The 'biological solution' in the Catholic Church

[marthaferretti]

The term in the title of this thread refers to the ‘spirit of Vatican II’ types whether they be clergy, religious or laymen who in the next 5 - 10 years will be no longer be with us.

For example, the National Catholic Reporter (dubbed the ‘Fishwrap’ by Fr. Zuhlsdorf) is not known for its’ orthodoxy to Catholic teaching and apparently has a readership who’s average age is close to 70.

From the accounts I read, younger priests & seminarians are much more interested in celebrating the TLM and reintroducing traditional devotions to their parishes. On his blog, Fr. Zuhlsdorf recently asked seminarians that if they had a choice of being ordained in the traditional rite of Ordiantion or the new rite Ordination, which would they choose. By a factor of 6:1, the seminarians chose the traditional rite of Ordination.

After being married a few years ago, I reluctantly began assisting at a diocesan parish to make my new wife happy. Prior, I had been going to a SSPX chapel for several years. Still go there frequently.

The younger priest at the diocesan parish is a convert (Methodist) and is traditional in his leanings. Shortly after being assigned to this parish he held a meeting to announce that he was going to reintroduce a weekly TLM (Wed evenings) and a monthly TLM to fulfill ones Sunday obligation. Apparently about half of those parishoners in attendance left the meeting. He wears traditional vestments, altar boys in cassocks and installed altar rails in the church he had built from the ground up. He recently introduced having all communicants receive Holy Communion at the altar rail and distributes it by himself - no more laymen distributing Holy Communion (Deo Gratias !!). He pulls no punches in his sermons about the importance of Catholics to adhere to Church teachings. He regularly speaks about sin , Hell, salvation etc.

One of the long time parishoners at this parish recently told my wife that many of the parishoners have left the parish because of the actions of this priest. This parish was notorious for the ’ spirit of Vatican II ’ priests who ran the parish for many years prior to this new priest.

The point of this post is that I think we’ll see more & more of this as more traditional seminarians are ordained. The ’ spirit of Vatican II ’ will slowly die out and be relegated to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Have any of you experienced anything similar to the above where a traditional/orthodox priest was assigned to a 'spirit of V I ’ parish with similar results?

 

[laszlo]

In my usual church (mixed form) the age distribution is equal in all Masses. So is in my quite liberal territorial church.

People do not like change. In my town the Walmart is expanding, and the change emptied the store.

 

[Joan1969]

In my usual church (mixed form) the age distribution is equal in all Masses. So is in my quite liberal territorial church.

People do not like change. In my town the Walmart is expanding, and the change emptied the store.

Hi Laszlo and Martha,

I would draw a sharp distinction between church attendance and seminary attendance. Sure, most Catholics are going to go to the territorial church. But what is the picture of that “quite liberal” church going to be in 15 or 20 years? They will probably not be able to get a “quite liberal” pastor, and that will change things. Most ardent liberals are rapidly getting older, and young people who put up with liberalism with a “whatever” attitude will either have been changed by the leadership of more active Catholics (clergy and lay) or will have fallen away.

Still, we need to view aging liberals with compassion, even though they are completely wrong. It is not easy to have to watch the failure of what you believed in and fought for. I don’t remember them as having shown much of the same sort of “compassion” in the seveties and eighties when they were enjoying their heydey and thought the future was theirs, but we can have a more empathetic spirit. I am not talking, of course, about letting up on the battles that still very much need to be waged, but just in our attitude towards them since it is getting clear that they must lose their war in the long run.

God Bless,
Joan

 

[jwinch2]

I have thought about this as a trend for quite some time. People keep talking about how we need to revert back to the TLM, etc. etc. I disagree as I happen to love the NO Mass and would be very disappointed to see use of Latin, Priests facing the opposite direction, etc. However, I think it is quite possible that with the appointment of more Bishops and the ordination of more Priests, we will start to see the NO Mass become more like what it was meant to be following Vatican II in the first place. The younger Bishops appointed by the Holy Father seem to be much more orthodox in their ministry when compared to the Bishops who have been in place for some time, particularly in the US. Add to that the implementation of the new Missal and I think you will start to see things get better at Mass. For example, I know our Diocese is mandating all music in the new Missal for the first several months of implementation which should help to keep everything in line.

It took a couple of generations for things to go off the rails and it will take some time to get things back to where they should have been to begin with. Our Church thinks longer term than most of us do as individuals so I would not at all be surprised to learn that this was Pope Benedict’s plan all along.

 

[puzzleannie]

If lay Catholics are looking for the “biological solution” to the priest shortage it is in their hands, and the answer of course is to stop contracepting. That is the single indisputable factor that has robbed the Church of two generations of priests, sisters and religious.