Attention Pastors, Youth Pastors, Music Directors, Deacons and Catechists:
I have oft heard the complaint from you that “The young people aren’t interested in Catholic faith, they don’t come to Mass and they don’t volunteer to sing, lector or help with ministries…it seems there is little hope these days!”
I’ve come to tell you, there is hope! The young people can be drawn to Catholic faith, Mass, choir and any church-related ministry. You can get them interested!
The Problem:
Frequently, young Catholics feel ignored, not that they aren’t being pampered or praised or given special attention, I mean they are trying to tell you exactly what they like, what they expect from the Church, what they are yearning for deep in their souls… but you simply aren’t listening.
I am in my twenties, part of the tail end of what they call “the John Paul II generation” I came into the Catholic Church just as John Paul II went out. My RCIA class was on fire for faith, for learning and for yearning. We did homework, read our catechism, got on the internet, immersed ourselves in it all! The parish that nurtured this crop of oncoming-converts was steeped in reverence and awe for tradition. Not just going through motions and singing empty songs. On Ash-Wednesday, we proudly explained the odd mark on our heads, we debated Protestants on the Bible, we learned basic prayers- in Latin AND English. Sunday night Mass ensued in candlelit splendor, amidst clouds of incense and to the tune of Laudate Dominum. You could never look at these young people and say “They just don’t care”.
After RCIA and graduation, I returned home and attended what you’d call your average parish church. I descended from a world of splendor to bare walls, hurried Masses and barebones hymns. Still fervent in the sacraments, the Eucharist and the Early Church Fathers, I lived on. Come 2012, I attend a parish in central Florida. Art covered the walls, thank God, but it was rather bare art. Mass was still hurried and hymns still barebones. Something however was very familiar: no Latin during Ordinary time, nor during Advent, nor during Lent, no incense, no Laudate Dominum.
I spoke up once during choir practice (I’d since then joined the choir because I enjoyed singing and praising the Lord). I said “You know, I’d really like some Latin hymns…Maybe we can have some silence after Mass during Lent- you know for reverence…”
I suggested to our priest once: “I think a Eucharistic procession around Christmas to celebrate the incarnation would be cool…” Deaf ears in reply. I was told by the music director: “We don’t do that anymore…Silence bores the congregation…” and by the priest “A procession would be inconvenient…”
What I gave was the opinion of a young Catholic- a real, live young Catholic. They didn’t want it.
The problem is all these pastors, youth pastors and music directors keep telling us young folk what bores us, what we really like, what we find interesting. And guess what, THEY’RE WRONG! If one listens to the young Catholic voice, one would find we are yearning for beauty, for tradition and for truth. Traditional Catholicism honestly fascinates us! We go all week hearing perky pop-songs, jumping techno and chatter that doesn’t leave a minute of silence. We go to church and we get exposed to the same exact things. Thus, of course we find it boring! Why should we go to Mass when we can stay home and sing “Gather us in”, listen to a preacher on tv and fill our rooms with noise? Young people are sick of the world. We long for a safe habitat where we can bow before God and think. We crave contact with ancientness, with a strong grounding, with strong Catholic identity. God’s people are chosen out of the world, set apart, destined for a heavenly home. We want a taste of that!!
What young Catholics want:
First, we wouldn’t mind if you listened… Stop telling us what we think and what we like. Look at traditional Catholic parishes, they are overflowing with young people and traditional seminaries are crowded with young aspirants. The next generation wants precisely what your generation has put away and tried to hide from us. There’s a proverb: “The son longs to remember what the father longs to forget!” Remember it! We hate guitar Masses. We hate bare hymns and Masses that must be kept under 45 minutes. We want the red meat that is the 2,000 year old Catholic faith and not only that, we want to sink out teeth into it!
When young people see that Mass is not like the rest of the week, that it’s not like the world, that it requires us to think and act differently- as if we’re present when heaven touches earth, we will be interested. We will wander in with curiosity, saying “what glorious thing is this?” and we will stay there.
And this is not a dilemma that has gone unnoticed either. An article on Catholicculture.org states: ”The Roman rite was always different from all of the eastern rites, of course, but the sense of the transcendence of God, which once marked our liturgy strongly, seems rarely to find expression in our worship today. And we trashed, just trashed, a glorious tradition of liturgical music which the council fathers at Vatican II explicitly commanded be fostered. We replaced it with . . . On Eagles’ Wings.” I can tell you that many of our young people agree with this! Our generation is immensely attracted to the statements of Pope Benedict XVI that ask for a return to tradition in liturgy. I hear countless, young Catholic college students, facebook-ers and bloggers begging: “Please, give this back to us.”
People can pretend that worship is a strictly spiritual matter, pretend that it does not involve shallow, physical things but the Mass is precisely opposite. It is very physical just like the union of two lovers is very physical. No sane person declares love is just a spiritual thing, that saying “My dear” doesn’t matter, that singing a serenade or reciting a sonnet doesn’t matter or that a candlelit banquet makes no difference. Our worship became VERY physical the moment Christ assumed human flesh. Catholics are people of the incarnation. We don’t go to Mass to philosophize and have Bible study- no, we go to Mass to taste and see the goodness of the Lord! Mass isn’t about social gathering- no, it’s about each soul receiving perfect union with God! Shouldn’t our pastors and music directors be showing us that? Shouldn’t our priests be saying with their actions and words and prayers: “Hey, this isn’t part of the world that bombards you with noise and ugliness, that constantly seeks to entertain you, this is heaven!”
Jesus Christ came to give the hungry world that which they were so long deprived of. He came to give meaning, to give mystery, to give us the awesome presence and tender love which is God. Jesus didn’t say “Let’s get the young people interested.” He said “Feed my Lambs.” So, I sincerely ask our pastors, youth pastors, deacons and music directors to give young Catholics a taste of heaven, give us mystery, give us that presence and awesome love of God. Hit us with a meaty Catholicism that makes us stop and think, that makes us truly perceive the miraculous thing that is happening at every Eucharist, and causes us to bow down and say “Truly this is the Son of God” “Truly this is the New Covenant” “Truly this is the Promised Land- our heavenly home”!
If you just listen, maybe you will hear…
Young people are crying out- answer them.
They are hungry- feed them.
They are burdened down- lift them up.
“O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusts in him.”
-Psalm 34:8
Awesome. Totally sharing this.
Firstly, I want to say that as a Chatechist, Sacristan and one who is discerning my vocation, I fully agree with you. In my Parish, the choices made by the musical director have left me uneasy to say the least, I remember mass just twenty years ago, and the spirituality was of what is now a bygone era.
We do need to have a difference between the House of God and the world, as you quite rightly say, what is the point if there is no difference. It is important that voices such as yours are heard by the authorities of the church, especially as the Holy Father himself desires these things.
As a person that teaches within and outside the church, I always maintain traditional teaching and spirituality, as if there is no one to teach…how will they learn?
I want to thank you for what you have written, and I pray that your voice will be heard around the world, even to the highest authority.
Merry Christmas and God Bless
Thank you so much. I am printing copies as I write this to give to our priest and music director who have been less than receptive. Please keep praying! I appreciate it greatly.
Amen and Amen! When I step into Church, I want to step out of the world, out of time and into eternity. I want my liturgy to reflect the liturgy of heaven. Too many masses I’ve attended had all the solemnity of a Rotary club dinner. And don’t get me started on the music. These so-called “experts” in Liturgy think they know what we want better than we do. They’re doomed to fail, because Jesus had the same problem with the “experts” of His day. So He chose fishermen – the foolish things of earth to confound the wise.
Oh my gosh!! This is awesome. You have totally nailed it! Sharing this for sure!
I love this disortation, I have felt it often, especially the ‘silence’ part. I am 69 and have said for at least 52 years (maybe more) that adults short change children and youth by ignoring their comments and voiced opinions. Yes, many stem from an unlived life with wisdom yet to come, but many have the wisdom of the uncorruption of inexperience. Also, I would like to see a “Print this article” link at this site. I would LOVE to share this araticle with countless people but it would print too small & use too much background ink. Could you send me a printer friendly copy?
You could copy it onto a word document then print it. Let me know if this doesn’t work.
Let’s be honest here. The great Mass of the Beatific Vision while infinitely beyond human comprehension, will be closer to the Tridentine Mass style of reverence and worship, than the Novus Ordo watered down for the sake of protestants and lazy Catholics style Mass.
I’m 48 and I want all this, too! We found the traditional Mass 8 years ago and haven’t looked back. Love the incense. Love being taken out of the everydayness of the other Mass we attended. We want reverence. We want silence. We want beauty. We want the whole, entire, Catholic faith fully taught. Even my daughter, at the time 7 years old, said, “mom, can we not go back to that noisy Mass?” It’s not rocket science. Preach it and they will come.
YES!!
Excellent excellent excellent!!!
You don’t have to convince me as a pastor. I’m trying to do this, plus ad orientem worship, but it is really difficult to get middle-aged Catholics to accept stuff that is counter-intuitive and “contrary to Vatican II.”
ironically, these things are not contrary to Vatican II at all. The Council Fathers envisioned the Novus Ordo to retain Latin prayers and chants- and they never told anyone to turn the priest around. Sadly, very few even read the documents.
Keep it up! My parish priest is trying to do the same. My family loves him for it. He is making great changes to our church which do not quite make it look or sound like a church yet, but have greatly improved the situation since when we first arrived at the parish three years ago. It might be my imagination, but I think there are more people staying after Mass to pray now. May God bless you and help you, Father. I am sure good fruits will come from your efforts. Know that you are in my prayers.
Hang in there, Father. There are lots of us middle-aged Catholics (I’m 48) who would love more reverence at Mass. Maybe it would help you to publish bite-sized catechetical pieces in the bulletin, or have meetings/classes to help explain the things you are trying to change.
Hello, and congrats for the beautiful blog! I completely agree with this post. Many people do not get enchanted with the Catholic Faith because they get the opaque, weak, watered-down, clappy and idiotically-touchy version of it. But what young people want is to feel the difference, to perceive an atmosphere of eternal love that is in contrast with the world outside!
I am Italian, and even here I see how the large churches run by progressive priests became empty, while small, modest and yet magnificently traditionalist churches run by faithful priests are still packed, and packed with young people, who seek Christ, who boldly search for Truth!
As a young Catholic myself, I find the Tridentine Mass difficult to understand and the focus on ritual distracting. That preference for simplicity is precisely why I don’t attend Orthodox services. It’s not because I’m lazy and don’t want to learn the Latin, but I will say that it doesn’t resonate with me.
I tend to agree with the Holy Father on this matter. Writing in the aftermath of Vatican II, he said that “The solemn baroque mass, through the splendor of the orchestra’s performance, became a kind of sacred opera, in which the songs of the priest had their role as did the alternating recitals.”
I want to feast on the living Christ, not the Christ of the Middle Ages. Not only did Jesus never touch incense, but he didn’t speak in Latin either.
actually as a devout Jew, he was around incense quite often. I think you are missing the point. This post is not about Latin or the Tridentine Mass, it is about attitudes. The precise attitude that we must embrace the modern world and throw away everything old. The attitude of simplifying the faith for the sake of simplifying, for the sake of stripping everything bare.
But if you want to talk about Latin, it would help to know that the Second Vatican Council that says that the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin Catholic rite and that chant and Latin hymns should also be preserved.
On another note, Jesus didn’t speak English either. Christ does not belong to the Middle Ages or to today, you can’t put him in any time frame. He lives on just as much in the Tridentine Mass as he does in the Novus Ordo Mass or as much as he did in the ancient Greek Masses.
There are many free, online resources for becoming familiar with the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Becoming familiar with the EF does not take you back to the Middle Ages, of course. We are still solidly in the 21st Century, but the liturgical hermeneutic of continuity connects us to our Faith and the Faithful past, present, and future. As a convert, the ‘simplicity’ you seem to speak of can quickly devolve into a loss of the sacraments–ask the Protestants.
I would also hesitate to quote Pope Benedict XVI couched in the context you present. He has written and spoken openly about the “aftermath of Vatican II” and his guidance and direction in the past few years speak for themselves.
And regarding whether Jesus ever touched incense, I would be extremely hesitant to avow that! First, the Wise Men presented the baby Jesus with Frankincense. As a faithful Jew, he no doubt experienced incense on an ongoing basis when he visited the Temple. Second, in Luke, chapter one, beginning with verse five, there is a description of John the Baptist’s father, a temple priest, whose duty it was to burn incense in the Temple for the Hour of Prayer. Thirdly, in Acts 3:1 we find we find Peter and John going up to the Temple at the Hour of Prayer when incense was burned. Lastly, the book of ReveIation, chapters four and five describe incense used extensively, being offered up with the prayers of the saints.
amen! We’re blessed to attend two beautiful parishes with gorgeous muisc, plenty of Latin, incense. One even has–and uses!–its original altar rail. We just hit 30, so maybe we’re too “old” to be the young people anymore, but I’m with you in spirit. Alas, we have to move to a veritable Catholic wasteland of suburbia in another state…so I guess I’ll have to learn the new Gloria in English now and hope for the best.
yes! exactly!
Amen! Well said.
Great article! I agree 100%! I’m sorta dealing with the same situations, but our parish just got a new pastor and he seems more conservative, which the church needed. I ‘m hoping to help this new pastor whatever I can. I have knowledge and experience in Altar serving because these servers don’t know what there doing and I will make it more traditional mass out of it and hopfully the new pastor will be on board with me helping out. Also I’m a firm believer of only male servers and would suggest that as well! We need to bring the Orthodoxy within the Catholic Church!
I agree with you. I’ve noticed that the altar servers barely do anything anymore. The priest or the Extraordinary ministers do it all. I was so grateful when our priest stopped allowing the eucharistic ministers to do the altar-servers and deacons’ job! I am only in support of female altar servers when there is a lack of boys. However boys should have priority. There is a vocation shortage going on, we need to start them young.
This is a great post and so true! Keep up the great work! God Bless!
I myself an sick and tired of hearing certain Catholics who complain that they don’t “get” anything out of either facing East or using the 1962 Missal. The Holy Mass is the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary so our “feelings” or “tastes” or “preferences” do not matter. This is matter of WORSHIP and ADORATION not being entertained. I also agree that the Vatican II Documents have to be read instead of the false “spirit” that says that everything before 1965 was a mistake and everything including the Mass had to be new. I am 50 years old and I remember the “folk” guitar masses of the 1970′s. I saw just a couple of days ago a article that said that Traditional Catholicism is the new thing in vogue that is causing any growth. Like Father Z says “SAVE THE WORLD BY SAVING THE LITURGY. It is about God not about US (the congregation).
I absolutely agree that many Catholics today, especially the younger generation and converts (I’m a recent grad and went through RCIA five years ago) desperately want the traditions of the church to continue, whether through devotions, smells&bells, etc, but we are simply not given the necessary tools to live out our faith. Take days of obligation, for example: even in the most traditional parish I have attended, outside of Ash Wednesday (which is not a DoO), there is never more than one mass, usually at a time when I and most of the parish are at work or in school. I take my responsibility to attend mass seriously, but it becomes logistically impossible, and if the reason why priests won’t offer more masses is because people don’t show up, maybe they should consider the reasons why.
I recently moved to another state and am trying to find a new parish. The closest parish to my house touts on its website that it’s a “traditional kind of parish”. Oh happy day! Except it turns out that they mean the stuff they did in the 70s. The closing hymn was one I’ve heard many times…growing up in a pentecostal church. I was blessed to live near a couple of wonderful parishes when I converted, but traveling has made it very clear to me that they were the minority, at least in this region (the southern US). I tried to go to a first Friday mass and Eucharistic adoration last week, but there was only one parish with a mass at a workable time, the historical church downtown with severely limited access and no Eucharistic adoration at all. My former parish struggled and failed to implement perpetual adoration, but three days is a far cry better than an hour the first Wednesday of the month.
Wow. As the pastor of a more or less ordinary parish in the western United States, I have to admit that all my experience working with young Catholics in their twenties and thirties absolutely confirms the points you’ve made so well in this post. There is, however, a tremendous amount of resistance to the recommendations you’ve suggested, especially among Catholics my age and a bit older. Bear in mind that we were reared in a Church reeling from enthusiastic, but entirely misunderstood, applications of the liturgical spirit of the Vatican II. Oftentimes, the liturgical formation we received came as stern lectures about how traditional liturgy was no longer meaningful to the vast majority of modern people and too much affection for Latin, or even for reverence and piety, actually put us in danger of Lefebvrist schism. Instead of cultivating dispositions of awe and wonder in the presence of Christ, priests would (and still do) urge congregations to clap and keep the beat and loosen up and hoot and holler. Priests will often make eye-contact with the congregation while reciting the Eucharistic Prayer, as if the anaphora were addressed to the people and not to Almighty God. Priests will preach insipid homilies based more on anecdotal experience than on serious exegesis of the Biblical text or compassionate engagement with social and moral problems that the congregation faces. Please be patient with us as we try to learn from our mistakes and attempt to recover the beauty, sobriety, wonder, awe, truth and beauty of the Sacred Mysteries we celebrate.
Thank you so much for your comments. One thing we young people aren’t good at is patience but I will try. I have found that some of the older people in the church and even the deacons agree with me that the clapping and cheesy hymns have got to stop. Unfortunately the pastor more often than not assumes a dictatorship all too similar to what I knew growing up as a Protestant. Is it wrong for me to blame the bishops for not being stern enough with these priests and for refusing to mandate liturgical correctness? I always was under the impression that the Catholic Church was a “from the top to the bottom” kind of church. I see priests left and right ignoring the instructions of the GIRM. Their superiors could do something about it, couldn’t they?
Yes, the bishops could. They need prayers to see what is right and to have the strength to do it. My pastor is consistently bombarded with “charitable organisation” promoting “charities” contrary to the the Catholic fatih trying to get permission to try and get donations at the parish among other things. I’m sure the bishops have more to deal with. Keep praying for our priests, espesually the bishops and the Holy Father. Perhaps for encouragement you can read Revelations in view of the good conservative Catholic parishes you have attended in the past, especially the extraordinary form of the Latin rite. As one priest pointed out to a group of us younger Catholics once, there seems to be a resemblance between Revelations and the conservative Catholic Masses. Someday, we will return to more reverence at Mass.
Keep trying, Father. You will be in my prayers.
As a young Catholic convert from Protestantism, I have to agree. Solemn Pontifical High youth Masses ftw (I wish!).
As a 40 year old Episcopalian whose church has been turning more evangelical, I visited the Roman church across the street and have never been more disappointed in a worship service. I have been to community churches with a more reverent service. They played an organ but the hymns, including the gloria setting, were horrendous.Everything was hurried, including distribution of communion (I abstained, of course) which was more like a school lunch line than receiving the sacrement. There is a great hunger for worship, and sadly, the Roman church has given up on it.
Even thought your experience is frequent, it wouldn’t be fair to say the Roman Catholic Church has given up on it, just alot of churches. There are traditional parishes and communities that are making a huge comeback and the traditional seminaries are overflowing with vocations. Plus, the current pope is a champion of reverent worship. His Masses are never disappointing.
Though it may seem hope is lost, this next generation, by the grace of God, will turn things around.
NO….The TRUE Roman Church hasn’t given up on anything…….You just need to get to a better Parish!!!! Unfortunately, there are some parish communities that have lost Focus and Scope……but the sign of Good Bishops are to weed them out, and re-instruct them in the True faith which IS the Holy Catholic Church. This is WHY the Holy Father has called for a re-examination of the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) The Reform of the Reform so to speak!!……You should look into the Traditional Anglican Church in America, and join them in accepting the Ordinarate process which are bringing back into the fullness of the faith with the Catholic Church. You sound like someone who can teach these lukewarm cradle Catholics a thing or two about reverence !!
+God Bless You Now and Always!!
Rev. Br Francis Anthony Joseph Mary Marchese; sfcjm
I agree. It is a parish problem. They need to start heeding the Holy Father more. The Anglican Ordinarate is a wonderful thing!
Reblogged this on Commerce & Arts and commented:
Everyone involved with a church should read this. This passionate argument for liturgical, traditional worship is more powerful than many intellectual arguments. Thanks for Charlie Jordan for sending me the link.
Thank you for reading!
Reblogged this on The Ruminations of an Orthodox Catechumen and commented:
I hope Evangelicals will listen to the young ones as well…
Reblogged this on Words I Never Said and commented:
Great post about what the Youth truly desire from the Faith and the Church. I can echo the same sentiments. Check it out.
I can attest to the younger generation wanting more. I’m in my early 30′s and came to the Catholic Church through RCIA about 5 years ago. Part of what inspired me was the 2,000 year old history of the Traditions of the Church. This is the REAL Church. It doesn’t change for time. It doesn’t change for opinion. It doesn’t change for media, etc. Having come from an Evangelical background I suddenly realized how EMPTY Sunday services were when I sat through a Catholic Mass. I was stunned at how much Truth, Scripture, Depth, and Honor there was in a single Mass. This was REAL.
However, what scares me is that the Church as a whole may be missing the boat with young people. The older generations, let’s face it, are aging and will be dying off. We need to get young folks involved in the daily workings of the Church right now so they’re equipped to take over in the future. Part of that means the older generation needs to get back to the basics.
I saw a nun a couple weeks ago. I was shocked. She actually wore a habit. Seriously black and white habit. I’d never seen one in person after 5 years in the Church. She might as well be the only nun in my diocese for all I know. Where are all the sisters?? Why doesn’t my Parish have it’s own permanent Deacon? Why did our Bishop expense the Feast of the Immaculate Conception? Why weren’t we required to attend Mass on this Holy Day of Obligation?
I became Catholic because of what the Catholic Church was (not because of what I hope it’ll morph into). I joined the Catholic Faith because it IS, WAS, and EVER SHALL BE the Holy Body of Christ. I want the hardcore tradition. Why? Because it’s not of this world. Because it’s the last bastion between the world and the gates of Hell.
I used to listen to hip hop, metal, country, Evangelical Christian music, you name it. Honestly, some of the best stuff in my opinion these days are old, old traditional songs like Ave Maria.
i really also appreciate latin mass but there is no latin mass services in our diocese.i hope i could experience a traditional tredentine mass.philippines
My wife and I drove 3 1/2 hours one Sunday across the state just to attend a Latin Mass. But so far as I know that’s the closest routine Latin Mass to us.
Reblogged this on 3pm Catholic and commented:
Pretty accurate!
Totally agree with you. For awhile in the summer a friend of mine did a youth-group sort of thing. We met once a week, talked about faith or apologetics or personal experiences or whatever, but then we went over to the church and had Eucharistic Adoration for an hour. Maybe some of the other kids thought it was boring (there was usually only five or six of us), but for me it was better than all the other youth thingies I’ve ever been involved in. If you want us kids to be interested in our faith, give us stuff related to the faith, not a bunch of kids playing games with almost-religious undertones. And there’s nothing like being in a candle-lit chapel, chanting in Latin as the priest processes toward the alter with the monstrance held high; it’s straight out of those fantasy books that kids love so much these days. You want us kids to say our prayers? Teach us to say them in Latin, it makes them that much more special, makes you think about them that much more… Anyways, great post!
Reblogged this on Mgr Alban’s Notebook and commented:
“Our generation is immensely attracted to the statements of Pope Benedict XVI that ask for a return to tradition in liturgy. I hear countless, young Catholic college students, facebook-ers and bloggers begging: “Please, give this back to us.” ” – well said,
Copy/Pasting to my Pastor!!!
thank you!
I copy/paste this to my pastor as well and I am writing a proposal (suggestion) to my bishop on his request actually, in which I elaborated on the need for more silence and reverence in order to encourage a deeper faith and participation in the divine liturgy among other things, I also will include the need for sacred music as you so beautiful described above. Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi <3
I am going to print this out and give it to our bishop.
Just discovered your web site thanks to that thing called “Mass for Life with Young People” from the Verizon Center (!) in Washington DC today. I just saw it on EWTN and regret losing my dinner over it. All those wasted drums and electric guitars – at least they could have blasted them with the Electric Prunes version of Mass in F Minor. That was smart enough to be in Latin. All these self-centered Praise and Worship mantras echoing through this vast pro-abortion sponsored cavern–and then applause after the communion song. This “Mass” was all about the band. And the homilist has the nerve to say that “the battle for soul of our culture is up to you!” How long, O Lord, must we endure this shameless pandering?
Well said! As a 22 year old Irish Catholic, I firmly believe that our generation will be the generation to reform the reform! And it couldn’t come sooner, here in Ireland there is this group of priests that have formed a form of trade union that is frankly heretical, dangerous to the faith and bereft of sense. The Association of Catholic Priests is symptomatic of the Irish Church- Vatican II gone wild. Bishops here will literally do anything to prevent the traditional mass, my own bishop after receiving a petition of 100 signatories for a monthly traditional Mass offered us, after 8 months delaying and procrastinating, to have Mass at 10.30pm on a Wednesday night in a mental hospital chapel! He then went on demanding extra royalties and collections from the Mass ‘for the privilege’. Never mind the liturgy that he celebrates or the sacred music, he was asked at Christmas if the choir could sing Adeste Fidelis, he replied “No Latin, absolutely no Latin”. Sadly, he is quite typical of the Irish bishops. They are ruining the faith and are encouraging dissent openly from Church teachings and last year one said that he “understood and sympathized” with an article in the leading ‘Catholic’ newspaper calling for the Irish Church to withdraw its loyalty to Rome!!!! We need to pray for the deliverance of the Church from such prelates and for a root and branch reform of the Church in every aspect of its being to return to it the dignity and reverence that it owes to Christ and the whole Church.
These priests and bishops who keep trying to stop Latin hymns and Latin prayers during Mass are DISOBEYING Vatican II, which says these things ought to be included in the Mass. I think that a reading of the Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, should be mandatory for all priests and parish conferences- and especially choir directors! They are the worst offenders.
I agree with you but I think we need to go further now, Its gone too far. The Church needs reform with a council similar to Trent, It needs to reaffirm its teachings, demand a certain standard of clerics and religious and reform the liturgy, then it needs to demand obedience to the reforms for the good of the church. Then we can finally put to bed the confusion and controversy that has defined Vatican II
I agree there.