Let Us Pray: A Call for More Orthodoxy, and Latin Mass, for the Troubled Church

The New York Times, New Jersey section (not published online) | May 26, 2002 | Benedicta Cipolla

[MarMema]

Good post, and I think you are on the right track.
Keep working and good luck!

[B Knotts]

Thank you both for the info. My church is going to be priestless on one Sunday morning in a couple of weeks. I might take that as an opportunity to experience the traditional Mass.

[Pushi]

If the RCC had not sacked tradition, my wife and I would probably be RCs now instead of Missouri Synod Lutherans. We left the Episcopal Church because it sacked tradition. I met with the local RC priest. After listening to my views on things, he told me that I should not bother joinging the RCC because it was going down the same road as the Episcopal Church. How right he was! I really appreciated his candor and vision--I can only believe that he did not want a couple more unhappy, maybe rabblerousing communicants on his hands.

[Coleus]

Yes, let's go back to the good old days, before my time, but I heard they were good :)

We need to go back to a time when we were taught that there were consequences for our indiscretions and sins, that fear of the Lord was a gift of the Holy Spirit.

[ELS]

Thanks.

It is what we believe - what you do, say, and how you act externally is a lead to your (internal) piety, as well as expressive of it.

The Latin phrase lex orandi, lex credendi says basically the same thing - the rule of prayer dictates the rule of belief or what you exhibit externally reflects what you believe internally. The inimitable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, "If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave."

[ELS]

You beat me to the Archbishop Sheen quote!

[ELS]

After listening to my views on things, he told me that I should not bother joinging the RCC

Well, he is going to have to answer for that. You are always welcome to join us.

[MarMema]

I am so impressed with the posts on this thread, speaking as an outside cheerleader. This group could save your church single-handed.

Reverence and mystery are important in worship.
If your crisis brings about change as you posters are discussing here, it could be all worth it in the end.

This is a great thread.
GO, Catholics!!!

[stripes1776]

The traditional liturgy has little appeal to Protestants. They do not understand it and never will. Catholics made the mistake of trying to be more like Protestants. It was a huge mistake.

I am often amazed at the poverty of Protestants when it comes to understanding the significance or forms.

[BlackVeil]

"I'm a child of the 1970s and grew up when guitar masses, clown masses, pandering homilies, and liturgical dancing were all the vogue. The result was that us kids had no respect or reverence for the service ... " Groan. I remember all that. Wasn't it awful? Moreover, I am ten years older than you, so I could vaguely remember the graceful older forms, being replaced by a continuous cavalcade of change. Very irreverent, most of it.

[Pushi]

fanticize? I am just saying what might have been.

[MarMema]

If the RCC had not sacked tradition

Without tradition, where would we be?

[MarMema]

Are you saying Catholics can't learn Latin? After trying the Latin Mass, I decided I liked it. In fact, I preferred it.

It can be lovely to worship in another language, especially an older one. My children did fine with Old Church Slavonic for a lot of years.

[MarMema]

The priest facing the congregation "encourages improvisation," said Professor Phillips, relating an anecdote about a priest who interrupted a Mass to inform the congregation that it was his birthday. The New Mass, he said, encourages such ad-libbing because it is celebrated in English, and also because the priest is "looking at the people, and wants to tell them something."

WOW. Now I am really getting excited. Is it true that your priests used to face the altar, as ours still do?

[BlackElk]

You would be very surprised at the high percentage of the attendees at our Tridentine St. Mary's Shrine in Rockford (fully in accord with the leadership of our very Catholic Bishop Thomas Doran) who are young couples with large numbers of children.

[BlackElk]

You would be surprised at the very substantial percentage of attendees in the Tridentine Rite who are convert/refugees from mainline Protestant Churches and, in the case, of our shrine in Rockford, how many Protestants like them are singing in the choir and attending as well, hopefully on their way to conversion.

[BlackElk]

At every traditional (Tridentine) Roman Catholic Mass, the priest faces the altar with his back to the congregation or main body of it. It is only the new Mass or Novus Ordo that allows for the celebrity style (Hi, my name is Bob and I'll be your presider today) of priest who seems all too often to imagine that he, not Christ, is the focus of the Mass.

BTW, the late Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say that he would never belong to the Catholic Church either if it was what its critics claimed it was.

[St.Chuck]

Let me get this straight.An English mass fosters sins....

Nope...you didn't get this straight. Perhaps you should wear a bigger shoe.