You imply here that the Novus Ordo is responsible for the decline in faith? I wholeheartedly disagree! Dusty Rose spoke of humanism in his #37 post. I will say secular humanism and modernism have taken their toll on Christianity. These problems were present in the later half of the nineteenth as well as the entire twentieth century. Proportionalism and consequentialism grew out of a Legalistic (nominalistic) morality. The Holy Father addressed this issue in Veritatis Splendor to the chagrin of the majority of contemporary moral theologians. Coupled with awful catechesis and UNCHECKED and UNMANAGED dissent(the bishops opened the barn yard gates and let every predator run fancy free) people lost faith. Bring back the Tridentine Low Mass or High Mass with all its latin and you'll not improve attendance one iota. Go back to the basics and you watch. Where people are being taught proper catechetics, there is great renewal. And this is all in a Novus Ordo environment. I have my disagreements with certain things in the NO and a lot of agita over the way some priests celebrate it (down right sacrilegious) but I wouldn't want to go back to the Low Mass.
When the NO was implemented, no vote was taken or considered at the time. What do you suppose the results would have been if they had? I'd wager Church-goers would overwhelmingly reject the NO in favor of the Tridentine. Do you disagree?
YES!
What makes Latin more reverent than English?
Pope John XXIII, the "father of the Council," decreed in 1962 that Latin must always remain the language of the Church. This was the same year that Vatican II opened. You can read the whole encyclical here:
The apostolic constitution Veterum Sapientia
Pope John pointed out:
Thus the "knowledge and use of this language," so intimately bound up with the Church's life, "is important not so much on cultural or literary grounds, as for religious reasons." These are the words of Our Predecessor Pius XI, who conducted a scientific inquiry into this whole subject, and indicated three qualities of the Latin language which harmonize to a remarkable degree with the Church's nature. "For the Church, precisely because it embraces all nations and is destined to endure to the end of time . . of its very nature requires a language which is universal, immutable, and non vernacular."Its "concise, varied and harmonious style, full of majesty and dignity" makes for singular clarity and impressiveness of expression.
That's a fair question, due to my phrasing. But that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I was specifically addressing sinkspur's point about the popularity of the NO as a basis for rejecting the Tridentine.
You make many good points about Secular Humanism and Modernism with which I totally agree. Those are certainly the root causes of our current crisis. However, it seems to me that the NO is far more susceptible to corruption by these forces than the old Mass. Does that mean the Novus Ordo caused the corruption? No. However it opens a question about whether one of our best defenses has been replaced by something that isn't nearly as good at the job.
What makes Latin more reverent than English?
That's a disingenuous question. Surely you understand there are more differences between the old Mass and the NO than the language. In fact, according to Vatican II, the normative language of the Novus Ordo is supposed to remain Latin, though bishops throughout the world have ignored this.
However, in pursuit of an answer to your question, you might the past few centuries of Church apologetics addressing that topic. It has been a common accusation of Protestants against the Mass since the reformation. It is rather disheartening to hear Catholics attack their own traditions in the same terms.
I wholeheartedly agree!