The future of traditional Catholicism?

[adawgj]

I think there will be somewhat of a return to more traditional practices both in and outside of the Mass, but I’m doubtful as to whether or not the EF will be come much more mainstream.

Well now that the priest can use the EF without a Bishops permission you never know. I just hope it will help bring people back to Mass as it seems to do so from what I’ve heard.

 

[otjm]

Not three posts into this thread and we have already managed to insult an entire generation of clergy.

If the traditionalist movement dies it will be because it has ostracized itself from the mainstream. The condescension exhibited in this post will cause the mainstream to want to disassociate - that’s already happening in a big way. People are already scared away by the militant language as well. The anger of some in the movement will rot it from the inside.

It will be a shame too because there is much good in the movement. I hope the movement doesn’t die, just that it softens a bit.

-Tim-

I did not use the word “all” because not all priests were goofy. On the other hand, those who were not were in a minority, and sharing that honor with the priests who had been ordained significantly before Vatican 2. And I speak from experience; I entered college seminary in 1964. Have I insulted a whole generation?

I think not.

But there was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in the late 60’s and through the 70’s, and way too much of it was not properly channeled, and the result was chaotic.
Further, I consider my self in the mainstream now; and from observations over the last 50 or so years, the mainstream is not particularly even aware of the traditionalist movement, and so has nothing from which to disassociate.

My language was not militant so much as factual. Perhaps you do not like the word “goofy”; “those who departed from the rubrics” might have been a better choice; should someone in the “mainstream” take umbrage with “goofy”, I suspect they would also take umbrage with the longer definition of behavior.

That said, the fact that we have 400 +/- parishes with the EF shows that it is slowly being accepted, pretty much as Benedict indicated that it would - which is why he said that he did not see it becoming more than a subset, or as he said, extraordinary.

 

[otjm]

@TimH

I think I failed to make my point.

The priest I referenced in my OP made the changes he did not because of a huge ground swell from parishioners. My understanding is that he made the changes because he thought it was the proper thing to do.

My question was if the many/most seminarians of today are like minded as this priest in their vocation, then can we expect future priests introducing similar changes in their parishes? As the younger priests assume positions of authority as pastors and bishops, will this trend become more common even if there are no requests from parishioners?

From the magazines and websites I’ve read, many of those Catholics who were uncomfortable with the changes of the late 60’s were treated rather uncharitably by those you term the mainstream. Many stopped practicing their Faith. Are you familiar with Mass attendance figures for the last 40 years? So to be fair, the objections you raise cut both ways.

I cannot speak either to your priest or to the parish, as I do not know what occurred from the time he arrived there, to the time he made the changes. However, priests have a duty to the whole of the parish, and given that the Ordinary Form is what the majority of people in the majority of parishes want, it would be a rare priest who would go into a parish and simply start changing it to what he thought was best for them. It is one thing to respond to the needs and desires of a minority; it is entirely something else to ignore the needs and desires of the majority, particularly when what they want is the norm.

Again, I cannot speak to your situation; but it is highly unlikely that changes would be made without some form of consultation with the parish. Unless and until Rome indicates that a change is for al, the status quo (that is, the OF) will be the norm.

 

[sebastian1213]

I’ve followed the growth of traditional Catholicism in the US over the last 20 years when there were approximately 20 weekly TLM in 1991 to over 400 today.

Fr. Zuhlsdorf has written several times on his blog that he expects a different attitude among the priesthood towards the TLM over the next 10-15 years as those ordained in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s are replaced by new ordinands who seem more receptive to the TLM.

This happened at a parish in my hometown when a new pastor (convert) was named. He put the kibosh on the plans to build a church in the round even though the plans were finalized and paid for. He built a traditional Gothic style church instead.

He also:

1. Reserved serving the altar to boys and young men only (cassocks only)
2. Encouraged reception of Holy Communion while kneeling and on the tongue
3. Instituted a weekly TLM on Wed. evenings
4. Began Perpetual Adoration
5. Replaced a Sun. Spanish Mass with a TLM

These are just a few of the things he did but you get the idea. In his short time as pastor, he’s had 3 young men enter the seminary from the parish.

Is it your sense that seminarians are more open to the traditional aspects of the Faith than they were a generation ago? Do you think Fr. Zuhlsdorf is correct in his opinion that younger priests will begin to introduce more traditional practices and TLMs at the parish level over the next few years?

I agree, immensely. Young men who have less of an 'investment" as it were, in Vatican Council II, which spawned the New Mass, will be much more objective, I would think. It is verifiable that where orthodoxy is the order of the day, vocations flourish. Young men want to commit to something that seems more rigid, not something less stringent. Plus in parishes where ther is a Traditional “bent” if you will, there is much more likely to be encouragement from others that a young man enetertain the thought of a priestly vocation.

 

[severus68]

Dittos:thumbsup:

More emphasis should be placed on how we live our lives than just how we dress for mass, follow which missal, or the architecture of our churches.

Exactly!

 

[TimothyH]

I did not use the word “all” because not all priests were goofy. On the other hand, those who were not were in a minority, and sharing that honor with the priests who had been ordained significantly before Vatican 2. And I speak from experience; I entered college seminary in 1964. Have I insulted a whole generation?

I think not.

But there was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in the late 60’s and through the 70’s, and way too much of it was not properly channeled, and the result was chaotic.
Further, I consider my self in the mainstream now; and from observations over the last 50 or so years, the mainstream is not particularly even aware of the traditionalist movement, and so has nothing from which to disassociate.

My language was not militant so much as factual. Perhaps you do not like the word “goofy”; “those who departed from the rubrics” might have been a better choice; should someone in the “mainstream” take umbrage with “goofy”, I suspect they would also take umbrage with the longer definition of behavior.

That said, the fact that we have 400 +/- parishes with the EF shows that it is slowly being accepted, pretty much as Benedict indicated that it would - which is why he said that he did not see it becoming more than a subset, or as he said, extraordinary.

I understand. Thank you for the clarification. I was not aware that you had been a seminarian and therefor were speaking first-hand about your own experiences. Thank you for following the call. Most people dismiss the whispering call as white noise - you were willing to follow Jesus and I respect you for that.

Your language was not militant, but your post was lucid. There is however, quite a bit of militant language especially here on CAF. I won’t beat a horse except to say that if the traditionalist movement is authentic and to be taken seriously, then it will be a source of peace. It mainstream Catholics encounter anger, etc., as they are introduced to it, then it is doomed.

-Tim-

 

[severus68]

I think that the change in attitude has already occurred; the priests are often called the John Paul 2 priests. The goofiness of those ordained prior to his pontificate is already being toned down as the priests who have been ordained in the last 15 to 20 or more years simply do not have the agendas the older priests did.

Your question pops up periodically in this forum in different forms. As has been occurring over the last 20 years, the EF will see wider acceptance. How much wider, only time will tell, but the expectations that are often voiced do not seem, at times, to have as much perspective as they have enthusiasm. To wit: there are 17,413 parishes listed in the United States as of the last count (2013) by CARA. 400 parishes out of the total puts the % of parishes having an EF Mass at just less than two and three tenths percent of all parishes with an EF. That is without doubt far better than 20 years ago, but also seems to prove the comment by Benedict 16 that he expected that the EF would remain a minority.

The other side of the coin is that the new priests are far more aware of “saying the black and doing the red” as Father Zuhlsdorf has said, than some of the older priests. In short, the sense of the sacred is far more evident.

Goofiness??? I have always found priests to be very reverent at mass and I find your comment untrue and disrespectful.

 

[severus68]

i’m sorry guys, i don’t agree. blaming the decline of priests on certain changes after vatican II is just not cutting it for me. ther’es only one latin parish in the whole city where i live and i know plenty of people who are seminarians who are not from there. has it occurred to anyone that vaitcan II happened because tere were already problems in the church? if God is truly calling someone to be a priest, do you thik a silly little thing like altar girls is going to stop him?

don’t get me wrong, i am in no way saying that the older traditions are wrong. they are not, and i have great respect for them. it’s just seems to be a tendency for people who prefer the tlm to not extend this respect to change aas well. change is not always a bad thing and Jesus did warn us not to get too attached to our human traditions.

Agreed.

 

[severus68]

Not three posts into this thread and we have already managed to insult an entire generation of clergy.

If the traditionalist movement dies it will be because it has ostracized itself from the mainstream. The condescension exhibited in this post will cause the mainstream to want to disassociate - that’s already happening in a big way. People are already scared away by the militant language as well. The anger of some in the movement will rot it from the inside.

It will be a shame too because there is much good in the movement. I hope the movement doesn’t die, just that it softens a bit.

-Tim-

Well said.

 

[otjm]

Sorry, but you did your math wrong. 10% of 17,000 is 1,700 and 1% of 17,000 is 170. Therefore, 400 Latin Masses could never equal only a few tenths of a percent. 2-3 percent of parishes have the EF. [Exactly 2.29%, if we’re to assume that the 17,413 figure is accurate to how many parishes there are in the U.S., and if 400 is accurate as to how many Latin masses there are].

I imagine both numbers are incorrect. For instance, there is a Latin Mass that I know of, that is not in a parish, but a monastery. The lay faithful go. So, are Churches like that counted, that is: where TLMs are taking place, but not under a Diocese, through a religious order?

I may comment on the substance of the thread eventually… but Catholic statistics interest me far too greatly.

Two and three tenths percent is one one-hundredth of a percent more than 2.29%. And although I have seen no evidence anywhere that there are 500 parishes with the EF, assume for the minute that there are 500; that makes it two and nine tenths percent (actually, 2.87%).

The number of parishes is from CARA, and I have yet to see anyone give significant dispute to their findings.

 

[otjm]

Goofiness??? I have always found priests to be very reverent at mass and I find your comment untrue and disrespectful.

Then you are blessed. I would assume from you comment that you were a young adult in the late 1960’s, and attended Mass faithfully through the 1970’s and the 1980’s, and did not experience nuns in lay clothes give the homilies, and never walked into some of the other aberrations that seemed to be fairly widespread in the more populous areas?

I have found priests who were very reverent at Mass, and those who were, for lack of a better term, pretty relaxed. It has been my observation that since the late 1980’s to the early 1990’s, there were changes; some subtle, some a bit more overt, all heading towards a more reverent attitude and disposition.

 

[universityprof]

Dittos:thumbsup:

More emphasis should be placed on how we live our lives than just how we dress for mass, follow which missal, or the architecture of our churches.

Well said. Bravo!

 

[otjm]

What are not counted are the infrequent TLMs at some parishes or at chapels or even in people’s homes. Yes, some are illicit so I won’t talk about them. But someone mentioned that in the Arlington diocese half the priests there have celebrated the EF at one time or another. And the study of Latin has increased in the U.K. so…

I would also bet that there is a correlation between love of classical music/fine arts and love for the Latin in the liturgy (either OF or EF) but I don’t have hard evidence for this.

So out of 164 diocesan priests, about 80 of them have celebrated the EF? That seems unlikely, unless they have a significant number who were ordained prior to or during Vatican 2. Then again, who knows, without a poll being taken.

And I would suspect there may be some correlation as you note.

 

[otjm]

I agree, immensely. Young men who have less of an 'investment" as it were, in Vatican Council II, which spawned the New Mass, will be much more objective, I would think. It is verifiable that where orthodoxy is the order of the day, vocations flourish. Young men want to commit to something that seems more rigid, not something less stringent. Plus in parishes where ther is a Traditional “bent” if you will, there is much more likely to be encouragement from others that a young man enetertain the thought of a priestly vocation.

Actually, you need to stand that on its head - young priests are far more likely to be heavily invested in Vatican 2 than their predecessors, because they are following the lead of John Paul 2 and Benedict 16, both of whom were heavily invested in Vatican 2 and sought to implement it more fully.

It was many of the priests right after Vatican 2 who, instead of sitting down and reading the documents, went off on tangents which have been denoted as “the spirit of Vatican 2”.

Pope Francis talks much of the New Evangelization; both of his predecessors did also.

 

[otjm]

I understand. Thank you for the clarification. I was not aware that you had been a seminarian and therefor were speaking first-hand about your own experiences. Thank you for following the call. Most people dismiss the whispering call as white noise - you were willing to follow Jesus and I respect you for that.

Your language was not militant, but your post was lucid. There is however, quite a bit of militant language especially here on CAF. I won’t beat a horse except to say that if the traditionalist movement is authentic and to be taken seriously, then it will be a source of peace. It mainstream Catholics encounter anger, etc., as they are introduced to it, then it is doomed.

-Tim-

My experience with a seminarian when I was in about the 8th grade was what lead me to volunteer for the Army during the Viet Nam war - an entirely different subject. Some of my classmates in the seminary became CO’s; some of us volunteered, and some were drafted. I spent two years in the seminary before deciding that was not my calling.

I agree with you about the militancy. And from what I see, where there is growth of the EF, there is peace, not militancy.

 

[thedavidwilson]

I can’t answer your most pressing questions. Do I take it that you like TLM ("the latin Mass’)?

I used to be an altar boy, over 50 years ago, and the solemn high masses that I see on EWTN never happened in my church, that’s for sure. There were never so many nitpicking details like I see on EWTN, to the point of near absurdity.

I never saw so many nitpicking details even in pontifical masses that were broadcast from the Vatican on Christmas.

To me, the chief characteristic of the Latin Mass is that they were in Latin. The solemn Masses did not have such pointless nitpicking details as I see today.

The Latin Masses also had virtually no congregational participation, except for singing. And, there were about 6 to 10 different melodies that I heard. It wasn’t the same dreary melody that you hear daily on EWTN. There were Masses for the dead with downright sorrowful melodies, and there were joyous Mass compositions which were highly artistic.

With a Latin Mass before, I could meditate for a long time until the epistle and gospel were read in English.

But, I liked the change to English. I expected an explosion of new music in the Mass – which has never been realized.

I really only like the organ, and not guitars and pianos, for Mass. What’s holy about pianos? Pipe organs were made for grand musical compositions. Pianos just don’t cut it, for me.

What was your question? the future of traditional Catholicism? That’s an odd question. Catholicism won’t change much. If you’re really talking about the liturgy, There’s got to be a great future for the English Mass, because there’s not much tradition to worry about.

Activism to dismantle the traditional liturgy did not occur over night in the late 1960’s. People were advocating for this decades before. It was only after VII that certain people had an excuse to gut the liturgy by misinterpreting the language of VII and taking advantage of priests already celebrating Mass poorly. If the Mass’s you remember (specially prior to 1962) did not look like the Tridentine masses on EWTN then your priest was not following the rubrics and in my opinion contributed to the gutting of 1500 years of Catholic tradition. The NO Mass, communion in the hand, girl alter servers etc were not created organically and did not undergo the careful review as prescribed by VII before being implemented.

For some history of music in the old masses check out:
ccwatershed.org/Campion/

The anomaly of little music and even littler participation by the laity was unique to your generation and unfortunately inherited by mine.

 

[Megan7]

Activism to dismantle the traditional liturgy did not occur over night in the late 1960’s. People were advocating for this decades before. It was only after VII that certain people had an excuse to gut the liturgy by misinterpreting the language of VII and taking advantage of priests already celebrating Mass poorly. If the Mass’s you remember (specially prior to 1962) did not look like the Tridentine masses on EWTN then your priest was not following the rubrics and in my opinion contributed to the gutting of 1500 years of Catholic tradition. The NO Mass, communion in the hand, girl alter servers etc were not created organically and did not undergo the careful review as prescribed by VII before being implemented.

For some history of music in the old masses check out:
ccwatershed.org/Campion/

The anomaly of little music and even littler participation by the laity was unique to your generation and unfortunately inherited by mine.

 

[severus68]

Then you are blessed. I would assume from you comment that you were a young adult in the late 1960’s, and attended Mass faithfully through the 1970’s and the 1980’s, and did not experience nuns in lay clothes give the homilies, and never walked into some of the other aberrations that seemed to be fairly widespread in the more populous areas?

I have found priests who were very reverent at Mass, and those who were, for lack of a better term, pretty relaxed. It has been my observation that since the late 1980’s to the early 1990’s, there were changes; some subtle, some a bit more overt, all heading towards a more reverent attitude and disposition.

Actually, I was not.

Perhaps I am blessed as I have had no complaint about any mass I have attended. It appears to me ( I may be wrong), that the complaints about irreverent masses on CAF are mainly from those in the US.

 

[otjm]

Actually, I was not.

Perhaps I am blessed as I have had no complaint about any mass I have attended. It appears to me ( I may be wrong), that the complaints about irreverent masses on CAF are mainly from those in the US.

Since most people on the forum appear to be from the US, that would come as no surprise. Which leaves one to search for European forum(s) to determine the issue there.

My comment was a left-handed way of saying that it would appear that you have relatively little experience in what has occurred since the 1960’s. And for that, you are blessed.

 

[marthaferretti]

Dittos:thumbsup:

More emphasis should be placed on how we live our lives than just how we dress for mass, follow which missal, or the architecture of our churches.

I couldn’t disagree more. This attitude seems to encourage the idea of low expectations for the way we worship God at Mass.

The way we live our lives should obviously be formed by our Catholicism. If Catholics take a lax attitude towards the way in which they assist at Mass, then it’s bound to affect how seriously they view their Faith in their life. It’s my experience and common sense dictates that when we set high expectations, regardless of the activity involved, people view the endeavor more seriously.

Should the military allow casual dress for its members, more leeway for which orders are followed and an overall less serious attitude about the members responsibilities?

Do the schools which follow a more lax atmosphere seem to do a better job of educating or are the schools which set high expectations (dress codes, homework, serious curriculum) seem to form better work habits in children?

Are the Catholic religious orders which did away with the wearing of habits or religious garb and less strict observance of the orders rules thriving with vocations? Or are the orders which have maintained a level of seriousness about the manner in which their members live in community doing a better job of attracting vocations?

So the way in which we dress for Mass is important to the extent that it reflects how serious we view the celebration of the Mass. Would it be acceptable for someone to wear casual clothes to their wedding? What would this say about how serious they take their vows?

I’ll paraphrase a well known Latin saying, “The way we worship affects the way we believe.”