“The solution is staring the bishops in the face”

My Thoughts

One of the BIG problems facing people (especially the young) in the Church is a lack of community and continuity, [RIGHT… continuity is HUGE.] What the Traditional Orders (I’ll include the SSPX in here for practical purposes) do well is that they provides both e.g:

1) In an ordinary Diocese, a Priest will often be moved around once every 5 years or so (there are exceptions but they are exceptions) and a new Priest very often feels the need to ‘make his mark’ on the parish by dismantling something that his predecessor did and start over.

2) Whilst Traditional Priests are reassigned, generally his replacement will either have served under him as an assistant Priest in the same Parish or be the assistants replacement. In either case there is continuity for the Parishioners.

3) In my experience Traditional Priests will actually organize and maintain devotions at a Parish level e.g. at the SSPX chapel where I attend Mass, there is the Rosary every day Monday – Saturday in the afternoon with the Angelus said afterword.

4) My experience is that not only do you have families at Traditional Parishes, but multiple generations of the same family, this means that even if it is impossible for a working father to see his parents during the week, but he knows he will see them at Sunday Mass.

“I think there are some bishops who would burn the diocese to the ground and sew the land with salt before they would let a parish go entirely Extraordinary Form.”

So, so sad.

[Perhaps we could try something out of the box… like giving parishes over to traditional worship and preaching.]

This is what our Archbishop did in our case. We had been renting a church from the local Polish church ( for a Sunday afternoon TL Mass). Started with about 60 people. We persevered for 3 years. Finally he gave us an old Slovak church that was built in 1911 by the ethnic Slovaks. We were assigned a FSSP priest. We have now entered our third year here and have grown from our 60 or so folks to over 350 plus we have our second priest. Masses seven days a week, from low Masses to Sunday Sung High Mass. Have even had several Solemn High Masses in 2017. Excited to begin 2018.

You are correct Fr., it can be done.

Hmmm… that’s an interesting analysis. It does depend on numbers, sadly, or population-density, which in the case of the U.K. is huge – hence immigrants such as those of Eastern rites are a lot more prevalent – for lots of historical reasons, not least Empire etc. – and thus churches could be allocated to them. Not so much where I live, in N.E. Ireland, the most populated part of the country but still pretty sparse by European standards. So we have a lot of declining parishes, but nothing like the immigrant Catholic/ Eastern influx that might sustain or revive them such as other European countries have. Don’t get me going on why the indigenous population can’t do that :(

And yet… and yet… the Inst. of Christ the King took over a glorious 19th century abandoned former Jesuit church in Limerick and have literally, with much practical hard work, and prayer, restored it, both liturgically (of course!) and architecturally. It was going to be sold-off for a health centre, or some such. Now, it’s a health centre alright :) So even here, with small population and lots of indifference, it can happen.

Mind you, that’s in one of our larger cities – not large by international standards, of course. Outside – yes, there’s still a problem. But I like to think that the seeds are being sown – not far from me is Silverstream Priory, for example, which Fr. Z has often featured.

https://www.google.ie/url?q=https://www.cenacleosb.org/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwia2-3w-8TYAhUHCMAKHUyZAsMQFgg7MAo&usg=AOvVaw1rlbbrFnKwENHvOOIjQ4xM

All this was pretty much unimaginable just 20 years ago – I honestly never thought I’d see it, and I was only 37 then but already getting a bit a apathetic, managed decline seeming to be the order of the day. Now, thanks be to God, not so. I do think the internet has had so much to do with that, not least this blog.