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Why We Fight, We’ll Not Be Driven Away
Catholics who still practice the Faith are not supposed to know there ever was an “old rite” or that there is a “new rite” at all. The entire project of the Revolution at this stage is to deny there ever was such a thing as the Old Faith.
Anyway, all this is why they are as furious as a bag of feral cats that there are still Traditionalists, and that the traddie movement is gaining ground. That lot was supposed to have died out or been driven out, and the fact that there are new ones, people like me who never knew the old rite in the wild, and the families now having twelve kids and going to the Missa Cantata, and all the homeschooling and whatnot… Combine that with the internet’s ability to let everyone know what’s really happening, and plenty of beautiful pictures besides, and it must be making them absolutely apoplectic.
Just as in the secular world, there are those in the Catholic clergy and laity that seek to erase history. History and tradition can be a safe harbor that allows us to reflect on what is good, and whether or not we are charting a proper course. History and tradition allow us to examine our triumphs and failures. Erasing history and tradition only creates the belief that change must be done for the sake of constant change, whether it leads to progress or not.
The revolution of the Progressed Catholic must erase tradition and history so that the new creed has only one sacrament. Revolution, an apocalyptic sacrament that must be practiced for it’s own sake, endlessly.
There were those who saw Vatican II as a reformation. Uncommon disobedience became a common virtue. Like the first Reformation, some Catholic clergy and laity could not abide the thought of one Pope, so we now have thousands upon thousands of Popes in Catholic education, parishes, and even the Vatican.
Leaving the Church is not an option for me. I’ll stay and fight. I’ll pray for our wounded that have left the battlefield. I’ll pray for those that are causing confusion and scandal.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
As a Jew, I feel exactly the same way about the changes occurring in Judaism, and we are split in so many different divisions. The bitterness among us is so defeating.
There are those of us who remember respectful, solemn Masses, focusing on prayer, and homilies which pointedly described right from wrong. There are those, who like my son-in-law, a convert, who at one point saw a glimpse of that beauty and truth and continues to search for it – in the Latin Mass, and like-minded traditional congregations. There are some things you just know are wrong.
I will be sending a letter to my Archbishop to describe the All Saint’s Day Mass we attended last night. (Sorry to those readers unfamiliar with a Catholic Mass.) There were 23 people, including the priest, in a church that could hold 900. The priest omitted the Entrance Rite (no absolution or acknowledgement of sin, no plea for mercy), and went from the opening Blessing straight to the Gloria. There was no Creed. No Prayers of the Faithful. We sang an entrance song, the Gloria, the Litany of the Saints, a preparation song, the Hosanna, the Lamb of God, a Communion song, and a recessional song. But apparently there was no time for the missing parts of the Mass. The Litany of the Saints included the names of those who had died from the parish in the past year – asking them to pray for us (!). No mention of purgatory in the homily about saints, because, after all, we are all saints. And this is one of the churches in the area that succumbed to the architectural horrors of the 1980’s and put the tabernacle in the adjoining chapel – a separate building – and none of the succeeding pastors since has had the courage to add a tabernacle to the main church. Empty Mass = empty pews. When are they going to make the connection?
Bless you Doug, bless you.
Thank you Gary. I’m a work in progress, and I need all the prayers and help that I can get.
I’ve said this to some boomer Norvus Ordo types when they balked at my desire to return to a more traditional Catholicism. You may have liked the felt banners, St Louis Jesuit folk hymns, and the consecration of pizza and beer ( I am not kidding) because you grew up in what you would call an “oppressive church”. Well, I grew up in a permissive one and everyone left. The traddies had babies and you didn’t. The Trads are winning the demographic war. God does make straight crooked lines.
There is hope.
I honor your commitment to fight, Doug. It must be so painful to watch these changes that can do so much damage to faith, learning and growing.
Funny, my brother and I were just discussing this today. We went to an All Saint’s Day Mass yesterday, to honor our mother who had passed this year. I was surprised that the Mass was all about Purgatory and that we were there to pray for the souls of the dead and not just as a remembrance of the dead. I don’t think that I have heard the word “Purgatory” in a Catholic Mass in a long time. The last one I attended when my father had passed a few years ago was more as @juliana described it above. I took that as a sign that there were enough traditionalists in the Church that it could survive the current pope.
Do you mean All Soul’s Day? Yesterday was All Souls, and that sounds more like a Requiem Mass to me.
Yes, I meant All Soul’s Day. Sorry.
There was a story on Rod Dreher’s blog earlier in the year about a young priest in the Saginaw Diocese that was removed because he was using traditional service and teaching it to the youth, who seemed to be very receptive. The old people complained it was too complicated, so what is a Bishop to do, but get rid of the priest! I am not Catholic, but live in the area, and the young priest is right; beautiful churches are closing and combining parishes trying to survive, and something needs to be done.
Here is the link.https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/michigan-priests-and-injustice/