we have no books to open at our church....and since the renovation the acoustics remain poor after much tweaking and additional monies spent....we have no kneelers.....and the church was turned on its side with a new altar built...anyway...I hope you get my drift....I have to travel to the next diocese in the next county for anything different. I do as much as I can.
Sounds like your diocese got wreckovated.
I'm not sure where you are, but in the South we just seem to be a lot more traditional overall, probably because Catholics have been pretty thin on the ground here for years (and still are to some extent), so that they tend to be just as Catholic as they can possibly be, just to show.
I really like it that way, myself. Why be Catholic if you're not going to BE Catholic (I used to be Episcopalian).