The Generational Divide

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Fuerza said:
but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot period.
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Sorry, but one of the things that I find most disagreeable about Trads is their penchant for grossly overestimating their numbers.

They are a microscopic movement and are shrinking fast as their core constituency is dying off. Here’s a rather honest admission of that from one of the leading Trads, Msgr. Charles Pope:

www.ncregister.com

An Urgent Warning About the Future of the Traditional Latin Mass

In this post I want to summon my fellow Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass to a greater appreciation of their obligation to evangelize. I sense tha...
www.ncregister.com www.ncregister.com

My bet is that the TLM movement will effective die off within 20 years at the most, and probably even sooner.
 
Based on limited but personal, first hand experience–in my diocese the Tridentine Masses have a lot of young adults and a lot of families. I attend both, because the FSSP parish is 55 miles away.
 
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an FSSP parish but they are generally pretty full and vibrant. Philly is getting a knew one, New Hampshire got one three years ago (I’ve been to it and it’s full of folks). The one in Arkansas got upgraded from a “community” to parish.

I know that the FSSP only has enough parishes to cover a normal diocese and a half maybe in America (they have more outside the States) but they have 100 seminarians in America alone. Pretty impressive for a small order that was started just almost 30 years ago.

Dying off? I don’t see my FSSP parish going anywhere in twenty years.
 
Entwhistler said:
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an FSSP parish but they are generally pretty full and vibrant. Philly is getting a knew one, New Hampshire got one three years ago (I’ve been to it and it’s full of folks). The one in Arkansas got upgraded from a “community” to parish.
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I think that many people in growing FSSP parishes are attracted to other features of the parish and not necessarily attracted to the Mass as a primary feature. This isn’t to say that they don’t love the Mass, just that the form of the Mass isn’t the primary thing that keeps them there.They like having smaller parishes and tight-knit communities of faithful, like-minded Catholics. They love the reverence of the priests and fellow parishioners and they love learning about and practicing the traditions of the Church, but not just the Mass.They like having multiple priests who are young, vibrant, and highly accessible to parishioners, who can inspire their sons to the priesthood.Having three priests tend to 800 families is clearly going to be different than having one priest who tends to 3,000 families. They love the strong homilies and abundant confession times. I’d be willing to bet that many of those families would be perfectly happy at their local parishes if their local parishes offered such an environment.
 
Maybe at some parishes, but not at my FSSP parish. It is small yes but everyone I’ve talked to (which is basically the entire community) is there for the EF with the community and holy priests being a major plus.
 
But I will admit that if the OF parishes around the area did things right, the Latin Mass wouldn’t have as many people. That’s the case in Nebraska where the lone FSSP parish doesn’t have as many parishioners as it should considering the town its in because the OF parishes in Nebraska are so solid. Thanks to their bishop.
 
Well if the OF was the be all end all there would have been no need for the great Summorum Pontificum. Obviously the ‘spirit’ of Vatican II did some damage and made SP necessary. Liturgy is the highest form of catechesis and we all know how that went in the 70s, etc.
 
anon10271182 said:
Dying off? Hardly.
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Entwhistler said:
Dying off? I don’t see my FSSP parish going anywhere in twenty years.
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Msgr. Pope, one of the leaders of the TLM movement and who has a good head for demographics, strongly disagrees in the article I linked above, in which he issues an “urgent warning” to TLMers that they are indeed going the way of the dinosaur.

The trend he sees is that when a new TLM group is established, there is a flurry of initial interest that soon plummets.

He claims that the TLM appeals to only a tiny niche of Catholics at large, about one half of one percent, at has hit a ceiling in this regard.

In the huge Diocese of Chicago, only 200 people attended the EF before their church burnt down in 2015. In the whole Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the largest in the US, less than 1000 people attend EF services.

It’s only going to do go downhill as the niche group of Catholics interested in the EF dies off due to old age. And no, they are not being replaced by younger people to any significant extent.

Do take the time to read the article. It is written by a leading TLMer and directed at TLMers to get them to get out there and evangelize.

Here’s the link again. I would be curious in your feedback on the article.

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/msgr...bout-the-future-of-the-traditional-latin-mass
 
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I actually haven’t noticed this among some of my nominally Catholic friends. But I as a millennial am more traditional in my liturgical preferences. I find the OF just as valid and licit as the EF, but the OF can easily be abused.
 
There is no doubt the older people who actually remember the pre-VII mass are dying off. The youngest would be in their sixties now.

The logical error here is assuming that children of Trads will grow up to be Trads themselves. Many, if not most, will end up abandoning the movement once they move away from home and out into the world at large. The same is true for any other political/religious movement, and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be true for this one. It is unlikely that those who remain will be numerous enough to carry on the movement. Eventually, the small subset of Catholics that are avid opponents of the OF will end up joining the SSPX and other schismatic groups, leaving the less avid adherents behind without the means or passion to keep the movement inside the Church alive.

As for the SSPX, it will remain a tiny fringe, and probably undergo further fracturing and eventually die out.

Sorry, but none of the information I have seen about the TLM movement points to a bright future. Everything points to an eventual collapse.
 
AndrewAxland said:
The logical error here is assuming that children of Trads will grow up to be Trads themselves. Many, if not most, will end up abandoning the movement once they move away from home and out into the world at large.
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I think this is the key point here. Will traddy kids leave the EF once they grow up? As mentioned there will obviously be some attrition. That’s normal. But I don’t see why the majority of the kids would? One just has to look at the amount of seminarians the FSSP is getting. Increasingly, the new seminarians are the kids who went to the Latin Mass as children (there has been enough time for that). If many or most of the kids leave the EF when they grow up, there wouldn’t be as many seminarians.

Now I don’t know about other parishes but at mine many of the kids who grew up with the EF stick around. Now obviously we have attrition. Some kids started going to the OF with their new spouses. But they can be counted on one hand. The others stay and have lots of kids. Actually, my parish is inundated with kids 9 and under.
 
Entwhistler said:
But I don’t see why the majority of the kids would?
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Politics. The TLM movement is a political movement as much as it is a religious one, and the brand of politics it is associated with is highly unpopular among young people, even among those who were brought up in conservative households.
 
AndrewAxland said:
Politics. The TLM movement is a political movement as much as it is a religious one, and the brand of politics it is associated with is highly unpopular among young people, even among those who were brought up in conservative households.
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If we are talking about young dissidents, then you’re right that it’s not popular, but if we’re talking about young practicing, even those who aren’t as much recognized as trads, then I’d disagree. Politically, if people around my age lean more conservative, they’re often siding with the populists. That’s why, at least with politics, they like Paul Joseph Watson, Jordan Peterson, Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, and Milo Yiannopolis (again, with politics, not religion). But also, that might be found more so with young men. Many of the women tend to be apolitical, though they’ll side with matters of traditional marriage and pro-life matters.

But it’s not just politics, at least it ought not be. Religion should be spilling into politics, not vice versa. Politics is downstream from culture.
 
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The number of SSPX priests has grown nearly 10% in 4 years. That correlates directly with increased attendance. So much for the SSPX going away. FSSP ordinations are increasing every year as well. Both of these societies are full of young, dynamic priests and parishioners and the more “progressive” dioceses get, the more the ranks of the traditionalists will swell.
 
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I wonder what would happen if the EF were offered at a big suburban parish, or cathedral? Or at least one that is not in a scary part of town (as is ours).
Maybe even more people would show up.
 
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Loud-living-dogma said:
I wonder what would happen if the EF were offered at a big suburban parish, or cathedral? Or at least one that is not in a scary part of town (as is ours).
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Different dioceses offer Latin Mass in different locations- not all of them are scary. In Pittsburgh, they have it located right off the interstate in a vacant part of town. (the state ripped the whole neighborhood down for building the interstate- except for the church)

It shouldn’t be hard to compare Latin Mass attendance in scary vs non-scary locations.
 
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The Diocese of Sacramento is geographically very large. It’s single TLM parish (FSSP) is in a lower income part of South Sacramento. Nevertheless there are 2 weekday Masses daily, 2 on Saturdays and 4 on Sundays. Many drive long distances to attend, myself included (55 miles). Masses are very well-attended and there are more than 800 active parishioners. I don’t know how many live locally, but I see vans full of teens in the parking lot on Sunday.
It is my home parish, and it is thriving.
 
Is your name based off of the Feinstein comment? If so, that’s awesome.
 
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