[Chode]

i still say it's been down hill after the Church dropped Latin

[jocon307]

Great post, that’s the best article I can remember reading the the NY Times for a very long time. Like so many other destructive people that priest ended his life in obscurity, but the damage was already done.

[narses]

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[Ge0ffrey]

The New York Times? Am I reading right? The New York Times deserves the stopped-clock award today!

[seton89]

Deo gratias.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
30 yrs ago, my wife & I had to go thru a lengthy petition to get a Latin Mass at our wedding. We could only get a Latin translation of the fashionable Mass.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Not only does modernity not offer spiritual satisfaction, but in its quest for utilitarianism, it suffers for want of both joy and beauty.

A person can visit the most glorious church in Boston, but they won’t find the joy and beauty of a small Indian village in Mexico, with a procession of happy, young barefoot girls wearing their white Sunday dresses, each with flowers in her hair, going to an old, adobe church.

The difference here is not wealth and poverty, as one might expect, but the choice of the people. In Boston, a church service is an orderly and efficient affair, closely timed so that busy people can get back to their busy lives. In Mexico, the church service lasts as long as needs be to both perform the ritual well, and to see to the needs of the congregation, including the well attended blessing of a burro and two chickens, after the regular service and other duties.

But that joy and beauty need not be forgotten in America, and if that sense is brought to America, it will again be loved and cherished.

I will long remember the return of the Latin Mass to Phoenix, the church needing extra fans for the heat, because it was so full, and many congregants invalid and shut-ins, who demanded to be taken to church so that they could once again see what had been so precious in their youth.

Both poor and wealthy, they came for the joy and the beauty.

[Cicero]

I must say, I have always wondered whether Bugnini was a servant of the Devil. He never went far enough to destroy the Mass, but he certainly went out of his way to do as much damage as he could get away with without getting caught until it was too late.

And then Donald Trautman and the ICEL took what he gave them and made it even worse in the English translation.

However, I attend Mass every Sunday, in a Catholic Church. It’s not what I would like, and I am in great sorrow at how much damage it has done and how many people it—and other abuses such as catechetical failures—have driven out of the Church.

Nevertheless, the Church is the Church, and the Mass is still valid. The Church still gives us the Sacraments.

This is not the first time that the Church has suffered from abuses and painful difficulties. During the Arian heresy, all but a few bishops fell away from orthodoxy, and it must have been painful and confusing for their flocks. But the answer is not to drop out. That is what Satan wants.

[pepsi_junkie]

The church made a major mistake in dropping the old ways back in the 50s and 60s. Consider it from a simple marketing perspective. The Catholic church was a "brand name" and it was distinct from the other denominations (i.e. it was differentiated) because it was the one that was ancient, the one with the timeless ceremony, the almost mystical overtones. The priest was an object of awe, above the fray, the mass something unlike anything else, and it provided a connection to a hundred generations of Catholics stretching back to the time of the Apostles themselves. That was the Catholic brand.

Then in the 50s and 60s the Church said all that was bunk, the way the other churches did it was better. If the timelessness of the mass meant nothing, then what of the teachings? Were they too just a passing fad? Within a single generation, the church became something different than what it was, it lost its brand and its differentiation and then it lost much of its flock, many not to other faiths but to disillusionment and disinterest.

The question is, can the genie be put back in the bottle? We've had a couple of generations raised with no connection to the ancient ways, will they be drawn to them or repulsed. I vote they will be drawn, people long for a church that says "We know best!" rather than one that says "What do you think?" but that's just my guess.

[murron]

Fortunately, there are 3 Latin Masses that I am aware of in my area. One Church has a Saturday evening Mass at 5:30, which is the one I usually go to, and there is a 7AM Mass at another Church, and a 9:30 at another. It’s so nice not to have to give the sign of peace, among other things.

[NTHockey]

Bugnini is to the Catholic Church what 0bambi is to America. Both are destroyers; NOT builders.

Not since Cramner has one man (Bugnini) done so much harm to the Catholic Church.

[steve86]

My brother who has been away from the church for a long time emailed me this article today. Encouraging...