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What the author of the above artice has learned is what many of us have learned: our opinion means nothing in the face of the juggernaut of "liturgy" gone berserk.

He states very aptly that what liturgists have learned is the old army principle of "do it first - ask permission later". And it works!!!!.......as they have found.

But what he is describing is a pitiful story of dissent based upon apostacy. If one truly had the Catholic faith in the marrow of your bones, you would not constantly be seeking more and more maddening innovations in the mass. Innovations which are born of a spirit of dissent - without one drop of true religious faith. Which are intent upon destroying the faith of many, and of confounding the vast multitude of people - who have not the education nor the will, or the wherewithall to fight back.

The author has learned that "Father" will do as he damn well pleases, regardless of what is written in the GIRM or anything else. he knows he will not be chastised......at all, or at least not seriously. So, "Father" is not afraid of what the man in the pew thinks. Actually, he does not care - he serves a different agenda. He does not care what you think, and is not afraid of what letters you write.

Because when those letters are received by the local bishop - they are given to the pastor.....and normally not acted upon. So the priest do not fear serious rebuke from any body.

What they DO fear is loss of $$$$. There are two things which the layman absolutely controls: his own prayer life, and his wallet.

So, pray as if all depended upon you........and give only if you are receiving sound Catholic teaching, valid and respectful masses & sacraments & teaching. Othewise close you wallet - else if you give to a regime whioch is corrupt, and dissents against Christ and His Church - you might be complicit!

From the article:

"Ironically, the same "liturgical abuses" I once battled against, I now consider myself indebted to, since my efforts led me to something truly worth fighting for — the Tridentine Mass. Like a number others I've talked to since, the initial attraction was not born of an innate preference for the Latin language or attachment to the 1962 Missal."

This is exactly the way I came to know Tradition. I would not have even entertained the idea of going to the TLM mass had it not been for a new priest in my old parish who systematically began to remove any vestiges of Catholicism from the liturgy in a rather abrupt and dramatic fashion. It seems when it is done slowly, over time one can get desensitized to it and gradually accept it. Most people in my parish welcomed these changes, the 10 to 20 percent who objected were ridiculed or ignored until they gradually left the parish. Sadly, many of these people were the daily mass attendees, the ones leading the devotional societies, and the ones who volunteered an enormous amount of their time to support the maintenance of the parish.

Although I was quite upset at what was happening to my once beloved parish at the time, I realize now that it was actually a grace, to move me to know Tradition and the TLM. I will forever be grateful to God for allowing this to happen, and then putting knowledgeable people in my path to help me before I came to the point of despair.

I realize, of course, I did nothing to merit this grace, and my heart aches for those who are still in the position I was in before it. I pray that they be given the graces that I have been given, before they lose all hope or the ability to recognize it as a grace and respond to it.

"Now, years later, an occasion I find myself witnessing a New Mass is like visiting a foreign country. Whether the liturgy itself has further degraded or I have been too insulated from it (probably both), the liturgy is even harder to bear, and the stream of "abuses" that had so occupied my concerns seem today so laughably insignificant.

It makes little difference whether there are altar girls or extraordinary ministers or guitar solos or girls in robes giving homilies or liturgical dancers or anything else not yet formerly approved by Vatican documents. Focusing on what were identified and scrutinized as "abuses" was merely a distraction from the real issue at hand."

The author perfectly sums up my own attitude. When at a NO Mass now, I feel like I am just an observer, and the abuses I was so concerned about before are not even noticed. It's actually kind of scary, that the Mass might be valid but I don't feel a part of it.