Where were the "traditionalists" in the late 1960's and 70's?

[brotherhrolf]

Add on Catholic schools and religion classes. Add on Scripture and Biblical interpretation. It is true that the Catholic laymen in the US were not prepared for such a massive sell out - the French were better prepared.

Historical footnote: September of 1968 at my Catholic boy’s high school (Jr.yr), we went through the entire “Plan of Salvation” over the course of the school year and read the Bible in Religion class. (This was WAY radical for the time - though not a bad thing in and of itself). Remember that there was only a one year cycle of readings then - not a three year.

I am not even going to discuss the mandatory “sex education” class we had to attend outside of school hours on a Sunday night in the school gym.

 

[Duke_of_Mantua]

I was always taught as a kid to never question the Catholic Church. This kind of thinking pushed me away from the Church. Now that I am back, I am inspired by people like Archbishop Lefebvre who stood firm on principles and challenged the camarilla. I am not saying you should follow and agree with his positions, but you have to respect a man who has the pair to stand up to a seemingly invincible establishment.

Now that the truth comes out and it is settled that the TLM was never trashed, Archbishop Lefebvre is vindicated; it’s too bad he’s not alive to see the fruits of his dissent.

 

[Swiss_Guard]

I have long wondered why “traditionalists” (both ordained and lay) did not take a very hard stand at the unapproved liturgical innovations that began with the introduction of the Pauline Mass in the 1960’s before really taking off in the 1970s?

On the one hand I can see that many bishops/priests/seminarians were caught-up in the “excitement of the renewal of the liturgy.” OK, but there had to be a far larger number of bishops/priests/seminarians who also wanted to follow what the Church was actually directing. Why not take a hard stand then? Where did they go? Did they just flee?

Maybe they just had so much intrinsic respect for the clergy that they simply could not take a hard stand? Then again, there had to be a HUGE number of clergy that were appalled at what was taking place.

Since the jubilee of 2000 or so, I have seen many who have long supported unapproved liturgical innovation really dig-in with an almost desperate zeal to keep things as they are. (Thankfully the tide is changing, thanks particularly to our new pope.) Did “traditionalists” dig-in with the same level of ferocity in years past or did they flee? Why do some fight and some flee?

It may well be that the “traditionalist” movement was born out of rejecting many of the liturgical problems that arose during this period. OK, but if that’s the case, why does it seem like traditonalists are far slower to organize and mobilize than the opposition?

It might also be that no one – including the traditionalists had any idea of just how bad it was going to get. Or maybe without the Internet and EWTN, few even knew HOW to respond?

There are more than a few examples where unapproved liturgical innovations were simply not allowed, but by and large the problems spread like wildfire. Your ideas, please…

Traditional Catholics were being obedient to the Holy Father. This is something that just isn’t grasped by those who practice disobedient. This is why someone can think he’s being obedient to the Holy Father when he ignores what the Holy Father says in the motu proprio.

Catholics who only want the Novus Ordo Mass, who wish the “traditionalists” would go away, who want everything their way, believe in obedience to the Holy See only when it’s convenient to them. Traditional Catholics believe in obedience to the Holy See.

 

[Swiss_Guard]

But the question still begs – if they were abuses, why did (at least) the American hierarchy go a long with them?

Who do you think was behind the abuses?

Are you really this naive?

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

I can’t take you back in time and explain that one did not question Father much less the archbishop. The mindset was entirely different back then in so many ways. We would have been struck to the very core of our being to contest what HMC said. This is not to say that there were not those who took a very different view.

You might keep in mind that many, if not most adult Catholics in the 60’s who were more than say, 30 years old by the time the changes in the rubrics came, were by and large taught to “pray, pay and obey”. The group that represented the most vocal in not following authority were those under 30, and particularly those who were 25 and under; in other words, the baby boomers. Older Catholics were taught that the Church - represented to them as the priests, nuns and bishops, were the Law and were simply not questioned.

I think these sorts of perspectives go a long way in understanding why the “traditionalists” of the day put of with the new rite itself. A lot of them probably thought that change X or Y or maybe all of the changes mandated in the new rite were ill-advised, but the spiritual value of obedience (and not just a knee-jerk sort) has always been well-known. Some felt they could not obey in conscience, others thought that whatever faults they might perceive, they did not equal enough to justify disobedience.

Spiller seems to be frustrated, though, because he’s not asking about the new rite per se but the many abuses we know to have happened during this time. Here I think everyone has been forgetting something that needs to be noted explicitly: how were the laity to know whether something was an abuse or not? This was before the internet age, when any Andreas Hofer can hop online and consult a plethora of liturgical texts and laws in scores of languages in order to determine whether Fr. Isidore’s practice is licit or not. No, people had to be able to take father at his word, which was a viable strategy until father and His Excellency became untrustworthy, which unfortunately happened. So why didn’t people oppose the abuses? I wasn’t around, but I’m guessing that they were deer in the headlights. “So much in me tells me this can’t be right but Fr. X says this is how the Mass is supposed to be done now.” How are you going to prove him wrong?

As for clerics, though, I think most of those who didn’t oppose abuses were simply culpable for their commissions and/or omissions. Certain bishops were the instigators of abuses within their dioceses. As some pointed out, an evil spirit of “change is good” crept into the Church, and people got carried away without ever noticing how harmful their foolish little experiments might be. In many cases, priests and bishops very well may have had no malicious desires in perpetrating their abuses. But that doesn’t mean they might not have been culpably negligent nonetheless. I may not mean to stab Petey, but since I am practicing knife juggling over him, I’m still at fault when he dies.

 

[James_Miller]

Not to mention that what an abuse one Sunday was “permitted” the next. In a few weeks what was only “permitted” became the norm.

 

[HashemEchad]

There were liberals already in the Catholic church, who were just itching to burst forth with their changes. Vatican 2 gave them the avenue for doing it.

If liberals were not already inside the church, why did Pope Pius X write his encyclical in the early 1900s against modernism?

 

[Spiller]

There were liberals already in the Catholic church, who were just itching to burst forth with their changes. Vatican 2 gave them the avenue for doing it.

If liberals were not already inside the church, why did Pope Pius X write his encyclical in the early 1900s against modernism?

I don’t think “liberals” (or “conservatives” for that matter) have anything to do with it.

 

[Spiller]

Who do you think was behind the abuses?

Are you really this naive?

Nice personal attack and all but you failed to answer my question.

 

[Spiller]

There is one scenario that no one seems to want to discuss.

I think quite a few “traditionalists” of today, were NOT “traditionalists” back in the 1960’s/70’s – or at least their antecedents were not.

 

[sphilomena]

There is one scenario that no one seems to want to discuss.

I think quite a few “traditionalists” of today, were NOT “traditionalists” back in the 1960’s/70’s – or at least their antecedents were not.

That’s not even logical!

 

[Swiss_Guard]

Nice personal attack and all but you failed to answer my question.

It’s not a personal attack, it’s a legitimate question. You sound very naive about the situation in the Church at the time of the Second Vatican Council and the 20 years that followed.

I answered your question. Many in the heirarchy were behind the abuses. Bishops like Cody and Bernardin in Chicago, Weakland in Milwaukee, Gumbleton in Detroit, Hunthausen in Seattle, and Mahony in Los Angeles just to name a few promoted liturgical abuses in their respective dioceses. Other bishops just decided to look the other way.

There were very few Burkes and Bruskiewiczs in the first 20 years after the council here in America.

Now, can you answer my question: Are you really this naive?

 

[Swiss_Guard]

There is one scenario that no one seems to want to discuss.

I think quite a few “traditionalists” of today, were NOT “traditionalists” back in the 1960’s/70’s – or at least their antecedents were not.

It’s about obedience, something I’ve noticed you don’t seem to understand by reading your posts.

Nobody wanted the Mass changed, yet it was forced on Catholics. Catholics didn’t complain, they submitted to Rome.

Now we have Catholics who don’t like the Tridentine Mass who still want to suppress it even though Pope Benedict XVI says it is equal to the Novus Ordo. Pope John Paul II called for a “wide and generous application” of the Tridentine Mass. This was ignored by a majority of the bishops.

Now that we have Pope Benedict’s motu proprio we hear arguments like “only a small number of Catholics want the Mass”, “we don’t have enought priests to offer the Mass”, and “it’s not financially viable.” I find it ironic that nobody says that about Spanish Novus Ordo Masses. Everything said about the Tridentine Mass applies to Spanish Masses here in Chicago. Yet I don’t hear that argument to discontinue the Novus Ordo in Spanish.

Only the Tridentine Mass is subject to such bogus restrictions.

My suggestion to all the Catholics who don’t want the Tridentine Mass is to do what the Catholics back in 1969 did - practice obedience.

I notice many who love the Novus Ordo and can’t stand the Tridentine Mass are big on preaching obedience but short on practicing it.

 

[Spiller]

It’s not a personal attack, it’s a legitimate question. You sound very naive about the situation in the Church at the time of the Second Vatican Council and the 20 years that followed.

I answered your question. Many in the heirarchy were behind the abuses. Bishops like Cody and Bernardin in Chicago, Weakland in Milwaukee, Gumbleton in Detroit, Hunthausen in Seattle, and **Mahony in Los Angeles **just to name a few promoted liturgical abuses in their respective dioceses. Other bishops just decided to look the other way.

There were very few Burkes and Bruskiewiczs in the first 20 years after the council here in America.

Now, can you answer my question: Are you really this naive?

Your “question” is offensive and your comments VERY telling.

When the implementation of VC2 began and the abuses started to burn like wildfire, James Cardinal McIntyre was the Archbishop of Los Angeles. He was recognized as being exceedingly “conservative.” He retired (at age 83 ) in 1970 and was replaced by Timothy Manning. While Cardinal Manning was not as “conservative” as McIntyre, he was a rock-solid prelate. Cardinal Manning was not replaced until 1985 by Roger Mahony, long, long after there toothpaste was already out of the tube.

Your questioning if I am “naive” seems to be a product of your own lack of understanding of history. This thread is meant to be an informative discussion and not a forum for the canned, tired and vitriolic pop-gun salvos of the sort you offered.

 

[Spiller]

…I notice many who love the Novus Ordo and can’t stand the Tridentine Mass are big on preaching obedience but short on practicing it.

I notice the same for many who label themselves as “traditionalists.” It’s quite apparent even on this thread. We hear with great pride about how the Mass was celebrated underground in Latin – yet no one comments about how disobedient of an act it was.

 

[Spiller]

That’s not even logical!

Sure it is. People change – some even react. Show me the flaw in my logic.

 

[Spiller]

Traditional Catholics were being obedient to the Holy Father. This is something that just isn’t grasped by those who practice disobedient. This is why someone can think he’s being obedient to the Holy Father when he ignores what the Holy Father says in the motu proprio.

Catholics who only want the Novus Ordo Mass, who wish the “traditionalists” would go away, who want everything their way, believe in obedience to the Holy See only when it’s convenient to them. Traditional Catholics believe in obedience to the Holy See.

All unproven assertions…

 

[Spiller]

It is going to be quite difficult, if not impossible, to hold this discussion when the OP shoots down every point raised as “ancillary” or otherwise irrevelant to his original question. He demonstrates a limited knowledge of the history of the traditionalist movement, and seems to be attempting to limit the discussion to his very narrow conceptions, with little or no cognizance of points made by others.

I suspect that this new member’s chutzpah in doing so was powered by the “TLM Community billed $72K for Latin Mas” thread, in which he was a principal contributor. That discussion degenerated into a crass exchange concerning the costs associated with running a full-time TLM apostolate. Now he has started this thread, focused, to use his words, on “resources.” He sees the matter almost entirely through the beneficial prism of hindsight, does not recognize the evolving nature of the movement in response to evolving circumstances, nor does he appear to appreciate the limited picture that was available to most clergy and laity at the time. In other words, he takes 2008 perceptions and demands to know why they were not in place forty years ago.

It is not likely that anything positive will come from an exchange along these lines, and I would encourage others not to play the game according to these queer rules.

So answer the question, rather than judging me. I have read some very good insight on this thread and I believe I have aknowledged at least most of it. I have also read a consider amount of silliness.

 

[Spiller]

I was always taught as a kid to never question the Catholic Church. This kind of thinking pushed me away from the Church. Now that I am back, I am inspired by people like Archbishop Lefebvre who stood firm on principles and challenged the camarilla. I am not saying you should follow and agree with his positions, but you have to respect a man who has the pair to stand up to a seemingly invincible establishment.

Now that the truth comes out and it is settled that the TLM was never trashed, Archbishop Lefebvre is vindicated; it’s too bad he’s not alive to see the fruits of his dissent.

Actually his soul remains excommunicated…

This is a perfect example of how some “traditionalists” comment about “obedience” – WHEN it suits them!

 

[MrS]

It’s about obedience, something I’ve noticed you don’t seem to understand by reading your posts.

Nobody wanted the Mass changed, yet it was forced on Catholics. Catholics didn’t complain, they submitted to Rome.

Now we have Catholics who don’t like the Tridentine Mass who still want to suppress it even though Pope Benedict XVI says it is equal to the Novus Ordo. Pope John Paul II called for a “wide and generous application” of the Tridentine Mass. This was ignored by a majority of the bishops.

Now that we have Pope Benedict’s motu proprio we hear arguments like “only a small number of Catholics want the Mass”, “we don’t have enought priests to offer the Mass”, and “it’s not financially viable.” I find it ironic that nobody says that about Spanish Novus Ordo Masses. Everything said about the Tridentine Mass applies to Spanish Masses here in Chicago. Yet I don’t hear that argument to discontinue the Novus Ordo in Spanish.

Only the Tridentine Mass is subject to such bogus restrictions.

My suggestion to all the Catholics who don’t want the Tridentine Mass is to do what the Catholics back in 1969 did - practice obedience.

I notice many who love the Novus Ordo and can’t stand the Tridentine Mass are big on preaching obedience but short on practicing it.

Good for you… could not have said it better…