[Mrs. Don-o]

We need to keep in mind that what is important about the Mass is not the infidelity of men but the fidelity of God, who makes the Novus Ordo valid not by our virtue, but by His promise.

Keep reading.

And the really important, and really interesting people in the Catholic Church, are not the priests, nor even the popes, but the saints.

And with that I say: will you not stay in he Church --- in the Communion of Saints --- with (OK, I'll name a half dozen or so of my favorites)

• the reformer of popes, Catherine of Siena,
• the singular and obstinate Athanasius,
• the tormented Vincent Ferrar,
• the brilliant, honest Robert Bellarmine,
• the mighty-hearted Edmund Campion,
• the tireless inquisitor Turibius of Mongrovejo,
• the driven and inimitable Paul.

Do you think the "situations," including the religious milieux, in which these sainted people lived, were any less troubled? The Church less conflicted? The times less dangerous? The clergy less compromised? The Powers that Be less menacing? The World, the Flesh, and the Devil less crafty and seductive?

Come on, IbJensen. Even if this Noah's Ark of a Church is full of a thousand aggravating squawks and stinks, even if we have to shovel sh*t off the deck every day of our lives, it's The Ark. We're afloat. It looks like the baboons and macacas are in charge, and (new metaphor) Jesus is seemingly asleep on the foredeck, but He knows everything, calls saints, gives glory to martyrs, and can calm the wind and waves any time He wants to.

Get back on the boat. Stop your "No Thanks, I'll Swim" schism. Trust the saints, who lived in communion with worse popes (Pope Alexander VI, anyone? Pope John XII? Pope Urban VI?) --- and in harder times than yours.

[IbJensen]

You are a good person, Mrs. Don; however, I can’t bring myself to worship in a building that resembles an aircraft hangar. I can’t abide the noisy gossip that goes before every ‘service’ that points out painfully that those gathering can’t possibly believe that something important is going to happen. (One can hardly call these masses.)

I have great angst with the guitar music and new hymns, the lack of seeing a tabernacle in the middle of a real altar. The confessionals are relegated to some obscure place in the structure and the lack of pictures, icons, statues of the Holy Family and Saints are nowhere to be found in some of these places.

And, most importantly, there is no catholicity about the new church. Before the radical changes one could travel anywhere in the world and understand the mass and what it meant. Today, it’s an impossibility.

There is much more on my mind, but it’s sad to keep thinking about what’s happened to Christ’s Church on earth.

And then, of course, there is a complete lack of decorum on the part of today’s clergy. They shuffle about what passes for a sanctuary in sport clothes and even enter the confessional dressed as a layman. “Don’t call me Father Jones, call me Father Bill.”