What is going on in this forum?

[cothrige]

Have I gone insane, or is this the most inaccurately named forum on the internet? Is there ever a thread here about traditional things, other than to argue that tradition does not exist or is an incomprehensible and meaningless word (except when it is used to describe the OF of course), or that all traditionalists are going to hell for judging other people or actually disagreeing with the endless stream of anti-traditionalist threads? Are there any traditionalists on this forum at all? And are there any other Catholics who can disagree in a civil way, refraining from blanket judgments and without flooding the forum with the same post over and over again?

Post after post all I see are “I am traditional because I hate tradition” threads followed by streams of one line drive-by “you go girl” follow ups, sprinkled with warnings that the jackals that are fellow God fearing Catholics will soon swoop in to savage them and eat their young. I have seen the most self-serving, self-congratulatory pablum in this forum over the last few weeks, and it just keeps coming and coming with nothing to say at all, other than to thank God that they are such better Christians than those traditionalists. Nothing of substance can be discussed because it is all drowned out in the endless streams of back slapping and droning calls for peace and love, laced of course with judgment against fellow Catholics who have the audacity to actually disagree with them and thereby disturb the proper peace which should exist here. And it would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better. Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

 

[I_Believe]

You’ll go insane if you get caught up in it. It will kill you spiritually.

I hear you though. The threads that are most mean spirited stay at the top. One of our members, Caesar would start the type of threads one would expect in a forum with this title. They would get some play, but soon drop to the second page.

I’d like to discuss things like individual traditional Roman Catholic prayers and their origin. Or which Saint’s writings influence us as traditional catholics. Origins of specific devotions and so forth.

What I treasure most on a forum, is a person who was an adult prior to 1960 sharing stories and thoughts. When the phrase “remnant of the Church” comes up, it is usually taken describe a group. To me, the remnants are our elderly brothers and sisters including the priests. They dispell so many myths like "there was liturgical abuse in the TLM ! ", or, “no one understood the Mass, so they prayed the rosary”. Isolated incidents ? Of course. Widespread ? No.

I don’t blame VII for the crisis of Faith we see today. And I don’t judge the average catholic who has never been to a Mass other than the NO, calling them lukewarm, or saying things like “they don’t know what it’s like to be a catholic”. We as Catholics, are a product of our upbringing. Faith is formed in the home and from the pulpit, and ideally, from catholic schooling. Since the fifties, teens have faced a tough decision. It’s a filthy word, with atheists, pagans, and hypocrites being manipulated by Satan. Once a child finds friends among these groups it can stop the growth of their faith or even kill it.

I’m convinced without doubt, that it is all in the hands of the young priests now. Pope BXVI has freed the Gregorian Liturgy. I don’t believe the Mass will save the world. Satan isn’t going anywhere. But I believe it can renew the beautiful Faith of Roman Catholicism. When we finally have a significant number of young men who have been raised on the EF entering the seminaries, then the Church will see renewed growth.

Either way, we have a good Pope

 

[PrayforMallory]

Have I gone insane, or is this the most inaccurately named forum on the internet? Is there ever a thread here about traditional things, other than to argue that tradition does not exist or is an incomprehensible and meaningless word (except when it is used to describe the OF of course), or that all traditionalists are going to hell for judging other people or actually disagreeing with the endless stream of anti-traditionalist threads? Are there any traditionalists on this forum at all? And are there any other Catholics who can disagree in a civil way, refraining from blanket judgments and without flooding the forum with the same post over and over again?

Post after post all I see are “I am traditional because I hate tradition” threads followed by streams of one line drive-by “you go girl” follow ups, sprinkled with warnings that the jackals that are fellow God fearing Catholics will soon swoop in to savage them and eat their young. I have seen the most self-serving, self-congratulatory pablum in this forum over the last few weeks, and it just keeps coming and coming with nothing to say at all, other than to thank God that they are such better Christians than those traditionalists. Nothing of substance can be discussed because it is all drowned out in the endless streams of back slapping and droning calls for peace and love, laced of course with judgment against fellow Catholics who have the audacity to actually disagree with them and thereby disturb the proper peace which should exist here. And it would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better. Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

I think part of this is a reaction to the dynamic of the past. The traditionalists used to be known for bitterness, because they were left out in the cold without the traditional sacraments. Well, now they are returning to the fold, and we can discuss the actual issues, but people still want to focus on past rights and wrongs, on both sides.

The fact is, a lot of long-time traditionalists were unjustly hurt, and this was acknowledged by the Papacy, and people don’t want to admit it. It’s especially hard for people to admit when they realize that there are new people discovering it that don’t have any of either side’s Vatican II “baggage.”

 

[SanJudas]

Have I gone insane, or is this the most inaccurately named forum on the internet? … ] Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

Thank you and God bless you, cothridge, you make so many good points in your post that I couldn’t list them all without repeating it verbatim.

Basically, what we have here is a bunch of modernists, the paid lackeys of “progressive” theologians, for all I know, who are very very nervous about the return to Catholic Tradition they sense is coming under Pope Benedict XVI and his successors. Apparently they come (or are sent) onto this forum to try to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into any serious discussion of tradition we try to have. Others are converts from Judaism or Protestantism who memorized a few lines from the catechism, attended some “feel-good” masses in a Bauhaus-style church with plenty of folk guitar strumming and hand-holding, and now feel it is their right to come on here and lecture the rest of us about our own Faith and our Catholic culture, something that some of us were raised with. We didn’t get it from reading Orbis Books and watching “Life on the Rock.” Little by little, these liberals’ priviledged position in the Church these last forty years is being eroded away, and they are quite frightened about it.

 

[eelpis]

There are a lot of peoople who are more Catholic than the pope, they even want to be pope and work their way up from there.

Take the debate from the light side. I have read many serious and sincere posts here. Don’t try to get your spiritual sustenance from here though, the internet is not an replacement for reality.

 

[ethelzguy]

Nothing of substance can be discussed because it is all drowned out in the endless streams of back slapping and droning calls for peace and love, laced of course with judgment against fellow Catholics who have the audacity to actually disagree with them and thereby disturb the proper peace which should exist here. And it would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better. Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

I came to CAF looking to broaden my Faith. When I saw the heading “Traditional Catholicism”, I was elated. Sounded like just the place for me.

But instead of interesting discussion of “back in the day”, I saw endless rants against the Church, and anything, and I do mean anything, that has occured since Vatican II

Popes Paul VI and John Paul II called every name in the book. Any Mass but the TLM criticized and bashed in every way possible.

My favorite subject has become “Cafeteria Catholicism”. At first, it was used as a slam against those who were happy in the post-V2 Church. But in reality, I have come to believe that it fits the traditionalist crowd the best. Picking and choosing what parts of the faith WE want to adhere to, isn’t following the faith.

Yes, I am a traditional Catholic…in the “Pray, Pay, and Obey” vein. I would never dream of talking to, or about the clergy of the Church in the way that I see it done here.

99% of the Catholics I know personally are as happy as a bee in a flower bed where the Church is concerned. I can’t imagine living a life of faith that is such a source of anger and frustration. I honestly don’t consider much of what I read here to be an expression of faith at all.

I could go on and on, but it would be pointless. I am backing off for now, and leaving you to your rants.

 

[KingAlfred]

You’ll go insane if you get caught up in it. It will kill you spiritually.

I hear you though. The threads that are most mean spirited stay at the top. One of our members, Caesar would start the type of threads one would expect in a forum with this title. They would get some play, but soon drop to the second page.

I’d like to discuss things like individual traditional Roman Catholic prayers and their origin. Or which Saint’s writings influence us as traditional catholics. Origins of specific devotions and so forth.

What I treasure most on a forum, is a person who was an adult prior to 1960 sharing stories and thoughts. When the phrase “remnant of the Church” comes up, it is usually taken describe a group. To me, the remnants are our elderly brothers and sisters including the priests. They dispell so many myths like "there was liturgical abuse in the TLM ! ", or, “no one understood the Mass, so they prayed the rosary”. Isolated incidents ? Of course. Widespread ? No.

I don’t blame VII for the crisis of Faith we see today. And I don’t judge the average catholic who has never been to a Mass other than the NO, calling them lukewarm, or saying things like “they don’t know what it’s like to be a catholic”. We as Catholics, are a product of our upbringing. Faith is formed in the home and from the pulpit, and ideally, from catholic schooling. Since the fifties, teens have faced a tough decision. It’s a filthy word, with atheists, pagans, and hypocrites being manipulated by Satan. Once a child finds friends among these groups it can stop the growth of their faith or even kill it.

I’m convinced without doubt, that it is all in the hands of the young priests now. Pope BXVI has freed the Gregorian Liturgy. I don’t believe the Mass will save the world. Satan isn’t going anywhere. But I believe it can renew the beautiful Faith of Roman Catholicism. When we finally have a significant number of young men who have been raised on the EF entering the seminaries, then the Church will see renewed growth.

Either way, we have a good Pope

Unfortunatley, as in the case of all other media, sensationalism wins the day on the Internet, even on websites such as this one.

 

[cothrige]

You’ll go insane if you get caught up in it. It will kill you spiritually.

Perhaps you are right, though of course I come here to learn and discuss, and not being a tradtionalist I may not take as much spiritual hurt as some would. For me I think it may be more intellectually frustrating than anything, but it irks me to see what goes on around here. I come here to discuss and learn but that becomes increasingly difficult to do in the environment that seems to dominate here. Very unfortunate.

 

[cothrige]

I think part of this is a reaction to the dynamic of the past. The traditionalists used to be known for bitterness, because they were left out in the cold without the traditional sacraments. Well, now they are returning to the fold, and we can discuss the actual issues, but people still want to focus on past rights and wrongs, on both sides.

The fact is, a lot of long-time traditionalists were unjustly hurt, and this was acknowledged by the Papacy, and people don’t want to admit it. It’s especially hard for people to admit when they realize that there are new people discovering it that don’t have any of either side’s Vatican II “baggage.”

Yes, I can see how these things would be so. But, I just can’t understand how people who have seen others treated as red-headed stepchildren by many in the Church for going on fifty years cannot celebrate for them after finally getting a little recompense? Especially when it costs the rest nothing at all, and likely benefits all. Especially if you believe the Holy Father. But, instead, people here post negative attacks over and over again against anybody who celebrates the actions of our Holy Father, and they do so by accusations that traditionalists are disobedient to the Church. How can agreeing with the Pope make you disobedient? It just leaves me cold.

We all know that there are hundreds of OF Masses celebrated everywhere in a myriad manners and styles, and nobody who prefers that type of spirituality is ever unable to find it, no matter where they live. At the same time there are fellow Catholics who have absolutely no access whatsoever to even one Mass celebrated in the way they find most conducive for their worship. And when they express a hope for even one Mass in that form in their area they receive endless attacks for feeling that way, like that one Mass out of hundreds is just too much to think of losing. Where is the sympathy for fellow believers who are suffering personal loss? I don’t care if I agree with your loss, or even understand it, shouldn’t there be just a hint of sympathy? Christ said when somebody seeks to take your coat give him your cloak as well, and this regardless of who does it. But do we see this here with fellow Catholics? No, instead it is insistence that there is no loss, or that traditionalists seek to rid the world of the OF Mass and have only the EF. Over one Mass out of so many? It all just speaks of a complete lack of Christian charity.

 

[redrosetea]

It’s nothing more than just a power struggle…People decide they are going to tell the rest of us what to believe

I was forced off my own thread by one of these people that decided to follow me around telling me what to believe

I go to church for that…I listen to the Pope for that…

 

[Jennifer_J]

Thank you and God bless you, cothridge, you make so many good points in your post that I couldn’t list them all without repeating it verbatim.

Basically, what we have here is a bunch of modernists, the paid lackeys of “progressive” theologians, for all I know, who are very very nervous about the return to Catholic Tradition they sense is coming under Pope Benedict XVI and his successors. Apparently they come (or are sent) onto this forum to try to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into any serious discussion of tradition we try to have. Others are converts from Judaism or Protestantism who memorized a few lines from the catechism, attended some “feel-good” masses in a Bauhaus-style church with plenty of folk guitar strumming and hand-holding, and now feel it is their right to come on here and lecture the rest of us about our own Faith and our Catholic culture, something that some of us were raised with. We didn’t get it from reading Orbis Books and watching “Life on the Rock.” Little by little, these liberals’ priviledged position in the Church these last forty years is being eroded away, and they are quite frightened about it.

Maybe posts like this have something to do with it?

 

[the_Gaudess]

There are a lot of peoople who are more Catholic than the pope, they even want to be pope and work their way up from there.

Yet you and others with this shared opinion make yourselves out to be “popes” by contradicting the Church’s teaching regarding the Holy Father. I would like to know what document says that the Pope’s practice of Catholicism is perfect.

 

[consumedconvert]

Maybe posts like this have something to do with it?

Perhaps…

 

[frenchlady]

I’ve only been here a short time, but I’ve started putting people on my ignore list. They never contribute anything to the discussion. They’re so much against the Trads, but are on this sub-forum constantly it seems. And they use very inflammatory language. Just look at some of the threads in this sub-forum. Especially the comparison to Jack Chick. Just totally unChristian in my opinion.

 

[catharina]

Have I gone insane, or is this the most inaccurately named forum on the internet? Is there ever a thread here about traditional things, other than to argue that tradition does not exist or is an incomprehensible and meaningless word (except when it is used to describe the OF of course), or that all traditionalists are going to hell for judging other people or actually disagreeing with the endless stream of anti-traditionalist threads? Are there any traditionalists on this forum at all? And are there any other Catholics who can disagree in a civil way, refraining from blanket judgments and without flooding the forum with the same post over and over again?

Post after post all I see are “I am traditional because I hate tradition” threads followed by streams of one line drive-by “you go girl” follow ups, sprinkled with warnings that the jackals that are fellow God fearing Catholics will soon swoop in to savage them and eat their young. I have seen the most self-serving, self-congratulatory pablum in this forum over the last few weeks, and it just keeps coming and coming with nothing to say at all, other than to thank God that they are such better Christians than those traditionalists. Nothing of substance can be discussed because it is all drowned out in the endless streams of back slapping and droning calls for peace and love, laced of course with judgment against fellow Catholics who have the audacity to actually disagree with them and thereby disturb the proper peace which should exist here. And it would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better. Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

The following sentence defeated the purpose of your entire post:

“… it (proper peace here) would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better.”

When one states one’s opinion AS IF it is Church Teaching then some others might take offense. My own solution has been to avoid this forum as much as possible. I thought this thread might be worthwhile, but I’m guessing it won’t be - it’s just more of the same.

Nonetheless, prayers for all.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

Well, I didn’t expect that some of the ‘traditionalists’ would be so openly opposed to (even violently so) the form of mass we have used for the past 40 years. I was a daily mass goer by 1960 and I loved the mass the way it was then. The changes and experimentations were difficult for me and religious education went to hell for about 15-20 years I think, even in seminaries. Now the OF of mass is said reverently where I live and in most of the places I travel to. Young priests are more orthodox. Many of the abuses are gone. Religious education classes are greatly improved.

The EF is becoming more available and Catholics may choose either form. I now prefer the OF but as I attend more EF masses that are well celebrated I may come to prefer it. But when I attend an EF mass I’m uncomfortable thinking what if many/most of the people sitting here think like some of the posters on this forum. They may be here, not because it feeds their soul but because it is more ‘right’, ‘objectively better’, than the OF. Maybe they think they are better Catholics than the poor misguided ordinary folks who were taken in by the evil infiltrators in the hierarchy who masterminded Vat. II.

 

[ibkc]

I agree that it has become very difficult to actually learn anything about Traditional Catholicism on this forum, because of the seemingly endless challenges to and outright attacks on people who hold traditional positions. I’ve been going to Fish Eaters to get a sense of where the trads are coming from, where I mostly just lurk and read. And I think it is a shame that people like me have to go elsewhere for that kind of information and discussion. I am a recent convert and I get a lot out of every other forum on CAF, but this one should really be re-named “Attack Traditional Catholics and Traditional Catholicism Here”.

 

[Spiller]

Have I gone insane, or is this the most inaccurately named forum on the internet? Is there ever a thread here about traditional things, other than to argue that tradition does not exist or is an incomprehensible and meaningless word (except when it is used to describe the OF of course), or that all traditionalists are going to hell for judging other people or actually disagreeing with the endless stream of anti-traditionalist threads? Are there any traditionalists on this forum at all? And are there any other Catholics who can disagree in a civil way, refraining from blanket judgments and without flooding the forum with the same post over and over again?

I think two things are happening. First, some are challenging other peoples’ notions of what “traditionalism” is. Second, the difference between a traditionally-minded Catholic Christian and a “Traditional Catholic” (sic) is becoming ever more obvious on this forum.

Post after post all I see are “I am traditional because I hate tradition” threads followed by streams of one line drive-by “you go girl” follow ups, sprinkled with warnings that the jackals that are fellow God fearing Catholics will soon swoop in to savage them and eat their young. I have seen the most self-serving, self-congratulatory pablum in this forum over the last few weeks, and it just keeps coming and coming with nothing to say at all, other than to thank God that they are such better Christians than those traditionalists. Nothing of substance can be discussed because it is all drowned out in the endless streams of back slapping and droning calls for peace and love, laced of course with judgment against fellow Catholics who have the audacity to actually disagree with them and thereby disturb the proper peace which should exist here. And it would exist too if only everybody would admit that all Masses are equal in all ways except that the OF is better. Discussion and debate can be very healthy and productinve, but I don’t see how that can be expected to happen in this environment with the attitudes I have seen exhibited here.

I sorta feel the same way about the constant judgmental and negative comments made by the “Traditional Catholic” clique. Half their comments are ridiculous.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I come here to discuss and learn but that becomes increasingly difficult to do in the environment that seems to dominate here. Very unfortunate.

I find this forum quite helpful in getting answers to questions I have. I try not to let reckless opinions get in the way. Argumentative personalities are not unique to this forum.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I don’t think y’all understand what a trauma it was to grow up before and during Vatican II and then face what happened. I can’t speak for anyone else but in my archdiocese we chucked out everything in increments over the course of two years or so. “In two weeks we will not sing the Gloria in Latin anymore…In two weeks we will not sing the the Pater Noster in Latin anymore”.

I was comfortable with Latin. I was an altar boy. Unlike so many of my contemporaries (evidently) I could see the enormous amount of cognates in Latin vis-a-vis English. Even more so in Spanish.

I am blessed to have been asked to join my cathedral choir and cathedral parish twenty-five years ago. We celebrate a reverent NO Mass. There is a large part of me that could very easily go back to a Solemn High Mass (with choir) (Lord, what we could do!)

We had our roots ripped out in 1965 - 1969. There were many of my classmates in my Catholic high school who embraced the changes. There were just as many of us who didn’t. (I have to tell you once again that I did not like having Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” as the Offertory and Communion hymns at my graduation.

My conscience was formed before Vatican II. It is a Baltimore catechism conscience.

Some of the folks on this forum are way to the right of me in their fervor. I don’t want to see HMC go back to what I grew up with. (I never ever want to have to ask permission from my pastor to attend my grandmother’s Protestant memorial service. I didn’t even attend my Protestant grandmother’s burial in 1967 while my brother and I served for our maternal grandmother’s Requiem Mass).

Things have changed in the last forty years… I do not receive Communion in the hand and I would dearly love to receive kneeling down. I also recognize that I am a “product” of my time and that there are 'members of the Tiber Swim Team" who would be scared by this.

The Holy Father is just trying to restore an equilibrium.