Statistics on Latin Mass?

[sw85]

The study I mentioned previously is here: www.u.arizona.edu/~aversa/modernism/Novus_ordo_record.pdf‎

But you have no real evidence linking attrition from Catholic churches to changes within the Church Herself. You’re just speculating.

We’re all just speculating. Counterfactuals are speculative by nature. For that matter, social science in general is speculative. If you want to ask whether a large-scale policy decision was good or bad, you’re sort of in the position of having to speculate.

The cause of the attrition might have been due to many things; .e.g, more women working outside the home and putting their children in daycare centers. Or perhaps the rise of no-fault divorce. Or the perhaps the widespread availability of the birth control pill. Or the end of the Viet Nam war and the return of the soldiers to a nation that despised them rather than honoring them. Or the disillusionment in the U.S. after two assassinations of popular public figures in 1968. Or the increasing popularity of rock music. Or the rise of “free love”. Or perhaps the increasing devotion to the television.

Yes, no doubt a lot of bad factors converged at once. The trend was generally negative before Vatican II, anyway. The point is that the slope turned even more sharply negative right around 1970, the same year the new form of the Mass took effect. I tend to think this might not have happened if the transition had been better coordinated, since we had been trending toward a more vernacular-heavy Mass even before the Council opened, anyway.

All I’m saying is that the imposition of a new form of the Mass with little transition and generally poor oversight was one of them, which is why the collapse began in 1970 and not literally any other point. (FYI, even then-Joseph Ratzinger complained about this, arguing the transition should’ve been 10 years, not 6 months).

And I disagree with you about Protestant attrition. I just did some research last week and found plenty of studies demonstrating that the mainline Protestant churches have seen steady declines in attendance for the last several decades.

Yes, mainline Protestant churches have been collapsing for some time. And evangelical Protestant churches I believe have been surging. The effect is overall generally neutral.

The NO is not a mess.

I didn’t say “the NO is a mess.” Go back and read what I said. I said we got a mess, hence the abuses which prevailed in the 70s especially. If we had gotten what the Council actually envisioned, things might’ve turned out differently, because the changes the Council recommended were within reason. I don’t blame the new order of Mass itself, I blame its implementation: too quick of a transition, too shoddy of a translation (in English, at least), too little oversight by bishops, too much abuse by priests, etc.

The situation of an entire Church having their primary ritual in a language none of them could understand, a ritual which they spent muttering rosaries to themselves while the priest performed a ritual that had almost nothing to do with them was the mess. Such a model would not have survived the massive increase in education that happened throughout the first half of the 20th Century. People who who have something more than a 6th grade education are going to want to know what the priest is saying.

I get that this is the narrative that prevails today, yes.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Who wants to go back to the days when men wore suits to ball games, people had to learn sentence diagramming

me, sounds fun!

 

[Lormar]

me, sounds fun!

I’d like to go back to those days as well.

 

[L_Marshall]

Who wants to go back to the days when men wore suits to ball games, people had to learn sentence diagramming

[SIGN]I DO![/SIGN]

 

[jwinch2]

Who wants to go back to the days when men wore suits to ball games, people had to learn sentence diagramming, TV sets were black and white, etc.?

I’m not so sure about the rest, but i’d like to go on record on that sentence diagramming idea. That would really make my life a whole bunch easier, which I am sure you are very concerned about.

On a serious note though, you are very much correct. Those who show a preference for Sacred Tradition, and tradition in the liturgy are often accused of wishing to go back to the 1950’s. I have experienced that myself, in person and on CAF. Heck, I recommended a book to someone once which happened to be written before Vatican II, and was accused of wanting to bring Eisenhower back to office.

 

[Megan7]

I’d like to go back to those days as well.

Me too!
I have read how people even dressed up when traveling, imagine that?

So, of course people dressed up for Mass, it was expected, it was normal.
You know, exactly how they do now LOL!

God bless you

Pax.

 

[Lormar]

Me too!
I have read how people even dressed up when traveling, imagine that?

So, of course people dressed up for Mass, it was expected, it was normal.
You know, exactly how they do now LOL!

God bless you

Pax.

God bless you too, dear Megan!

 

[Kevin12]

.

I didn’t say “the NO is a mess.” Go back and read what I said. I said we got a mess, hence the abuses which prevailed in the 70s especially. If we had gotten what the Council actually envisioned, things might’ve turned out differently, because the changes the Council recommended were within reason. I don’t blame the new order of Mass itself, I blame its implementation: too quick of a transition, too shoddy of a translation (in English, at least), too little oversight by bishops, too much abuse by priests, etc.

I get that this is the narrative that prevails today, yes.

If you have a counterargument instead of a condescending dismissal, by all means defend the use of a dead language that no one understands as a first language as the only language used in the primary ritual of the Church.

I’d also like to ask, have you ever considered, being a recent convert who was apparently directly drawn to traditionalism and the EF, that what you have been told about the prevalence of the so-called abuses in the NO is based not on direct experience but second-hand accounts of people who are extremely biased against the NO?

Also, your link it dead.

 

[Kevin12]

I’m not so sure about the rest, but i’d like to go on record on that sentence diagramming idea. That would really make my life a whole bunch easier, which I am sure you are very concerned about.

On a serious note though, you are very much correct. Those who show a preference for Sacred Tradition, and tradition in the liturgy are often accused of wishing to go back to the 1950’s. I have experienced that myself, in person and on CAF. Heck, I recommended a book to someone once which happened to be written before Vatican II, and was accused of wanting to bring Eisenhower back to office.

Saying accused as if this isn’t true is a little misleading. I have been lurking Fish Eaters and other traditionalist forums for several weeks after I learned that some people from those forums like to mock and insult posters on this forum - indeed, there are probably some people who were on that thread here now - and everything I have seen there confirms that such an “accusation” is 100% true.

 

[Lucky7]

Saying accused as if this isn’t true is a little misleading. I have been lurking Fish Eaters and other traditionalist forums for several weeks after I learned that some people from those forums like to mock and insult posters on this forum - indeed, there are probably some people who were on that thread here now - and everything I have seen there confirms that such an “accusation” is 100% true.

Why do you (and others) care so much what traditionalists think, that they prefer the EF etc…so much so that you hang out in a forum specifically to show them just how wrong they are? I continue to hear from certain posters how much this or that topic comes up over and over again. And what do they do? They post on the topic! I don’t get it.

 

[otjm]

How can you be sure that the NO had “nothing” to do with the decline in Church attendance? Granted, I wouldn’t say it takes full blame but I do think it does have a part to play (or at least the way that the NO comes across has a part to play). I am not a traditionalist; however, the more NO’s I attend the closer I become to becoming one.

Cat: I once felt the exact same way as you do. I think the Latin Mass is an acquired taste.

There is an urban myth floating around (and it shows up here in these forae) that when the OF came out, there was a (large) (massive) (huge) (significant) [you can pick your favorite term of the aforesaid] drop in attendance.

That factually simply is not so. Church attendance peaked about 1957/1958 and started dropping off after that, with a few minor blips upwards. And that was obviously not started by the OF.

Funny thing - the mainline Protestant churches started showing the same drop off, and pretty much parallel the losses in the Catholic Church in attendance.

That leaves one to try to explain why the similarities. And the change in the Mass isn’t one of them.

It is very similar to the urban myth that constantly pops up about an exodus out of the Church because of the sexual abuse scandal.

Problem with that? No numbers supporting it.

Secularism in society and the drop in catechesis are clearly culpable for the loss of attendance. Secularism started well before the 1950’s (try the mid 1800’s). And if you have no one teaching you what faith is about, it is not hard to figure out that people will drift away.

 

[Kevin12]

Why do you (and others) care so much what traditionalists think, that they prefer the EF etc…so much so that you hang out in a forum specifically to show them just how wrong they are? I continue to hear from certain posters how much this or that topic comes up over and over again. And what do they do? They post on the topic! I don’t get it.

I realized that was a dumb post, so I deleted it. I’m sorry I said it and apologize for it.

I agree that I often do not have the best of intentions, and that I probably should just ignore things I do not like. But it really does feel like traditionalists attack the the NO as being nothing but abuse upon abuse in its implementation, and in my experience that simply hasn’t been true. I admit that may be because I don’t know exactly how the Mass was performed 100 years ago, but I can at least say that I have never encountered anything in a Mass that I felt was based on contempt for the Real Presence, or any of the other charges I often hear. When you see something you grew up with attacked, something that you feel did you a lot of good, you naturally want to defend it.

 

[Cat]

Why do you (and others) care so much what traditionalists think, that they prefer the EF etc…so much so that you hang out in a forum specifically to show them just how wrong they are? I continue to hear from certain posters how much this or that topic comes up over and over again. And what do they do? They post on the topic! I don’t get it.

I feel that it’s important for people to receive a balanced spectrum of opinions. I especially think it’s important for traditional Catholics to realize that there are other Catholics (quite a few of them) who disagree with them.

It’s easy to start believing you’re right when the only people you surround yourself with are people who agree with you,

I surround myself with quite a wide spectrum of Catholics. I am friends with several of the devotees of the Latin Mass in my city, and I do all that I can to help them out in their parish and show my support for their Mass preference. I am also friends with liberal Catholics who believe things that I didn’t even believe as a Protestant (e.g., women should be priests). And of course, I have friends in my OF parish who are deeply committed to the Church and to Jesus.

I think this is helping me to get to heaven.

I think that’s part of the problem with the social liberals in this country–many of them “unfriend” you on Facebook the first time you say anything that disagrees with them. Catholics shouldn’t be like that. We should be able to disagree with each other in charity, and learn from each other. And we need to try hard to have empathy with others and understand their point of view even if we don’t share it.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I realized that was a dumb post, so I deleted it. I’m sorry I said it and apologize for it.

I agree that I often do not have the best of intentions, and that I probably should just ignore things I do not like. But it really does feel like traditionalists attack the the NO as being nothing but abuse upon abuse in its implementation, and in my experience that simply hasn’t been true. I admit that may be because I don’t know exactly how the Mass was performed 100 years ago, but I can at least say that I have never encountered anything in a Mass that I felt was based on contempt for the Real Presence, or any of the other charges I often hear. When you see something you grew up with attacked, something that you feel did you a lot of good, you naturally want to defend it.

I think there are very few examples in which there is an active contempt toward the Real Presence. I think they probably exist, but are not widespread. However, I do believe there is a general outward malaise, lack of precision, indifference oftentimes in liturgy. I think it is because often people do not see, or do not care, that there is a connection between how you pray and how and what you believe. It is not that Fr. ___ has poor faith, it is very often that, because of the kinds of conditions modern life forces us to grow up in, we have unhealthy/bad ideological/psychological tendencies, usually more so than Western people 200 years ago were subjected to on a day to day basis. And I think a Missal like that of Paul VI that oftentimes isn’t as rubrically strict (this is easy to observe and isn’t a revelation, compare them) as the Missal of John XXIII–for whatever reason, out of a presumption of prior knowledge, out of a totally false sense of “we’re all grown up now” in the 1960s, whatever, it doesn’t matter to my post–at the very least does not help the situation. That is my honest opinion, and is not to denigrate the MoPVI, nor PVI’s intentions when he promulgated it which, incidentally, I believe were pure. Yes, it’s a broad assessment.

I understand your views and I respect them.

 

[sw85]

If you have a counterargument instead of a condescending dismissal, by all means defend the use of a dead language that no one understands as a first language as the only language used in the primary ritual of the Church.

I’d also like to ask, have you ever considered, being a recent convert who was apparently directly drawn to traditionalism and the EF, that what you have been told about the prevalence of the so-called abuses in the NO is based not on direct experience but second-hand accounts of people who are extremely biased against the NO?

I have no special attachment to the EF and have only been to one about 4-5 times in my life, so I dunno what you’re accusing me of here. I said earlier I have no beef against the NO in principle, the problem is that it was implemented too hastily and carelessly and, surprise, that opinion isn’t unique to me – it was voiced by none other than then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger at the time, and he became Pope later on! So clearly these sorts of discussions are within the realm of what is permissible.

Also, your link it dead.

For some reason when you open it, it pastes a bunch of characters at the end. Delete everything after “pdf” and it’ll load just fine. I’d go back and edit it but I can’t now.

There is an urban myth floating around (and it shows up here in these forae) that when the OF came out, there was a (large) (massive) (huge) (significant) [you can pick your favorite term of the aforesaid] drop in attendance.

That factually simply is not so. Church attendance peaked about 1957/1958 and started dropping off after that, with a few minor blips upwards. And that was obviously not started by the OF.

I’d encourage you to look at the study I linked to earlier (taking care, as I said above, to delete the extra characters that pasted in for whatever reason so that it actually loads). The trend is in fact generally downward after 1958 or so (note that the peak in 1958 was itself a local maximum, and that the decline immediately afterward was largely a kind of steady regression to the historical mean), but it turns downward pretty sharply right around 1970, collapsing to (really) unprecedented lows in the decade following.

Funny thing - the mainline Protestant churches started showing the same drop off, and pretty much parallel the losses in the Catholic Church in attendance.

See my earlier response and also the aforementioned study. Mainline Protestants collapsed but evangelical ones surged; Protestants-qua-Protestants remained relatively steady.

Secularism in society and the drop in catechesis are clearly culpable for the loss of attendance. Secularism started well before the 1950’s (try the mid 1800’s). And if you have no one teaching you what faith is about, it is not hard to figure out that people will drift away.

Secularism did, indeed, begin well before the 1950s. Actually try even earlier than the mid-1800s. The late 1700s at the latest, for Americans (obviously). So we’re left to wonder why, if secularism is the major problem, it sort of laid dormant for a while and then exploded spontaneously right around 1970.

As has been said, no one thing is definitely the culprit and that sort of reductionism is just bad social science. There’s a whole host of problems that all converged on the same historical moment and brought us (“us” being the whole of Western civilization) to the present state of degeneracy. I don’t see why it’s hard to believe that the rapid, uncoordinated implementation of a new order of Mass and functional suppression of the previous one, which had been in uninterrupted use for 400 years, was one factor among many, at least the one most immediately relevant to Catholics.

 

[ProVobis]

The vernacular? Yep.

So how is that “consubstantial” thing working out for you?

 

[sw85]

I realized that was a dumb post, so I deleted it. I’m sorry I said it and apologize for it.

I agree that I often do not have the best of intentions, and that I probably should just ignore things I do not like. But it really does feel like traditionalists attack the the NO as being nothing but abuse upon abuse in its implementation, and in my experience that simply hasn’t been true. I admit that may be because I don’t know exactly how the Mass was performed 100 years ago, but I can at least say that I have never encountered anything in a Mass that I felt was based on contempt for the Real Presence, or any of the other charges I often hear. When you see something you grew up with attacked, something that you feel did you a lot of good, you naturally want to defend it.

I don’t really identify as a “traditionalist” (having, as I said, no really strong attachment to the EF anyway), but at any rate I’m not attacking the NO in principle or the NO as it is celebrated today. The NO as it is celebrated today (your experience of it, and mine) is not the NO as it was celebrated in many places in the 1970s, when (I argue) the relevant statistics started to sour.

I didn’t actually discover the EF until about 3-4 months after deciding to convert and even then it was only because I read about it in a history of the Council, not because anyone actually told me about it. I first checked it out mostly out of morbid curiosity and didn’t attend another one for close to a year. So obviously, the NO in my area was not an immediate impediment to my converting (it has its own abuses though of the sort everyone just tolerates because that’s how things are done). If, on the other hand, I were a much younger man, I might’ve found it much more difficult to come into, or stay in, the Church in the height of the liturgical crazy period of the 1970s.

If I had lived in that time, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I don’t think I would’ve apostasized or gone sedevacantist or anything of the sort (anyone who refuses to enter or stay in a church because they dislike its liturgy has deeper problems than the liturgy), but I might’ve gone SSPX if only to keep from going mad, or to keep my heart from breaking. It’s easy for us, from the comfortable spot where we’re sitting today, to look back at the Lefebvrites with scorn and wonder what they were thinking. Much harder for us to try to actually imagine it.

 

[jwinch2]

So how is that “consubstantial” thing working out for you?

Ha! Well played.

 

[otjm]

I’d encourage you to look at the study I linked to earlier (taking care, as I said above, to delete the extra characters that pasted in for whatever reason so that it actually loads). The trend is in fact generally downward after 1958 or so (note that the peak in 1958 was itself a local maximum, and that the decline immediately afterward was largely a kind of steady regression to the historical mean), but it turns downward pretty sharply right around 1970, collapsing to (really) unprecedented lows in the decade following.

In 1965, Mass attendance was 65%. In 2012 it was 25%, which is a loss of 40% over 48 years, which would be less than 1% per year; if you want to take current attendance at 20% (and the figures vary) that would be 45% loss in 48 years, still less than 1% per year.

As has been said, no one thing is definitely the culprit and that sort of reductionism is just bad social science. There’s a whole host of problems that all converged on the same historical moment and brought us (“us” being the whole of Western civilization) to the present state of degeneracy. I don’t see why it’s hard to believe that the rapid, uncoordinated implementation of a new order of Mass and functional suppression of the previous one, which had been in uninterrupted use for 400 years, was one factor among many, at least the one most immediately relevant to Catholics.

With less than a 1% per year average loss, it simply does not fit the reality that the change in the Mass caused the loss. The language that is used indicates large losses (and often connected to a main exodus right after the OF was introduced) and the real world numbers simply don’t exist to support the myth.

It is not a matter of bad social science. It is a matter of a myth repeated ad nauseoum by those who have an ax to grind about the OF. Repeat it often enough and it becomes reality to those hearing it.

 

[jwinch2]

In 1965, Mass attendance was 65%. In 2012 it was 25%, which is a loss of 40% over 48 years, which would be less than 1% per year; if you want to take current attendance at 20% (and the figures vary) that would be 45% loss in 48 years, still less than 1% per year.

With less than a 1% per year average loss, it simply does not fit the reality that the change in the Mass caused the loss. The language that is used indicates large losses (and often connected to a main exodus right after the OF was introduced) and the real world numbers simply don’t exist to support the myth.

It is not a matter of bad social science. It is a matter of a myth repeated ad nauseoum by those who have an ax to grind about the OF. Repeat it often enough and it becomes reality to those hearing it.

If it was a steady rate of decline over the 40 years, you might have a point, but it wasn’t.

As was shown in Figure 1 of that study, which was published in the reputable Homiletic and Pastoral Review, the decline was not a consistent 1% per year. Rather, the overwhelming majority of the drop in Mass attendance in both the UK and the USA was immediately surrounding that of Vatican II and the implementation of the Mass of Paul VI. The graph for the USA actually shows a 22% drop in Mass attendance from approx. 1965 to approx. 1977. The trend line for the UK shows 25% over the same time span. After that, Mass attendance in the USA actually steadied to the point that it only dropped approx. 4% over the next 15 years. In the UK, it continued to drop, but not even close to the same rate of the initial trend, taking from 1977 to 1999 to drop an additional 15%.

In addition, the myth that Catholics and Protestants saw roughly the same decline in attendance, and thus, it has nothing to do with Vatican II or the form of the Mass is dispelled in Figure 3. In the same time span that Mass attendance dropped 22% in the USA, attendance at Protestant services only dropped 5%, which was recovered in the late 1980’s. Over the entire span of the data collection, while USA Mass attendance dropped 30%, attendance at Protestant services actually stayed the same, at 45%.