THE VAST MAJORITY OF CATHOLICS WHO STILL ATTEND MASS, ARE HAPPY WITH THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS

Anonymous said...

When Christ was crucified only a handful thought him worthy enough to accompany to Calvary. So it is not the numbers. Anon-1

September 10, 2017 at 6:47 AM

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TJM said...

Happy? Most go out of duty. And besides, you're talking a small minority of Catholics who still go to Sunday Mass. So I wouldn't be to sure about your statement. When I am forced to the Novus Ordo, I just can't wait for Mass to be over, because with rare exception ( you being one of those exceptions), it's so banal and boring.

September 10, 2017 at 9:44 AM

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rcg said...

Nine times that number were happy with the Mass prior to Vatican II. If we are going to base our liturgy on popular vote shouldn't we elect pasters from the convregation like the protestants? But if I take the position that the laity are not really listening then they won't notice the Mass is in Latin, so why not just go back to the EF all the time?

September 10, 2017 at 11:18 AM

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Anonymous said...

Bee here:

I had an interesting conversation today with a non-Catholic about religious orders and the way, for instance, nuns no longer are the teachers in Catholic grade or high schools, nor are they running and staffing hospitals as nurses. I was saying how everything changed after Vatican II, that religious orders were blown up by many of the changes that happened in the Church, and that prior to that obedience and piety were highly valued, and people took their vocations deadly seriously.

And then she asked the million dollar question: "Yes. But were they HAPPY?" and she smiled a "gotcha" smile.

And I said, "Being happy was irrelevant. They were doing God's work on earth, and that took sacrifice and they expected the good that came out of it would cost them a world of suffering. But they expected to be happy in heaven."

She's not Catholic, and may not have much religious background, but I could tell by her reaction she thought that kind of life was stupid.

And then I came home and read Fr. McD's entry, and I thought, yep, there's something about this wanting to be HAPPY now in the Great Apostasy. The world changed to wanting to be happy rather than wanting to be good. No one wanted to defer happiness. It was kind of an overthrow of self-control by the desire for immediate gratification.

(I know this is not news to anyone reading here. I'm just reflecting on Fr. McD's words, "Anything that criticizes what an inidividual [sic] wants or makes him happy is seen as unloving.")

We can wring our hands and say, "Oh, however will we rectify this?" But in truth, I think that ship has sailed long ago. The genie is not going back into the bottle.

I think this is where we say, "Well, we see the problem, but we know telling people to delay gratification in this day and age is like telling them to give up indoor plumbing. Not gonna happen."

Know who knows how to fix this? God. Did anyone think to ask Him? :-)

God bless (and may God protect everyone in the path of the hurricanes out there...)
Bee

September 10, 2017 at 1:16 PM

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John Nolan said...

Benedict XVI did not issue 'authoritative decrees' on the liturgy since he had come to realize that papal meddling had created the crisis in the first place.

Most Catholic services are not worth getting up for, let alone crossing the road for. I know, I've checked them out. I wouldn't eat at a restaurant which served bad food; I wouldn't attend a church which abused the liturgy. Obligation works both ways. I have no time at all for clergy who think they can do what they like because the Poor Bloody Laity are 'obliged' to put up with it.

I've heard of people who endure priests who openly preach heresy. Fortunately, I have yet to encounter it (I'm pretty choosy about where I go), but were I to encounter it I would get up and challenge it. There and then. Error has no rights, least of all the right to a captive audience.

September 10, 2017 at 3:56 PM

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Daniel said...

I'm not sure how many people who sing the praises of the "old Mass" actually remember it and took part.
I do & did.
My early Catholic years were spent at a church where the old Italian ladies passed the Mass by saying the Rosary, because the service was boring, repetitive & not designed for participation and, bonus, conducted largely in a dead language.
That's why it changed!
The idea that everyone was enthralled, engaged and enamored by the old Mass is a historical myth of the good old days -- the same good old days when everybody had a job, everybody went to church, every school was perfect and every mom stayed home with the kids.

September 10, 2017 at 4:21 PM

Daniel said...

By the way, RCG, if "the majority" (more than 50 percent) of Catholics like it, it's mathematically impossible for "nine times that many" to like it before V-II. At least, that's the way the nuns taught me.

September 10, 2017 at 4:25 PM

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TJM said...

Daniel,

Your experience was not mine. At my parish, the Missa Cantata was the norm and the music was glorious, not at all like the banal drivel we are subjected to at most parishes today. AND the laity sang the Latin responses and followed the Mass with their Missals. By the time I was 10 I could chant 5 Latin ordinaries by heart. In OTHER words, our parish was doing what Sacrosanctum Concilium was talking about. Sorry, you grew up where you did, but your experience was not universal. Prior to the Council and the liturgical deforms, it would have been unheard of for anyone in my large, Irish Catholic family to miss Sunday Mass other than for illness. Today, I estimate about 10% attend Sunday Mass. If that's your idea of liturgical and spiritual success, there is nothing more than can be said. And spare me the societal changes nonsense. The deformers set this disaster in motion and still lack the introspection and honesty to admit it.

September 10, 2017 at 4:48 PM

John Nolan said...

Daniel, how come you 'took part' in something which was 'not designed for participation'?

Also, a majority of a small minority can easily represent a figure which can be multiplied by nine, or indeed ninety-nine. Perhaps your nuns were not too hot on maths.

It's presumptive and condescending to suggest that old ladies said the Rosary because they were bored with the service. If they did, then I wouldn't have noticed as I would have been following the Mass in my missal (if I wasn't serving at the altar).

In my little parish the principal Sunday Mass was a sung Mass and the congregation joined in - which is just as well since there was no choir to speak of.

Evelyn Waugh said at the time of Vatican II that to equate participation with making a row was a German trait.

As for Latin being a 'dead language', it was being spoken in Britain before Julius Caesar set foot here in 55BC and since then not a day has passed when it has not been used in this island. And it will still be used when the English you and I speak and write will have changed out of all recognition.

September 10, 2017 at 5:48 PM

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Anonymous said...

Daniel said... By the way, RCG, if "the majority" (more than 50 percent) of Catholics like it, it's mathematically impossible for "nine times that many" to like it before V-II. At least, that's the way the nuns taught me.

You missed the headline. It says "THE VAST MAJORITY OF CATHOLICS WHO STILL ATTEND MASS..."

And then the body of the article uses the figure of 88% of Catholics not attending Mass.

50 percent of 12% is 6%. So, Father is saying somewhere between 6% and 12% of Catholics "like the Mass" nowadays.

Prior to Vatican II, the overwhelming majority of Catholics went to Mass on Sundays, at least here in the U.S., which, since you were there, you know to be true. It is the experience of most of us who were born before that council.

So, putting Mass attendance at 75% in 1958 (a number taken from an article in the National Catholic Reporter, not exactly a bastion of orthodoxy), that 75% figure could most certainly be "nine times that many," depending on which percentages are used for Father's initial assertion.

That's the way the nuns taught math to me.

DJR

September 10, 2017 at 5:51 PM

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Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

TIM promotes the unsupported and demonstrably false notion that Vatican Two caused 90% of his family to stop attending mass. The SAME declines in other mainline churches did not happen because the Catholic church dropped Latin and chant. The SAME drop offs in participation in community service organizations cannot be blamed on hymnody and altar girls.

It's not nonsense, it's reality.

It is understandable that some people want to identify the Boogey Man upon whom we can place all responsibility. Bit that is an avoidance of responsibility. It's a simplistic answer to a complex problem.

September 10, 2017 at 5:56 PM

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Dialogue said...

This is perhaps the best summary of the present situation, Father McDonald. Most Mass-going Catholics are, effectively, practitioners of a new religion that is distinct from Catholicism.

As for Daniel's point, the real point of divergence, it seems to me, is not over whether liturgical reform was needed, but whether such reform was meant to lead Western Catholics deeper into the Roman liturgical tradition, or to abolish this tradition.

September 10, 2017 at 6:17 PM

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James J. said...

Fr Kavanaugh:

The decline in membership of other religious denominations is interesting and certainly reasonable to include in the argument. Seen from the view of my Catholic perspective however, their decline to me is much more understandable, given that our Church had more to bolster it against the counter prevailing winds of our time than other religious denominations, who were built on much weaker foundations

Perhaps this was not a realistic expectation, since in the end we are dealing with human beings. What one would want to know is why, for far too many, their faith was so fragile as it was.

As far as being happy, I think this is (to those on the outside) one of the confounding aspects of Catholicism, that one can give up everything to become a priest and consecrated religious and still be happy.

September 10, 2017 at 7:20 PM

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Joe Potillor said...

I have to admit, as an outside observer, I wouldn't say that people are happy, more along the lines of it's what they have, or they're content. Liturgical wars can be quite spiritually damaging. I remember nearly going crazy over the use of glass kool aid pitchers in my Roman days. It seems to me, the Liturgy should be treated as a gift, and something to be treasured rather than something to be monkeyed around with.

September 11, 2017 at 1:33 AM

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TJM said...

Father Kavanaugh,

Thanks for the laughs and confirming you have no sense of introspection or humility. The Novus Ordo has been a flop, like the Edsel, like New Coke. You're like Hillary, it must have been the way I delivered the message!!!

September 11, 2017 at 9:58 AM

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John Nolan said...

At the same time as we were abandoning our traditional liturgy, the Anglicans were doing the same - indeed there was a cross-fertilization of trendiness. Anglo-Catholics turned their altars around and their traditional religious orders abandoned Latin and chant because this was what the Romans were doing.

They managed to alienate one generation while signally failing to attract the next - just as the Catholic Church has succeeded in doing.

What would have happened if the Catholic Church had not launched herself onto the shifting sands of the 1960s Zeitgeist, and instead stood four-square on her traditional worship and teaching rather than giving the impression that both were up for grabs? Malcolm Muggeridge argued this even before he became a Catholic. Of course, we shall never know, but despite its frantic efforts to be 'dans le vent' the Church is more alienated from the secular world than at any time in her history, and seems, like the Church of England, to be building her house on ambiguity and confusion. Sad times indeed.

September 11, 2017 at 11:08 AM

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Cletus Ordo said...

So the Church is now a democracy?

All that matters is how many people are happy?

If you want to argue that the majority of Catholics are happy with the Novus Ordo, I think it can also be argued that the majority of Catholics don't truly understand what the Mass is.

One group that was DEFINITELY happy about this are the diabolical theologians and bishops who promoted this limp, liturgical lameness to keep the sheep dumbed down. Dumb, but HAPPY! Then again, perhaps now that they have gone on to their just reward, they might not be so happy…if you get my drift.

One more thing Father: I don't want to nitpick, but this drives me crazy. The cliche is supposed to be "COULDN'T care less." If you could care less, then that means that you DO care to some degree.

September 11, 2017 at 11:25 AM

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TJM said...

Daniel,

You are an apologist for failure, self-inflicted failure. The Catholic Church's deforms did a far better job of emptying the pews than Martin Luther ever could have dreamed of. I noticed you NEVER addressed the praxis at my pre-Vatican II parish which largely anticipated the actuosa participatio enunciated by Sacrosanctum Concilium. Figures

September 11, 2017 at 12:02 PM

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rcg said...

Daniel, the various diocese track the numbers closely and can verify the drop in attendance. Also, note another tricky point about percentages: the actual population in the pews might be greater than before perhaps due to the demographics you suggest. But the percentages could be far lower. Again, the diocese report this situation despite claiming the many immigrants coming to live here.

Fr. Kavenaugh points to good candidate for the decline: wealth. I disagree with his conclusion that rugged individualism is part of it, otherwise the would not have all done it together. Rather I think it is faith in the collective that kills the faith in God. Who needs spiritual poverty when we have easy credit?

September 11, 2017 at 1:26 PM

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ByzRC said...

Daniel,

It's a bit much assuming a self-imposed judgement seat regarding someone else's family and their particular experience. It is neither your place nor mine to draw such conclusions.

Pre-council, I'd say attendance was much better than today. In the post WWII neighborhoods in the Northeast, churches were often massive, many having an upper and lower church, 4-6 priests and masses occurring simultaneously on Sunday morning. So many within the laity (and, presumably the clergy as well) were devastated when things changed, seemingly overnight. That which was a feast for all the senses became banal, whitewashed, reduced to a tedious simplicity. Soaring and inspiring high altars were removed or, had a ridiculously out of scale table placed before them. I suppose many who stayed have become content. Their children have largely voted with their feet until they have children and want them to make their sacraments. On the flip side, I'm amazed at how many younger people have embraced the EF, the veil, the hand missal bring the latter 2 to the NO when they go.

The old Italian ladies praying the rosary or engaging in other devotions during mass were likely taught to do so prior to the "Pray the Mass" movement which attempted to move people away from personal devotion or, saying a cycle of prayers while Father celebrated mass to actually following along in their missals and praying the prayers with the priest.

What TJM was outlining was, fortunately, the experience of many here in the Northeast prior to the changes. Though I'm sure many boys at the time liked serving at the altar to get out of class, many also liked serving and that liking lead to many vocations. Things like getting into the choir was viewed as an accomplishment as well. Now, getting kids to serve, assembling a choir is a struggle in many places.

My grandmother's cathedral of a church burnt to the ground in the early 60s. Fortunately, despite the storm clouds on the horizon, no one wanted modern and, therefore, a traditional structure with replica high and side altars was built and consecrated in 1966. Mass was celebrated ad orientem until almost 1980. I distinctly remember this growing up and was awe struck by that and what I now know to be a traditional approach to the celebration of mass. Had that not been my experience growing up (with bongo drums, maracas, tambourines and babbling charismatics at my home parish - way too weird for me), not sure if I would still be attending today.

September 11, 2017 at 2:30 PM