A fad for young fogeys, or the authentic spirit of Catholicism?

timesonline.co.uk ^ | May 17, 2003 | Bess Twiston Davies

[Polycarp]

“I was amazed when the families started coming to the old-rite Mass,” says St Bede’s parish priest, Father Christopher Basden. “It went against all our 1970s assumptions that what modern Catholics wanted was a liturgy that was relaxed, contemporary, a bit jazzy.”

[Loyalist]

PING from a young fogey to the other fogies, young, old and middle-aged.

[Romulus]

This morning, from the pulpit, my pastor predicted that the Pope will use the occasion of Cardinal Castrillon's Tridentine Mass at S. Maria Maggiore (next week) to announce a universal indult for the old rite. We shall see.

[narses]

“The Tridentine Mass would interest only 5 per cent or perhaps 1 per cent of the people in the pews,”

The Modernists talking point response. And yet, to avoid the issue, they ruthlessley have tried to supress the Tridentine Rite for 40 years. This is FEAR talking. This is the same issue fought every generation in the Church, Man centric or God centric. The Modernist Man-Centric are in a panic. As they should be.

[Maximilian]

“The Tridentine Mass would interest only 5 per cent or perhaps 1 per cent of the people in the pews,”

The Modernists talking point response. And yet, to avoid the issue, they ruthlessley have tried to supress the Tridentine Rite for 40 years.

Amazing, narses, how you managed to hit the nail on the head. I have seen email documentation of the fact that the very priest who was quoted in this article, Fr. Bruno Healy, himself destroyed a Latin Mass community and turned it from a thriving parish into a shell of its former self. HE certainly wants to destroy the traditional liturgy of the Catholic Church, but it's not clear that the laity want to go along with him. Here's an example of Fr. Healy's other activities when he's not bad-mouthing the Catholic Mass:

"Fr Bruno has led one of a series of ecumenical pilgrimages with the Methodists entitled "Seeing and Believing in Stillness" (where is this is in the Catholic creeds!). All the other participants in the series were women in the pretend orders of various protestant denominations."

[JNB]

I actually agree, that 5% of Catholics will be intrested in thge Tridentine mass, but that 5% will produce enough vocations to achieve a sort of critical mass to retore the liturgy to the rets of the Roman Rite.

[Desdemona]

These developments are not universally welcome. ...“There are young fogeys who like it but I think they are just chasing something esoteric. Their interest mystifies and saddens me. ... and I think most priests would say that it is wonderful to speak to people in their own tongue.”

I've heard these sentiments, practically verbatim, almost all my life - and therein lies the problem. The people saying Mass really don't know the people in the pews or what we need to be fed. The liturgists don't know their "audience" (please indulge me just this once). THey know thier own wants and tastes and nothing else. And they aren't interested in anything beyond that.

I'm really hoping this comes to pass and that more people will be amazed. Just being in a silent church as opposed to one where there is constant noise makes such a difference. It's so much more conducive to prayer.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Their interest mystifies and saddens me

Father Healy, your lack of interest mystifies and saddens me.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Young fogey bump!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Last year, 81 men sought 16 places at the US seminary of the Fraternal Society of St Peter,

What a lack of interest!!

/sarcasm off

[narses]

When I'm right (and it does happen) it is the Holy Spirit that inspires me. Let's not talk about when I'm not. :)

[narses]

What do you base that 5% belief on?

[ninenot]

For what it's worth, I think all the numbers are pure speculation.

Further, the "popularity" of the Old Rite (irrelevant as such a word may be in context) would be 100% if it were offered at 10AM and Noon on Sundays.

The upcoming letters from Rome in December will be MUCH more interesting than any universal indult--which was almost a 'given' after the year's negotiations with SSPX et al. Those letters will likely contain fairly stringent guidelines which will (ideally) bring the NO some consistency and standards which are theologically-grounded.

It's also likely that ICEL will permanently lose its "franchise"--if not in December, soon thereafter.

[american colleen]

I've never prayed for anything so hard.

It's going to take a lot of prayer and fasting for what you say to come to pass. Unless what comes out of the Vatican is encouraged and enforced by the bishops, let's face it, most priests will continue on "as you were." I haven't heard a whisper about this stuff in my own parish. And I am at Mass 3 times per week, Adoration twice during the Friday morning 2 1/2 hours we have it, and any grunt job that I can do. Nary a word.

[JNB]

Some polls I have read in the past that said around 10% of Catholics would like to see Latin to return to the mass and a return of traditional rubrics. I think First Things ran the poll a couple of years back. There also is a large number of Catholcis who are simpily tired of the banal nature of the normative mass from 12 EEMs being on the altar to a altar server corps made mostly of altar girls, and horrible hymnals. I by no means think even close to a majority or even a large minority of Catholics would go to the Tridentine mass, but I think far more would go to the Tridentine mass than they are today if it was made more widley avilable. Again, if only 5% of Catholics go to the Tradeitional mass, the vocations produced by this 5% will come to dominate the clergy in the next generation.

[BlackElk]

Apparently, Fr. Bruno Healy hasn't heard the news from Rome via Inside the Vatican's interview by Robert Moynihan) of Cardinal Arinze who is preparing the gurney and the lethal injection for the gross irreverencies which have become so common in NO liturgy. The good cardinal will be issuing a statement later this year on behalf of his curial agency on the Liturgy and he summed up its contents by saying in the interview: The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace!

[Salvation]

Bumping!

[Salvation]

**PING from a young fogey to the other fogies, young, old and middle-aged.**

LOL! Glad you included me!

[Salvation]

Prayer and 24/7 Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament!

That's what it will take to bring this about.