Relatively few catholics prefer the TLM

[Brennan_Doherty]

OK, It appears that you are taking the term “precipitous” from someone else. I would point out that Mass attendance also dropped off during the smae period the writer you refer to speaks of, not due to the changes in the rubrics, but due to what occured at approximately the same time - the release of Humanae Vitae. The drop in attendance in the period of time your writer mentions, from the graph appears to be about 11% in 10 years. Which amounts to about 1.1% per year. That is more than the drop between 1957/8 of 74% to 1965, of about 8%; but the time period is also shorter. We can say a drop of 10 or 11% in ten years is precipitous, but we can also say it is a trickle each year, and is reflective of a trend that started prior to vatican 2 ever being proposed. The fact is, before the ink was dry on the documents we had already experienced a drop; it continued after that.

All this amounts to is someone taking some statistics and attempting to lay the blame for the change of a specific activity - Mass attendance drop off - to a specific incident - either Vatican 2, or the change in the rubrics. I would submit that the secularization which started with a vengence post World War 2, more strongly in Europe than the US, but experienced in both, has way more to do with loss of Mass participants than changes in Rubrics.

Look, the short of it is that I don’t have a dog in the fight over the EF vs the OF. But trying to pin the loss of Mass attendance on the changes in the rubrics might get you a B in a high school research paper; it wouldn’t rate a C for a junior or senior in college, and you would be laughed out of the program if you tried to submit it in a graduate program, for the simple reason that you continue to ignore any and all other outside influences.

For example, if you need more, look at the change in the divorce rate post Vatican 2 (the two are not related other than by time). You think, just possibly, just maybe a smidgin, that this might be a driving incluence for people to stop attending Mass? Do you have even a though of an idea how many people who have gone through a divorce think they may not receive Communion afterward (and I am not referring to remarriage - just simply the divorce itself). We have something like 8 million divorced Catholics or more; and I am constantly running into people who say they thought that, after they went through a divorce.

And that is just one issue post Vatican 2 which has caused people to fall away. There is a whole raft of reasons, if you would just bother to look beyond your own prejudice about the matter.

And while I am at it, the CARA statistics show that Mass attendance is highest among those most logically to be candidates to drop out - those born pre Vatican 2.

Well, let’s just say that the changes in society (and I do think they were signficant) worked hand in hand with the changes to the liturgy, art, architecture, music, catechesis, rubrics (the Priest facing the people), etc. to help contribute to the drop off in Mass attendance and pretty much every other area of Catholic life. And the changes to the liturgy were not just a “blip”. They altered the way the Catholic faith would be conveyed to the faithful from here on out, and went along with all the other changes just mentioned.

To quote Cardinal Ottaviani again:

1. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. **The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. **Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.

latin-mass-society.org/study.htm#aband

It seems that the changes after Vatican II, however unintentionally, helped usher in a Catholic free-for all, just as Cardinal Ottaviani predicted. If you can change all the externals of the faith that were once held to be sacred, why can’t you divorce and contracept too? So these things go hand in hand and aid and abet one another. So no, I don’t discount any outside influence.

 

[ProVobis]

I would point out that Mass attendance also dropped off during the smae period the writer you refer to speaks of, not due to the changes in the rubrics, but due to what occured at approximately the same time - the release of Humanae Vitae.

You are exactly right about that. The BCP was given most of the attention in the years following Vatican II. In fact, the Pope was quite unsure of how to handle it so he brought in many theologians to discuss the issue. But the bishops and priests took this to mean it was OK and Catholics should just follow their consciences. When Humanae Vitae was finally released (1967?), it came as a shock to many and thus became bitterly rejected. Probably still is by many nominal Catholics, even though many of them still go to Mass and communion.

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

And while I am at it, the CARA statistics show that Mass attendance is highest among those most logically to be candidates to drop out - those born pre Vatican 2.

No, since Catholics prior to Vatican II were taught that missing Mass was a serious sin and not an option, they are precisely the people I would expect to continue attending Mass regardless of the form (even though any of them didn’t). Those born after Vatican II, who were not taught this, and thus considered attending Mass optional, are exactly the ones who won’t go to Mass if the form does not appeal to them.

 

[JReducation]

I believe that there are many good reasons for keeping the Ordinary Form or NO

1. As this thread says, not many Catholics are going to be attracted to it.
2. The Motu Propio is very clear that the NO is the Ordinary Form of the Latin Rite mass and the Tridentine is the Extraordinary Form; therefore, there is no obligation on the part of Catholics to attend TLM, because it’s extraordinary. It’s not intended to replace the NO
3. It’s helpful for many people.
4. In my family it proved to be the biggest disaster ever. I have an 18-year old with autism. He needs to see and understand what is happening. People with autism, liike all people who have communication disabilities are very dependent on seeing the other person’s face, body language, understanding the actual language (ie English, Spanish, etc) and need multisensory (name removed by moderator)ut to understand their surroundings.

I took my son to a high mass, TLM, he hated it. Someone on CAF suggested a low mass, when we came out of church he punched my car, kicked the tires and almost pushed his fist through the windshield. This is a very typical autistic erruption when they are frustrated due to not comprehending the communication around them, especially if it requires that they make an extra effort as is the case in a Tridentine mass where the language is Latin and where you do not see the priest’s face or actions when he’s at the altar.

He goes to our parish NO without frustration and never says that he hates it when he leaves church. He follows along with the prayers and the responses, sometimes he even comments on the homily as we ride home. The only thing that he does not do is participate in the singing, because most autistic people do not sing. They dislike most forms of singing, unless it involves body movement like when kids sing in elementary school. That’s because this is multisensory. Like most high functioning autistics, my son is very aware when he is not understanding and if pushed to far, he errupts in frustration. Low functioning autistics are unaware that they are not understanding and would sit there quietly.

I believe that the TLM is not appropriate for everyone. But I do believe that it is part of the Church’s tradition and it has a place in the Church alongside the NO.

JR

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

I believe that there are many good reasons for keeping the Ordinary Form or NO

1. As this thread says, not many Catholics are going to be attracted to it.
2. It’s helpful for many people.
   …

I believe that the TLM is not appropriate for everyone. But I do believe that it is part of the Church’s tradition and it has a place in the Church alongside the NO.

JR

How would we know that “not many Catholics are going to be attracted to it” if most Catholics today have never been exposed to it?

Here is a post from someone who has worked with youth:

"I normally attend the NO in Latin. However I have taught run-of-the-mill Catholic undergraduates, in a basic course on Catholicism for five years now. I require them to attend a Latin Mass, either NO or Tridentine and report on it. So I have a database of between 150 and 200 student reactions. Most of them had no idea what a Latin Mass was like. Most of them attended at St. John Cantius but a few attended in other parishes around Chicago. 95 % of them went into the assignment either indifferent or vaguely hostile, expecting to be bored or feeling lost.

Well over 95 % report that they had never experienced the Mass as an act of worship to the degree that they did in attending a Latin Mass. What they comment on most often is that people were paying attention (in their own vernacular parishes they themselves notice that a lot of people talk and basically behave casually), people were there to worship. They thereby are saying that they do not perceive people at their regular parishes to be there primarily to engage in heavy lifting worship. And they like what they see at the Latin Mass. Without any prompting from me, say that, well, worship ought to be different, lofty, exalted, not casual and everyday. They do not find that in their run-of-the-mill parishes.

The upshot of my students’ papers says to me that with vernacularization and the lack of respect for the rubrics, the improvisation by priests and all the other abuses has come an atittude that even 18-year-old relatively nominal Catholics recognize as saying, “this stuff is a bunch of hooey and I don’t see why I should go to Mass when I could be doing so many other things.” They see the hieratic Latin Mass and they are with very, very few exceptions drawn ineluctably to it, even those who came at it with hostility.

Many of them comment that their first sight of the interior of the building began the process of attracting them. Again, 90 % of them perceive the interior of SJC as lofty, hieratic, the sort of thing a church ought to be and they openly say that they perceive their own parishes, in most cases (not all, because there’s more variety in the architecture and furnishings of their parishes than in the liturgy of their vernacular parishes–it seems to be more routinely desultory) as not particularly worshipfully attractive.

The greatest resistance to the Latin Mass has come from the occasional student already active in his parish and often also active in Jesuit campus ministry events who has heard many times about those reactionary, nostalgic TLM folks who prefer Mass in a dead language. Even they, in most cases, freely admit that they were surprised how much they were drawn to and drawn into the Latin Mass. But in these few cases they simply cannot yet admit that the intellectual animosity instilled in them (different from the garden variety mistrust and doubt in the nominal Catholics who approach the assignment mostly with a standard, why should I have to bother with this?) was wrong–they just can’t quite let go of it so they move the goalposts and invent reasons why, even though they were moved by their experience, it’s still not best for the church–a church of which they consider themselves active ministers.

All of the above says to me that objectively speaking–not merely on the level of tastes in art or feelings–these students perceive a real difference between what they have grown up within their vernacular parishes and what they see at SJC.

It is not the Latin Mass itself that captivates them. If they were to visit a High Anglo Catholic Rite I Episcopalian Solemn Mass, with Cranmerian hieratic English, incense (oh, all of them always comment on the use of incense), the best of the English choral tradition, etc., I expect their comments would be overwhelmingly positive. The point is that they do objectively perceive a difference in degree of loftiness, sacrality, hieraticness and they, with very few exceptions assume that worship of God ought to be hieratic and lofty, even though they have been taught their entire lives that God doesn’t need to be worshiped with special art and music and incense, that it’s a matter of indifference because after all, it’s a real (valid) Mass regardless of the kind of music or decorations…

They intuitively reject that at a rate of about 9 to 1. Go figure!"

Comment by Dennis Martin

When I went to a Tridentine Rite Mass last summer…

markshea.blogspot.com/ 200…01_archive.html

 

[JReducation]

How would we know that “not many Catholics are going to be attracted to it” if most Catholics today have never been exposed to it?

Here is a post from someone who has worked with youth:

"I normally attend the NO in Latin. However I have taught run-of-the-mill Catholic undergraduates, in a basic course on Catholicism for five years now. I require them to attend a Latin Mass, either NO or Tridentine and report on it. So I have a database of between 150 and 200 student reactions. Most of them had no idea what a Latin Mass was like. Most of them attended at St. John Cantius but a few attended in other parishes around Chicago. 95 % of them went into the assignment either indifferent or vaguely hostile, expecting to be bored or feeling lost.

Well over 95 % report that they had never experienced the Mass as an act of worship to the degree that they did in attending a Latin Mass. What they comment on most often is that people were paying attention (in their own vernacular parishes they themselves notice that a lot of people talk and basically behave casually), people were there to worship. They thereby are saying that they do not perceive people at their regular parishes to be there primarily to engage in heavy lifting worship. And they like what they see at the Latin Mass. Without any prompting from me, say that, well, worship ought to be different, lofty, exalted, not casual and everyday. They do not find that in their run-of-the-mill parishes.

The upshot of my students’ papers says to me that with vernacularization and the lack of respect for the rubrics, the improvisation by priests and all the other abuses has come an atittude that even 18-year-old relatively nominal Catholics recognize as saying, “this stuff is a bunch of hooey and I don’t see why I should go to Mass when I could be doing so many other things.” They see the hieratic Latin Mass and they are with very, very few exceptions drawn ineluctably to it, even those who came at it with hostility.

Many of them comment that their first sight of the interior of the building began the process of attracting them. Again, 90 % of them perceive the interior of SJC as lofty, hieratic, the sort of thing a church ought to be and they openly say that they perceive their own parishes, in most cases (not all, because there’s more variety in the architecture and furnishings of their parishes than in the liturgy of their vernacular parishes–it seems to be more routinely desultory) as not particularly worshipfully attractive.

The greatest resistance to the Latin Mass has come from the occasional student already active in his parish and often also active in Jesuit campus ministry events who has heard many times about those reactionary, nostalgic TLM folks who prefer Mass in a dead language. Even they, in most cases, freely admit that they were surprised how much they were drawn to and drawn into the Latin Mass. But in these few cases they simply cannot yet admit that the intellectual animosity instilled in them (different from the garden variety mistrust and doubt in the nominal Catholics who approach the assignment mostly with a standard, why should I have to bother with this?) was wrong–they just can’t quite let go of it so they move the goalposts and invent reasons why, even though they were moved by their experience, it’s still not best for the church–a church of which they consider themselves active ministers.

All of the above says to me that objectively speaking–not merely on the level of tastes in art or feelings–these students perceive a real difference between what they have grown up within their vernacular parishes and what they see at SJC.

It is not the Latin Mass itself that captivates them. If they were to visit a High Anglo Catholic Rite I Episcopalian Solemn Mass, with Cranmerian hieratic English, incense (oh, all of them always comment on the use of incense), the best of the English choral tradition, etc., I expect their comments would be overwhelmingly positive. The point is that they do objectively perceive a difference in degree of loftiness, sacrality, hieraticness and they, with very few exceptions assume that worship of God ought to be hieratic and lofty, even though they have been taught their entire lives that God doesn’t need to be worshiped with special art and music and incense, that it’s a matter of indifference because after all, it’s a real (valid) Mass regardless of the kind of music or decorations…

They intuitively reject that at a rate of about 9 to 1. Go figure!"

Comment by Dennis Martin

When I went to a Tridentine Rite Mass last summer…

markshea.blogspot.com/ 200…01_archive.html

I didn’t say there was anything wrong with the Tridentine mass. I said that I don’t see the large numbes of people being attracted to it. If people gradually are attracted to it, that’s not a bad thing either, as long as they go to mass.

I said that it is not an obligation to attend TLM, because it is the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite, not the ordinary form.

I also said that for many people, the NO is a very good thing. For example, I repeat myself. In my home it works well. Two times at the TLM and we had serious problems, the second time was worse than the first. We never have problems at our regular parish. So I for one am glad that we are keeping the NO around as the ordinary form, because we can find it anywhere we go.

As to people being exposed to it, the over 40 crowd still remembers it. I remember it and I was Jewish at the time when someone took me. I was also a kid of maybe 13. I found it interesting because it was very different from my Jewish experience. I’m sure that those Catholic kids my age remember it well, because it was their normal Sunday miass.

Hey! We may be older, but we’re not dead yet. LOL

JR

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

I didn’t say there was anything wrong with the Tridentine mass. I said that I don’t see the large numbes of people being attracted to it. If people gradually are attracted to it, that’s not a bad thing either, as long as they go to mass.

I said that it is not an obligation to attend TLM, because it is the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite, not the ordinary form.

I also said that for many people, the NO is a very good thing. For example, I repeat myself. In my home it works well. Two times at the TLM and we had serious problems, the second time was worse than the first. We never have problems at our regular parish. So I for one am glad that we are keeping the NO around as the ordinary form, because we can find it anywhere we go.

As to people being exposed to it, the over 40 crowd still remembers it. I remember it and I was Jewish at the time when someone took me. I was also a kid of maybe 13. I found it interesting because it was very different from my Jewish experience. I’m sure that those Catholic kids my age remember it well, because it was their normal Sunday miass.

Hey! We may be older, but we’re not dead yet. LOL

JR

Well, you have a very unique situation with an autistic child. God bless you for your care for him, but that type of situation wouldn’t apply to the vast majority of Catholic families.

Someone who is 40 would have been about 1 years old when the changes were made, they’d probably have to be closer to 50 or older to remember it.

To say that you don’t see large numbers of people being attracted to it is like saying large numbers of people aren’t attracted to beauty (and in this superficial culture, who knows? Maybe that’s the case).

The post from the youth worker helps demonstrate that when youths are exposed to the Latin Mass, especially in a setting like Saint John Cantius, they are attracted most of the time.

 

[TMGallyon85]

The Ordinary form would be great if it was done as envisioned by the Vatican council. What the council speaks of is not what we are with now. I believe this is why the Holy father is hoping all will experience the older mass, so that the true reforms in the liturgy will take place in the ordinary form.

 

[ac_claire]

The Ordinary form would be great if it was done as envisioned by the Vatican council. What the council speaks of is not what we are with now. I believe this is why the Holy father is hoping all will experience the older mass, so that the true reforms in the liturgy will take place in the ordinary form.

I just wanted to add to the bolded sentence above, “…is not what we are with now everywhere.” Or even, “in general.” Because there are some parishes out there that almost have it just right. The only exception I can think of is the priests do not face eastward, but other than that…beautiful, reverent and sacred. For instance, I’ve heard a lot about Assumption Grotto in Michigan, and I’ve been to St. Patrick’s in Columbus and St. Mary’s Cathedral in Austin.

 

[JReducation]

I just wanted to add to the bolded sentence above, “…is not what we are with now everywhere.” Or even, “in general.” Because there are some parishes out there that almost have it just right. The only exception I can think of is the priests do not face eastward, but other than that…beautiful, reverent and sacred. For instance, I’ve heard a lot about Assumption Grotto in Michigan, and I’ve been to St. Patrick’s in Columbus and St. Mary’s Cathedral in Austin.

The Brothers in our parish celebrate beautiful liturgies and they use the NO. They are very reverent and yet simple.

Of course they do not use Gregorian chant, because they can’t. But the music is beatiful.

I have no idea in which direction they face, because I’m horrible with directions. But east, west, north or south, it doesn’t make a difference in my faith or my inmersion in the liturgy.

One of the things that makes the liturgy very beautiful in our parish is love that the community and the Brothers bring to worship. You can see it in people’s faces.

I mentioned this in another thread. We had over 400 people lined up for confession before Easter. We had to rent secular priests to help. We had 10 masses on Easter Sunday, because every one of them was full.

I believe this is a good witness of a parish that is very much alive and tuned into liturgy. How many parishes have that many masses or that many people going to confession?

JR

 

[turtleoompa]

As a child I grew up with the Latin Mass. Today I went to my first TLM since I was a child. I now prefer the NO. I find I participate more fully with the NO.But I truely do miss the kneeling to receive communion. Just my opinion.

 

[JReducation]

As a child I grew up with the Latin Mass. Today I went to my first TLM since I was a child. I now prefer the NO. I find I participate more fully with the NO.But I truely do miss the kneeling to receive communion. Just my opinion.

I’m a Jewish Catholic. Having grown up Jewish, I never had the experience of kneeling for prayer. We stood and bowed. I can’t say that I miss kneeling. But if that’s important to someone, I guess it’s OK with me too.

I do like what the Brothers in our parish do. They kiss the floor before going up into the sanctuary.

JR