Replies

It does become tiresome when someone who claims to be Catholic pretends to the right to judge what he is not competant to judge. If I am a lawyer, I may SAY that Roe v. Wade is unconstititional, beased on MY reading of law. That does not mean MY reading is in any way authoitative. Only a court is authoritative. Now I know this is not simply a matter of legal authority, but one does not get anywhere simply by railing against competant authority. I agree w ith you about many particular criticism of the new mass. I think it simplistic to blame decline in faith in the Trusde Presence,for instance, simply on it. The basic problem is not the mass but the failure of priests and nuns and religion teachers to support the doctrine in a clear and unambiguous way.

Look, the old Mass is traditional. It is Catholic. It has evolved over two millenia under the aegis of the Holy Spirit. Up until thirty years ago it was the traditional Mass of the Catholic Church. The new Mass was INVENTED by a committee. It did NOT evolve, it has NO divine protection, it is deficient theologically and aesthetically--so much so that ever since its institution it has been the subject of criticism and talk of reform. Now I didn't dream this stuff up. One Mass is traditional, the other is not. Do I need a pope or a tribunal to tell me this? Or to tell me that Assisi is not traditional or that kissing the Koran is not traditional or that pouring libations in a Togo forest is not traditional?

It is infuriating to have somebody like yourself claim such nonsense. We have two thousand years of history, of saintly testimony, of councils, of papal encyclicals, even of living witnesses today, to guide us. We don't need a Vatican bureaucrat, or even the Pope himself, to decide what's traditional--especially when we see these are the very ones doing all they can to destroy everything traditional in sight. Such a perspective is ludicrous.

I follow Tradition. It is the Tradition of the Catholic Church as it has been known and practiced for two thousand years. I have two thousand years of popes and councils behind me. All you have is a couple of misguided popes and a single ambiguous pastoral council. Yet you opt for revolution against everything that went before, rather than for Sacred Tradition. Fine. Now watch as the mess unravels. This new thing of yours cannot possibly be blessed. It is being left to its own core devices--which are corrupt and heretical.