[Desdemona]

I'm defintely not going to argue the architecture and music and you know that. I've been complaining about that forever. Believe me, my complaints fall on deaf ears, too. I honesly believe it has a lot to do with indoctrination of warm fuzzies not actually by the church, but the larger culture. There's a good deal of ignorance involved. And a bit of the "if you say black, I'm going to say white" mentality in arguing.

But, not having been around before the changes, I have no way of knowing. There are a lot of us in that position. But, I also reognize that wholesale change in the other direction, right now, is going to alienate a lot of people, some of whom are the main financial supporters in some places. There's too much to consider to just blanketly make reversions without convincing the people that it's necessary.

[ultima ratio]

Two points. First, why should the larger culture matter? Do you think the Church didn't have its hands full during the Roman Empire? Do you think the Church had it easy during and after the French Revolution? The Church has always had to buck the larger culture. But it has always stuck to its principles and beliefs, even through persecution. It never joined forces with the larger culture.

Second, if Catholics like being Protestants, then let them become Protestants and leave. Catholicism is a faith. It adheres to certain doctrinal truths. Traditionalists ask only that these be given their due in Catholic theological, cultural and liturgical life. If nominal Catholics can't accept this, then let them go elsewhere--which is what the modernists more or less told traditionalists to do in 1970. It was then that millions upon millions walked away--though nobody in liberal Rome seemed to give a damn.