Latin Mass comeback

[Randolph]

So your charge of ‘many abuses’ is resting on the story of a seminarian serving one priest who was ‘speeding through Mass.

Uh-huh.

That’s it?
No clown masses.
No ad lib Masses especially the consecration.
No priests on hoverboards.
No dancing down the aisles.
No puppets
No priests serving Mass wearing letter sweaters and distributing communion with the high school team mascot.
No people standing around the altar and speaking the words of consecration with the priests.
No priests telling you that no good Catholic could vote for Trump (or Carter, or Reagan, or Bush, or Kerry, etc.)
No laity giving homilies (happened for 35 years and more in the diocese of Rochester NY).
No giving self-intinction.
No priests fracturing the Host at the consecration.
No priests refusing to offer reconciliation because “that’s no longer necessary, we are an Easter people”.
No rushing through Mass because, “Hell isn’t the only place that’s hot today ha ha ha”
No rushing through Mass because, “You kids need time to relax”.
No deciding that “in this parish we will not say this new liturgy from 2011 because it isn’t meaningful.”
No deciding to always say ‘cup’ because “chalice is too la de dah’.
No priests using cut glass chalices because “It won’t break, I’ve had it 30 years and it’s been fine’.
No laity refusing to use the word He’ and loudly substituting GOD every time it is called for in the Mass.
And you know I could go on.
ALL the above happened in Masses I attended, sometimes happening for YEARS.

In all honesty, I (and many of my friends) personally witnessed the majority of the abuses you listed. To add to your list, I also saw the following abuses in the OF:

—Priests inviting the laity to the altar—surrounding the altar—while the priest consecrated the host.
—Priests leaving the altar to shake hands with the laity during the sign of peace.
—Priests imploring/soliciting applause from the laity after Communion after good singing from the choir.
—The word “His” was changed to “God’s” throughout Mass.

I attended the OF in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland and countries in Europe. Unless one goes to only few good parishes run by good priests, I find it incredible for any regular Mass attendee NOT to have witnessed any of abuse items you listed. As a matter of charity, I guess it’s theoretically possible.

 

[Lysander]

You beat me to it

 

[stpurl]

Oh YOUR list was not an anecdote?
Because YOU did not experience any of those things they didn’t exist?

We aren’t discussing if your ‘supposed’ disobedient priest would be disobedient now.

We are discussing the fact that you ‘anecdotally’ claim NUMEROUS abuses in the EF which supposedly needed correction by institution of the OF —which ‘abuses’ could have been but a fraction of the abuses performed by thousands and thousands of priests and laity in only the last 50 years.

And honey, I was ‘there’. And I’m almost 64. And my mother is 90 and let me tell you from her (and from her memories and discussions of HER parents, and who were in their 40s when she was born) there was no ‘mangled Gregorian chant’, clueless people, or ‘speed demon priests’.

 

[Peeps]

Stop it. Just stop.

Stop denying what others have witnessed. Instead, listen to what they are saying–mainly that the FORM of the Mass does not guarantee that abuses will or will not happen.

I’m a convert to the Catholic Church, and IMO, for what my opinion is worth (very little in the grand scheme of the God’s Plan for the Universe), a clown Mass is less offensive to God and man than a priest who committed sexual sin against innocents, and that has happened for decades, including during the era when the Latin Mass was the only Mass, and including in Protestant churches which presented themselves as “true churches of Jesus Christ and His Word.”

Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant, are BLEEDING people. A frighteningly large percentage of people in the U.S. and throughout Europe do not practice or profess ANY religious faith. The Latin Mass parish in our city has failed to attract new members for years now–the same people attend faithfully and are a shining witness in our city, but the parish is definitely not attracting young people or old people in droves.

But then, neither are the parishes that pray the Ordinary Form of the Mass.

Many of our large Evangelical Protestant churches have dwindled to less than a few hundred people, mainly Boomers–these are churches that used to welcome 500-1000 people every Sunday, had a dozen pastors on their paid staff, and hosted speakers like Billy Graham or Dr. Bill Bright!

And most of the mainline churches in our city have less than a hundred people each Sunday–and these were churches that in the 1960s were confirming classes of 60-100 young people.

The non-denoms (Protestant) are trying every trick in the book to stay alive, but many of them close their doors after a few months, unable to attract enough people to pay the bills.

The only church that continues to attract seekers is the Willow Creek church plant–but it seems that this “church” has perhaps compromised the Gospel, as many people are involved who do not profess Christianity, but just want to be part of the church’s “good works programs” that are done throughout the city.

The devil must be laughing his head off to see Christians arguing about which of their own personal experiences are true. Don’t you see? No one wants to join an organization that features constant conflicts–we have enough of that in our secular lives.

Just stop, please.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Oh YOUR list was not an anecdote?
Because YOU did not experience any of those things they didn’t exist?

We aren’t discussing if your ‘supposed’ disobedient priest would be disobedient now.

We are discussing the fact that you ‘anecdotally’ claim NUMEROUS abuses in the EF which supposedly needed correction by institution of the OF —which ‘abuses’ could have been but a fraction of the abuses performed by thousands and thousands of priests and laity in only the last 50 years.

And honey, I was ‘there’. And I’m almost 64. And my mother is 90 and let me tell you from her (and from her memories and discussions of HER parents, and who were in their 40s when she was born) there was no ‘mangled Gregorian chant’, clueless people, or ‘speed demon priests’.

Why do this in every thread about the form of the Mass? It’s not pretty.

 

[stpurl]

Yes. It bears repeating, the OF was not brought about to ‘correct abuses at the EF”.

And quite frankly, those of us who prefer the EF don’t prefer it because we see it ‘correcting abuses of the OF”. For one thing, many OF Masses are quite abuse-free, and of course just as the EF, are VALID rites.

We prefer the EF for the same kind of reasons that many prefer the OF.

Surely if one can prefer the OF for all the kinds of reasons offered —from availability to liking the vernacular to personal comfort and spiritual refreshment and more—one can prefer the EF for the very same things and more.

Fair is fair. I’m not denigrating reasons why people prefer the OF, so please don’t denigrate reasons why people prefer the EF. Just because they don’t ‘suit you’ doesn’t mean they’re wrong or bad.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

You and me both! I haven’t been to Divine Liturgy in 3 weeks either and 2.5 weeks since Presanctified Liturgy!!!

 

[MagdalenaRita]

plenty of mangled Gregorian chant at the old Mass too, especially in smaller parishes.

And honey, I was ‘there’. And I’m almost 64. And my mother is 90 and let me tell you from her (and from her memories and discussions of HER parents, and who were in their 40s when she was born) there was no ‘mangled Gregorian chant’, clueless people, or ‘speed demon priests’.

Oh my, I have never heard or experienced this either. As a matter of fact it would be an insult to my family, other people’s family and all the Catholics of the past to think that of them.

Somewhere in the middle of Mass someones phone started to ring and literally the entire congregation whipped heads around and shot daggers through the heart of the owner who was scrambling terrified to switch it off.

That’s anecdotal also. At my N.O. parish if you cell phone goes off, you will get looks. Our priest will give you looks. You will get looks if you do not tend to your children.

 

[OraLabora]

One of my fellow Gregorian choristers occasionally goes to the EF Mass in Montreal. He said the quality of the chant was poor, compared to the OF Abbey of which we are both oblates. Good chant is hard to come by. I’m not talking the simple settings of the Kyriale which even neophytes can master with a bit of practice, but the propers.

And that’s not related to the form of the Mass. It’s all the same chants anyway, whether it’s the OF vs the EF.

As for speed-read Masses, I am only relating what my spiritual director (81) said of his days as a seminarian in the 50s, and what several posters have related on CAF.

I turn 62 in June, BTW. I was born under the last months of Pius XII. But to be honest like many boys, I found Mass boring and couldn’t keep my attention focused on it. I much preferred riding my bike! (I still ride my bikes too, my rolling cloister and believe me on beautiful summer Sundays I don’t linger after the Ita Missa Est).

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I am only relating what my spiritual director (81) said of his days as a seminarian in the 50s, and what several posters have related on CAF.

So, just a couple of things I have noticed not just here at CAF, but other places whenever the Latin Mass of the past is mentioned, usually somewhere comes the 1950’s. The problems in the Church started a while before the 1950’s. Also, the desire for the beautiful sacred Mass and orthodox teachings of pre-conciliar Church are not a desire for the 1950’s.

Yes, here at CAF many posters have said they did not like the pre-Conciliar Mass or even pre-conciliar Catholicism but, and with the utmost charity to everyone here at CAF, it is many times the same persons and as wonderful and good Catholics as they are, they don’t represent everyone of the pre-conciliar Church. I can think of just as many people not at CAF and maybe even here at CAF that loved the Latin Mass.

But to be honest like many boys, I found Mass boring and couldn’t keep my attention focused on it.

I suspect many boys would say the same thing today about the Mass of both forms. Not too long ago a group of boys from our local Catholic high school who were very skilled in choir and music were sent to a parish to assist with their music, they snuck out after setting things up and Mass started. They were to stay but they left and their excuse, it was boring.

 

[Emeraldlady]

That’s anecdotal also. At my N.O. parish if you cell phone goes off, you will get looks. Our priest will give you looks. You will get looks if you do not tend to your children.

Everyones post here is anecdotal. What isn’t anecdotal is the phenomenon spoken about by Pope St John XXIII at the opening of Vatican Council II. That is, some people have rose coloured glasses on regarding how things were in the past and that’s a perennial problem.

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.

It’s an extreme position, very negative and makes an idol of ‘tradition’ to the point of resisting Christian communion.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

What isn’t anecdotal is the phenomenon spoken about by Pope St John XXIII at the opening of Vatican Council II.

Yes, and I would completely agree with him. We can not look at the pre-Conciliar Church with rose colored glasses because there were problems for sure. It would also be a horrible disservice to look at the post-Conciliar church with dirty glasses and see only problems and that somehow things are so much better now, because they not.

The Catholic church that came all those centuries before us is our Church. It is our heritage. It is a beautiful gift given to us by Christ and we should be grateful for it.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Emeraldlady:

What isn’t anecdotal is the phenomenon spoken about by Pope St John XXIII at the opening of Vatican Council II.

Yes, and I would completely agree with him. We can not look at the pre-Conciliar Church with rose colored glasses because there were problems for sure. It would also be a horrible disservice to look at the post-Conciliar church with dirty glasses and see only problems and that somehow things are so much better now, because they not.

The Catholic church that came before us is our Church. It is our heritage. It is a beautiful gift given to us by Christ and we should be grateful for it.

That inevitable finger pointing didn’t start until post #51 in the thread and I’ll say no more.

 

[stpurl]

Whoops, off by one. I agree though, I don’t think Tis was pointing fingers at all.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

That inevitable finger pointing didn’t start until post #51 in the thread and I’ll say no more.

So, I wasn’t referring to anyone specifically here or any post. I haven’t read through all of them. I was just talking conversations in general.

Not gonna happen. Not even after every Boomer shuffles off the face of the planet. Next!

I find that an interesting comment.There might be just a little bit of hoping there. If you want to get an idea of what the future will look like, which none of us will know for sure, anything can happen, but look at the youth. The other day I was listening to two young Catholic apologists who are very popular and have quite a following, ask why are we still living the in the 1970’s, in the Church. They said they just can’t seem to get the older Catholics to understand that the youth coming up are not interested in that era and hunger for the sacredness of Catholicism.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Whoops, off by one. I agree though, I don’t think Tis was pointing fingers at all.

#51

Latin Mass comeback Liturgy and Sacraments

Who they? A few extremists? Let’s not forget there are extremists on the other side (including priests, one of whom was on these forums a couple of years ago and specifically said he would NEVER ever celebrate the Vetus Ordo and thought Pope Benedict XVI wrong to have issued the Motu Proprio on it) who to this day insist that the EF was only ‘reluctantly’ offered to ‘make the SSPX come in’ and that since it wasn’t successful it should be revoked and that contrary to what Pope Benedict said, Po…

 

[stpurl]

Not #51 on my screen, or Magdelena Rita’s either.

Sigh.

Muting this thread.

 

[Emeraldlady]

For future reference if you want to know what number a post is, left click on the time stamp in the right corner of the post.

 

[27lw]

No offense OraLabora, your experiences are very interesting and enlightening to me, but your experiences of Mass are vastly different than 98% of North American Catholics ( if I had to hazard a guess).
Maybe you should have a disclaimer at the beginning of every one of your posts.

 

[Irishmadcatholic23]

I don’t think what form of the mass that affected it happened in new and old form. But what does matter is the reverence for christ body and blood. The old mass glorifies the sacrifice God gave us sinner, how his holy body and blood was given up on a cross for all salvation. How we are all united in christ holy sacrifice, how even the priest leading the mass faces christ, this glorifying God first. The old mass orders everything as God intends it, God first, us second. Therefore no difference in priest or people. We all united under Christ’s love. Unlike today’s mass where man is standing in front of the tabernacle, thus glorifying himself and not christ, most tabernacles are faced behind or to side of chapels. This is wrong, Christ’s Church, christ should come first. The church is like a human body, the eucharist is the heart, the blood flows from the heart, the confessional is the liver and we are all parts of his church too. Without the eucharist the church is pointless.