I swam the Tiber in 2012 in a JPII parish with Traditional leanings. Sunday NO masses are sung, with one of them having the propers chanted in Latin. No altar girls, actual confessionals, and no polyester vestments. Very reverent NO Masses and orthodox homilies. I became a Lector and Sacristan not long after Confirmation, feeling very privileged to assist. Then in 2014 I discovered Tradition practiced daily in a parish less than a day’s drive from where I lived. I made up my mind to find a job and relocate, which I did in 2015. Now, a little over a year later, I can’t imagine regularly attending an NO Mass, even one as reverently celebrated as in my last parish. I’ve visited a few times in the past year, and the differences are quite stark. I use the analogy of Bud Light to an ancient ale formula that has been brewed continuously for over 1500 years. Yes, it is beer, and you can get drunk on the Bud, but you cannot compare it to something that has had so much thought and care put into it over the centuries.

Also, and this is key, the Sacrament of Confession is WAY more utilized in mine (and any) TLM parish. There is Confession before and during every Mass, and the line is always long. My own experience is that frequent absolution makes a huge difference in the transformation St. Paul wrote about. The parishioners themselves live and breathe Catholicism; it is not merely something one does on Sunday. If you want to make it heaven, do what it takes to get you and your family to a parish that regularly celebrates the Mass of the Ages.

Yes.

I'm the guy with the bushy beard that attends the 0930 Mass on Sundays.

I always use the comparison that Novus Ordo is like McDonald, you can have a meal there, but somehow it can't match a decent restaurant... would you allow me using your beer phrase in the future? Greetings from a Bavarian, born 1972, who by accident bumped into the TLM in 2013, felt that the church had been hiding something from him and now cannot imagine going to NO regularly, either...

Greetings, Bavarian brother. Feel free to use the Bud Lite analogy!

FSSP in Zürich, Switzerland

I don't understand why the Church of the Footnote do what they do. It's like they're trying to change God to fit man, rather than change man to fit God. Seems absurd on its face.

Fr. Malachi Martin wrote a novel called, "Windswept House" that will explain what is going on in the Vatican at present and the world. Fr. Martin was a Vatican insider and he told Fr. John Hardon that 90 percent of the events expressed in the book were true. Also, Pope Pius XII ordered published the "Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita" to expose what is happening on the world's stage. It's all unfolding exactly as planned, except for the holy Cardinals who have had the courage to say, "No"! Pray for the safety of Cardinal Burke, Bishop Schneider and the few other saintly heroes.

A book by a group of scholars under the pen name Maurice Pinay "The Plot Against the Church" was written and handed out to all the Cardinals at Vatican 2. It tells the unvarnished truth about who and why this has all happened- the Sanhedrin is alive and well and through the Rothschild psychopaths who have unlimited money to control events and governments we are all being ushered into the New(Jew) World Order to be enslaved under rule by Satan and his Jews. It's time to tell the truth from the rooftops and suffer the consequences, we owe deep gratitude for the courage of Bishop Burke and his partners.

Thanks Mary. I just ordered Windswept House.

Because modern man wants to be like God, just as with Adam & Eve.

This is it, the reason short and sweet. But each of us can likewise become our arbiters of truth. We need to watch how our opinions effect our faith.

Yep, just like all Protestants.

Essentially, most are really just some variety of Moral Therapeutic Deists.

Because that's really what most Christians in the West actually are now, in terms of what they believe.

The bottom line up front is: THE POPE MUST TOTALLY ABROGATE THE NOVUS ORDO MASS and return to the TLM. All of the novelties including horrible folksy hymns, girl servers, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, etc., must all go!

Barring this, the Catholic Church in the West WILL SPLIT INTO SCHISM.

I agree with many who posted remarks about the shortcomings of JPII and Benedict. JPII did not do what he should have done, and Benedict did not finish the job. WHY? Because both men feared such actions to make everything right would cause a major schism.

I contend that the schism is here and originated during the leading up to the Second Vatican Council by those who supported the Modernist heresy long condemned by the Church more than a century ago.

It is most unfortunate that Benedict has not only remained mostly silent in the wake of Francis' destruction and deconstruction of the Catholic Church, but that he has not bothered to speak out at all.

Sad, sad, days in the Church.

Mary, Mother of God, and Destroyer of Heresies, PRAY FOR US!

What you have stated is true.

One day the NO will be gone forever!

Pope Benedict XVI's extensive writings speak for him.

You forgot to mention that the Traditionalists have their flaws, too. Once you are ready to include those in your analysis, it will have more credibility.

The NO is here to stay, my friend. You are dreaming if you think that one day the EF will become the predominant Mass throughout the world. Pope Benedict's project with the Extraordinary Form was to use it to shine a light on the weakness of the OF so that it could be improved and conformed to the actual intentions of the Council Fathers. This is what Cardinal Sarah was pushing forward with his exhortation to return to ad orientem posture in the OF. We need to continue on that path. We need ad orientem posture in the OF. We need to bring back Gregorian Chant and the use of more Latin. We need incense and bells and beauty and majesty. The point I am making is that the OF will be the OF for the foreseeable future; we need to do what we can to reform and improve it.

Of course, all of this is anathema to the Footnoters. Thus, PF states it is an error to even mention the "reform of the reform." This is because, while he rejects the so-called "moralism" of the JPII Church, he absolutely despises any form of Traditionalism. He is a very psychologically wounded man. He has never forgotten nor got over whatever experience he had in the pre-Vatican II Church. It seems clear that for him, Vatican II was a complete (and welcome) rupture from the past, and this was the defining experience of his life. He literally cannot fathom how anyone would have any sincere attachment to the pre-Vatican II Church.

Please, please, Cardinal Sarah for next Pope. Soon.

If I'd read your comment a year or so ago, I'd agree with you. Now though, after at least weekly experiencing the TLM, I know that the Novus Ordo has to go, and it will. It may not be in my lifetime, but it will be gone. It's damaging to the faith, it's deficient, it's barely valid (though it IS valid.) I wish it was another way, but it's definitely not.

I agree with you, and have been telling people the same thing. The Norvus Ordo Church is getting old, and not attracting the young. The young, who have supernatural faith, are drawn to tradition. It will be a long haul, but it will happen. John Paul II and Benedict XVI tried to reconcile the new with the old, and found out it cannot be done. We cannot go forward any longer, while we are severed from the past.

Everyone has flaws. But I do think that the TLM is the future of the Church. Yes, the present pope is an old man in a hurry: he will be 80 in a few weeks. He is busy making the mess he told the young people to do! And he is remaking the Church to his agenda and appointing men in that image. He embraces atheists and abortionists but seemingly not to bring them to Christ. He praised the apostate luther who not only committed the mortal sin of schism but started civil war. Is the pope Catholic can truly be asked! And too many faithful are left with hirelings instead of true shepherds and we see the cardinals vs cardinals and all that. Yet it is also a time for saints. Perhaps one day Cardinals Burke and Sarah will be recognized in that number. Holiness is persecuted from within. So those who know the faith must continue ever stronger to hold fast to the traditions and teachings of Christ and His Church and discern what is only passing fad. The salvation of souls is, after all, the mission of the Church.

Ok, I'll bite. What are the flaws of the Traditionalists?.

Cardinal Sarah Says Liberals and Islamists are "Beasts of the Apocalypse"@abyssum.org.

The NO is the downfall of the Divine Liturgy in the Roman rite.

As far as improving the Novus Ordo Mass, I disagree that ad orientem will be an improvement. I've attended a couple of ad orientem masses, and they're clunky. The priest is speaking to the people (rather than to God) presumably, but his back is turned away from them, so that it can be difficult to hear him speaking to them. And it just doesn't flow very well, IMO. The Novus Ordo was intentionally designed to have everything clear for the people, and in the vernacular so that they could hear every word. EVERY WORD. Absolutely nothing is to be left to the imagination. Cut and dry, and that's it.

Gregorian chant doesn't fit with the Novus Ordo, unless it's in the vernacular. That means no Latin. If you want Gregorian chant to be sung in Latin, then you are going against the intentions of those men who designed the Novus Ordo.

One criticism of the Latin Mass was that as it was in Latin, people did not understand the prayers the priest was saying. But after the NO had replaced the Latin Mass for some time, a poll showed that many catholics did not understand that in communion they received the true body of Christ.

The thing is that when the LM was the rule, as a young man I traveled about the U.S. and always felt at home wherever I attended the Mass. It was the same everywhere. One time in Germany, not knowing any German I felt I was among strangers, that is until I attended Mass, and while the sermon was in German as the rest of the Mass was exactly what it was in a small mission Church in the foothills of the Adirondacks where I grew up, I felt a bond existed between me and the Germans there. We were all united in the world by the Mass. Americans visiting Rome did not have to scurry around Rome to find a Mass in English as they do now. And now I find a wide variation in the Novus Ordo Mass within even a given diocese. Various parishes have instituted their own variations. We all had missals which translated the Latin, and after attending Mass for years one soon understood the meaning of the Latin prayers.

But the NOvus Ordo like a weed that it is will be difficult to pull out. It appeals to the modern culture, and from my observations it has a special appeal to americans as it is an audience participation service, with opportunity for the audience to applaud by clapping as they do on Dr. Phil's horror stories. The priest, who now serves as a master of ceremonies feel that as he looks at his parishioners that he has to be a performer too. Facing an audience has that psychological effect. But I am from a different generation and I feel so out of place at a Novus Ordo Mass that even though the Novus Ordo Mass that my daughter and her family attend, as they feel this is what the Church recommends and they are trusting, is 15 minutes away from where I live, I drive across the city to attend an Eastern Catholic Liturgy.

Yes, well said. The old Latin mass as it was celebrated before the Council had a unifying effect. There are so many options now that the celebrant can use for the Novus Ordo that it can be confusing. The priest gets to ad lib quite a bit with the various options, if he so chooses. Though some Novus Ordo masses are said quite reverently, of course.

Yes, the Novus Ordo indeed appeals to a modern culture in that it is man-centered rather than God-centered; thus, facing the people, for the priest, does have a psychological effect. We as Americans are rather individualistic, so maybe that's where the appeal comes from, for some folks anyway. I have sympathy for those who attend the Novus Ordo, in that they may have a variety of reasons as to why they don't want to attend a TLM. That's okay, though I do believe that the Novus Ordo, though not evil, is very much inferior to the TLM.

Wrong. In fact, were it not for improper implementation of the Novus Ordo, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal directed that Latin Gregorian chant be used, and that the new Mass was to be celebrated ad orientum. I know this from spending three years in the major seminary. The problem is that too many bishops chose to go against this, as well as nearly all Latin rite priests, and religious (theologians too). Even when Paul VI tried to fix the situation, his own cardinals and bishops ignored him en masse. Thus, the invention of the "Cafeteria Catholic." And, by extension, now known as the Church of the Footnote, followed by the Church of JPII, who practically worship whoever the pope is- whether the pope is teaching heresy or not. This is the Church we now must live in and try to follow the Lord as best we can given our individual states in life.

Can you point to or site a document that says that those who designed the Novus Ordo recommended that Latin Gregorian chant be used, and that the Mass was to be said ad orientem? What the designers wanted and what the Girm says may be two different things.

Correct. The GIRM never intended for the Novus Ordo to turn out the way it did. Although Latin was the preferred language of the NO, translating the liturgy into the vernacular was permitted by Rome. However, the entire implementation process of the translation- most especially into English got hijacked by the the USCCB (liberal) bishops and their staffs to include the members of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). This resulted in bastardized translations from Latin to English, the horrible Glory and Praise lyrics/music that no one could sing and which focused not on God but on the "priesthood of the faithful", led to "clown" Masses, guitars, banjos, female liturgical dancing, the willful changing the the words of the Mass and prayers (other than what was eventually authorized), inclusive language, among many other things we now see in clear daylight.

Here's some sources: https://www.ewtn.com/librar..., http://www.vatican.va/roman...

I hope this helps! God bless and Happy Advent to you!

1. The NO is here to stay, my friend.

For the time being - sure.

In the longer run, the future is harder to predict. And I will venture only one prediction which seems safe to me: The year 2100 will not see a return to the liturgical uniformity that characterized the Latin Church in the final decades of the Tridentine era.

But that doesn't mean it will still be dominated in the same way and scope by the Pauline Missal in its present form, either.

2. A word about the Council Fathers: It is important to remember that Sacrosanctum Concilium is a prescriptive document, not a dogmatic one. What it attempted to do was not to formally define anything, nor did it create a new or revised missal. It instead confined itself to providing desired principles of reform. And those principles can be fallible. To take one example: the prescription for a multi-year lectionary certainly seems to have been a mistake, and we should have no reticence in saying so. Piling on more Scripture in the readings has utterly failed in its aspiration to create a laity more familiar with Scripture. On all evidence, scriptural literacy among Catholics is actually worse now than it was in 1969.

1962 is not a perfect missal - even many traditionalists appreciate that, and not just those of us who would undo most or all of the changes brought about in 1955-1962 by Pius XII and John XXIII. But this doesn't mean the Council Fathers were always right about what needed reforming. And as they recede ever further into the past, their claim of authority over the liturgy, whatever it was, diminishes, too.

All must worship the same style of mass within the Catholic Church, which is the traditional Latin mass. Those who accept the new mass are worshipping falsly.

You seem like a very smart man.

I saw a New mass for the first time last Sunday!
It is a big mess. Also makes for really uncomfortable.

I had Always been told of the new mass but never had to go.

I just wanted to see it. Now I have to
Confess it!

The Church of Tradition is the only one that doesn't have its pope ;)

Pius X is a good model!

The traditionalist pope is somewhere playing T ball or eating graham crackers, or watching Sesame Street!

Give him time to grow up and he will restore everything! I know he is out there, just a baby now.

The "Church of Tradition" would not exist but for Abp. Lefebvre and the SSPX. Why are they not mentioned in this article?

Yes!
One day the holy archbishop will be canonized!

Thank you for synthesizing this crisis! This is a big help help to me! Again, thank you and May God bless you richly!

Francis wants one thing-to approve of sin and teach those with itching ears the same. All his actions point to it. The cover story is a false mercy.

I'll believe it when we start praying for the conversion of the "perfidious jews" again, until that day the New World Order is still in control of the Vatican.

That prayer will come.
The Jews are going to too many extremism.

Even in Japan now we have to deal with the issue. It's too much!

Many are waking up to what they are doing, particularly their wanting to replace natives in advanced countries with more primitive foreigners.

Yes but Christ and Our Lady are stronger than all the banks out together!
Many are awake now!

Cardinal X Assumes role of Trump to Make the Catholic Church Great Again.

The silent war for the heart and soul of the Catholic Church must go public with JPII conservatives joining the Traditionalists. This movement would be led by a Cardinal or Bishop with a fearless outspoken personality willing to take on Pope Francis and other Protestantized Cardinals and Bishops.

Today's whited sepulchers must be called out just as Jesus did in his day. He was willing to die for the Truth. And He will expect some of today's shepherds to do the same. Where are you courageous Cardinal or Bishop? Come out from wherever you are!

This is a spiritual battle that must be fought in public under the banner of St Michael and Our Lady of Victory.

What's wrong with permanent deacons?

The permanent diaconate was revived as a result of the Vatican II Council. Many traditionalists either think it was a invalid council or that just about everything that came of it was evil.

For the record, I don't believe Vatican II was invalid, nor is everything that flowed from it "evil." Permanent deacons, however, was an attempt to clericalize the laity that they clearly hoped would lead to a married priesthood etc. Another instance of using supposed practices of the "Early Church" to justify Protestantization.