zero desire for the EF. We can not read peoples hearts and know what they truly want or even why many are leaving the Church without asking.

 

[OraLabora]

So, I have read many of your posts over the years and I have to say what I hear you say happens at your Catholic abbey, in your rural area, is very far from what most Catholics experience.

When I first reverted to my faith after a long absence, some 23 years ago, I noticed a lot of liturgical… “liberties” being taken (I hate the word “abuse”; I’m sure many of these liberties were in good faith even if misguided). Now, as our schola rotates around parishes, I would say that there are hardly any. Bad music is bad music (outside of our chant group of course!), but basically, “youse pays peanuts, youse gets monkeys”. Most are amateurs, and are doing their best. That said around here there’s no shortage of quiet, reverent recited Masses (no music). When I used to attend morning Mass at St. Joseph’s Oratory at 7:00 am on my way to work, I actually preferred these quiet Masses. Just the ticket to still the soul for a busy day.

Many will just be obedient and as I have heard some elderly say, “take what they can get”.

Well when priests have to binate and trinate over a 400 sq. km. territory every Sunday just so people can have access to the Sacraments, that’s basically it. It probably also affects the ability to offer “extras” like Novenas, the Liturgy of the Hours (at least with the priest present) etc. Throw in sick calls, etc., and that priest is going to be pretty busy. Most people around here are, I think, realistic.

I agree with the thought that without a poll or survey among all the Catholics in a particular diocese or parish, it is just hard to say there is zero desire for the EF. We can not read peoples hearts and know what they truly want or even why many are leaving the Church without asking.

I’m not sure what a poll would achieve here other than to quantify how many are asking for the impossible…

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Well when priests have to binate and trinate over a 400 sq. km. territory every Sunday just so people can have access to the Sacraments, that’s basically it. It probably also affects the ability to offer “extras” like Novenas, the Liturgy of the Hours (at least with the priest present) etc. Throw in sick calls, etc., and that priest is going to be pretty busy. Most people around here are, I think, realistic.

I get that priests are busy and have a lot to do. I wasn’t complaining about this particular priest. It was a novena our parish has been doing for many many years. It was about 5 minutes after Mass one day per week. There was nothing unrealistic about it. My point was just that most parishioners won’t speak up but rather just be obedient.

By the way, please pray for that priest as he has passed away and I pray he has eternal rest in the Lord. The novena was just something he didn’t want to do for a reason we do not know.

than to quantify how many are asking for the impossible…

There is nothing impossible with God.

 

[OraLabora]

There is nothing impossible with God.

God does, however, expect us to do our part in effecting those miracles. More young men will have to step up to the plate for vocations. It’s a miracle that involves effort from all of us.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

God does, however, expect us to do our part in effecting those miracles. More young men will have to step up to the plate for vocations. It’s a miracle that involves effort from all of us.

Yes, Effort and prayer. Ember days will soon be upon us, fasting and praying for priests is a long standing tradition during these days.

 

[27lw]

OraLabora:

God does, however, expect us to do our part in effecting those miracles. More young men will have to step up to the plate for vocations. It’s a miracle that involves effort from all of us.

Yes, Effort and prayer. Ember days will soon be upon us, fasting and praying for priests is a long standing tradition during these days.

Yes, but I don’t think it’s helpful when you or @Cor_ad_Cor just go around saying that “there is no demand, or there is very little demand”. You just don’t know what other factors are at play. I just don’ t know how you can make blanket statements that you know everyone’s preferences in a large area.

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

In fairness, you’re correct in that I don’t know everyone’s preferences, but I do get around and talk to a lot of people (including clergy and staff) in the local Catholic community, so I know what the prevailing winds are, so to speak. Balance between things would likely be the most welcomed thing in our area.

 

[OraLabora]

Same here. I’ve been involved in parishes and our abbey through our chant group and through being an oblate.

My sense from this involvement is that there’s a hunger… for more reverence, and for better music. Not necessarily for chant. I know from experience that too much Gregorian chant in one parish ends up saturating the parishioners. But as an occasional “treat” it works quite well in many places.

There is really no demand in our area for a return to a pre-vernacular Mass. Latin is now so unfamiliar to most around here, that any attempt to do so would, I’m sure, result in a severe backlash. I don’t know what would happen if the EF were reimposed as the only form around here. I hope if it happens, it is after I’ve finished shuffling along this mortal coil, because it won’t be pretty. Unless it is offered in an approved vernacular translation.

Purely an anecdote, but I know an extremely devout, orthodox, rosary-praying, LOTH-reciting, Catholic morality-supporting Catholic who stumbled into an EF Mass in Québec City some years ago, and was completely horrified, feeling like she was thrown back into the '50s.

I of course would not be so bothered but likely my casual clothes would raise eyebrows (and I couldn’t care less!), but I would feel somewhat disoriented even though I’m familiar with Latin; I’ve even been to fully Latin OF Masses and as I said I chant the Office in Latin.

I just find this whole OF vs EF nonsense incredibly divisive. One oblate and choirmaster I know (of a different choir than mine) says his belief is that the debate has actually made the OF worse: instead of making great efforts to improve it, laziness sets in and people are told if they want chant, etc, to just seek out an EF Mass, if they can find one. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusion, but I do agree I would like to see our liturgical traditions preserved… BUT in the OF.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

stumbled into an EF Mass in Québec City some years ago, and was completely horrified, feeling like she was thrown back into the '50s.

I’ve always wondered why it is that when the EF is talked about, the 50s is mentioned by those who don’t want it, when the EF certainly predates the 50s and goes beyond it. ??

Then I wonder what is so horrible about the people of the 50s that it would frighten someone. I have good Catholic family that lived and helped build the Church during that time, before and after.