What is going on in this forum?

[redrosetea]

BR I understand and I hope that Pope Benedict will be able to restore a middle path for us all

I have never seen you badger anyone ,nor follow them around trying to inflect your views on them, as was done to me…I forgive those that did this but I shall ignore them from now on

Some people on both sides are rabid and need to stop trying to push themselves on others who differ

 

[EasterJoy]

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.

I do not understand these sentiments, which are hardly rare on this forum:
a) Non-traditionalists are “scared” of tradition; the liberal end of the Church is “afraid” of the conservative end. (Huh?)
b) It is reasonable to believe that people are being sent or paid to come here and act as sabateurs and trouble-makers. (Double huh? Here? To what end?)
c) We who are traditional know the faith. It is “ours”. We have nothing to learn from converts. (Mystery solved: that kind of kills the “discussion” aspect of things, right there.)

Where does this come from?

 

[tcraig]

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.

It is posts like this that make many devout Catholics want nothing to do with the EF/TLM and self-described “traditionalists”, and that hamper legitimate discussion on this forum.

I used to attend an FSSP parish exclusively for several years. I loved the EF mass and the beauty of it, but I personally prefer a NO mass with chant, incense, and some Latin. There is much about the NO mass that I truly do love and appreciate.

But this, to many “trads”, makes me a neo-con, a papolator, a “protestant Catholic” … the list goes on. Apparently because I don’t support the TLM exclusively I’m on the same level as those who want a clown mass with EMHC’s coming out of the woodwork and a rock band playing nothing but OCP songs. Oh, and I’ll probably be attending mass in my halter top and mini-skirt. A thread on another traditional forum concerning “Neo-Catholics” is quite edifying in sharing what many “traditionalists” think of their fellow Catholics.

I support someone’s choice to attend the EF/TLM. I did it myself for several years, and often attended a TLM when I had the chance living overseas. But one’s mass preference doesn’t make them a better or more devout Catholic. And traditionalists aren’t the only ones who support Catholic culture and older practices and customs. But again, by the tone of many posts, some trads think they’re the only ones praying their rosary while the rest of us are just holding hands and tapping our toes to “Lord of the Dance”.

 

[Cat]

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.

(Boldface mine): With all due respect, SanJudas, this is really kind of tough to listen to. I’m going to ask that you please consider recanting this statement.

Many of us who are converts spent many months or even years (three years for us) studying and attending seminars and reading everything we could get our hands on about the Catholic Church.

We were extremely careful and thorough in our studies. Many of us were taught that the Catholic Church is a pagan cult, not a Christian Church at all.

We had to plough through all the “myths” before even beginning to study the “facts.” And then we studied our little butts off! I have a very large bookshelf filled with all the books that I read by Catholics, including a lot of TAN published books (I didn’t just read the “pop” Catholic stuff–I wanted the whole banana!).

And then we had to spend a lot of time in prayer and soul-searching and discussion. Did we REALLY believe this? Are we REALLY willing to believe that Jesus handed authority over to men on this earth?

We didn’t want to fall into a false religion or cult, so we studied hard. And many of us attended many Masses, as many as possible, in order to make SURE that we were being taught the truth. We didn’t want to be hoodwinked.

I must admit, I guess I missed something in my studies. I have no idea what “Bauhaus-style churches” are.

A convert often gives up a lot to become a Catholic. We were fortunate that our families didn’t totally reject us, but we know of converts to Catholicism who are no longer welcomed by their families because they are considered members of a “cult.”

Some converts (pastors, missionaries) give up their livelihood. A pastor can’t just become a Catholic priest. So what is he (or she) supposed to do to earn their daily bread? It’s tough to go from making a large salary to having to start all over again and learn a trade.

In our case, we were “evangelicals of evangelicals,” involved 5-6 days/evenings a week in some ministry through our church. All of our friends were evangelical Protestants, and we lived a very insulated lifestyle, safe and happy. We gave all this up when we became Catholic. It’s very jarring. We’re still like fish out of water, trying to find our way around the Church, treading carefully to make sure that we are saying “yes” out of proper motives, not because we want to do “evangelicalism” all over again.

So like I said, I think you’re judgement about converts is kind of harsh, and I would like you to consider taking it back.

Thank you.

 

[consumedconvert]

(Boldface mine): With all due respect, SanJudas, this is really kind of tough to listen to. I’m going to ask that you please consider recanting this statement.

Many of us who are converts spent many months or even years (three years for us) studying and attending seminars and reading everything we could get our hands on about the Catholic Church.

We were extremely careful and thorough in our studies. Many of us were taught that the Catholic Church is a pagan cult, not a Christian Church at all.

We had to plough through all the “myths” before even beginning to study the “facts.” And then we studied our little butts off! I have a very large bookshelf filled with all the books that I read by Catholics, including a lot of TAN published books (I didn’t just read the “pop” Catholic stuff–I wanted the whole banana!).

And then we had to spend a lot of time in prayer and soul-searching and discussion. Did we REALLY believe this? Are we REALLY willing to believe that Jesus handed authority over to men on this earth?

We didn’t want to fall into a false religion or cult, so we studied hard. And many of us attended many Masses, as many as possible, in order to make SURE that we were being taught the truth. We didn’t want to be hoodwinked.

I must admit, I guess I missed something in my studies. I have no idea what “Bauhaus-style churches” are.

A convert often gives up a lot to become a Catholic. We were fortunate that our families didn’t totally reject us, but we know of converts to Catholicism who are no longer welcomed by their families because they are considered members of a “cult.”

Some converts (pastors, missionaries) give up their livelihood. A pastor can’t just become a Catholic priest. So what is he (or she) supposed to do to earn their daily bread? It’s tough to go from making a large salary to having to start all over again and learn a trade.

In our case, we were “evangelicals of evangelicals,” involved 5-6 days/evenings a week in some ministry through our church. All of our friends were evangelical Protestants, and we lived a very insulated lifestyle, safe and happy. We gave all this up when we became Catholic. It’s very jarring. We’re still like fish out of water, trying to find our way around the Church, treading carefully to make sure that we are saying “yes” out of proper motives, not because we want to do “evangelicalism” all over again.

So like I said, I think you’re judgement about converts is kind of harsh, and I would like you to consider taking it back.

Thank you.

I’ll second that.

 

[banjo]

Help! I have the impession (rightly or not) that this is a relatively recent forum (after the great sabotage of 2006). Since that time I have not posted on this forum but this article intrigued me. However, I can’t follow all of the logic because I have gaps in understanding the language. NO–I think I get, Novus Ordo but will someone please fill in the blanks on FFSP, OF and EF?? Thank you.

 

[Matt33]

(Boldface mine): With all due respect, SanJudas, this is really kind of tough to listen to. I’m going to ask that you please consider recanting this statement.

Many of us who are converts spent many months or even years (three years for us) studying and attending seminars and reading everything we could get our hands on about the Catholic Church.

We were extremely careful and thorough in our studies. Many of us were taught that the Catholic Church is a pagan cult, not a Christian Church at all.

We had to plough through all the “myths” before even beginning to study the “facts.” And then we studied our little butts off! I have a very large bookshelf filled with all the books that I read by Catholics, including a lot of TAN published books (I didn’t just read the “pop” Catholic stuff–I wanted the whole banana!).

And then we had to spend a lot of time in prayer and soul-searching and discussion. Did we REALLY believe this? Are we REALLY willing to believe that Jesus handed authority over to men on this earth?

We didn’t want to fall into a false religion or cult, so we studied hard. And many of us attended many Masses, as many as possible, in order to make SURE that we were being taught the truth. We didn’t want to be hoodwinked.

I must admit, I guess I missed something in my studies. I have no idea what “Bauhaus-style churches” are.

A convert often gives up a lot to become a Catholic. We were fortunate that our families didn’t totally reject us, but we know of converts to Catholicism who are no longer welcomed by their families because they are considered members of a “cult.”

Some converts (pastors, missionaries) give up their livelihood. A pastor can’t just become a Catholic priest. So what is he (or she) supposed to do to earn their daily bread? It’s tough to go from making a large salary to having to start all over again and learn a trade.

In our case, we were “evangelicals of evangelicals,” involved 5-6 days/evenings a week in some ministry through our church. All of our friends were evangelical Protestants, and we lived a very insulated lifestyle, safe and happy. We gave all this up when we became Catholic. It’s very jarring. We’re still like fish out of water, trying to find our way around the Church, treading carefully to make sure that we are saying “yes” out of proper motives, not because we want to do “evangelicalism” all over again.

So like I said, I think you’re judgement about converts is kind of harsh, and I would like you to consider taking it back.

Thank you.

As a Traditionalist and a convert I am also offended by the idea that Converts are part of the problem. think of it this way. Cradles Allowed this to come in. Converts in my experience tend to be the best Traditionalists because we CHOSE the faith, we weren’t alter boys growing up becuase our mommies wanted us to be, we didn’t go through confirmation classes at high school to please our parents, we broke with our parents, we long for what the Church was and can be.
Talk to a CINO about the real presents or reverence then talk to a convert. We chose Gods Church and we would defend it with our lives because in effect we died to our old lives just to come here. We go against our culture we go against our families. We sit in pews of our own because our friends and families dont, we forgo family BBQs to be at Church on Easter. We teach the youth in our parish so that we can bring about reverance and love for the eucharist and God’s Church, we fight for a strength and a Truth in a time of realitivism. We are the future of the Church we are the reason that some things that were lost (Tradition) are now being found!

 

[preV2tradcath]

Matt33, I just wanted to say thank you for a great post. As a convert and traditional Catholic, I agree.

 

[redrosetea]

To all of the converts welcome home…God called to me when I was just a Young child, my hunger for the Church never dimmed

He sent me Catholic friends who taught me…I loved the Latin Mass, but there are things I wouldn’t want changed

I like to see Fr’s face, instead of having his back to me…I think Pope Benedict is on the right track, and will give us the best of both worlds

 

[Neil_Anthony]

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?

Sometimes so-called ‘traditional catholics’ on this forum insult the bishops or even the pope. They can’t come on a catholic forum, put “catholic” in their profile, insult the bishops and even the holy father, and expect the rest of us to not respond. That’s why there is so much disagreement here.

 

[Spiller]

As a Traditionalist and a convert I am also offended by the idea that Converts are part of the problem. think of it this way. Cradles Allowed this to come in. Converts in my experience tend to be the best Traditionalists because we CHOSE the faith, we weren’t alter boys growing up becuase our mommies wanted us to be, we didn’t go through confirmation classes at high school to please our parents, we broke with our parents, we long for what the Church was and can be.

LOL! Just what exactly IS a “Traditionalist” in your lexicon?

Talk to a CINO about the real presents or reverence then talk to a convert. We chose Gods Church and we would defend it with our lives because in effect we died to our old lives just to come here. We go against our culture we go against our families. We sit in pews of our own because our friends and families dont, we forgo family BBQs to be at Church on Easter. We teach the youth in our parish so that we can bring about reverance and love for the eucharist and God’s Church, we fight for a strength and a Truth in a time of realitivism. We are the future of the Church we are the reason that some things that were lost (Tradition) are now being found!

REALLY?!? You could go to the early Mass you know…

Are you speaking of Sacred Tradition when you mention this mysterious “Tradition?”

 

[Spiller]

Sometimes so-called ‘traditional catholics’ on this forum insult the bishops or even the pope. They can’t come on a catholic forum, put “catholic” in their profile, insult the bishops and even the holy father, and expect the rest of us to not respond. That’s why there is so much disagreement here.

That’s very true in many instances… :yup:

 

[jam070406]

Any serious discussion of Catholic Tradition digresses to insults and endless, fruitless bickering.
Funny how those most oppossed to Tradional Catholicism seem to spend all their time on CAF in the Traditonal forum.

 

[palmas85]

What is going on quite evident. There is a hard core group that frequents this forum, all of them who piously describe themselves as devout orthodox traditional minded Catholics who do absolutely nothing else except bash Traditional Catholicism in any and evry way possible. This practice used to be quite prevalent before the board crashed a while back, when such statements as, and I’ll quote verbatim as I remember it well

"The Traditional Mass offers nothing more than mindless mimes stumbling around the altar muttering in an unknown language"

were almost de rigeur.

It is really no different now so I’ll post a few gems I’ve culled from some of our more, up to date and progressive thinkers:

I think the prayers of the Pauline Mass and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom are both far more beautiful and deep. And they’re not mumbled in a foreign language with the priest’s back to us.

No, I would not prefer the EF in the vernacular. Language is one of the few things the EF has going for it. Change it to the vernacular and it becomes categorically inferior to the OF.

I find it difficult to believe that Christ fed his apostles at the last supper as if they were birds

The GIRM I believe instructs, that during the reciting of the Our Father to hold out the arms and hands in a posture of praise. This posture lends itself to holding the next persons hand

Why would any parish want to do this?
Note: This in response to the Holy Father having a crucifix on the Altar during his Masses

**Is the Latin Rite the center of the universe?
**
**The fact is many people prayed the rosary during Mass because they had no idea what was going on in the sanctuary.
**
A fair percentage used to pray the Rosary during the Tridentine Mass, and no it was not prohibited. They had no clue about what was going on in the sanctuary so they did something else.

**We don’t need the TLM in ever parish
**
**The theology of the Tridentine Mass and the Novus Ordo are different - we are a part of the Mass.
**
Hey, I’m not AGAINST Mass in Latin…I’m just not FOR going back to it.

I think the facts speak for themselves.

---

---

 

[cothrige]

Sometimes so-called ‘traditional catholics’ on this forum insult the bishops or even the pope. They can’t come on a catholic forum, put “catholic” in their profile, insult the bishops and even the holy father, and expect the rest of us to not respond. That’s why there is so much disagreement here.

Absolutely. I see people like this too, and have responded when I felt that I had something to offer the discourse which might be corrective or helpful. However, look on this forum and what you see are entire threads, one after the other, started by people who insist that tradition is an incomprehensible idea, or that tradition is the absence of tradition, or the embracing of change, and so on. These people aren’t responding to so-called traditionalists bashing the Church or the Holy Father, and as far as I can tell are simply trolling for a fight. There are a few posters in particular who post nothing but nasty generalized judgments against anyone they think may harbor some sort of traditionalist urge. These posts are then followed by endless streams of drive-by, one-liner posts of the “you go girl” variety.

We all know when a person has said something silly, ridiculous or offensive and the responses are topical and called for. But we should also all be able to recognize the incessant flooding of this forum with the same repetitive threads all about bashing the traditionalists for simply being traditional. It is mindless and insipid.

 

[estesbob]

I love the traditional Catholcism forums because it is the only place in CAF I am called a liberal…

Seriously we recently had a thread where a poster compared the OF to a pig. Now tell me how that engenders rationale discourse?

 

[Matt33]

LOL! Just what exactly IS a “Traditionalist” in your lexicon?

REALLY?!? You could go to the early Mass you know…

Are you speaking of Sacred Tradition when you mention this mysterious “Tradition?”

WOW! maybe I am reading into your post here but you are comming off rude. We all know what one means by traditionalists on these forums. We all know which is left and right we all are familliar with SSPX FSSP, Latin Mass, Kneeling when revcieving, Hand Or mouth, Dress at Mass, holding hands during our fathers. the NO the Latin Mass, the MP, VII We know the battles here, I know the Vocab and I don’t think you need to quiz me to see if I am worthy. so please dont patronize me by saying I have a obscure deffinition of Traditionalism.

Not that you or anyone else would understand the family dynamics of a family you aren’t in… 2 families having lunches and BBQS on Sundays and Holidays, Jobs to put food in my kids mouths and and endless juggling of schedules not to mention full youth minister duties are many of the battles we have but honestly if you must pry and doubt, I could pm you my situation and you could offer your superior counsel.

 

[SanJudas]

So like I said, I think you’re judgement about converts is kind of harsh, and I would like you to consider taking it back.

Thank you.

I certainly did not mean to pass judgement on every convert. After all, if you go back far enough, all of us are descended from converts. I have only the highest respect for great converts such as Cardinals Henry Newman and Avery Dulles, Edith Stein and Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is very hard for me to imagine any of these illustrious personages logging on a traditionalist forum with the sole purpose of denigrating the faithful who hold the same traditional beliefs that they did. I can’t imagine one of them coming on here and saying that tradition needs to be “redefined,” as one notorious liberal just posted on this thread, which is quite possibly the most inane oxymoron I have ever heard.
If I were a convert to Hinduism, for example, the last thing I would do is look for a bunch of “cradle Hindus,” the descendants of generations of Hindus, and begin to lecture them on the practice of their own faith. In particular, I would not have the colossal arrogance to search out traditionalist Hindus, try to force-feed them a bunch of liberal gibberish, and then accuse them of being “not in communion” with all the other Hindus when they quite rightly disagreed with me.

 

[PrayforMallory]

I certainly did not mean to pass judgement on every convert. After all, if you go back far enough, all of us are descended from converts. I have only the highest respect for great converts such as Cardinals Henry Newman and Avery Dulles, Edith Stein and Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is very hard for me to imagine any of these illustrious personages logging on a traditionalist forum with the sole purpose of denigrating the faithful who hold the same traditional beliefs that they did. I can’t imagine one of them coming on here and saying that tradition needs to be “redefined,” as one notorious liberal just posted on this thread, which is quite possibly the most inane oxymoron I have ever heard.
If I were a convert to Hinduism, for example, the last thing I would do is look for a bunch of “cradle Hindus,” the descendants of generations of Hindus, and begin to lecture them on the practice of their own faith. In particular, I would not have the colossal arrogance to search out traditionalist Hindus, try to force-feed them a bunch of liberal gibberish, and then accuse them of being “not in communion” with all the other Hindus when they quite rightly disagreed with me.

I’m a convert myself, and I didn’t find anything offensive about this discussion.

As a matter of fact, as soon as I found out about “Traditional Catholicism,” I flew to it.

There is a definite problem with converts. Some don’t want to adopt the perspective the Church, which is more deeply rooted in history than any other institution.

We have a big problem. On the one hand, Catholics have always “baptized” other cultural elements, but too many converts are retaining specifically “Counter-Catholic” elements of their Protestant traditions, which can unfortunately demean not only the disciplines and culture of Catholicism, but its actual doctrine.

There should be a real effort to ensure that converts become culturally Catholic, as well as spiritually. This way the bastardized and largely anti-intellectual Protestant culture remains outside the Church. I wish I had been taught about tradition in RCIA. Of course, I wasn’t really even taught about things like the pill, so go figure.

I wish I could have been a traditional Catholic from the beginning, from birth even.

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

I’m a convert myself, and I didn’t find anything offensive about this discussion.

As a matter of fact, as soon as I found out about “Traditional Catholicism,” I flew to it.

There is a definite problem with converts. Some don’t want to adopt the perspective the Church, which is more deeply rooted in history than any other institution.

We have a big problem. On the one hand, Catholics have always “baptized” other cultural elements, but too many converts are retaining specifically “Counter-Catholic” elements of their Protestant traditions, which can unfortunately demean not only the disciplines and culture of Catholicism, but its actual doctrine.

There should be a real effort to ensure that converts become culturally Catholic, as well as spiritually. This way the bastardized and largely anti-intellectual Protestant culture remains outside the Church. I wish I had been taught about tradition in RCIA. Of course, I wasn’t really even taught about things like the pill, so go figure.

I wish I could have been a traditional Catholic from the beginning, from birth even.

A big amen to that! (And I say this as a convert myself).

I remember Dietrich von Hildebrand critiquing someone’s writing for, not necessarily being heretical or anything, but for not displaying a “Catholic ethos” in what he was writing. Great term.

I tend to think of a Catholic ethos as a deep appreciation for not just the doctrine, but the traditions of the Church, such as the prayers of the TLM.

I also believe a Catholic ethos engenders a real appreciation, and recognition of, the importance of beauty in all areas of Catholicism. In her prayers, her liturgy, her art, her architecture. And realizing that when beautiful traditions are scrapped, one with a genuine Catholic ethos doesn’t just say, “Oh well, it’s not dogma so it doesn’t really matter.”

And a Catholic ethos engenders wanting to stand for the truth at any cost, regardless of who it offends. God bless.