Why all the objection to traditionalism?

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\‘Easterners’ have no business telling us that, for centuries, the Mass as celebrated in the West has been illicit and invalid. Stay on your side of the fence. The West has never accused your liturgies as being either illicit or invalid.\

**Obviously, you’re not aware of centuries of Easterners being told that their faith, liturgy, and spirituality were inferior to anything in the Latin Church, which claimed itself to be the “pre-eminent rite”. This attitude was actually articulated in such words in the American Ecclesiastical Review (published with the usual Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, indicating that this sentiment was NOT contrary to faith and morals!) in an article, “Some thoughts on the Ruthenian Question.”

You’ve not heard of Latin missionaries in the East encouraging Eastern Christians to convert–not to the parallel Eastern Catholic Church, but to the LATIN Church. The missionaries even had pre-printed forms made up for them to sign, giving aggregation to the Latin church a pre-requisite for conversion.

And you’ve not heard of perfectly valid and ancient Eastern rites for the Sacraments being tinkered with and “corrected” by Latin theologians.

All of these things Eastern Catholics suffered at the hands of Latin Catholics.

Or are you saying that “Westerners” have every right to do the very thing you have us of doing?**
 
Frbrendan said:
So, your “valid reasons” outweigh your love of the E.F. is that correct? Then forgive me, but those valid reasons must rank pretty high. Is someone holding a gun to your head? Or a knife at your back?

If you are married, and/or have children, then I am able to comprehend that you want to go to church with wife and kids, make sure they get to Sunday School, and so forth. I could even see a good reason if your wife threatens to divorce you if you ever go to another Latin Mass again. Otherwise, your argument falls flat on its face.
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It is just as well that my computer went awry and my previous post was deleted before I could post it. I am really hot. My kids were baptized, made their First Communion, and were Confirmed at my parish. My father worked two jobs to put my brother and sister through Catholic school. My wife and I sacrificed to put our kids through.

My bishop merely “acknowledged” the MP. As a military veteran and a state employee for 31 1/2 years, am I not supposed to read that as "I hear you, but I’m not going to do a bloomin’ thing about it? Should I indict my bishop when the Archbishop of New Orleans who was our bishop previously and who reinstituted a Corpus Christi procession down in New Orleans?

I am not about to smear my bishop. Father, you had good advice for me - to pray for a change of heart or to pray for a change of bishops.

We come full circle back as to why I posted this thread. What right do you have to question my deeply held beliefs and feelings when you left the Latin rite for the East? What right do my fellow Latin Catholics have who grew up long after Vatican II to question my beliefs and feelings which are genuine? What right do our converts from Protestantism have to question my beliefs and feelings because it was not what they learned at RCIA?

THAT is what I was getting at. What am I? Chopped liver? Pardon me Father but I’m not dead yet. I’m feeling better. The responses on this thread are symptomatic of the problem.

Forty plus years ago some of us saw our beliefs and traditions shredded, ripped out from the roots. I had to ask for permission to join the cathedral parish in 1983 from my local geographic parish. I received a letter from my parish priest saying that if I was on death’s doorstep he would not respond. I am not making this up.

I have driven 25 miles one way since 1983 to attend a reverent cathedral parish. Some of us here in Baton Rouge weren’t even born then. Face it. There are a whole bunch of us who grew up before Vatican II and instead of mobbing me about my choices, how about the objections to traditionalism?
 
JustaServant said:
Traditionalists are part of the ‘mainstream’.
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In the context of what I’ve been saying in this thread “mainstream” are Catholics that are content with the Novus Ordo - have no debate with Vatican II - and are generally content and happy to be a catholic. They are the great majority of catholics that go to Mass each week to whom most of the stuff that goes on in a forum like this are oblivious.

“Traditionalists” on the other hand see thinks differently and because of their “special interests” have “special needs”. Because of these “special” things they are not really “mainstream”.

In my POV “mainstream” and “traditionalists” (and “charismatics”, too) is just a means of classification and contains no pejorative meaning.

MonFrere
 
peary1 said:
‘Easterners’ have no business telling us that, for centuries, the Mass as celebrated in the West has been illicit and invalid. Stay on your side of the fence. The West has never accused your liturgies as being either illicit or invalid. We recognize a valid priesthood and valid sacraments. What is your problem, anyway? Maybe the East has made its bed with national governments.
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Easterners have never done any such thing. We are Eastern Catholics, not ‘Easterners’ anyways.

If anyone is guilty of interfering in the practices of another it is the Latins hard handed treatment of us Eastern Catholics during the beginning of the last century.

Get your history right before you attack your fellow Catholics.
 
peary1 said:
Protestant converts who rail against the use of Latin in the Latin rite? Are you joking in your stupidity or what? Vatican II CALLS FOR the continuation of Latin in the Latin rite. Otherwise, why even refer to it as the Latin Rite?
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The converts from Protestantism that I know love to see and hear that Latin and I often hear that converts make some of the more traditionally minded Catholics. I personally am on the way to being a convert from Protestantism and I am thrilled that we’ve been using more Latin in my parish - and it’s the Ordinary Form. That said, I don’t see any need for everyone to be required to go back to using Latin exclusively.

It sounds like your experience with converts has been quite different from mine?
 
I will answer the question to the best of my ability. First, have no objection to traditionalism or traditionalist. I think what is often seen as objection to traditionalism, is really just an objection to one point, or even one poster. No doubt there may be some wyou view traditionalism as a threat to what they desire in Catholicism, but that is a rarity here.

Most of the more strident arguements have occured when some poster has been critical of the Church or the liturgy of today. Then, when the Church is defended it is seen as an attack of traditionalism. Like a referee at a football game, it is the second guy that gets the attention. I offer as evidence the multitude of theads in the Traditional forum that are an attack on things that are not traditional and have nothing to do with traditional spirituality. Thus, often traditionalism is portrayed here more by the things that are hated than the spirituality embraced. As evidence, all one need do is scan the thread titles here.
 
brotherhrolf said:
From the ensuing comments, I did not phrase my question as precisely as I perhaps should have.

Over the years on this forum, I have remarked that we (the laity) were not given the opportunity to voice our objections to the changes in HMC that really picked up speed after 1967. We submitted to the magesterium and either kept our mouths shut or, sadly, in many cases, ceased attending Mass altogether. One of the good things about this forum is that it does allow us a voice.

It is hard to condense my thoughts into a concise nugget that will satisfy everyone. It is my observation after reading and posting on this forum for several years that there are proponents of traditional Catholicism (some strident and condescending) and then there are those who never miss a chance to make off-putting comments about deeply held beliefs and emotions.

It was my intent to try and determine what it is about traditional Catholicism that sets some people on edge. It is almost as if some are frightened by it. I am not advocating a return to the church of my childhood. I believe I have made that very clear. I lament the loss of so many Catholic traditions and practices and I have to believe the Holy Father believes the same. If he didn’t, he would not have issued the Motu Proprio. I took that as a recognition that for the first time in 40 years our voices were heard.

I simply wanted to know what it is about traditional Catholicism that sets you on edge.
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As to the “red badge of honor”, that is displayed by both sides. The term NO or NO Mass is not used by the Church. Nor does the Church refer to Novus Ordo Catholics. The term Novus Ordo was used. Now the term Ordo Missae is used to discribe the order of Mass that has been around forty years. If words really do not mean anything, then why the resistance to updating the term “Novus Ordo”?
 
brotherhrolf said:
We come full circle back as to why I posted this thread. What right do you have to question my deeply held beliefs and feelings when you left the Latin rite for the East? What right do my fellow Latin Catholics have who grew up long after Vatican II to question my beliefs and feelings which are genuine? What right do our converts from Protestantism have to question my beliefs and feelings because it was not what they learned at RCIA?
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Why are you posting here if you don’t want to hear from us?

The only posts I see here questioning you are responding to the fact that you seem to say that you desperately want a Mass in the EF but don’t go to the one that is in the area because you are invested in your parish. Forgive me, but that is a little confusing.

I understand that you are upset that traditions were ripped away from you. But I have no idea what solution you want; you have rejected any suggestions offered to you here. In fact, you seem to get quite angry with anyone who doesn’t totally agree with you. Maybe this is one reason that some people get on edge about Traditionalism.
 
brotherhrolf said:
I am not about to smear my bishop. Father, you had good advice for me - to pray for a change of heart or to pray for a change of bishops.
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I will join you in this prayer request. I know that everyone’s needs and preferences can not be met, but neither is it right to assume everyone has the ability to travel long distances to attend Mass. We will all someday be where such options are a hardship on us and it is incumbant on the Church to make every attempt to accommodate and minister to all who can.
 
ibkc said:
We do too, at my parish. I’m told it’s called a “response mass”. I quite like it.
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Before Vatican II it was called a “Dialogue Mass” & was very popular here in the Midwest.

The 1958 document De musica sacra treats this subject:
  1. By its very nature, the Mass requires that all present take part in it, each having a particular function.
a)** Interior participation is the most important**; this consists in paying devout attention, and in lifting up the heart to God in prayer. In this way the faithful “are intimately joined with their High Priest…and together with Him, and through Him offer (the Sacrifice), making themselves one with Him” (Mediator Dei, Nov. 20, 1947: AAS 39 [1947] 552).

b) The participation of the congregation becomes more complete, however, when, in addition to this interior disposition, exterior participation is manifested by external acts, such as bodily position (kneeling, standing, sitting), ceremonial signs, and especially responses, prayers, and singing.

The Mass held in the chapel of my high school, during my last 2 yrs., was the dialog Mass. Since all of us had been attending the Tridentine Mass daily for many years, it worked well for us. However, as the document says, “INTERIOR participation” trumps anything else & I’m not sure whether the dialogue interrupted the inner participation for those who were new to the Mass.
 
Jacafamala said:
What about going to the TLM just every so often? I think it would be very pleasing to God and it’ll make you a little happier, too.

Try it, Sam I am. 🙂
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Why not? I certainly have no objection to the Extraordinary Form.
 
bpbasilphx said:
Why not? I certainly have no objection to the Extraordinary Form.
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(chuckles) I already do assist at TLMs! 🙂

I’m talking to Ralph. I say he should. Even if only every so often.

I understand that you’re older Ralph, and you’ve become attached to your parish. But I think, clearly somehow you still long to worship in the way you did as a youth. Go for it. And then tell me all about it.
 
From the comments, it would seem that few have any objection to traditionalism - just don’t bring it to my parish. I also found it curious that there are several of us who are repeating basically the same thing, that we did not get a say so back in 67 because it was unthinkable for the laity to step up and complain to the magesterium. Or that, even today, even on this forum, we have to be exceedingly guarded about what we say and how we say it. Or that most of us have prayed for 40 years that we would see a return to that which we knew.

I really believe that all of you who grew up after 1970; all of you who are converts; or of different Catholic rites have any understanding that there were some of us who did not embrace all that happened in 1967 with glee. My three classmates in 1969 who were responsible for Simon and Garfunkle at my graduation Mass are still together and still playing guitars at alumni retreats. Two of those guys are close friends and cannot believe that I, gasp!, prefer the cadences of chant or the glories of sacred motets. They conveniently forget that the four of us sang Latin at the senior’s graduation the year before.

I want to thank Cradle Cath for that quote about interior participation. It matches what I said about how participation in the TLM “stills my soul”. The only time I feel that today is during the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday and on Good Friday. There is too much going on otherwise. We used to maintain silence in church. Even my own cathedral parish is not as silent as it should be but it is a quantum leap above my local geographic parish which sounds like WalMart before and after Mass.

Jacafalama - Ralph?😃 Well I suppose. Hrolf is the ancient Viking variant of Rudolph. Modern equivalent is Rolf in German.
 
brotherhrolf said:
We come full circle back as to why I posted this thread. What right do you have to question my deeply held beliefs and feelings when you left the Latin rite for the East? What right do my fellow Latin Catholics have who grew up long after Vatican II to question my beliefs and feelings which are genuine? What right do our converts from Protestantism have to question my beliefs and feelings because it was not what they learned at RCIA?
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Let me please put this as simply as I can. I have no objection to tradition, or the people that hold to tradition. I have no objection to traditionalism, either.

There. Simple, clean and easy to read.

Now, as to the question of why I jumped ship from the Latin rite to an Eastern rite. I left the Latin rite, not for any Eastern rite, but to go to the Assemblies of God, which I felt (mistakenly, as I later found out), that God was calling me there. After I left there several years later, I wandered for a while, until Bp. Basil showed me the riches of Orthodoxy.

Several years later, I began to feel that Bp. Basil and I should move to an Eastern Church in Communion with Rome. Knowing Basil’s unease about anything Roman, I knew that if I just told him what I felt, he would bring up a number of reasons why we should not move to Rome. So I began to pray. For a couple of years, I prayed. Finally, he asked me what I thought about moving to the Catholic Church. I wept in joy. God had moved Basil’s heart!

So, here I am, back in Communion with Rome, with an incredibly stable and enriching parish and Eparchy. :extrahappy:
 
I hope you have recovered from your fall, Father. You and I are pretty much the same age and I have this tendency to slip outside in the barn yard and go down (could have something to do with the 18 inches of rain we’ve had this month). I am sufficiently well padded that I don’t bruise but the damage to my back and the pain that ensues!

Your faith journey has taken you to different places than me. I liked all the devotions, practices, chant, liturgy of HMC. I was an altar boy until I was 17 and only quit because I towered over all the younger servers. You and the good bishop have had a far different journey than me.
 
Frbrendan said:
Let me please put this as simply as I can. I have no objection to tradition, or the people that hold to tradition. I have no objection to traditionalism, either.

There. Simple, clean and easy to read.

Now, as to the question of why I jumped ship from the Latin rite to an Eastern rite. I left the Latin rite, not for any Eastern rite, but to go to the Assemblies of God, which I felt (mistakenly, as I later found out), that God was calling me there. After I left there several years later, I wandered for a while, until Bp. Basil showed me the riches of Orthodoxy.

Several years later, I began to feel that Bp. Basil and I should move to an Eastern Church in Communion with Rome. Knowing Basil’s unease about anything Roman, I knew that if I just told him what I felt, he would bring up a number of reasons why we should not move to Rome. So I began to pray. For a couple of years, I prayed. Finally, he asked me what I thought about moving to the Catholic Church. I wept in joy. God had moved Basil’s heart!

So, here I am, back in Communion with Rome, with an incredibly stable and enriching parish and Eparchy. :extrahappy:
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Quite a journey from Assembly of God Father.
Blessings to you.
 
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