What kind of Catholic am I?

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Loboto-Me

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I don’t like rock bands during Mass

I don’t like holding hands or lifting hands during the “Our Father”

I don’t like “Baptist Revival” type of choirs (clapping, swaying, finger snapping)

I don’t like when the priest improvises (one priest while doing consecration on pentecost sunday told us “What? I didn’t hear your “Amen”, let’s give this a little enthusiams eh?” So we had to Amen louder.

I don’t like anything that remotely resembles non-catholic worship

Loud welcomes in the nave and chit chat drive me crazy

I don’t like anything resembling Charismatic mass because it reminds me of non-catholic style, and even makes me think that it’s a display rather than veneration (that’s just my first impressions)

Now…

I don’t mind eucharist in hand

I love bells and smells (so very rare here)

I don’t mind the N.O. mass

I don’t mind greeting our pew neighbours

I love the kneeling, stand, sit (only some Churches I attend kneel)

So… Am I a traditional Catholic or am I a modern Catholic?
 
Why do you have to be one or the other,
can’t you just be “Catholic”?🤷

Fo me, this is one of the biggest problems in the Church right now,
it seems like it always has to be ***either/or ***and never both/and.😦
 
I will be very interested to see replies to this thread, as I seem to be a similar kind of Catholic, Loboto-Me. I do see myself as leaning more to the “traditional” side on some things, but not all.
 
Perhaps it is better to see yourself as simply and humbly Catholic.

You recognize the minor annoyances and mild to moderate liturgical abuses in the Mass. You do not participate in them.

You do recognize the validity of the Ordinary Form of the Mass as well as the beauty of the Extraordinary Form.

You need not label yourself or fellow brethen through the “Sneetches and stars-upon-thars” logic that is sadly found amongst some of our Catholic brethen who try to say that the “old” is better than the “new”, when the Church itself questions why others make a false dichotomy at all.

We are all broken, all in need of Christ’s grace. Our tools in attaining God’s mercy are sometimes awkwardly wielded or taught, but they are **still **wielded and will be, justly and with God’s mercy, until the end of time.

Be an example and others will follow.
 
I would say you are a Catholic. No need for any other labels.
 
But it seems that the labels are quite important in this part of the forum… yes, divisions.

I do humbly call myself Catholic yet when I come here, I see discussions between the “modernistic” and the “traditionalists” that make it seem important to follow one or the other.

I love the Mass, but not in just any form. I’ve felt like walking out a few times when the Choir was leading the congregation to clap hands and sway in their pews. This practically destroyed my Sunday obligation.

I pray for a happy medium, which I have pretty much found in one Church in my city, and I even wrote them an email thanking them for the reverence they bring to Mass through their liturgy and through the Cantor’s gentle and reverent songs accompanied by the organ.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t even mind guitars as long as it’s a background sound and doesn’t take precedence over the hymn. Even guitars can sound reverent if done right (rare occurence).

Due to time slots and summer activities, I have to attend different parishes during the summer which allows different Mass experiences to come into my radar. So far, only ONE parish feeds my need for real reverence (they do sing the Our father but I don’t mind that). How do we bring back the Mass being about God and not just about the parishioners? How do we encourage them to change their views?

Maybe I should print up some CAF advertisement and leave the www.catholic.com forums addy in the pews 😃 Maybe if more people from this city visited this site they’d see that something’s terribly askew in some of the practices?
 
Loboto-Me said:
So… Am I a traditional Catholic or am I a modern Catholic?
Click to expand...
Neither. If you must use a label, you’re a “conservative Catholic”.

BTW I’m in roughly the same category as you, and that’s what I say if I have to explain. If you accept everything in the Catechism, I would say you count as conservative.
 
Loboto-Me said:
I don’t like rock bands during Mass

I don’t like holding hands or lifting hands during the “Our Father”

I don’t like “Baptist Revival” type of choirs (clapping, swaying, finger snapping)

I don’t like when the priest improvises (one priest while doing consecration on pentecost sunday told us “What? I didn’t hear your “Amen”, let’s give this a little enthusiams eh?” So we had to Amen louder.

I don’t like anything that remotely resembles non-catholic worship

Loud welcomes in the nave and chit chat drive me crazy

I don’t like anything resembling Charismatic mass because it reminds me of non-catholic style, and even makes me think that it’s a display rather than veneration (that’s just my first impressions)

Now…

I don’t mind eucharist in hand

I love bells and smells (so very rare here)

I don’t mind the N.O. mass

I don’t mind greeting our pew neighbours

I love the kneeling, stand, sit (only some Churches I attend kneel)

So… Am I a traditional Catholic or am I a modern Catholic?
Click to expand...
Whatever you are you are the same type of Catholic I am. I dislke the things you dislike but I dont think there is anything wrong with them per se.
 
Neil_Anthony said:
Neither. If you must use a label, you’re a “conservative Catholic”.

BTW I’m in roughly the same category as you, and that’s what I say if I have to explain. If you accept everything in the Catechism, I would say you count as conservative.
Click to expand...
Ah Conservative sounds just right! Now Im off to add to my “Catholic” title 👍
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Why do you have to be one or the other,
can’t you just be “Catholic”?🤷

Fo me, this is one of the biggest problems in the Church right now,
it seems like it always has to be ***either/or ***and never both/and.😦
Click to expand...
:clapping:
 
Loboto-Me said:
I don’t like rock bands during Mass

I don’t like holding hands or lifting hands during the “Our Father”

I don’t like “Baptist Revival” type of choirs (clapping, swaying, finger snapping)

I don’t like when the priest improvises (one priest while doing consecration on pentecost sunday told us “What? I didn’t hear your “Amen”, let’s give this a little enthusiams eh?” So we had to Amen louder.

I don’t like anything that remotely resembles non-catholic worship

Loud welcomes in the nave and chit chat drive me crazy

I don’t like anything resembling Charismatic mass because it reminds me of non-catholic style, and even makes me think that it’s a display rather than veneration (that’s just my first impressions)

Now…

I don’t mind eucharist in hand

I love bells and smells (so very rare here)

I don’t mind the N.O. mass

I don’t mind greeting our pew neighbours

I love the kneeling, stand, sit (only some Churches I attend kneel)

So… Am I a traditional Catholic or am I a modern Catholic?
Click to expand...
Catholics have always disagreed with each other without prejudice to either party. God loves all people, and we should too, especially our fellow Catholics. Whether we can or cannot do something is not always going to be clear. Some Catholics think they can go to an SSPX Mass. Some Catholics think they cannot. Some Catholics think the Novus Ordo is an abomination. Some Catholics think it is great.

I am not saying we can’t use words like liberal, conservative, traditional or modern to identify certain trends of thought. But before every label that I might assign to you based on your stated points of view, I have to recall that you are God’s servant. If I think you are mistaken about something, I need to distinguish between those which might imperil one’s salvation, and those which I must permit under the circumstances.

In St. Paul’s day there were differing views on dietary requirements among the Roman Christians. It seems significant that St. Paul didn’t intervene to explain which side was right. He warned instead against thinking evil of those who differed from them:
Now him that is weak in faith, take unto you: not in disputes about thoughts. For one believeth that he may eat all things: but he that is weak, let him eat herbs. Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth not: and he that eateth not, let him not judge him that eateth. For God hath taken him to him. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To his own lord he standeth or falleth. And he shall stand: for God is able to make him stand.
Click to expand...
—Rom. 14:1-7

We will inevitably have disagreements with our fellow Catholics. But we must not necessarily think it means another is bad, or disapproved of God. We get tested by God when He providentially allows certain ambiguities to allow differences of opinion among His children. Clearly, there are difference so severe, that it can cross lines that sever the brotherly bond. To deny a defined dogma for instance. But the preferences you mentioned seem to me to be all compatible with being a good Catholic servant of the good God.

With that said, you sound like a modern conservative, and I think you could do a lot worse. I trust that you are on the road to heaven and may God bless you, and if it be His will, may He change your mind so that it matches everything I believe! If not, may God bless you.

Rory, (modern, traditional, conservative, and liberal Catholic)
 
How do we bring back the Mass being about God and not just about the parishioners? How do we encourage them to change their views?
Click to expand...
IMHO (other than, of course, lots of prayer and trying to be the best Catholic you can be):

Long term solution (and the best): Raise your kids to have a love for God and His Church, and give them plenty of solid Catholic teaching outside of CCD.

Short term solution: Volunteer to become a CCD teacher, and donate to the church you like and to religious orders which have reverent Masses.

Pamphlets might work, but be sure to get permission from the pastor or D.R.E. before you place them around the church.
 
It’s weird. I feel exactly the same as you. I really dislike anything that happens at the mass that doesn’t make it feel like a catholic mass. We have resources and traditions that no other Christians in the world have. It seems crazy to try and modernize and make our masses “more relevant.”
 
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