You are blessed for recognizing that. It is indeed shocking how something completely new can become the "norm" in less than one generation. But if that's all you know, you'd believe that's how it always was and any attempt to bring the Church back to her traditional path is seen as "changing" the Church.
So many others don't mind that the Roman Rite was deformed (yes, I'll use that word) into something that was unrecognizable as such... because it was easier
Of course. Catholics used to receive communion only if they confessed, and fasted 12 hours before receiving communion, and abstinance form passions, just as the Orthodox still do.
Cathoic communion now resembles the host give-away. Anyone, properly prepared through confession, prayer and fasting or not, can receive on his conscience. Well, that's just way too Protestant if you know what I mean. It's easy and it invites people to make up their own theology.
But the Church our Lord left us also left the clergy repsosible for the state of our conscience! If it all defaults to our conscience, what's their job?!?
Also, the CNS article is not completely accurate; As I said earlier, a small number of feasts did have readings from the OT
I am talking about the standard Sunday liturgy, not feast day services, which always contain relevant readings that are normally not part of the standard liturgy. The Orthodox Church uses the 1,6000 year-old Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for most of the year and on 14 occasions the older Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, which is essentially the same but with more prayers and therefore longer.
The Church always used to read Pauline Epistles and the Gospels on those regular Sundays. The incursion of the Old Testament was implemented after Vatican II, I imagine, as an attempt to make the Catholic Church all things to all people (to paraphrase St. Paul) that they may be saved. But there is no salvation in ecumenism. God doesn't want luke-warm. The Church did not survive by being luke-warm. :)
Yes. Any sort of restoration of the Traditional Form of the Roman Rite is going to require huge amounts of catechesis for clergy and for laity. For as bad as catechesis might have been going into the 60s, it's certainly been worse since then.
I am talking about the standard Sunday liturgy, not feast day services, which always contain relevant readings that are normally not part of the standard liturgy.
I see; you are correct then. Am I correct to say also that the Orthodox Church also continues to use the same one-year cycle of readings that is used in the EF? That makes it easier to connect a particular reading to a particular Sunday out of the year... meaning that it's easier to remember. In addition, those are the same readings we find referred to in the sermons of the Fathers.
But there is no salvation in ecumenism. God doesn't want luke-warm. The Church did not survive by being luke-warm. :)
In the Latin Rite, some of us noticed... but there are still many who deny that there is a problem.
If you want to talk about what Catholics used to do, many of them used to receive communion only once a year, and not at all until they were confirmed at the age of 12-15 or so. See Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars for more details.