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

[MrS]

That book, while entertainingly salacious was by no means an authoritative work by a respected journalist. It was written by someone with a degree in bookeeping who found a way to make a buck.

Bull!!

I am familiar with a number of the people and places he describes and whom he interviewed.

If anything, the problem is still understated.

Include my brother in those so greatly affected. He was so mistreated in the seminary for his orthdox views that his spirit was crushed…and he left the church and has yet to return after over 40 years.

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[Spiller]

Bull!!

I am familiar with a number of the people and places he describes and whom he interviewed.

If anything, the problem is still understated.

Include my brother in those so greatly affected. He was so mistreated in the seminary for his orthdox views that his spirit was crushed…and he left the church and has yet to return after over 40 years.
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That book was sensational. All it did was inflame. Nothing positive. Then again the guy who wrote it, did it to turn a buck and not to help matters or get at the truth.

 

[sphilomena]

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

In the 60’s we were still pretty much all on the same page. (Pictures from my wedding show the priest still facing East, for example.) You keep trying to show division and you weren’t even there. Then you make the statement about our ancestors which is absurd. They were even more “traditional” then we were. That’s what isn’t logical about your statements. You just throw things out as though you were an authority at the time, as others have implied, whether they are true or not. I don’t know why we’re still debating you.

 

[brotherhrolf]

St. Philomena - please pardon me for what I am about to do!

See that picture that in the bottom left hand corner of sphilomena’s posts? That was my mother’s family’s church in the Irish Channel of New Orleans. My great great grandmother was instrumental in organising the Irish women to build that church and in raising funds. (References are available including obits in the Times Picayune of New Orleans from the time).

My great grandparents were married in that church. My grandmother received all the Sacraments in that church. She was married to my grandfather in that church. My mother was baptized and confirmed in that church and she married my father in that church. My brother and I served my grandmother’s Requiem Mass in Latin in that church in 1965.

You want to see division where there was none. We keep telling you over and over what happened and you reduce me to a footnote in history. It annoys me. I’ve got a degree in History, another in Anthropology, and a Masters in Anthropology. I am no footnote and I do know whereof I speak.

What more do you want from us? I’m not some historical footnote. I was there. My conscience was formed before Vatican II and it has served me well all these many years.

You have living human beings who went through the change and have been honest with you. How much more can we say that we submitted to the Magesterium of HMC? Do you want me to tell you about how the working and middle class kids refused to participate in the Vietnam protests in 69? How Tulane and Loyola marched to LSUNO and were boooed away? I saw all of this and experienced all of this.

Richie Cunnigham on “Happy Days” was not an illusion. It shames me to even have to resort to such a comparison. We had a different code of values and behavior then and we did not cross those lines.

 

[Spiller]

In the 60’s we were still pretty much all on the same page. (Pictures from my wedding show the priest still facing East, for example.) You keep trying to show division and you weren’t even there. Then you make the statement about our ancestors which is absurd. They were even more “traditional” then we were. That’s what isn’t logical about your statements. You just throw things out as though you were an authority at the time, as others have implied, whether they are true or not. I don’t know why we’re still debating you.

Oh? So what happened? Some became abusive and some did not? And those did not did not choose to fight?

Once again, the tenacity and resolve of those who continue to support abuses is remarkable. I don’t believe the biggest problem is malformed clergy – I think it’s those who support liturgical abuse who pretty much do whatever it takes to ensure it continues.

Where were their counterparts back in the mid to late 1960’s and early 1970’s?

I think I have heard some honest answers or at least partial answer – they walked away; they remained quiet because they obedient and no one really knew what was abuse and what was not. Those along with some who are “traditionalists” today WERE NOT back then tell a great deal of the story.

Just don’t try to sell me on the notion that “traditionalists” back then fought with the same resolve as the abusers have in the past decade or two…

 

[SemperFidelis]

yet no one comments about how disobedient of an act it was.

How can you be disobedient my maintaining Tradition? Seems like you have a misunderstanding between true and false obedience. Try reading some of the Saints, Doctors, and Popes of the past. Besides this, not even the Pope can lawfully suppress a rite of the Church which had been around for 1500+ years. A priest always had the right to offer a Mass that wasn’t and can’t ever be abolished, even if most of the hierarchy acted like it was.

 

[SemperFidelis]

Actually his soul remains excommunicated…

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

Once again, there’s a major difference between true and false obedience, especially as it pertains to prelates who want to change Tradition.

 

[Spiller]

How can you be disobedient my maintaining Tradition? Seems like you have a misunderstanding between true and false obedience. Try reading some of the Saints, Doctors, and Popes of the past. Besides this, not even the Pope can lawfully suppress a rite of the Church which had been around for 1500+ years. A priest always had the right to offer a Mass that wasn’t and can’t ever be abolished, even if most of the hierarchy acted like it was.

Read Ecclesia Dei.

Oh yeah, and priests were never prevented from offering the Mass based on the legitimate reforms and not the ad hoc abuses.

Finis.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I think I have heard some honest answers or at least partial answer – they walked away; they remained quiet because they obedient and no one really knew what was abuse and what was not. Those along with some who are “traditionalists” today WERE NOT back then tell a great deal of the story.

Your whole idea of “traditionalists” is distorted. There were no “traditionalists” then. We were simply Catholics. I daresay that not a one of us on the First Sunday of Advent in 1968 would ever, ever, dream of what we have seen in the last 40 years. You are also forgetting the profound societal turmoil in those days as well.

You can’t place the mores of today on our shoulders. Don’t you understand that we had no frame of reference? In my lifetime I have seen more than one liturgical dance. I have seen priests flying off the altar during the sign of peace and wandering all over church. I could go on and on. But my seventeen year old self back then on the First Sunday of Advent in 1968 could not even begin to imagine such things - not in my wildest imagination.

You simply cannot compare apples to oranges.

 

[Lhhs]

Why not take a hard stand then…

What would that have looked like in practice, a “hard stand” ?
And what exactly would it have accomplished anyway ?

 

[brotherhrolf]

What would that have looked like in practice, a “hard stand” ?
And what exactly would it have accomplished anyway ?

Let’s not beat around the bush. Forty + years ago to defy HMC was to risk excommunication. HMC in the Archdiocese of New Orleans decreed that Catholic shools would be integrated. I saw three people excommunicated live on TV in 1962 because they protested HMC’s decree. One did not argue with the Magesterium.

When we switched from the TLM to the NO, there were no abuses. It was an inexorable and relentless push. This week we will not chant the (name the Mass part) but will recite it in English.

In 1967 we dedicated our new church. As senior altar boy, I went on bended knee and kissed the archbisop’s ring. And you better believe your bottom dollar that I knew what I was doing and how it played into history.

Or the many cathedral choir Christmas parties in which the bishop dropped in. Bishop O was a very humble man but DW and I would stand to greet him. I am a Catholic. My roots run deep. There are a whole bunch of us who are still alive. And, evidently, our Holy Father is one of us.

 

[SemperFidelis]

Read Ecclesia Dei.

I’ve read Ecclesia Dei several times. At best a poorly written canonical document and argument. Common sense can tell you who was taking the stand for Traditional Catholic teaching between Archbishop Lefebvre and Pope John Paul II. Hint: it wasn’t John Paul II.

I’ll stick with the Saints and Doctors here:
Second Council of Nicea:

If anyone rejects any written or unwritten ecclesiastical tradition, let him be anathema.

St. Thomas Aquinas:

There being an imminent danger for the faith, prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects. Thus, Saint Paul, who was a subject of Saint Peter, questioned him publicly on account of an imminent danger of scandal in a matter of Faith. And, as the Glosa of Saint Augustine puts it (Ad Galatas 2,14), ‘Saint Peter himself gave the example to those who govern so that if sometime they stray from the right way, they will not reject a correction as unworthy even if it comes from their subjects’.

St. Peter Canisius:

It behooves us unanimously to observe the ecclesiastical traditions, whether defined or simply retained by the customary practice of the Church.

Cardinal Torquemada:

By disobedience, the Pope can separate himself from Christ despite the fact that he is head of the Church, for above all, the unity of the Church is dependent on its relationship with Christ. The Pope can separate himself from Christ either by disobeying the law of Christ, or by commanding something that is against the Divine or natural law…By doing so, the Pope separates himself from the body of the Church because the body is itself linked to Christ by obedience. In this way the Pope could, without doubt, fall into schism . . . Especially is this true with regard to the Divine liturgy as for example, if he did not wish personally to follow the universal customs and rites of the Church. . . Thus it is that Pope Innocent III states (De Consuetudine) that, it is necessary to obey the Pope in all things as long as he, himself does not go against the universal customs of the Church, but should he go against the universal customs of the Church, he need not be followed.

Finis.

Not so much.

 

[palmas85]

OK now I think we might be getting somewhere. Yes, that’s a good point. Like putting the toothpaste back into the tube.

Unauthorized celebration of the Tridentine Mass is an ancillary topic. I want to know why “traditionalists” did not fight abuses at the outset within the system? I think the beginning of your posting gives some insight.

Locally I have seen the dissenters dig-in with hardcore resolve now that true reform is taking place. They are almost desperate to keep things as they are. Thank God the tide has shifted – but I have to wonder why the level of resolve they display was not exhibited (by and large) by traditionalists in the past?

Someone already mentioned that Catholics by the tens of thousands cut and ran once the abuses began. How could that be? Why didn’t they stay to hold the fort?

I can’t say with any certainty as to what everyone thought or did. I can tell you this though. I probably had more experience than most lay people by being an Altar Boy for a long long time and serving hundreds probably thousands of Masses. Everything from 6:00am Weekday Masses with just the Priest and I, to remote location Masses at varying locations to full blown Solemn High Pontifical Masses with the Archbishop and everything in between I studied the Mass, knew what it meant, knew how it was supposed to go and all in all had a great grasp of it. If however on a certain day, Father came in and said today we don’t do this, we’ll do that instead, I figured he knew what he was talking about. He was the Priest. I wasn’t. How could I take a Priest on? It just wasn’t done.

Same thing in school. If Sister told you something that was the way it was. You didn’t stand up and tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about.

We had no internet. People didn’t parish shop, you went to your parish. Most religious documents were still primarily in Latin and translations hard to find for the average person. I never even heard of the GIRM until much, much later. We accepted what our Sisters, Priests and Bishops told us. Only a very few saw past the beginnings and realized what would happen. Things changed little by little ever so slowly. By the time most people realized what was going on it was almost too late.

Yeah a lot of people cut and ran and I thought they were scared. I kept hoping things would work themselves out and couldn’t see myself leaving even when things got really ugly in the 80’s

So maybe I was the one who was scared and not them.

 

[SanJudas]

God save all here.

After reading this thread, I actually called up my mother and asked her about her and her family’s and neighbor’s reactions to these changes. She told me that everything was presented in a very positive light, that the whole world was changing and the Church was changing with it. Dust and cobwebs would be shaken off and swept out and all of humanity would see the beauty and truth of the Catholic Church. This seemed to mirror the experience of the largely first or second generation American flock–no longer were we Polocks, Mics, Spics, and Wops, but real honest-to-God 100% bonafide Americans. Our communities were no longer sheltered enclaves of foreign-language speakers, intermarrying and getting each other jobs at the local factory or shipyard, we were now native English speakers, going to high school and even college and moving out to the suburbs or around the country just like everybody else. And from now on, the Catholic Church would do the same, just like everybody else. Little did anyone suspect the turmoil this loss of identity would cause for so many of us.
I remember when I was eight or nine years old (1973-4) and they installed big overhead lights in our parish church. Before, at night, the only light came from a few low-wattage bulbs mounted in reading lamps on the lectern and over each Station of the Cross, and from dozens of candles. I loved to go in the church at night, as a little kid, with the silence and the statues and the candles. A cosmetic difference, you might say, but the changes had an impact on me. The theology that had made our Church distinctive was also downplayed. By adolescence, I didn’t know the difference between my church and the Lutheran and Methodist ones down the street. And by my early 20’s I had stopped going altogether.

 

[sphilomena]

God save all here.

I loved to go in the church at night, as a little kid, with the silence and the statues and the candles. A cosmetic difference, you might say, but the changes had an impact on me. The theology that had made our Church distinctive was also downplayed.

This brings back one of my favorite memories - going into the silent church and sitting before the tabernacle. Even as a child, I knew the meaning of this. I’ll never forget in 4th grade, getting off a summer camp bus at the wrong place, right in front of a beautiful church. I kept going into the church to pray, then coming out to look for my mother to pick me up. It was a long time, but I never panicked, I had His presence to keep me company. That’s how the good nuns molded us, our parents too. I don’t think that’s too common in these times. (Not the part about the parents, I mean the way I understood the presence of Jesus and went to Him for comfort.)

 

[HashemEchad]

I’d like to say something, as a non-Catholic who has some insight into the traditionalist Catholic movement in the 1970s.

My mother was raised a Catholic prior to V2 (converted to Judaism in 1944)…yet as a teenager I was curious about her former religion, so I began researching it a bit.

At that time, I did now know of “the changes” emanating from V2; I only knew of the church that my mother told me about (remember, the last time she’d been in a Catholic church was early 1940s!) So the image she gave me was of the PRE-V2 church.

I wandered into the local parish to see the Mass she spoke to me about, only to feel confused because it wasn’t anything like what she told me about. I left, and never went back.

Then, an elderly Catholic neighbor to whom I confided my interest in seeing the religion of my mother’s childhood, told me that the only way I’d see “one of those old Latin Masses” was in a motel room (!) near the airport. She said she had a friend who attended them, and she would get me the info.

That was how I wound up attending a Tridentine Latin High Mass under the auspices of the ORCM (orthodox Roman Catholic Movement), in the late 1970s.

But I remember that the whole deal was very hush hush, and the attendees seemed almost fearful they would be found out and excommunicated.

HOW can someone be excommunicated for attending a Mass that had been in the Catholic church almost from the beginning??

Anyway, the few Masses I attended via the ORCM were the only Catholic Masses I’ve ever been to, apart from a few of the new ones when relatives on my mom’s side of the family died or got married.

There was also an old movie called CATHOLICS with Martin Sheen, that will give you some idea of what the atmosphere was like for traditional Catholics back then.

 

[Freshman88]

HOW can someone be excommunicated for attending a Mass that had been in the Catholic church almost from the beginning??

Exactly Hashem.

Some Catholics will have us believe that blind obedience is asked of us. In any case, the Pope reassured us that this action was wrong when he wrote in the MP that the Church had no authority to tell us that what was once holy, is now prohibited.

Anyway Hashem, I love your posts. Your admiration for traditional liturgical practices, proper ecumenicalism and social conservatism is refreshing. (if only we could make you feel more secure about our desires to convert all, including your Jewish brethren)

 

[HashemEchad]

Exactly Hashem.

Some Catholics will have us believe that blind obedience is asked of us. In any case, the Pope reassured us that this action was wrong when he wrote in the MP that the Church had no authority to tell us that what was once holy, is now prohibited.

Anyway Hashem, I love your posts. Your admiration for traditional liturgical practices, proper ecumenicalism and social conservatism is refreshing. (if only we could make you feel more secure about our desires to convert all, including your Jewish brethren)

Did you ever see the 1970s film, CATHOLICS? Trevor Howard (who played the traditionalist priest) said, “Yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heresy!”

I became friends with a few of the traditionalist Catholics I’d met at those ORCM Masses. The stories they told me of being shunned by their “novus ordo” relatives and friends was horrendous. One woman said that a novus ordo lifelong friend refused to be a sponsor at her baby’s baptism because the baptism was being done by an ORCM priest! Can you imagine?

How can anyone try to make someone feel that they are wrong for simply following what their religion always taught?

I am reminded sometimes of my experiences with those 1970s traditionalist Catholics when I encounter non-traditional Jews (Reform, etc) who try to disparage Orthodox Judaism as being somehow “fringe”, even though for more than 2,000 years until Reform was developed, Orthodoxy was the ONLY form of Judaism!

So I know how you guys feel sometimes, because we go through the same thing.

 

[Freshman88]

Did you ever see the 1970s film, CATHOLICS? Trevor Howard (who played the traditionalist priest) said, “Yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heresy!”

Yes I have seen it and I loved it.A local priest wrote an excellent book about his own experience with the archdiocese of Montreal about how he was forced out of his parish for being obedient to his liturgical rite and to the council of Trent. There were indeed many cases like this, hence why the SSPX exists.

Can you imagine?

I could. Getting involved with communities who are in a questionable communion with Rome is understandable. I’m not familair with this particular group either. I consider my self quite Traditionalist, yet I cannot bring myself to step into a SSPX chapel. I don’t know if I would attend an SSPX baptism, I like to think I would. e

How can anyone try to make someone feel that they are wrong for simply following what their religion always taught?

Well, simply because that same religion asks obedience of us. Catholics want to grow together, and we are suppose to care for each other. Part of that is making sure that we stay in line with Orthodoxy. Arguments will arise, especially when the Church herself seems to conflict herself. It is very sad, but as long as we remind ourselves that Joe Blow across the street is trying to be as honest as we are in our search, then charity should naturally come.

 

[HashemEchad]

Yes I have seen it and I loved it.A local priest wrote an excellent book about his own experience with the archdiocese of Montreal about how he was forced out of his parish for being obedient to his liturgical rite and to the council of Trent. There were indeed many cases like this, hence why the SSPX exists.

I could. Getting involved with communities who are in a questionable communion with Rome is understandable. I’m not familair with this particular group either. I consider my self quite Traditionalist, yet I cannot bring myself to step into a SSPX chapel. I don’t know if I would attend an SSPX baptism, I like to think I would. e

Well, simply because that same religion asks obedience of us. Catholics want to grow together, and we are suppose to care for each other. Part of that is making sure that we stay in line with Orthodoxy. Arguments will arise, especially when the Church herself seems to conflict herself. It is very sad, but as long as we remind ourselves that Joe Blow across the street is trying to be as honest as we are in our search, then charity should naturally come.

But what if a religion or religious leader orders you to do something you know in your conscience is wrong?

This is a problem I have with Catholicism, but I also have this same problem with Orthodox Judaism.

You see, in Orthodox Judaism, a Jew is supposed to obey the decision of their rabbi in a difficult matter. You’re supposed to consult a rabbi with a theological problem, and you’re not supposed to consult another one after consulting the first one; you have to respect his ruling and abide by it.

Even though I consider myself an observant Jew, I can not go that extra step because I know rabbis are fallible men and can make mistakes.