Why would you take middle school kids to a Tridentine Latin Mass? Seriously. Is a 13 year old going to have any clue about the significance of a Mass that has not been the norm in forty years?
Why should we teach middle school kids about Apostolic succession, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the Saints and Scripture? Seriously, why bother teaching children any history of the Church established by Jesus Christ. Two millennia of truth is nothing but minutia to these kids anyway. Let's teach them moral relativism since that appears to be the norm here and now.
For some reason, I knew you would reply to me on this issue!
Just because it might not be the "norm" doesn't make it irrelevant or useless. It has meaning and beauty and is a part of our Catholic heritage and tradition. Some things that are accepted as the "norm" today are unacceptable to Christians - like abortion, euthanasia, etc.
First off, understand the situation. These are kids (ages probably 11 - 14) who hopefully will join this group and keep membership through HS. There is no Catholic HS or middle school that they can attend. The parish has done nothing but run CCD classes that all the kids hate attending because they are boring and noisy. The CCD books used are silly and could be used by any Christian group, they are the "hand-holding", Jesus loves you, love your neighbor type books. The overwhelming sentiment from parents and kids is that they will attend CCD until Confirmation and then stop coming. Recently, 47 kids from our parish who graduated this week were invited to a Baccalauriate Mass and Luncheon in the parish hall. Fully 6 of them attended. The Parish having meaning in their lives has been made irrelevant. That is the fault of us parents and the parish.
Our vision of this group is to do fun stuff geared toward being part of a "Catholic Community," these kids will be there because they want to be there, not like the CCD classes. We will be doing some community service (old age homes, unwed mothers program in a nearby city), some church service (tending the gardens, etc), some fun things (amusement parks, cookouts), and incorporating the "Catholic life" in these things, progressively, not immediately. You can't take the kids to a Latin Mass right away, it has to be part of an ongoing program, IMO, and there has to be some interest. I was just surprised that the nun jumped on that aspect in a negative way, right away, I almost expected her to hold up a crucifix to ward me off.
One of the saddest things I hear "on the street" and sometimes here on FR, is the former Catholics who say "no one ever told me that" or "I never learned that" or "we weren't encouraged to read the Bible" - that is just needless. I'm quite sure a lot of Catholic kids do not realize that the Bible is read extensively at Mass and that they hear it in its entirety in 3 years. Do many kids know what the rosary is or how to say it? Do they realize that Mass is exactly the same at every Catholic Church in the world? How about Fatima and Lourdes? How about an alternative to having sex while they are teenagers? Have many of them been in an "old fashioned" Catholic Church with altar kneelers and the Tabernacle on the center altar? WOULD they be interested in how the Mass was said for centuries until about 40 years ago? Do they know why Mass was said in Latin?
Catholicism didn't just spring up, we are part of a 2,000 year old Catholic Christian family, and that is something that kids should know. Otherwise, this sort of group could be run out of the local public schools.
Are you serious? It's called education. Thirteen year olds are a lot smarter than you think. Do you believe in takingg children to museums? ``Is a 13 year old going to have an clue about the significance of dinosaurs that have not walked the earth in thousands of years?''