Myths about Traditionalists

[keepitreal]

I remember after the first Traditional Mass I went to, I was talking to some nuns from the Daughters of St. Paul about how it incredible it was. As I was walking away, I saw the nuns huddled together whispering about me, “concerned” about something. This was the first time that discovered that something was “wrong” for feeling the way I was feeling about the Traditional Mass. And what made it worse----these nuns were “Conservative”.
This was also the first time I realized that Traditonalists had more than the Progressives as enemies—we had the “Conservatives” too. I wonder what “myth” they were entertaining? Was it perhaps that because I loved the Traditional Mass, I was a “schismatic”?

 

[palmas85]

I once has a sister, a member of a very remarkable and highly reactionary order :bigyikes: tell me that the best thing that came out of the 60’s was the destruction of the Traditional Mass because it was she said dehumanizing, patriarchal, elitist in the extreme and had no place in modern civilized worship services. In her opinion and of many others in her order, the Mass was more appropriately celebrated mainly by women as they were the nurturers and continuers of society.

Make no mistake, many in religious orders and religious life as a whole, both male and female, hate the Traditional Mass with an almost pathological hatred and want nothing more than its total banishment and destruction.

 

[Monica37]

I had a similar experience after I discovered the EF. I was really taken aback by the hostility I received whenever I so much as mentioned it. Let me be clear that while I prefer the TLM, I have never said that it should replace the OF. My parents told me how hurt they were to lose the Mass that they grew up with and loved so much. I would never want that for someone else. So I always speak of the EF with that thought in mind. Therefore I was shocked at the reactions that I would get. As an example, I worked at a Catholic university and mentioned to the director of ministry (a layperson) that there was an EF if she wanted to post the location and time for students whoo may be interested. Before she could answer, the priest (he is now deceased, God love him) jumped in and in a rather terse tone said, “that will never last, the people don’t want it”. I spent a few minutes telling him what it meant to me and why it is the correct form for me. He finally said that he could appreciate my reasons and we parted on very good terms. But even now, I still kinda hold my breath whenever I tell people I attend that Mass. It is a little easier now as a local parish has added it to their schedule so when I mention the church, I don’t specify which mass I attend. I guess my advice for you would be to try your best to explain your point of view, allow them theirs and then try to part on the best terms possible. You are not alone in this experience, sadly, but just stay true to what you believe and allow them to stay true to their beliefs as well.

 

[Tina_in_Ashburn]

Yes, my experience is the same.
Unfortunately, there are many so-called ‘traditionalists’ with an axe to grind that make it harder for us mild traditionalists to be accepted or understood.

 

[ProVobis]

Make no mistake, many in religious orders and religious life as a whole, both male and female, hate the Traditional Mass with an almost pathological hatred and want nothing more than its total banishment and destruction.

That many didn’t hate it before Vatican II when they had it, believe me. They were there every day attending Mass, setting up novenas, making sure their school children attended Sunday and First Friday Mass and regularly went to confession, taught schools at little pay, served in Catholic hospitals, and encouraged religious and priestly vocations. So what changed them except for the secularists who captured them with a “better” life and told them they were fools for not thinking of themselves first. The TLM only represented their old way which now was useless in their new secular world. They bought the New Order, hook, line, and sinker.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good nuns and monks, but one only has to look at the percentages and numbers to see the impact of what the new order had on them.

 

[Dempsey1919]

I’ve received some strange looks when I’ve told fellow Catholics that I attend the Tridentine Mass but I could really care less what they thought. Afterall, I’m not forcing my preferences on anyone else and I love the OF just as much. If they dislike the Mass, then that’s fine by me. It doesn’t change the way I feel about it. They are entitled to their opinion and I’m entitled to mine.

Times are changing, however. The Tridentine Mass is coming back big time. More and more people are discovering it every day. The only people who seem really opposed to it are the liberal elite and their minions. Thankfully, the Holy Father is changing the Church for the better.

 

[ethelzguy]

Yes, my experience is the same.
Unfortunately, there are many so-called ‘traditionalists’ with an axe to grind that make it harder for us mild traditionalists to be accepted or understood.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Certainly on this and other on-line forums. Guilt by association, of sorts.

 

[Brenda_V]

Times are changing, however. The Tridentine Mass is coming back big time. More and more people are discovering it every day. The only people who seem really opposed to it are the liberal elite and their minions. Thankfully, the Holy Father is changing the Church for the better.

You are right about the EF coming back! I am happy for those who prefer it :dancing:. I personally would like to see eventually one Mass at every church celebrated as the EF.

Thank you for making the point about who really opposes the EF. So many times in these threads that start comparing the two we have everyone upset because they categorize the “other side” as either the “Schismatic/sedevacantist traditionalist” or the “liberal elite or minion”. The vast majority of us here on the CAF fit neither category although we are passionate about our preferences . We are also for the most part a better educated Catholic because we ***are ***passionate about our Faith.

Brenda V.

 

[Dempsey1919]

Thank you for making the point about who really opposes the EF.

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

 

[Teelynn]

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

I have found this to be true as well. Don’t get me started on the clergy who hate the EF. What is it about the fact that “it is not all about them” that they don’t understand? I recently had a nun tell me if we incorporated the EF we are taking a giant step backward. I didn’t even really answer her but kind of looked at her in total bewilderment. Isn’t the liturgy reformation supposed to be all about a more acceptable and reverent form of the mass to give Our Lord worship and praise? Shouldn’t the focus be all about Jesus and not about us?

 

[keepitreal]

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

I think the answer can be painfully simple: Old Mass=Old Faith, Old Mass=Old Attitude, Old Mass=Old Dogma, Old Mass= Old Morals, etc. The traditional wayn of expressing this is: Lex orandi, lex credenti

 

[rwoehmke]

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

Think about it. You have the O.F. which has vernacular prayer and simplified rubrics, some say protestant in flavor, and a more complex set of prayers and rubrics in a language with which many priests are no longer familiar. You are one of a much smaller cadre of priests and often are scrambling to cover all the bases, maybe cluster parishes with Mass celebrated by one priest at three different locations on a weekend. Now you all expect them to feel good about still another obligation. Not at all surprising. It takes a certain mindset to appreciate what Benedict XVI has done.

 

[puzzleannie]

I remember after the first Traditional Mass I went to, I was talking to some nuns from the Daughters of St. Paul about how it incredible it was. As I was walking away, I saw the nuns huddled together whispering about me, “concerned” about something. This was the first time that discovered that something was “wrong” for feeling the way I was feeling about the Traditional Mass. And what made it worse----these nuns were “Conservative”.quote]

what were they whispering and how do you know, if they were whispering, that they were criticizing you in some way? any possibility you misinterpreted what you think you saw and heard?

 

[Paul_Folbrecht]

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

Read “Goodbye, Good Men” - or a number of other works, for that matter - and you’ll understand why.

 

[keepitreal]

what were they whispering and how do you know, if they were whispering, that they were criticizing you in some way? any possibility you misinterpreted what you think you saw and heard?

 

[Dempsey1919]

Think about it. You have the O.F. which has vernacular prayer and simplified rubrics, some say protestant in flavor, and a more complex set of prayers and rubrics in a language with which many priests are no longer familiar. You are one of a much smaller cadre of priests and often are scrambling to cover all the bases, maybe cluster parishes with Mass celebrated by one priest at three different locations on a weekend. Now you all expect them to feel good about still another obligation. Not at all surprising. It takes a certain mindset to appreciate what Benedict XVI has done.

Priests aren’t forced to say this Mass. The Priests who celebrate the EF do so because they also love the liturgy. Nothing that you love is hard to learn, nor is it a burden.

Those who are against the Tridentine Mass are the one’s who wouldn’t celebrate the Tridentine Mass anyway. There are many Priests who are perfectly willing to learn the Tridentine Mass but certain individuals on the parish councils do all they can to prevent them from doing so.

Furthermore, I am sure the Priests of the FSSP would be more than willing to enter a diocese in order to meet the demand for a Tridentine Mass. However, many Bishops wouldn’t allow this.

 

[palmas85]

I don’t think the average Catholic lay person who attends the OF is particularly bothered if the Church has released the Tridentine Mass to those who prefer it because it doesn’t really affect them. As far as I can see, the only people who are opposed to the Tridentine Mass are those in authority at the parish level, but I don’t know why this is so.

I think the reason quite simply is this.

A great many of the lay people who are involved at the uppetr levels in Parish Activities, DRO’s Liturgy committee and other committee members, Readers, Extraordinary Ministers, Choir Directors, various other planners, proponents of female servers Ushers, you name it, all feel as if their positions would be threatened if there was a wholescale return to the Traditional Mass and the accompanying return to more traditional practices.

So this select group, feels the possibility of losing their positions within the Parish. and the accompanying prestige that comes along with them. Pure and simple. Vested self interest.

The Bishops and Priests that oppose it are the ones that by and large have been trained in the more liberal seminaries or methods and support wholeheartedly theologians such as Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff, Yves Congar Joan Chittister, John Crossan, Edward Schillebeeckx, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin , etc etc etc ad nauseum. They generally feel that any step towards conservatism and orthodoxy must be viewed with at a minimum great suspicion as it is detrimental to ecumenism and the implementation of the new way of understanding Christianity…

The average Catholic in the pews, I feel, would accept the Traditional Mass in much the same way most of us accepted the Pauline Rite when it came out.

With a sense of obedience to the Church.

 

[ethelzguy]

puzzleannie;4059131:

Well, they had the look of “concern” on their faces that was unmistakable.

Should “concern” be mistaken for “reverence” of some sort?

 

[Tina_in_Ashburn]

Read “Goodbye, Good Men” - or a number of other works, for that matter - and you’ll understand why.

Paul, I understand where you are coming from, and agree that many priests have lost the objective of their office.
But I have to mention for the sake of other readers here that “Goodbye, Good Men” contained a lot of misinformation and might not be the best method of understanding the troubled priesthood. You and I may have read the book in context but others may get the impression that most priests are traitors to the Faith! So I just wanted to clarify this, hope you don’t mind.

The original intention of the book may have been good, but the misuse of information misdirected its final effect.

Apparently the author retracted some of what he wrote after priests mentioned in the book came forth to complain that the author never interviewed them! What came to light was that many reputations were smeared based on hearsay. Many good priests were very offended by the book. As a result, this same author wrote a subsequent book on good priests [anybody know the title?].

Yea, there is many a “Father Judas” that have contributed to the misunderstanding of what the Mass is and led many sheep down the wrong path.

I have to remind myself that the office of the priest is a holy one and worthy of our veneration, and to look past my bitterness over the betrayal by certain priests. In spite of their mistakes, priests deserving of our gratitude and respect.

 

[ethelzguy]

Furthermore, I am sure the Priests of the FSSP would be more than willing to enter a diocese in order to meet the demand for a Tridentine Mass. However, many Bishops wouldn’t allow this.

And, you can document this?