Posted on 06/15/2019 3:52:12 PM PDT by ebb tide
BALTIMORE (ChurchMilitant.com) - As the U.S. bishops meet in Baltimore, young Catholics on social media said what keeps them Catholic is the Traditional Latin Mass.
The social media accounts for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) posed the question, "If you are a young Catholic who is still Catholic, what has made you stay?"
The question received thousands of responses, many of them advocating for tradition and orthodoxy.
Many young Catholics cited the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, confession, the Rosary, beautiful churches, reverent liturgy and the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) as important for their faith.
One Twitter user emphasized, "The Eucharist and holding fast to Sacred Tradition."
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He went on to say that he wanted to see more churches "bring back ad orientem, altar rails and beautiful Latin chant, so that kids will truly believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. What we present externally affects what we believe internally."
The Eucharist was a common theme in the responses on Twitter and Facebook.
For instance, one convert said the Eucharist was the most important thing for which she came to the Catholic faith.
"Didn't start out Catholic, but I'll answer anyway," she tweeted. "I came for the liturgy and the sacraments, and most of all, [the] Eucharist."
Other reasons given were the Church's doctrines, the saints, good catechesis, reading Catholic authors like G. K. Chesterton and the witness of faithful priests.
One Catholic replied to the USCCB's Twitter account, "I was taught salvation history by a good priest, the Bible started to make sense to me, and ultimately this directed me to the Eucharist."
A young Dominican priest emphasized the importance of tradition, theology and liturgy, saying in a tweet, "Pope Benedict XVI saved me during college; during high school it was discovering the Extraordinary Form."
Many of those responding simply said they love Catholicism because it is the truth.
For instance, one Twitter user stated, "Traditional Catholic teachings, doctrines, and values. Because they are The Truth."
Many young Catholics were of the opinion that traditional liturgy goes hand in hand with sound Catholic teaching.
"I found the beauty of intellectual truth in the teachings of the Church, the True Presence of the Eucharist, and the manifestation of both of these things in the reverence and beauty of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass," wrote one Catholic Twitter user.
A Catholic mother commented on the USCCB's Facebook post, "I'm 38 and a practicing Catholic. I stay because I know it is the One True Faith. The reverence of the TLM is what encourages me, as well as seeing so many young families with many children at Mass every week."
Another young Catholic gave a three-word comment on Twitter: "the Latin Mass."
Some of the young adults brought up issues that they have encountered in the Church, with many criticizing heterodoxy and superficial efforts to make the Church more appealing to youth.
One Twitter user complained that he had to teach himself Catholic doctrine out of the Baltimore Catechism after a director of religious education tried to teach him heresy about Christ.
"I taught myself the faith out of the Baltimore Catechism," the 32-year-old complained, "after the DRE at my local parish tried telling us Jesus had sins."
Many responses also complained about liturgical abuses and bad liturgical music.
After a busy few days on social media, some mainstream Catholic media outfits did reports on who was responsible for managing the USCCB's social media accounts.
The person mainly responsible for the accounts, 31-year-old Connie Poulos, said in an interview this week that it was recently decided to use social media to "engage" with ordinary Catholics.
It has been widely observed that traditional liturgy is increasingly popular among youth and young adults.
A survey of more than 1,000 Latin Mass attendees published earlier this year found that a huge majority of them embrace Catholic morality and theology. It also found that they have an estimated fertility rate of 6 children per woman — in contrast with the 2.3 children per woman fertility rate of U.S. Catholics as a whole.
Father Donald Kloster, the Connecticut priest responsible for the study, told Church Militant back in February, "Even if my study has a large margin of error, the numbers themselves speak volumes to anyone who has no interference from their own bias or ideology."
The number of parishes offering the TLM exploded after 2007 when Pope Benedict XVI issued a document called Summorum Pontificum, which made it much easier for parishes to have TLM on a regular basis. In a letter to bishops explaining Summorum Pontificum, Benedict noted that the old version of the Missal "was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted."
In other words, the TLM was always broadly allowed in theory, even though Church leaders tried to restrict it in practice.
Last year, some TLM parishes were given special permission to revive the pre-1955 liturgical customs for Holy Week.
In 1955, the Holy Week liturgies were changed by the removal and simplification of various rituals. Some argue that the 1955 Holy Week revision established a precedent for the later changes to the liturgy that brought about the Novus Ordo. Others point even farther back, to changes that Pope St. Pius X made to the Liturgy of the Hours.
Ping
I converted to Catholicism, because study convinced me that it, and only it, was the truest, deepest Christianity. Latin and chant had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Very proud of these young people who stand with Jesus’ Church in true faith.
Crud....one kid below average!!! Oh well...got started late in life so I have to be happy with my "small" family. :D
I'm not surprised with you being in support of Holy Communion in the Paw and Extraordinary Eucharistic Monsters.
You're certainly not alone--the way of study into the Catholic Church is the way for plenty of folks.
However, there are also plenty of us who studied the faith (whether as cradle Catholics or converts) and found what passes as the "average" expression of the Ordinary Form to be wanting. Worship that draws deeply on the Church's liturgical tradition (any or all of Latin, chant--both Gregorian and vernacular, reverent celebration by the priest, beautiful and worthy vestments, reverent behavior by those attending) shows that those present believe what they profess to be true--Lex orandi, lex credendi.
This is not to say that others in other parishes don't believe, but no small few of Millennial (mid-30s to early-20s) and Generation Z Catholics find authenticity particularly in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite. It can also be found in reverent celebrations of the Ordinary Form.
As an older Millennial (sometimes called an "Xennial"), what's in this article and the one I just linked ring perfectly true for me. I am a cradle Catholic, but I am a faithful Catholic today because I found the Latin Mass as a college student and it deepened my understanding of how we pray and live the Faith.
I think rather than reporting this abuse, I'll just leave your comment here, so folks can get a glimmer of your true personality.
I grew up in heavily Catholic South Louisiana, had plenty of Catholic friends, attended "TLM" with them on a few occasions LONG before Vatican II, and found Latin a major distraction from following the service (and having the English on the opposite page helped not at all).
The only abuse I see is laypeople manhandling the Body of Christ as if they were passing out hors d’oeuvres.
I have never seen a "layperson" Eucharistic Minister behave with anything other than deep reverence when handling the consecrated host(s) or wine. The "manhandling" is a figment of your imagination.
And receiving "in the hand" is no less reverent than receiving "on the tongue". It's basically all skin contact. I seriously doubt God cares.....it is the reception that matters.
Does every eucharistic monster purify his hands before and after manhandling the Body of Christ?
Does every communicant who receives in the paw purify his paws at the altar after receiving Holy Communion?
If, “No”, to any of the above questions, the Body of Christ is being treated irreverently.
For your further edification:
Do you think God even cares about you "doubt"? Pope Francis doubts there are any souls in Hell, they merely vanish.
Ludicrous. The correct point at your link can be summarized as “fragmentation happens”. It happens whether only the priest and deacon handle the host, whether a paten is held or not, whether an Extraordinary Minister does the handling, or whether the host is received “in the hand” or “on the tongue”.
In ALL of those cases, fragments of the host will ALWAYS be shed and lost, as an inevitable fact of physics. No amount of “purification” after distribution will alter that.
This basically boils down to the same logic of “how many angels can dance on the head of pin”.
In the TLM, once the Body and Blood of Christ are consecrated, the priest never separates his thumb and forefinger until after Holy Communion has been distributed. This is so that no particle of Christ be "lost".
After Holy Communion has been given to ever communicant on the tongue only, the priest then purifies each communion paten over the chalice. Finally the priest's thumbs and forefingers, the only "skin" to have touched the Body of Christ are purified over the same chalice. Finally the priest drinks all the remnants of Body and Blood of Christ from the chalice.
So your claim that, "In ALL of those cases, fragments of the host will ALWAYS be shed and lost, as an inevitable fact of physics. No amount of “purification” after distribution will alter that", shows the absolute abuse Christ suffers in the New Mass as you have admitted.
Have you no reverence for the Body and Blood of Christ in that you are willing accept that His Remnants will be "lost"?
Disgusting.
oh, please. We’re talking about regular Eucharistic usage in parishes...not “World Youth Day”. In a world of X billions of people, I’m one can find photographs of almost anything humanly possible.
Abuse is abuse, no matter where it occurs.
Go ahead and find photographs of Eucharistic abuse at a TLM.
P.S. WYD masses are celebrated by popes. They set great examples for eucharistic monsters.
I’m done. Just tired of the intellectual dishonesty in your mode of debate. You’re obviously a fanatic grinding an ax who is incapable of rational, honest debate. Bye!
Did you ever wonder why the angel at Fatima gave Holy Communion to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco on the tongue only?
Cardinal Sarah: Communion in the hand part of ‘diabolical attack’ on Eucharist
The True Story of Communion in the Hand Revealed
“Whatever You Can Do to Stop Communion in the Hand Will be Blessed by God” ~ Fr. John Hardon S.J.
And you seem to be fine with that:
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