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I will be the first to say that Traditionalists do not make a good name for themselves, but I do not blame your friend at all for pulling her children out of a CCD class. I know that many parish' try to softpeddal CCD as much as possible, and yoru friend would be too hard edged, to truthful for their tastes.

The traditionalists do indeed have a seige mentality, but look at why they have a seige mentality. They have had novelty after novelty, all in the name of worshipping like the "Early Church" shoved down their throat, they have had horrible liturgical music shoved down their throat, they have had EMEs and altar girls shoved down their throat, they have been treated like dirt by Bishop after Bishop, and priest after priest. The self appointed laity who are on parish councils I think are every bit as arrogant as many trads can be. As for joy, I am sorry, but false joy is also shoved down too many peoples throats.

I myself am hardly a rad trad, and currently I attend a Novus Ordo mass in English(though the parish has no altar girls, no female lectors, no EMEs and uses the communion rail and the nice Collegeville hymnal), but I myself would be very selective on telling Catholics and potential converts to the faith on where to attend mass. 2 years ago, I had no clue what the Eucharist was, and still didnt have a clear idea of the sacrafical nature of the mass untill I almost literally stumbled in a SSPX chapel out of mere curiosity. I finally realised the sacrafical nature of the mass.

Again, I do not approve of how many trads act, it has done great damage to the movment, and its painful to see them act in such a way, but they did not adopt a seige mentality for no reason, and unless the parish' that use the normative missal clean up their act dramatically, like the one I attend, then more Catholics will end up becoming traditionalists out of fustration. When the Novus Ordo is properly translated, when the OCP/GIA hymnals are thrown away, when the "Sprit of Vatican II" is finally relegated to the past, when altar girls are supressed, when all priests and deacons assigned to a parish get off their duff and give out communion at every day of obligation mass, then proponents of the Novus Ordo will have no leg to stand on.

Lastly Tiki, SSPXers are Catholics, they have a valid mass, and valid sacraments. The worst that can be said about schismatics is they are equivlent to Eastern Orthdox.

I was just thinking of our last priest. He was a mess! He started using the inclusive language and he did so many things wrong. He was aslo gone a lot and didn't give us enough warning to get another priest for Sunday Masses so we'd just have Communion services which weren't announced beforehand so you thought you were going to Mass and ended up with a communion service. And once we didn't even have a Deacon but a NUN!

Needless to say, I was fit to be tied, I thought of my options and they were...stay where you are. That was the only option. For some reason, God sent us that priest, I didn't like it but there are a lot of things in this world that I don't like. Leukemia in children, hunger, pain, poverty of body and poverty of soul, that's why I want to spend my eternity in Heaven!

I got along with this priest, he wasn't unkind and he really thought he was being good and I tried to gently steer him to what I thought was the right path but he was immovable. So I did the only other thing I knew to do and that was to pray to God to send us another priest if He saw fit. And God answered and His answer was yes.

I wanted to get all hopeless a few times. I wanted to yell at the priest a few times. Many times I didn't feel I had been to Mass at all but I just submitted myself to the will of God. God has a purpose, a time and a season and He didn't choose me to run the Church, to excommunicate the apostates and unbelievers, to punish, or to judge, He chose me just to say yes and bend to His will when I can discern it.