Where have all the people in the Pews Gone

A goodly number of pseudo-reformist movements these days consists of powerful elites telling the majority of people what to do. Elites grab control of an agency, an institution, a political body, then proceed to legislate without regard to majority opinion. Take the matter of the Latin Mass. A recent Gallup poll shows 64 percent of American Catholics prefer the return of the Latin Mass.

Sixty-four percent! That's a solid majority, for sure! Among Catholics with a college education, the figure jumps to 73 per-cent-nearly a two-thirds majority. Roughly 10 percent of the Catholics polled had no opinion. Only 26 percent were opposed. Splitting the difference of the no-opinion group, we come up with the fact that roughly 80 percent of American Catholics prefer the return of the oldstyle, Tridentine Latin Mass. After 15 years, in other words, of guitar music, pseudo-folksongs, banal translations, hand-clapping, the kissing of perfect strangers during the offertory in an orgy of dishonest sentiment, most Catholics yearn for the dignity and mystery of the Latin Mass. We've had circus masses with clowns on the altar, where they played "Send in the Clown" during the offertory. You were supposed to leave Church, I suppose, feeling glowy all over. We've had radical masses where the consecration was ushered in with a folksy protest song by Pete Seeger. We've witnessed with-it priests in psychedelic vestments (most of them on the verge of resigning the priesthood) consecrate loaves of sourdough French bread and Gallo Hearty Burgundy. Also used: Ry-Krisp, Wonder Bread (for that homey feeling), Syrian bread (for that archaeologically exact feeling), and Kasanoff's Jewish Rye (for that feeling of ethnic brotherhood). Of late an English-language liturgy of heroic banality has been forced on us, rivaling the Unitarian worship service for sheer avoidance of Catholicity of sentiment, reference or symbolism.

What is the result of all this tasteless disregard for the necessity of aesthetic transcendence in liturgy? What is the result of telling two-thirds of the Roman Catholics in America that they cannot, must not, worship in the manner of their youth: that the way the Church prayed for more than a thousand years was now forbidden? On Holy Thursday I stood in St. Ignatius Church with a sparse and pitiable crowd and tried as much as possible to attend to a liturgy stripped of its transcendence and grandeur. We were, say, a congregation of no more than 300-mainly older women. Twenty years ago the Church would have been filled to its 1,500 seat capacity. Now on Sunday mornings in the Catholic parishes of San Francisco, you could set up an indoor volleyball game in the center of the Church without bothering the sparse gathering of aged parishioners.

All knowledge of God, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, is by analogy-with the exception of infused contemplation and certain rare forms of mystical prayer. What St. Thomas means is that God is unknowable in Himself. He is eternal and transcendent. We are finite. We try to bridge the gap between God's awful majesty and our own insecure finitude in a variety of ways-prayer, contemplation, good works, and above all else, through sacramental worship. According to Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and responsible Protestant Episcopalian belief, the celebration of the Eucharist is our most powerful link with the Godhead. It recreates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ and Christ's death on Calvary in a way that is at once profoundly symbolic and profoundly true. In reference, then, to St. Thomas' statement about knowing God through analogy, the Eucharist-called the Mass by Roman Catholics-constitutes our most daring flight towards the Godhead, and Almighty God's most generous intersection with us-through the imminent presence of His Son Jesus Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice. According to Catholic belief, the Mass recreates the grand drama of Calvary. It is not a hootenany. It is not a touchy-feely Esalen session designed to make you feel tingly and sincere all over your body.

It took the Latin Church 500 years to evolve a worship service equal to this awesome, compelling leap to the Godhead through die risen, eucharistic Christ. For a thousand years Catholics prayed this way at Mass. In the 16th century Council of Trent, this 1,000 year-old Mass was standardized, codified, made the norm of the Universal Church. Another 400 more years went by-400 years of dignified, compelling worship. In great cathedrals of Europe, the Latin Mass was celebrated by archbishops and cardinals in splendid robes, accompanied by orchestras and trained choirs; in jungle outposts, it was celebrated by sweat-stained missionaries, accompanied by prayers in a thousand different tongues. But wherever it was celebrated-in cathedrals in ancient abbeys, in frontier parishes, in jungle out-posts, it was the same Latin Mass. Every Catholic over 35 in America grew up to its rich cadences. We followed its intricacies in our missals. We bowed our heads in awful silence as the priest bent over the host and the chalice, intoning the ancient words of consecration.

The day the Latin Mass was outlawed by the elitists, the day 80 percent of the Catholics of America were told they could no longer worship in the manner their ancestors worshipped since time immemorial, I was having dinner in New York with another Catholic-novelist Anthony Burgess. "In 10 years time Catholic churches will be empty," Burgess said. "For when you destroy the Mass, you destroy the faith. We English Catholics know this. We literally went to the stake for the Latin Mass."

Anthony Burgess was right. The elite reformers destroyed the Latin Mass. Now the churches are empty. Now no one believes.

I apologize if I did not understand your previous message correctly.

It's true that re-education would be necessary if the old Order of Mass were to be re-introcuded, not only among the lay people, but also among the hierarchy. Because understanding the words of the Mass is not the main issue, and the way Mass is said by priests is important also. More is learned through example than through words.

Constantine called the council of Nicia not to "stone the true Christians" but because he was getting tired of the constant bickering going on. His main interest was in providing a means to unify the Empire by religion, and that is why he baned Arians for a time.

Constantine's true views were probably not that good. He did get baptized on his death bed (which was a common, but discouraged, practice for the time.)

...the general trend of saying I am a Christian but only with their mouth. Morals are not followed, and officially, many of them don't enforce them...in fashion, speech, etc., etc. There pews are not as full as they used to be. And, if their sermons focus on moral issues and what they SHOULD DO, such as not swearing, no contraception, no abortion, etc, etc, no homosexuality, no divorce, etc, the pews will be much emptier. And they will open new churches. Here around where I live now, there are many, many 'churches' or places of worship that are protestant almost 2 blocks away from each other, and I would guarantee that they do not believe the same thing, and that they were created because they either did not agree with each other, or, well, that's basically the main reason why new groups are created.

Hate to say this, but if you substituted the word "catholic" for "protestant," your statement above would still be true, would it not?

Many indeed did, and have, called Constantine the "13th Apostle". It wasn't a real title in the sense it was bestowed by any churches or councils, but was a popular expression in the early days of Rome accepting Christianity. Some may have sainted him, but even his contemporaries were rather worried about his eternal destination. One of the reasons Constantine didn't get baptized right away is that he did some rather interesting things to become and remain emperor. He didn't want to be constrained by his sins, so tried to work through a loop hole.

I agree, I didnt mean to say that only protestants did that. Just that in your previous message, I had gotten the impression that you were saying saying what you had said, only against the Church, you know about rituals and ceremonies. And my point was that it is not happening only in the Catholic Church. Look at anglicans, orthodox,... divisions and separations happened waaay long before in evangelicals, baptists, etc, etc, lutherans, etc, etc, methodists, etc, groups. So, rituals and cereminies, or "basing our beliefs in them (rituals and ceremonies)," is not the reason why the things that are happening are happening.

latinmass1983

Thank you for that reference. I've been looking for that graph for a long time. In Chapter 2.3, the graph shows that a spike occurs in 1960, five years before the conclusion of the Vatican 2. In that year, about 380 incidents occurred, committed by 260 pirests. By 1985, THERE WERE FEWER CASES than there were in 1960!

The sharpest peak was not in 1985, but in 1980. And this peak was only marginally higher than a 1969 peak. The media was not covering the story in 1985, but in the early 1990s. By 1990, the number of incidents were approximately as low as the average that occurred in the 1950s -- Before significant media coverage had occured, the problem was already largely a thing of the past.

Yes - I agree with your assesment: that many in the Arch of NY were indeed spared many of the worst excesses of the NO up until the late 80s.

Why? Cardinal Terence Cooke was one reason. Another was that in many parishes the pastors were of the old school. Some were still "permanent rectors" - who could not be removed unless they died or voluntarliy retired.

For example, that is why St. Ann's on 12 St (which I have written about)in Manhattan was preserved so well. The "od fuddy-duddy" who was the Rector just refused to wreckovate the building....wore his cassock all the time......had devotions, etc. When he died finally around 1980, Cardinal Cooke gave the parish over to the Armenians as their Cathedral.

The same story was repeated elsewhere. in some places the pastor would compromise, and make some minor concessions. But in general that was the staus quo until the tenure of Cardinal O'Connor.

I agree- by the late80s the "weirdness started to settle in. This is because the "old ones" were retireing & dying off, and younger priests, trained in the 60s & 70s took over. They are the ones who started the flurry of church wreckovations, liturgical aberrations, etc. And they used the power of the "lavendar mafia" - which by then firmly controlled 1011 First Aveneue (Chancery office) to force O'Connor to let them get away with what they wanted to do.

Agreed also that a "conservative" NO mass around NYC today is much like what was in the 80s.....and the "gauge of acceptability" has indeed moved leftward.

Thank you!

Now if y'all really want a reason to cry, I could see if I can get my scanner to work - and scan/post a b&w pic of the sanctuary of that magnificent church.

Six months after I was confirmed, the church was rubble. It was demolished and replaced with a high-rise: the new chancery office.

Also some six months after I was confirmed there the Novus Ordo Missae began to be used in US churches. It was never said in that church - the Msgr, who was a Permanent Rector, refused to change the altar, or put in a NO table.

I still remember looking at that mural on the back wall of the church over the reredos of the high altar - which contains iconic images of scenes from the Apocalypse.

The mural on the wall......the Apocalypse.....the Alpha and Omega figuring prominantly......the year 1969 - the last of the Tridentine.........just before the introduction of the new mass........the old Msgr. who desperately prepared all the children in the 5,6,7,8 grades for Confirmation out of fear for their souls..........because the school and church were to close.......and he knew of the changes to come, as a theologian.........

None of this imagery is lost on me. And probably not on the old Msgr. May God rest his Christian soul.

"Their reason was that the focus of Confirmation has changed. It no longer is about receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit but is simply renewing our baptismal promises."

If that is what the bishop believes, and his intention in conferring the sacrament of confirmation............then I have bad news for all those whom he "confirms".......

The little white dove most likely did not descend upon them.

Your idea is a good one.....of dropping a note in the plate indicating that your $$$ have gone elsewhere. That has been tried.

Unfortunately with not much result. So many perople are just tired of fighting......give up.......and stay home. The there are those who could/would fight, but will not as they dont want to "stray from the pack".

The spike in 1960 was an aberration during the pontificate of Jn XXIII and reflected his lax style of discipline following the tight ship run by Pius XII in which the reported cases are miniscule. It was why John XXIII ordered that all gays should be prohibited as candidates for the priesthood. After this, there is a drop till after the Vatican Council. Then there is a STEADY massive exponential increase of incidents.

What is significant is the sudden jump in the numbers of incidents compared with the 50s, indicating a real pathology. The 1960 number was scandalous but isolated, showing around 300 reported cases, with a drop immediately afterwards. But already by 1971 there are around 420 reported cases, far more than in 1960, and already a major trend with high numbers before and after. Again there is another spike in 1980 which shoots up way past 1960 to around 400 cases.

What is important is not the one isolated year of 1960. What's important is to compare the small numbers in the 50s with the trend that accelerates after the close of the Council, showing that throughout the 70s and 80 and to a lesser extent into the 90s something huge is happening of a systemic nature. It's true the media was not reporting cases to the same degree as later with the Boston Globe stories that appeared in the 90s. And it's also true that '80 was the spike year, not '85 as I had remembered--but these are quibbles. The general trend was there--and was obviously radically different from the very few cases throughout the 50s.

THE Gallup Poll: 64% of all American Catholics and 73% of college-educated Catholics prefer the restoration of the Tridentine Mass as the normative Mass of the Roman Catholic Church after forty years of bad liturgical road! Who'd have thunk it? That was the Gallup Poll not NCReporter.

A 26-year old Gallup Poll is not reflective of the current reality.

Ninety-nine percent of Mass attending Catholics in 2005 would not choose to attend a Tridentine Mass on a regular basis.

The Novus Ordo is the normative Mass. If you want to promote the TLM, I suggest you get busy and promote it.

If it draws some people back to the Church, or some young people want to attend, great.

But, if you sit back and wait for priests to promote the TLM, you will get what you've always gotten.

>> The spike in 1960 was an aberration during the pontificate of Jn XXIII and reflected his lax style of discipline following the tight ship run by Pius XII in which the reported cases are miniscule. <<

The sharp increase was not a spike. The trend was sustained. Therefore, it was not an aberration.

>> After this, there is a drop till after the Vatican Council. <<

There was a statistically insignificant decrease in the number of priests involved in abuse in 1961. Then in 1962, the trend resumed its rapid upward climb, until 1969. It then bobbed up and down until 1980, when it began to plummet.

>>The 1960 number was scandalous but isolated, showing around 300 reported cases, with a drop immediately afterwards.<<

Again, no significant drop. In fact, the number of incidents actually increased.

>>What's important is to compare the small numbers in the 50s with the trend that accelerates after the close of the Council,<<

The trend actually decelerates after the council, proporrtionally.

>>showing that throughout the 70s and 80 and to a lesser extent into the 90s something huge is happening of a systemic nature<<

You are in denial of the plain and obvious facts. The 1980s showed an unbelievable fast decline in the rates. By the end of the 1980s, there were far fewer cases than in the late 1950s.

>>but these are quibbles.<<

Quibbles? They completely reverse the picture you painted.

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