Wars and rumors of wars on the TLM and Summorum Pontificum”?

Personally, I don't think suppression of the Latin rite has much to do with the mass itself but with all the changes that were made in the liturgy that put the church down the path to ecumenicism with all the other religions of the world. It is a red herring IMO. The 1962 missal had significant changes to it that primed the pump so to speak toward the god of willing all religions and all his surprises we are constantly reminded of.
No matter what we should all just stop praying for the Jews and Lutherans and just give up on the societal impact the church has on the world around it for 2000 years via popes who actually condemned heresy and perversions and warned the faithful. Instead we should all embrace the world and just love it as it is no matter what. We can all see how well that is working out by following Fr James Martin on Twitter.

 

I think, Lex orandi, lex credenti, lex vivandi, the way we pray influences and the way we believe and so the way we live. The three are tied into each other. I suspect those who are doing the very best they can to outlaw the Old Mass have a very good understanding of this.

In other words going to the Old Mass will say a lot and influence our Theology and even the very way we live our lives.

 

I noticed this especially with the Rosary which I began to pray, taught by Our Lady as soon as I converted about 38 years ago, for years very intensively.

Our Lady asks again and again that we say the rosary again and again at her apparitions and does so with great force and urgency.

Well one of the ways saying the rosary effected me after a while was that in Church when I heard a priest say something false or wrong in Church I knew at once and this sense grew stronger and stronger as the years grew onwards. In other words I became more more authentically Catholic. Whereas before , I suppose like most Catholic I kind of drifted along Also of course saying the rosary has very strongly affected the way I live my life. You know if it did not affect my life what good would it have been in the first place?

I am very happy in my own skin, very at peace with solitude, For about 36 years I never stop praying, praying is the same as breathing for me and it was the rosary brought me to this point.

 

As to the Old Mass and it's present influence. Well for the most part it fits me like an old shoe. It is not so much that it has changed me but that it fitted so well the way I have become. In a sense I had outgrown the 1960's mass and so going to the Old Mass was for m ea coming home.

However I did and have noticed it s effects on the Congregation in general and they mostly seem to me to be superb. For instance during the Lock downs all the other Churches closed right down in the city while ours was the only one that stayed open for Adoration and for mass in secret. Also for confessions. The only one in the entire city and Diocese, this Diocese being the Second largest in Ireland . This says a very great deal in itself. Also the large, the very large crowds that came to pray there from all over the city.

I also noticed, very often the kind of people who have started to frequent out Church. Because of my shifts, down the years I Worshipped in many different Parishes down the years and got to know folks. It really startled me to see people from all different Parishes who are really the cream of the crop. The best that their Home Parishes had to offer. This cannot be an accident.

Another thing I noticed was the amount of young people coming to Mass. This is simply stunning. It goes directly against the current flow in the Church. A wonderful sign of the active presence of the Holy Spirit. A Confirmation if you will.

Yet another the Silence. You may well count this as a very small thing but for me it is not. I go to Church simply to pray and receive the Sacraments. That's the bottom line. In many Churches the talking, the loud talking and laughter is more prominent than it might be in say, a shopping centre or pub. More than this it is often priests and nuns who at the centre of this.

I love the return to the old Devotions, Adoration, the rosary, Marian Devotions and so on.

I love the fact that the priest does not get between me and God and does not any longer be the main actor in some kind of play. He does not get between me and God. Also the fact I do not any longer have to be on my guard .

I love the incense, I love the rich vestments. I love the music, I love the statues, I Love the reverence, I love the flowers, I love the lack of fear and no damned masks...it really truly is like coming home..

 

Yes Padraig. It is like coming home. It IS home. The closest we get to our real home on earth. Cardinal Newman remarked that those who find the Mass boring or incidental won't like heaven much because heaven IS the Mass. (Of course he was speaking of the TLM.) "Oh Lord I love the beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory dwells."
I concur about the great gift of the Rosary. I especially noted your observation that it hones our awareness of heresy or things not quite right. Our Lady had given us this great gift of her special prayer--placing us with her in the great moments of our salvation. We literally enter in--to us it is a remembering and contemplating but to the enemy it is the actual moment of the Mystety and they flee. They can't be there when we are immersed in the Rosary. (This is according to Marino Restrepo who was gifted with much infused knowledge in his radical and powerful illumination of conscience)

 

Padraig, I agree with your post, and I especially like where you said that you don’t have to be on your guard. Well said. How true.

 

A Buddhist Temple can have a lot of reverence too with incense and lotus flowers and ancient scrolls, I think ultimately it begins with the individual.

 

This post had me puzzled for a moment. For which came or comes first, the chicken or the egg? The Church or the individual soul? The baby or the family? Clearly they , the individual and the the Church walk to Eternity hand in hand.

The idea of the individual as primary and stand alone strikes me as as a Protestant liturgical and theological understanding rather than a truly Catholic one. A good explanation as to why Protestant Churches have such low attendance and are closing at a phenomenal rate.

(It also explains why 1960's Rite Catholic Churches are imploding, they have Protestantized themselves and so are suffering the same fate as the Protestant Sects).

As to the reference to Buddhist worship I simply do not comprehend the relevance. It appears to be a distraction. You lost me on that one. What difference does it make to Catholics what way some Buddhist Sects choose to Worship? That is up to themselves.

In either case I regard Buddhism as a Philosophy rather than a true religion.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/232226/church-attendance-among-catholics-resumes-downward-slide.aspx

Catholics' Church Attendance Resumes Downward Slide
by Lydia Saad




From 2014 to 2017, an average of 39% of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days. This is down from an average of 45% from 2005 to 2008 and represents a steep decline from 75% in 1955.

By contrast, the 45% of Protestants who reported attending church weekly from 2014 to 2017 is essentially unchanged from a decade ago and is largely consistent with the long-term trend.

As Gallup first reported in 2009, the steepest decline in church attendance among U.S. Catholics occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, when the percentage saying they had attended church in the past seven days fell by more than 20 percentage points. It then fell an average of four points per decade through the mid-1990s before stabilizing in the mid-2000s. Since then, the downward trend has resumed, with the percentage attending in the past week falling another six points in the past decade.

This analysis is based on multiple Gallup surveys conducted near the middle of each decade from the 1950s through the present. The data for each period provide sufficient sample sizes to examine church attendance among Protestants and Catholics, the two largest religious groups in the country, as well as the patterns by age within those groups. The sample sizes are not sufficient to allow for analysis of specific Protestant denominations or non-Christian religions.

Less Than Half of Older Catholics Are Now Weekly Churchgoers

In 1955, practicing Catholics of all age groups largely complied with their faith's weekly mass obligation. At that time, roughly three in four Catholics, regardless of their age, said they had attended church in the past week. This began to change in the 1960s, however, as young Catholics became increasingly less likely to attend. The decline accelerated through the 1970s and has since continued at a slower pace. (See tables at the end of this article for all trend figures.)

Meanwhile, since 1955, there has also been a slow but steady decline in regular church attendance among older Catholics. This includes declines of 10 points or more in just the past decade among Catholics aged 50 and older, leading to the current situation where no more than 49% of Catholics in any age category report attending church in the past week.

To maintain consistency with earlier Gallup polling when the sample population was age 21 and older, this analysis defines the youngest age group as those aged 21 to 29 rather than the 18- to 29-year age range typically examined in modern polling.

From 2014 to 2017, an average of 39% of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days. This is down from an average of 45% from 2005 to 2008 and represents a steep decline from 75% in 1955.

By contrast, the 45% of Protestants who reported attending church weekly from 2014 to 2017 is essentially unchanged from a decade ago and is largely consistent with the long-term trend.

As Gallup first reported in 2009, the steepest decline in church attendance among U.S. Catholics occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, when the percentage saying they had attended church in the past seven days fell by more than 20 percentage points. It then fell an average of four points per decade through the mid-1990s before stabilizing in the mid-2000s. Since then, the downward trend has resumed, with the percentage attending in the past week falling another six points in the past decade.

This analysis is based on multiple Gallup surveys conducted near the middle of each decade from the 1950s through the present. The data for each period provide sufficient sample sizes to examine church attendance among Protestants and Catholics, the two largest religious groups in the country, as well as the patterns by age within those groups. The sample sizes are not sufficient to allow for analysis of specific Protestant denominations or non-Christian religions.

Less Than Half of Older Catholics Are Now Weekly Churchgoers

In 1955, practicing Catholics of all age groups largely complied with their faith's weekly mass obligation. At that time, roughly three in four Catholics, regardless of their age, said they had attended church in the past week. This began to change in the 1960s, however, as young Catholics became increasingly less likely to attend. The decline accelerated through the 1970s and has since continued at a slower pace. (See tables at the end of this article for all trend figures.)

Meanwhile, since 1955, there has also been a slow but steady decline in regular church attendance among older Catholics. This includes declines of 10 points or more in just the past decade among Catholics aged 50 and older, leading to the current situation where no more than 49% of Catholics in any age category report attending church in the past week.

To maintain consistency with earlier Gallup polling when the sample population was age 21 and older, this analysis defines the youngest age group as those aged 21 to 29 rather than the 18- to 29-year age range typically examined in modern polling.

 

On the other hand:

https://fssp.com/latin-mass-among-millennials-study/

The Latin Mass Among Millennials & Gen Z: A National Study

A recent online survey of 1779 adults from 39 states found that the “Traditional Latin Mass is experiencing a high volume of participation and interest in the 18-39 demographic.”

Fr. Donald Kloster of the diocese of Bridgeport, CT, with the help of other contributors, conducted the survey between October 22, 2019 and March 1, 2020.

Fr. Kloster directed his study not at a general Catholic audience but at those within the age range who at least prefer the Latin Mass. And his findings are remarkable. The survey showed an astounding 98% weekly Mass attendance in the 18-39 age group . These adults would have been born roughly in the range of 1980-2001, and therefore largely represent the Millennial generation (1981-1996) and the earliest individuals in Gen Z (1996-2010).

How does that compare to statistics in the church at large? Research done by Gallup shows dramatic declines in church attendance since 1955 in all age categories: with the 21-29 age group consistently at the bottom, at 25% weekly Mass attendance. The Gallup data shows a steep drop from 73% attendance in 1955 to percentages in the mid-30s by 1975. This drop began with the members of the Silent generation (born 1928-1945) and the early Baby Boomer generation (1946-1955). After holding steady for a decade, it dropped to a low point with Generation X (1964-1979), where it has largely remained for the Millennials.

Although a large majority of the respondents said that their parents regularly attended Church, only 10% of those surveyed were raised in Traditional Latin Mass households, and only 16% reported that their parents had led them to the ancient liturgy.

The reasons that did lead them to Mass, ranked in descending order, are as follows:

35% Reverence
16% Parents
13% Friends
12% Curiosity
8% Solemnity
8% Other
5% Spouse
3% Music

Combining some of this data, we can see that personal preferences (reverence, curiosity, solemnity, and music) account for 58% of the total, while peer influences (friends, spouses) account for 18% of the total. Thus, to the tune of 76%, the impetus to attend the Latin Mass among 18- to 39-year-olds seems to be largely coming internally from within their own generation, rather than being inherited from previous generations.

One important factor in the study seems to be a strong religious family life: 65% of the respondents’ fathers regularly attended Church, 75% of their mothers regularly attended Church, and fully 84% were raised in a married (but not remarried) household. And note that these fathers and mothers are the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers whose generations saw the steep decline in Mass attendance mentioned earlier.

It seems that those Boomers and Xers in the parent generations who retained a solid family structure and regularly attended Mass—whether or not they themselves attended a Latin Mass—helped set the stage for the Millennials and early Gen Z to rediscover tradition through personal and peer channels. Of course we cannot discount intellectual influence from older traditionalists online or elsewhere, but the trope of “cultish” parental influence is not borne out at all in this data. Fr. Kloster’s study suggests that these generations have come to the Latin Mass largely on their own and for their own reasons.

Fully 80% of Fr. Kloster’s respondents had thought of a priestly or religious vocation. This finding will come as little surprise to those in Latin Mass communities that, while often small, tend to generate vocations well beyond the norm. Moreover, men comprised 57% of those responding to the survey, while only being 49% of the population. All of these numbers are highly relevant to the priest shortage, and suggest a clear way out of it.

And as far as the laity goes, if the trend of 98% Mass attendance continues to hold across the wider Catholic world, it hints not just at potential to reverse the decline in attendance since Vatican II but to go even further and surpass the 1955 numbers of 73%-77% attendance across all age groups.

Fr. Kloster shared his thoughts with the Missive about that possibility. He theorizes that, in a few key respects, the Latin Mass today is unlike the Latin Mass of the 1950s. Priests are now saying the Mass slower, and they are offering more high Masses and solemn Masses. That more reverential approach seems to be bearing fruit.

“We are doing what the Vatican Council was supposed to do,” he said. “We are fixing all the gaps that should have been fixed.”

Overall, the findings are very encouraging, and this study will be worth continuing to unpack in the coming months and years. Kudos to Fr. Kloster and his team for taking the time to put data and actual numbers behind the anecdotal evidence that has been bandied about for a while.

 

I think my reference to "Reverence" is what I was keying in on, I seem to find that in the Latin Mass, in incense but respectfully, I think one can find that in other faiths as well.

Yes, the age issue is a curious one, at times, it seems for Westerners to me, forgive me for saying, it has seemed that one of the Church's main chores is to bury the dead and that is a Corporal work of Mercy.

But I did note, "Westerners", Catholicism can grow, in Vietnam, Philippines and I gather Africa. India too. Now, I am a bit going off topic on this.

I do think there are Churches in the West, Catholic Churches with many young persons, I have seen them. It's probably a matter of finding them.

 

Well, the Catholic Church is the church that Jesus founded. Pluralism was not an issue.

 

Thank you for this! One of the things that jumps out at me is that even though we millennials are finding the TLM on our own (not led there by our parents), the vast majority of us came from stable, church-going households. My parents did divorce, but not until I was 20, and until the divorce we all went to weekly Mass (and my mom took us kids to daily Mass). The TLM seems kind of like a spiritual reward given as a fruit of the passing on of the Faith through a very faithless time.

Now my hope is that the strengthening of Faith and outpouring of grace that flows through the growing TLM will begin spreading and bringing in the children of even those who left the Church.

 

Good point, in every way, I think you are better than anyone else.

Why even talk of the poor of this world, let's always talk about ourselves.

 

Incense is not the key issue with the Old Mass, nor are flowers, nor statues. the Key value of the Old Mass is that it is God centered, Whereas the 1960''s Mass centers itself on the Congregation, on man.

Once again what is happening in the Third World and elsewhere is again a distraction. The Church in the West since Vatican 2 has been dying. The West the very Heart of the Latin Rite Church.

As to else where I suspect it would be doing even better if the Old Mass had been retained.

I recall an Abbott telling me he visited a Catholic Monastery in Japan and asked why it was so Western Catholic , rather than using Japanese forms? The Japanese Abbot replied that it was precisely the Western/ Latin Liturgy and forms that appealed to the Japanese.

If they wanted Japanese forms they could stick to Zen Buddhism or Shinto

 

Well the 1960's thing appears to rapidly dying. I know I attended the 1960's Mass for most of my life. For most of it I was always the youngest person in the Church.

Now that I attend the Old Mass I always seem to be the very oldest person in the Church.

This says much in itself.

 

One can say the Latin Mass is bringing young folks back to the Church but how many are there compared to the Novus Ordo? I think it's a small amount and I live where there is the FSSP and SSPX.

But don't take my word for it, get the calculator out. Check the percentages.

Are we to take it the church was strong when Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were in power?? The 1930s, 1940s, 1950s?

Africa has wars, they have Boko Haram there. Is this the great strength? Congo wars?

Is the Philippines the great strength where the country is racked with drugs? I'm just showing, this is not the West and they have their problems too.

Communist Vietnam?

 

If I might add, Padraig, about declining Mass attendance over the years, to add to what you have mentioned about the liturgy.
I was in my late teens, early 20’s during all the changes. So I remember. Our society was undergoing changes as well, away from the keeping of the Ten Commandments by both Christians and Jews. The courts being corrupted. Prayer being against the law in public. Artificial birth control, abortion. Working on Sunday, shopping on Sunday. Our Lady of La Salette mentioned three things to the children at first: people were not going to Mass on Sunday (in the 1840’s!!) they drove the carts on Sunday (worked) and they took the Name of God in vain. She said the crops would rot if they continued to do those things. And the crops rotted.
Another point that I am just beginning to realize in depth. Up until fairly recently, like the last couple of years, a priest in Confession could not give absolution for the sin of abortion. The penitent had to go to the Bishop or Rome. Well, maybe people involved in abortions just stayed away. Consider also that birth control pills and IUDs cause abortions. It boggles the mind why the pews are empty.

 

If we are talking about the strength of the church, then, I don't think it lies out of 3 or 4 churches out of a hundred saying Latin Mass. And if I am wrong, let's figure it out with real math, not just that I say this or someone else says this.

Philippines, they built that large Divine Mercy statue, might as well go with that. After all, it's what is going on in the world besides my own back yard that's important to the Church.



Africa too, not accepting abortion, not accepting same-sex marriage... though, clearly, of course, I don't wish to see anyone persecuted. Not in Uganda, not in Ukraine or Russia either where apparently, it has happened.

 

You're wandering all over the place.

There does not appear to be any cohesive logic or rationale to your posts.

You seem to be point scoring ,rather than actually putting forward a rational argument.

Take time time to think before you post. Follow the train of thought in the posts before and what may be said after you post..

Keep your eye on the ball.

Read the previous post you intend to reply to and do a bullet point, answer point by point.

Just as hopefully, they will do so for your own posts.

This, rather than globe trotting.

Seek the truth, rather than winning arguments.

 

TinNM,

As you reference above, the "tangibility" of the Catholic Faith, which we must admit comes from our Jewish ancestors, includes candles, incense, beautiful vestments. Most amazing to me is the Holy Spirit gifted men to make the beautiful furnishings of the Tent of Meeting! And it is so even in heaven! How much Protestants forsake that is truly in the mind of God!

Exodus 38:30 And Moses said to the people of Israel, "See, the LORD has called by name Bez'alel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, 32 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, 33 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft.

Rev 8:3 ...and another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne;
4 and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God.



May their love for beauty be an impetus to win Buddhists to the One, True Faith!