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PJM
Guest
John, that pretty well sums it up.
Let us pray!
This is terrifying - Could this be the end of the Church in America?
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Let us pray!
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crenfro
Guest
Whoa dere! You have parts of the solution already within your questions - the Catholic Church will do what it can, we, hopefully will do all we can, but don’t forget that God is also with us, and since when has He ever let us down?
Jesus says not to worry, that the even the feathers of the birds are counted, so how much more is He watching over us. Also, like Martha vs. Mary, just stick near and stay close to God and don’t be concerned about bunches of many things so much.
We’re only supposed to handle what we’re given, at least that’s how I understand things, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
my 2 cents…thanks for listening…
J
Jerry_Parker
Guest
John Grudzien,
You wrote: I too quit practi
Yes, that explains my case, to some extent. The Eucharist is what brings me back to going to Mass. It is not, however, because of the quality of the liturgy. The Novus Ordo is disturbingly bland and minimalist. When the 1962 and then 1965 Missals (essentially Tridentine) were in use, the Mass at which I sang in a Gregorian choir, usually entirely in Latin, was glorious. I never would have bothered with anything else if the Catholic Church had continued its use.
The Novus Ordo (N.O.) and the experiments that preceded it, however, drove me from going to the Roman Catholic Church. The only reasons that the Mass draws me back now is that I have come to realise that the Protestant denominations have no real and valid Eucharist at all and there is no living presence of the Eastern Orthodox Church (whose liturgy is so sublime) anywhere in the Abitibi region. It is a shame to return to a local Catholic Church and to find the Novus Ordo still in use; one would have thought that since 1970 its failure to live up to what the Mass should be would have relegated the N.O. to the dustbin of history, to bring back the 1962 Mass into universal use, but, alas, that has not been the case!
I go to Mass because it is essential, even if the N.O. gives me so little joy or sense of the splendour of liturgical worship. A local nuns’ chapel offers the N.O., for all its liturgical mediocrity, at least with decency and devotion. The R.C.C. holds us captive with its shallow but valid Eucharist. So, I go to Mass again and go through the motions, but with little joy. I would bolt for a parish that offers the 1962 liturgy, but this diocese (Rouyn-Noranda, QC.), like so many others, refuses to offer it to us. A pox on Bugnini!
Jerry Parker
You wrote: I too quit practiing my faith for about 30 yrs. … The Eucharist … brought me back. I never attended any other “church” during that time either, but since I’ve come back, I’ve been treated at best a a museum piece and at worst as a pariah for my love of the Tridentine Mass, by our more LIBERAL members.
Yes, that explains my case, to some extent. The Eucharist is what brings me back to going to Mass. It is not, however, because of the quality of the liturgy. The Novus Ordo is disturbingly bland and minimalist. When the 1962 and then 1965 Missals (essentially Tridentine) were in use, the Mass at which I sang in a Gregorian choir, usually entirely in Latin, was glorious. I never would have bothered with anything else if the Catholic Church had continued its use.
The Novus Ordo (N.O.) and the experiments that preceded it, however, drove me from going to the Roman Catholic Church. The only reasons that the Mass draws me back now is that I have come to realise that the Protestant denominations have no real and valid Eucharist at all and there is no living presence of the Eastern Orthodox Church (whose liturgy is so sublime) anywhere in the Abitibi region. It is a shame to return to a local Catholic Church and to find the Novus Ordo still in use; one would have thought that since 1970 its failure to live up to what the Mass should be would have relegated the N.O. to the dustbin of history, to bring back the 1962 Mass into universal use, but, alas, that has not been the case!
I go to Mass because it is essential, even if the N.O. gives me so little joy or sense of the splendour of liturgical worship. A local nuns’ chapel offers the N.O., for all its liturgical mediocrity, at least with decency and devotion. The R.C.C. holds us captive with its shallow but valid Eucharist. So, I go to Mass again and go through the motions, but with little joy. I would bolt for a parish that offers the 1962 liturgy, but this diocese (Rouyn-Noranda, QC.), like so many others, refuses to offer it to us. A pox on Bugnini!
Jerry Parker
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PJM
Guest
***Friend what you say is true BUT!!!
Mt. 16-19 proclaims the infallible truth “that the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” Amen to that:thumbsup:*** HOWEVER Jesus makes no such promise for America. Look at Euorpe and Spain. Itlay in particular.
Do not be of the mind that it can’t happen here, BECAUSE friend, it is happening here, RIGHT NOW!
Mass Attendance in 1970 was nearly 75% of professed Catholics, in 2008 that numer has dropped to about 23%. And we are not to be concerned? Oh, and people going to Confession even once a year has dropped from about 65% to about 10%. And we are not to worry?
Love and prayers,
J
Jerry_Parker
Guest
Crenfro and PJM,
**You wrote: *Crenfro: *** * Whoa dere! You have parts of the solution already within your questions – the Catholic Church will do what it can, we, hopefully will do all we can, but don’t forget that God is also with us, and since when has He ever let us down?
Jesus says not to worry, that the even the feathers of the birds are counted, so how much more is He watching over us. Also, like Martha vs. Mary, just stick near and stay close to God and don’t be concerned about bunches of many things so much. We’re only supposed to handle what we’re given, at least that’s how I understand things, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
***PJM: ***Friend what you say is true BUT!!! Mt. 16-19 proclaims the infallible truth “that the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” Amen to that HOWEVER Jesus makes no such promise for America. Look at Euorpe and Spain. Itlay in particular.
Also, regarding falling Mass attendance and the faith that propels that (and here in Québec even Baptismal and Confirmation statistics and percentages of at least nominal consent to the faith in parents which leads them to bring children to the baptismal laver, in a once rock-solidly Catholic and observant but now adrift and prevailingly faithless population), recall Christ’s woesome question: “Yet the Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (St. Luke 18:8, Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version). There is, indeed, much to fear and for which to prepare, including appalling apostasy from, and indifference to, the Holy Catholic and Christian Faith!
So do not lose hope, for Christ will claim those who persevere and thus prove to be His elect believers, even in the awful end times, but, also, be prepared for some very bad end times and increasing drift from the Church. However, making perseverance difficult, all of this decline, liturgical, theological, and moral, is hard to bear and very trying in times that leave the soul parched and athirst, in a Church full of terrible sin and unbelief, even (perhaps especially!) among its feckless and largely gay clergy. I am old enough (at 66) to remember those years before 1970 that you, PJM, mention, when the Church was so much more alive and faithful (including to the 1962 Tridentine-like Missal) and attendance at Mass so high, which perhaps makes the comparison with today and the probable furture so discouraging.
Jerry Parker
**You wrote: *Crenfro: *** * Whoa dere! You have parts of the solution already within your questions – the Catholic Church will do what it can, we, hopefully will do all we can, but don’t forget that God is also with us, and since when has He ever let us down?
Jesus says not to worry, that the even the feathers of the birds are counted, so how much more is He watching over us. Also, like Martha vs. Mary, just stick near and stay close to God and don’t be concerned about bunches of many things so much. We’re only supposed to handle what we’re given, at least that’s how I understand things, but please correct me if I’m wrong.
***PJM: ***Friend what you say is true BUT!!! Mt. 16-19 proclaims the infallible truth “that the gates of Hell shall not prevail.” Amen to that HOWEVER Jesus makes no such promise for America. Look at Euorpe and Spain. Itlay in particular.
Do not be of the mind that it can’t happen here, BECAUSE friend, it is happening here, RIGHT NOW! Mass Attendance in 1970 was nearly 75% of professed Catholics, in 2008 that numer has dropped to about 23%. And we are not to be concerned? Oh, and people going to Confession even once a year has dropped from about 65% to about 10%. And we are not to worry?*
Yes, it is true, Crenfro, that the Church and God’s elect will persevere until the end and that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. However, it is also true, as PJM implies, that it will be something akin to the threshold of Hell that will confront Christian believers in the difficult days to come and even starting now, before Christ come again in Glory.Also, regarding falling Mass attendance and the faith that propels that (and here in Québec even Baptismal and Confirmation statistics and percentages of at least nominal consent to the faith in parents which leads them to bring children to the baptismal laver, in a once rock-solidly Catholic and observant but now adrift and prevailingly faithless population), recall Christ’s woesome question: “Yet the Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (St. Luke 18:8, Douay-Rheims-Challoner Version). There is, indeed, much to fear and for which to prepare, including appalling apostasy from, and indifference to, the Holy Catholic and Christian Faith!
So do not lose hope, for Christ will claim those who persevere and thus prove to be His elect believers, even in the awful end times, but, also, be prepared for some very bad end times and increasing drift from the Church. However, making perseverance difficult, all of this decline, liturgical, theological, and moral, is hard to bear and very trying in times that leave the soul parched and athirst, in a Church full of terrible sin and unbelief, even (perhaps especially!) among its feckless and largely gay clergy. I am old enough (at 66) to remember those years before 1970 that you, PJM, mention, when the Church was so much more alive and faithful (including to the 1962 Tridentine-like Missal) and attendance at Mass so high, which perhaps makes the comparison with today and the probable furture so discouraging.
Jerry Parker
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paperwight
Guest
Jerry Parker;! said:
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wisdomseeker
Guest
do not get discourage. remember the times of our Lord when all seemed to be hopeless when the Shepard was stricken. all scattered. it is what is happening in the Church today. but be of courage, the Church needs people like us to fight for our Lord’s Church. the Apostles did not have it easy and neither should we.
we know it is not the Church that is causing all the turmoil, it is the demonic forces that attacks the Church from the beginning. we must not give up the fight. eventually our Lord wins the battle. He always wins. the evil forces are trying to change the Church by using people wihtin the Church to drag down the Church. we know our Lord promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church and it will not. the evil influences are all around us but we must not be scared. stay and fight the good fight.
in the days of the Napoleon, a man came to the Cardinal and said that Napoleon had promise to destroy the Church. the Cardinal wisely said: "how is he going to do it? if we couldnt do it within. how is he going to do it from without?"
J
Jerry_Parker
Guest
Paperwight,
You state that my case was overstated, hence unworthy of credibility, especially in referring to the Church’s “feckless and largely gay clergy”. Well, although the results of statistical studies vary widely, it would not be stretching credibility to affirm that about half (50%), at least, of the Catholic Church’s clergy well may be gay and most of them sexually active. The Catholic priesthood has been becoming a “gay profession”. It is not so much the gayness of clergy that bothers me, but the violation of their vows of chastity in being sexually active. Gay priests and bishops can be sensitive and marvellous pastors, but when they break the vows that bind straight and gay priests and bishops alike, they offend grievously. Celibacy counts! Maybe it is wrong to insist that secular (parish) clergy be celibate, but a vow broken is a serious offense against God.
As for the “feckless” aspect, it certainly is applicable to the laziness, laxity, and indulgence in trendy liturgical fads of so many clergy, although, thankfully, not all of them in all of these aspects. Think about it: how many priests make an effort to preach really well or to hear confessions of most of their parishoners regularly: not very many, right? Those are just two criteria, and priests fall down on many others nowadays! However, there have been other periods of priestly and episcopal decline in the Church’s history, so I am not making outragious claims about the clergy today. No, I did not state the case excessively at all.
Pax, Jerry
You state that my case was overstated, hence unworthy of credibility, especially in referring to the Church’s “feckless and largely gay clergy”. Well, although the results of statistical studies vary widely, it would not be stretching credibility to affirm that about half (50%), at least, of the Catholic Church’s clergy well may be gay and most of them sexually active. The Catholic priesthood has been becoming a “gay profession”. It is not so much the gayness of clergy that bothers me, but the violation of their vows of chastity in being sexually active. Gay priests and bishops can be sensitive and marvellous pastors, but when they break the vows that bind straight and gay priests and bishops alike, they offend grievously. Celibacy counts! Maybe it is wrong to insist that secular (parish) clergy be celibate, but a vow broken is a serious offense against God.
As for the “feckless” aspect, it certainly is applicable to the laziness, laxity, and indulgence in trendy liturgical fads of so many clergy, although, thankfully, not all of them in all of these aspects. Think about it: how many priests make an effort to preach really well or to hear confessions of most of their parishoners regularly: not very many, right? Those are just two criteria, and priests fall down on many others nowadays! However, there have been other periods of priestly and episcopal decline in the Church’s history, so I am not making outragious claims about the clergy today. No, I did not state the case excessively at all.
Pax, Jerry
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Jerry_Parker
Guest
Wisdom Seeker,
Jerry Parker*
**You wrote: ** *[E]ventually our Lord wins the battle. He always wins. The evil forces are trying to change the Church by using people wihtin the Church to drag down the Church. We know our Lord promise that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church and it * will not. The evil influences are all around us but we must not be scared. Stay and fight the good fight. *
Wise words, indeed! No, I do not think that abandoning the Church does any good. I’ll stick with it and all the mess that its feckless clergy have caused and its laity permitted (those who did not leave). However, one has the right to complain about how bad the conditions are in Christ’s Catholic and Apostolic Church! At some point, one just goes to church out of obedience, even if it seems so spiritually barren, and tries to compensate with one’s own individual life of prayer and study (especially of the Holy Scriptures). There is no other genuine option for a Christian, joyless as the prospect may seem.Jerry Parker*
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KenB
Guest
Someone raised an interesting point about Eastern Catholics.
Have the Greek Orthodox ever had something like Vatican II? If so, did it cause the sort of controversy (some might say melt-down) that we in the Western (Roman) Church have seen (since Vatican II)?
Thanks -
Have the Greek Orthodox ever had something like Vatican II? If so, did it cause the sort of controversy (some might say melt-down) that we in the Western (Roman) Church have seen (since Vatican II)?
Thanks -
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PJM
Guest
Jerry, I’m just a kid compared to you
I’m 65 . I’m not depressed; angry yes! But with a just anger and a good understanding of what took pace.Love and prayers,
Pat
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Layman
Guest
[My cynical, uninformed opinion only:] I think the various Orthodox churches are run by independent patriarchs. If one decided to make swingeing changes to their liturgy, I’d guess their flocks could easily defect to other churches if they didn’t like them. So they don’t.
J
Jerry_Parker
Guest
Pat,
The best thing is to be able to receive the sacraments, which the Catholic clergy (good, bad, or indifferent though they be) dispense, and to look to the glorious past of the Catholic Church and ahead to the Church in Glory at the end of time. In the meantime, I use my old Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox devotional manuals and the Bible to keep me focussed on the God of all ages rather than to be distorted with the clergy’s insipid frolics.
It was not always like this! We both are old enough to remember, whether looking at it from the inside or from outside, when the Catholic Church was (as the Eastern Orthodox Church still is) a living and vital, holy embodinent of its Tradition.
Jerry Parker
**You wrote: ** I’m just a kid compared to you I’m 65 . I’m not depressed; angry yes! But with a just anger and a good understanding of what took pace.
Well, despite my strong words in that message, I don’t waste too much anger on what has happened to and still is afflicting the Church. There is too much very palpable injustice in the world, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia, to bother with battling with the Vat-II’s clergy’s balderdash. The Church has trivialised what is essential, the sacraments with their twee stripped-down remnants in the Novus Ordo being the most obvious. I find that the best thing is to limit how the Church’s failure can affect me personally. I avoid the clergy as much as possible; so many of them are boorish and poorly educated (not a complaint of the clergy before Vat-II caused a scholastic melt-down in the seminaries) that it is neither agreeable nor interesting to deal with them any more than essential.The best thing is to be able to receive the sacraments, which the Catholic clergy (good, bad, or indifferent though they be) dispense, and to look to the glorious past of the Catholic Church and ahead to the Church in Glory at the end of time. In the meantime, I use my old Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox devotional manuals and the Bible to keep me focussed on the God of all ages rather than to be distorted with the clergy’s insipid frolics.
It was not always like this! We both are old enough to remember, whether looking at it from the inside or from outside, when the Catholic Church was (as the Eastern Orthodox Church still is) a living and vital, holy embodinent of its Tradition.
Jerry Parker
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Jerry_Parker
Guest
** It was asked: ** Have the Greek Orthodox ever had something like Vatican II? If so, did it cause the sort of controversy (some might say melt-down) that we in the Western (Roman) Church have seen (since Vatican II)?
There are some reckless elements in the Greek Orthodox Church in particular, less so in other Eastern Orthodox Churches, that call for such an approach to renewal. I read Eastern Orthodox periodicals to some extent, and mostly the Orthodox seem to regard Vatican II as a “cautionary tale” about mucking up the Church and shafting Holy Tradition, thus the Orthodox shun something like the Second Vatican Council. In their eyes, anyway, all councils since the early truly Oecumenical ones, before the Church was rent asunder by schism, are only local and of provisional authority, Roman Catholic ones or their own.Jerry Parker
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LiB
Guest
“The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” I wouldn’t worry to much, but I would pray, and stand your ground.
J
Jerry_Parker
Guest
LiB,
Jerry Parker
**You wrote: ** “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” I wouldn’t worry to[o] much, but I would pray, and stand your ground.
Yes, that is the good attitude regarding all of this. Vigilance is a more productive and positive attitude than worry, which drains energy and enervates the will.Jerry Parker
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PJM
Guest
***Thanks Jerry, GREAT ADVICE:thumbsup:
I keep my nose in the bible to, and thanks be to God, prayer and me are common companions.***
Love and prayers,
Pat
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wisdomseeker
Guest
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CDNowak
Guest
For those asking what we can do:
First and foremost: watch and pray
Second, make sure your bishop (particularly those in Detroit or the home diocese of any of these organizations) is aware that this is happening.
As this event approaches encourage your bishop to make a statement on it.
First and foremost: watch and pray
Second, make sure your bishop (particularly those in Detroit or the home diocese of any of these organizations) is aware that this is happening.
As this event approaches encourage your bishop to make a statement on it.
M
mangy_dog
Guest
I am currently on vacation in P.R.
I will be returning to the US in a few days. I am logging on now to stay abreast ot the latest world developments as they pertain to my catholic faith.
Love and prayers for you all.
Mangy Dog.
I will be returning to the US in a few days. I am logging on now to stay abreast ot the latest world developments as they pertain to my catholic faith.
Love and prayers for you all.
Mangy Dog.
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