I agree with you, Joseph, but I do wonder about the worth of comments like this. If you want to be in dialogue with people, it might be best to be a bit more ... gentle?
What does this mean...a failure, WYD, having it in Portugal, evangelization?
And while Bp. Strickland is a great bishop, he is not "America's bishop." According to the faith and practice of the Church we all have our own diocesan bishops, whether we like them or not.
it is a sarcastic remark making light of the way that Strickland predicted this year's WYD would have the lowest attendance since JPII began the event (a blatantly untrue statement).
"America's bishop" is a term recently used by the LifeSiteNews crowd to describe their hero, Strickland. it is, as you say, uncanonical, and I would go so far as to say evil, because in giving the accolade to one (unworthy) bishop, they intend to deny legitimacy to all other bishops of the country, who in their twisted worldview are not sufficiently outspoken against Francis, Biden, etc.
I struggle to see any genuine worth in these events. Certainly, they do nothing to arrest the ongoing steep decline in the Church.
I get that its a great experience for young adults to travel and meet others from around the world, but I do not detect much of a flavour of Catholicism. Even less so now, given that Jorge will be trailing them around the buildings of various false religions. Let us be honest, most of the attendees going will be going mainly for the trip experience, not for any religious reason.
And I expect that, like very many Novus Ordo Catholics, most attendees will have almost wholly secular values and attending these events will do nothing to change that.
The irony is that the bringing together of large numbers of people of different languages highlights (yet again) how stupid / arrogant it was for the Church to illicitly abandon its unifying language of latin (I say 'illicitly' because it was never discussed or agreed upon, rather arrogant Bishops just did it).
Could you ever imagine the Muslims as being so stupid (or arrogant) as to abandon arabic?
A much better representation of youth in the Church today would be the Chartres pilgrimage, which this year had to close admissions at 16,000 because they could not cope with the numbers wanting to attend. Most of the attendees were in their 20s. The SSPX run another pilgrimage, same route but opposite direction, which took 4,000 this year. (I think, by this point in the Church's decline, it would be better now to combine the two.)
These pilgrimages represent Catholicism, WYD represents emotional humanism, as we can see by the emotionally charged pictures reminiscent of American protestant "megachurch" events.
Remarkably, the out of touch prelates who run the Church fail to even mention these increasingly popular pilgrimages. Why? Because they are tradition orientated and so the precise opposite of the failed 1970s Christianity which the prelates of today are hawking. And so the 1000s of young people walking under the banner of Christ make the Pope and so many Cardinals burn with embarrassment and resentment.
Actually, I meant that the SSPX is 180 degrees off. Their origins are in pride, disobedience and deception.
You’re right that we see evil at work in the Church, including in all levels of the hierarchy, but she is a supernatural reality, the Bride of Christ, so she will be redeemed and it will be through humility and obedience. And a good amount of suffering.
Using the term “bastard”, as you do below, to describe the sacrifice of Christ, validly and licitly offered, may rise to the level of blasphemy.
If you think these terms adequate describe the origin of the SSPX, then you obviously do not know much about them. They remained faithful to the Church while many others went mad, with the terrible results we see today.
Like so many groups and individuals, they have been treated disgracefully by the Church authorities, over the years.
I am not their "defender in chief" but I do not like to see groups defamed.
Our contributions should be temperate and based on facts.
No-one is perfect, but the things you accuse the SSPX of are more descriptive of the mainstream Church.
Altar girls and the protestant practice of communion in the hand were both introduced to the Catholic Church via disobedience. The disobedience continues even today, with many priests ad-libbing rubrics and, of course, the inevitable abuse of the concept of EMHC at every Mass.
The reason some people dislike the SSPX, is because the beauty and magnificence of authentic Catholicism shames the sloppy ersatz Catholicism (really, Roman Protestantism) served up in the majority of Parish Churches.
I do have difficulty being charitable, and Pope St John Paul II is a much better source of information than me. You can read his words in his letter Ecclesia Dei:
I am familiar with the lettter and organisation Eccelsia Dei, Pope Francis recently having done away with this organisation.
Note that there have been various significant developments in the decades since the Ecclesia Dei letter.
Approx 20 years ago, the then head of Ecclesia Dei, Cardinal Dario Castrillion Hoyos, said in an interview that the SSPX "are not schismatic" multiple times and so it is disappointing that this calumny continues.
The Church authorities have never formally declared the SSPX to be in schism, because they are not. It is true the SSPX Bishops were punished (since rescinded) for being consecrated without a mandate, but they have never set up a separate organisation or authority, nor failed to acknowledge the Pope.
In my opinion, Pope Francis fairness towards the SSPX (for example, clarifying their ability to conduct weddings and hear confessions), has been one of the few highlights of his Pontificate. He was also kind towards them when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
The developments over the past 35 years have been demonstrations of great mercy on the part of the Church. There has been no corresponding repentance shown by the leaders of the SSPX.
You certainly cannot mean that the words of Pope St. John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei are irrelevant because they are several decades old? Here they are, from paragraphs 1-4:
"With great affliction the Church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on 30 June last by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the Church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X..."
"In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act."
"The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition."
However, neither communion in the hand, female altar servers, nor Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion are currently disobedient to the rubrics. One person can't administer both the host and the chalice, and many parishes only have one pastor, or so many Masses that each priest reaches his maximum limit per day without assisting at other Masses.
Insofar as SSPX acted in opposition to the Pope in union with the bishops, they were schismatic. Schismatic means separated from the Pope while continuing to hold the same faith as those with whom they have broken unity.
I find my NO Masses neither sloppy nor fake, and I get appalled by those who think they are.
Well, in my experience there is always a surge in those entering the seminaries, male religious communities and usually more traditional (yes, some are NO communities) congregations of women.
While TC was ridiculous, unfair and scandalous, the Old Rite is not the only way to offer the Divine Sacrifice as seen in the various Eastern Churches and Liturgies offered at WYD (most in the vernacular of the people attending).
Great good can and does come out of these events along with some abuses and nonsense.
We are a fallen people. No event like this is perfect. We have to wait for the fullness of the Kingdom which is to come.
Of course the traditional latin rite is not the only way: no-one asserted it was - as you highlight, the eastern liturgies are venerable too. (Granted, I did mention latin).
Sadly, I am not convinced that "great good" comes out of these events. I confidently predict that most of the attendees of this WYD will not remain as practising Catholics.
I do not know of your local trends, but in the country where I live, Mass attendance has halved in the last 30 years. We do not have our problems to seek as a Church and I think its passed time we recognised that and took action, I do not think this style of sentimental religious festival does much to help!
You forgot that many of the pilgrims that come to these events are from societies, mostly from the developing world, that are not secular, unlike those in the West, and more often come to WYD with the sincere intent of renewing their faith. It's quite myopic to assume that the problems Western Catholics experience are the same problems African Catholics experience, most especially since the church in Africa is growing.
That is a good point, but I didnt mean to suggest that problems are the same everywhere.
WYD could be a good thing, if it sought to encourage piety rather than sentimentality. If it adequately reflected our beliefs - at every WYD, the shoddy treatment of the Eucharist shames the event.
Have you see the pictures of the plastic ciboriums used this year, which do not meet the requirements of the Catholic Church? Or the grey plastic tupperware tubs used as a tabernacle?
Why do things always have to be done so poorly? Why not do them properly and present a coherent system of belief to young people? How we worship informs how we believe - and vice versa.
It is good the Church is growing in Africa. The continent produces many good priests, which Europe increasingly relies upon. The Church grows there because African Catholicism is conservative (traditional in morality and catechesis, if not liturgy).
I have watched many pilgrims carrying the Holy Cross and images of the Holy Virgin and saints. I have heard the rosary prayed by different groups in their languages. I have seen the lines for confessions.
Many might attend for tourist purposes but many attend because it is a spiritual gathering.
Is there not room for these young people as well as the Chartres pilgrimage young people?
There is room for everyone in the Catholic Church.
(Though always on God's terms and not the kind of terms Francis seems to be advocating for).
But Pope Francis does not seem to think there is room for everyone, though - typically -what he says and what he does are far removed from one another.
Fresh from ejecting TLM-attending Catholics from their parish Churches, he announced at WYD that "there is room for everyone".
I do not know about you, but I do not like hypocrites, nor being patronised.
And strange that so many young people are at this event, yet are very conspicuous by their absence in the typical parish Church of today.
> I struggle to see any genuine worth in these events
Serious question: have you asked the Holy Spirit for help? If I am struggling to see something, then I ask God for help to see it. And I ask Him (impatiently and abruptly) for patience also because I think "usually He is pretty slow about giving me light", as I have usually forgotten that there were also a lot of times when He was alarmingly fast (along the lines of interrupting me mid-sentence).
As ever, I admire your suggestion of recourse to prayer - but I do not think my opinion of WYD is down to some spiritual blindness, but rather its my considered opinion based on trends.
The Church has been failing badly for decades now, especially in the West and Latin America.
WYD is part of this ongoing failure, as is ambiguous morality, poor catechesis, slop liturgy, bad music, ugly buildings, corrupt clergy and the Church neither giving people anything, nor asking anything of them in return.
I pray for the renewal of the Church every day. I find many Catholic react badly, if it is pointed out that our (The Church's) performance is lousy - and it is lousy.
We have to be clear sighted and honest about how things are going. That's all I advocate. If something is poor, its OK to say "this is poor", rather than pretend everything is going well, with a fixed smile.
If any of the attendees genuinely get something good out of WYD, then great! But we could have a WYD every year and I do not think it would help the Church in any way.
Apparently Francis has been preaching about climate action at WYD. Do you get into Heaven, if you cut your carbon footprint?
It is rocky ground all over and yet "God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham" (a contradiction that I do not understand, but have personally observed. In me.)
There are over a billion Roman Catholics and you think 16,000 is impressive? There are many more than that attending World Youth Day.
The prelates of whom I am aware are faithful to Jesus Christ and His Church. I attend a Novus Ordo parish of very faithfilled people and I get extremely tired of arrogant people who think they know better than the Church how she should be regulating the liturgy. The bishop of your diocese is the person who should be deciding how things should be done. For instance, my bishop has asked all the parishes to say the St. Michael prayer at the end of every Mass, so we do. If he didn't want us to we wouldn't. Obedience is a virtue.
I am also fluent in Latin so the language isn't the issue, humility and obedience are.
Yes, I think 16,000 is very impressive, when those 16,000 have travelled at their own expense to walk ~62 miles over 3 days in pilgrimage, sleeping in tents overnight. It would have been more, had the organisers had the facility to cope.
I wonder how many would walk ~62 miles to attend WYD?
I am familiar with the style of WYD. When I was at High School, groups of pupils were sent to the Vatican to attend the ceremony where a local Bishop was to be made a Cardinal. Like WYD, this was held up as an example of how pious and engaged our young people are.
Yet, when they returned, the stories were all about underage drinking and liaisons with the opposite sex. It was clear the the spiritual part of the trip was purely superficial. So it will be too, for many of the attendees here. (And don't get me wrong, I do not expect young people to live like monks).
Are you aware of Pope Francis, Cardinal McElroy, Cardinal Hollerich etc? Because there are good arguments and strong evidence that these men are not faithful to Christ and His Church.
As regards the liturgy, I do know who these "arrogant people who think they know better" are but I take my lead from the tradition of the Church, including the documents of Vatican II.
While conceding some scope for the vernacular, Vatican II advocated that Latin and Gregorian Chant remain prominent in our liturgy. It didn't say anything about altar girls, lay people in the sanctuary, communion in the hand, EMHC etc. Nor did it advocate an abandonment of the Catholic Mass in favour of banal protestant style worship, which is what has happened (as Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict) acknowledged.
Its not for nothing that the Novus Ordo is decried as a "bastard rite", it has no roots in the Church whatsoever.
It would be good if everyone familiarised themselves with the Vatican II documents and how our liturgy has drastically changed for the worse, without agreement or sanction.
After all, if there is anything worse than arrogance it is surely ignorance.
It is good that you say the St Michael prayer after Mass. But a Bishop would have no place attempting to stop you saying the same prayer - that would be clericalism.
I've read all the documents from Vatican II, thank you, and the only way I would go to an ad orientem Mass is if there was absolutely no other option. A bishop is the shepherd of his flock and it isn't clericalism for him to guide his congregations' communal rituals, it's his job.
And it is certainly arrogance to claim that the Pope in union with the bishops have guided the Church into a worse liturgy than what was there before. The only one capable of properly making the decision as to whether worship is better or worse is God, not some human being.
I do not think it is "arrogance" to hold the opinion that the modern liturgy is "worse". I think it is arrogant to deny people an opinion. I think it is quite demonstrably worse, in terms of how good a job it does at reflecting Catholic belief.
The Pope in union with the Bishops did not create the Novus Ordo liturgy. Rather disobedient Bishops did as they pleased, despite efforts of Pope John Paul II to restrain them.
And so authority in the Church collapsed alongside the liturgy. And this is where we find ourselves.
You are right that Gods judgement is more important than ours. But in a majority of places - Europe, North America, Latin America - the mainstream Church is tanking, in terms of attendance and vocations. That suggests to me that God is not impressed with what he sees.
In contrast, the SSPX (that example again) most recently accepted a record 79 new vocations and, in Kansas, recently built their largest ever Church , which is undoubtedly the finest building completed in the USA in a generation or more. This suggests to me that God is pleased with their efforts.
I think the Church is big enough to have two forms of Mass, to cater for everyone. Why not? If we can use different languages, why should a traditional Mass be a problem?
The hierarchy seems to know that the novus ordo would not ultimately be most popular in such a scenario however, hence the crackdown. Their priority is to retain a protestant style liturgy, to permit continued shared services with heretics (which have done nothing over decades to advance unity).
Why do you dislike ad orientem Masses? I like them, as the focus of everyone present is God in the tabernacle. The priest addresses God directly, he does speak to the congregation in (in the words of B16) a closed circle, with God on the outside.
SSPX is schismatic. I personally have no problem with other people attending the traditional Mass provided that it is done in obedience to and in union with the hierarchy.
I prefer ad populum because it's not possible to see the tabernacle with the priest standing in front of it. It is possible to be more involved with the offertory and Consecration when one can actually see them rather than just hear someone saying the words. They have a much greater impact for me because I'm a visually oriented person. So that's what I prefer.
In fact the SSPX is not schismatic and so the authorities of the Church have never formally pronounced them to be so. We as lay people cannot declare things which the Church has not.
True, their consecration of Bishops without mandate was described as a "schismatic act" but they did that not to separate themselves from the Church, but because they consider the Church to be in a state of emergency - a contingency which Canon law allows for.
(I share the view that the Church is in a state of emergency.)
I respect your view on the traditional Mass - and of course your own liturgical preference. Your view makes sense to me.
However, when I attended the novus ordo liturgy, for the most part I did not even know what the consecration and offertory were. I only learned about these concepts from tradition.
Tradition is also what taught me what the Mass is, how to pray the rosary, about Fatima, and essentially everything I know about the Catholic faith.
Modern Catholicism taught me that everyone is nice and that the Jews and Protestants are brilliant. (seriously, that was it). I left school knowing more about Bar Mitzvahs than Catholic Sacraments. To this day, I know words and phrases in Hebrew - I cant think why!?! As a child, I thought the Mass was a kind of mediocre get-together for elderly ladies.
Ultimately, the only reason the SSPX exists is because many in the hierarchy are abusive authorities who bully and abuse Catholics who prefer a traditional approach.
My 3 small daughters and I (along with an entire healthy congregation) were recently expelled from our Parish Church because our Bishop does not like the traditional Mass and lacked the Christian charity to allow us to continue in peace.
He aims us to force us to attend modern liturgies. However, as a parent charged with passing on the faith to my children, I cannot do that in good conscience because - in my experience in my own diocese- the modern Mass retains very few people and those whom it does retain are often very superficial Catholics.
The situation might be different elsewhere, but that what we are dealing with here. I have to make decisions based on what I think will maximum the chance of my daughters practising the faith.
We - and many others - wanted to attend a Mass provided by the Diocese, but the Diocese itself prevents us from doing so. And so all of those people (and their donations) now go to the SSPX.
We obviously have extremely different experiences. The members of my parish are extremely faithfilled. We have a booming Catholic school with which our pastor is heavily involved, but of course this being Indiana most grade school and high school students are publicly funded wherever they go to school. A recent Crisis magazine article listed our diocese as one of the ten best for migrating to if one wants to move to protect one's faith, so there's that as well.
Sorry for the delay replying, but I am afraid that is a ridiculous thing to suggest.
Jorge Bergoglio, like every other Pope, is just a person like you or I, he is not a divine entity.
The modern phenomenon of "Papolatry" - that is, Pope Worship, is a serious challenge for the Church today. Catholics must realise that the Catholic Faith is a thing in and of itself. It stands alone, and would continue to do so even if we had no Pope, because the things it teaches are true.
The Catholic Faith is not "whatever Pope Francis has said on a whim now".
While Catholics must assent to the teaching of the Church, that does not mean our opinions on any matter are automatically subject to those of the Pope.
Catholics should also realise that the personal opinions of the Pope may differ from the formal teaching of the Church.
It is crazy to suggest that a Catholic is not entitled to form their own opinion on the liturgy based on their own experience, historical information, how well it reflects their Catholic beliefs and the trends it is responsible for. Or that an opinion is invalid, simply because Jorge Bergoglio does not happen to share it.
Look at the contrast between Benedict and Francis: the former said the Traditional Mass was a good thing and that is was justifiable for Catholics to desire it. The latter says the precise opposite.
Who on earth could take this seriously, this flip-flopping which is only politics and not faith?
At the end of the day, the liturgy does not belong to the Popes and they have no place attempting to dictate to Catholics which they should prefer. I could not think of a worse example of clericalism.
Neither I nor most other Catholics worship the Pope. We do believe that he in union with the bishops throughout the world is infallible in matters of faith and morals when he speaks, and that he should be respected due to his office.
One of the things the Church teaches is that Jesus said it was founded on Peter and therefore on the papacy.
Certainly the Pope says some things off the cuff which he shouldn't have said, but there has been much more twisting of his words to make them say what he didn't say, who am I to judge being the first I really noticed. He has by now a long history of not correcting those who misquote him or misinterpret what he has said, which is why I don't read most of what is said about him. I don't trust the sources to report accurately what he says so I don't waste my time on them.
Traditionally the Pope in union with the bishops has changed things for the good of the Church in specific circumstances. In the original Church everyone received, probably under both species. Eventually only the priests received under both. The laity went from receiving daily or weekly to receiving 3 times a year and then to receiving once a year. Now we are back to daily or weekly reception, with both species available at least on Sunday. These changes were decided by the hierarchy in every case.
Given that there are huge numbers of people who attend the Novus Ordo and there were very few who attended the Latin Mass, even when it was allowed, the idea that the old rite is going to do away with the Novus Ordo is foolish. My fairly small diocese had 7 priestly ordinations this year, and that's just one of over a hundred dioceses in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
Finally, the priest speaks to God directly in a way that allows the people to more fully participate in the conversation. Since He is on the altar, He is most definitely on the inside of that circle, not just on the outside.
It is true that comparatively few people attended the traditional Mass, but also true that it was growing strongly all the time. Summorum Pontificum was an ongoing great success (like the SSPX).
I in no way thought the TLM would overthrow the modern Mass, nor that people should be forced to attend any particular liturgy. I do not seem them an opposing forces and im wary of tribalism in the Church.
What I think is that the TLM will continue to grow (even despite efforts to kill it) and the modern Mass will continue to waste away, like the protestant liturgies it seeks to copy. And that is how change will occur, though it could take decades or centuries.
Its great news you guys had 7 ordinations this year. Our diocese is not so lucky and is now reduced to ordaining pensioners and increasingly relying on Conservative African missionary priests.
I once met a man in his 60s, retired from his career, who was training to become a Priest. He became a priest but is now already dead. And so this desperate stop gap will not buy the Church much time.
The modern mass, a direct import of protestant worship, is built on sand and is unquestionably a failure by any metric. In contrast it is almost amusing to see Francis think he can succeed in killing the TLM, where any number of protestant reformers and tyrants failed.
The fact that a Pope should savagely attack his own flock, is a great sign of how disorientatedand dysfunctional the modern Church is.
Countless martyrs went to their deaths for the sake of the TLM. Saint John Ogilvie was martyred in my own City. Who would ever go to their death for the sake of the Novus Ordo?
The modern Mass was not designed to copy Protestant liturgies, it was designed to make the liturgy more intelligible to the people. The Protestant liturgies were designed to deny the sacrificial nature of the Mass and transsubstantiation. Those are two extremely different things.
Countless martyrs are now going to their deaths for the sake of the Novus Ordo. Our bishop went to Nigeria last summer and assisted with confirmations because there were so many there, and yet over 5000 Christians have been murdered for their faith there in the last 10 years.
Of course not - I did not suggest anything like that.
The novus ordo liturgy was authorised by the Church and so "works", even if in practice it will often be invalid due to the amount of invention, ad-libbing and clowning from the priests. The rubrics are meant to be followed closely.
What Benedict was getting at was the fact that the main focus at the Novus Ordo is the interaction between the priests (and supporting cast in the sanctuary) and the congregation.
I attended it for many years, I know what it is often like. Priests often resort to jokes and anecdotes to engage the congregation, as if painfully aware of the banality of the proceedings.
I am blessed to have priests who follow the rubrics for the NO. If I bump into a priest who doesn't, and it's never a diocesan priest but a very few others of a certain age from a religious order, I simply don't attend his Masses a second time. As far as I'm concerned, the main interaction at the NO is between the humans and the sacrificial elements on the altar. The rest is irrelevant.
Perhaps the differences we experience are due to national differences, as the Pope seems to have a certain disrespect for the American mentality and we keep on being who we are.
Before the indults, someone asked me what I thought of female altar servers and I said, "Disobedience is not a virtue." That cuts in a lot of directions, both left and right and personal as well as for other people.
I have led groups of 35+ youth to fived different WYD. For some it meant nothing, for others it changed their lives dramatically for the better. The same thing that happened to those who encountered Christ when he walked the roads of Palestine. To be bitter about WYD, to see it as a negative, is simply to have a very narrow view of what brings people to Jesus.
Because I have criticised WYD does not imply "bitterness" - not at all. I love the Church and all my brother and sisters, we should be capable of having frank discourse, including when we feel things are not up to scratch.
We have had WYD for most of my lifetime and it has done nothing to arrest the steep decline in the Church. I think it does a poor job of presenting Catholicism and is more informed by secular trends than Catholic ones.
The Church is capable of so much better, than is the real tragedy in my eyes.
I agree people can encounter God in many ways, even unusual ways, but the trends for decades now suggest that ever fewer people are having such an encounter.
Maybe its time to rethink?
If the kids want to dance around wearing devil horns, while a "priest DJ" spins the decks, then can get that in any nightclub in their own town or city - they dont need to go to WYD for it.
Should the Church not offer something different to secular society?
Hello all! As we continue to discuss World Youth Day, may I remind you of the comment policy here at The Pillar: Christian charity.
I believe that we can discuss substantive issues candidly and frankly, with real disagreement and engagement, while modeling at the same time charity for both our interlocutors and those whom we are discussing. I expect that of Pillar subscribers, actually.
in the jubilee year 2000, Pope John Paul II, whose initiate gave birth to WYD told the world’s Catholic youth: ‘It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.’ (https://coramfratribus.com/notebook/)
// it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle //
In these days when electronic communications, especially television, are enabling a great increase in mass propagandizing, the stifling is intensifying far beyond anything possible before. Propaganda well done can be extremely effective.
I've not been able to subscribe to coramfratribus.com from the iPad (the software refuses to recognize the Return key). I will try to remember to try later from the PC.
My daughter is at WYD as I write this. While I admit to grave doubts at the direction in which Pope Francis seems to want to take the Church, and my heart sank when I read Bishop Aguiar's denial that conversion to Christ is the goal of WYD, I am nevertheless hopeful that daughter will grow in faith, hope and love as a result of this pilgrimage. I can assure you, Graham, that (like the Chartres pilgrims, whom I respect greatly) we paid our own way and participated in many fundraisers over two years in order to fund the trip. I can also assure you that all the young people attending from our small diocese are actively practicing Catholics who are at Mass every Sunday and active in other Church ministries as well. My daughter has gone to Mass every day since she left home July 25 and to confession at least once as well. She has received solid catechesis while in Portugal, prayed the rosary each day and experienced the universality of our beloved Church. The pilgrims have stayed in very Spartan accommodations and anticipate walking at least 20 miles (to the closing Mass and back)--not 63 miles, but not too shabby either. I urge you not to write off these experiences as worthless. If she has an opportunity to participate in the Chartres pilgrimage, I would urge her to do that as well. I love the Latin Mass and attend from time to time, but know dear brother in Christ that there is faith in the rest of the Church and in WYD as well.
WYD is a huge event with over 1 million young people, not all go with good motives, nor do all the people organizing events know exactly what they are doing. If you want to go to Mass and focus on the server picking his nose and the man who is bored and there only to make his wife happy, go ahead. But, you will be a happier man focusing on the positive. For 17 years I have run a very successful student center. I would say in the last 15 years close to 50 men have gone into the seminary, and perhaps half the number into the convent. It has been a center of true conversion and because of it we were able to build a gorgeous Center and Church. https://uwcatholic.org/ Every Wednesday night there is a candle light Mass with chant and close to 100 students all receiving communion on their knees. WYD was a huge part of getting students motivated to love Jesus and make the ministry a thriving happy place. I took students there every chance I had.
noooo its a failure, strickland (america's bishop) told me on his twitter account noooo
I agree with you, Joseph, but I do wonder about the worth of comments like this. If you want to be in dialogue with people, it might be best to be a bit more ... gentle?
Writing this isn't meant to cause offence.
there are times for serious dialogue, and there are times for weak attempts at humour/trolling. when I wrote the comment, I felt like doing the latter
What does this mean...a failure, WYD, having it in Portugal, evangelization?
And while Bp. Strickland is a great bishop, he is not "America's bishop." According to the faith and practice of the Church we all have our own diocesan bishops, whether we like them or not.
it is a sarcastic remark making light of the way that Strickland predicted this year's WYD would have the lowest attendance since JPII began the event (a blatantly untrue statement).
"America's bishop" is a term recently used by the LifeSiteNews crowd to describe their hero, Strickland. it is, as you say, uncanonical, and I would go so far as to say evil, because in giving the accolade to one (unworthy) bishop, they intend to deny legitimacy to all other bishops of the country, who in their twisted worldview are not sufficiently outspoken against Francis, Biden, etc.
I'd just like to gently recommend next time to put /s (sarcasm) or /jk (joke) at the end if you want to be sarcastic, God bless!
And I might add that I love mine and I'm reasonably sure he is too busy working to waste his time on social media.
I struggle to see any genuine worth in these events. Certainly, they do nothing to arrest the ongoing steep decline in the Church.
I get that its a great experience for young adults to travel and meet others from around the world, but I do not detect much of a flavour of Catholicism. Even less so now, given that Jorge will be trailing them around the buildings of various false religions. Let us be honest, most of the attendees going will be going mainly for the trip experience, not for any religious reason.
And I expect that, like very many Novus Ordo Catholics, most attendees will have almost wholly secular values and attending these events will do nothing to change that.
The irony is that the bringing together of large numbers of people of different languages highlights (yet again) how stupid / arrogant it was for the Church to illicitly abandon its unifying language of latin (I say 'illicitly' because it was never discussed or agreed upon, rather arrogant Bishops just did it).
Could you ever imagine the Muslims as being so stupid (or arrogant) as to abandon arabic?
A much better representation of youth in the Church today would be the Chartres pilgrimage, which this year had to close admissions at 16,000 because they could not cope with the numbers wanting to attend. Most of the attendees were in their 20s. The SSPX run another pilgrimage, same route but opposite direction, which took 4,000 this year. (I think, by this point in the Church's decline, it would be better now to combine the two.)
These pilgrimages represent Catholicism, WYD represents emotional humanism, as we can see by the emotionally charged pictures reminiscent of American protestant "megachurch" events.
Remarkably, the out of touch prelates who run the Church fail to even mention these increasingly popular pilgrimages. Why? Because they are tradition orientated and so the precise opposite of the failed 1970s Christianity which the prelates of today are hawking. And so the 1000s of young people walking under the banner of Christ make the Pope and so many Cardinals burn with embarrassment and resentment.
Your description of SSPX activities may have inadvertently hit the nail on the head: “same route but opposite direction.”
Hi Lucy,
I suppose there is an analogy there, traditional always remains full of vitality, while the mainstream Church sadly continues to waste away.
Actually, I meant that the SSPX is 180 degrees off. Their origins are in pride, disobedience and deception.
You’re right that we see evil at work in the Church, including in all levels of the hierarchy, but she is a supernatural reality, the Bride of Christ, so she will be redeemed and it will be through humility and obedience. And a good amount of suffering.
Using the term “bastard”, as you do below, to describe the sacrifice of Christ, validly and licitly offered, may rise to the level of blasphemy.
Hi Lucy,
If you think these terms adequate describe the origin of the SSPX, then you obviously do not know much about them. They remained faithful to the Church while many others went mad, with the terrible results we see today.
Like so many groups and individuals, they have been treated disgracefully by the Church authorities, over the years.
I am not their "defender in chief" but I do not like to see groups defamed.
Our contributions should be temperate and based on facts.
No-one is perfect, but the things you accuse the SSPX of are more descriptive of the mainstream Church.
Altar girls and the protestant practice of communion in the hand were both introduced to the Catholic Church via disobedience. The disobedience continues even today, with many priests ad-libbing rubrics and, of course, the inevitable abuse of the concept of EMHC at every Mass.
The reason some people dislike the SSPX, is because the beauty and magnificence of authentic Catholicism shames the sloppy ersatz Catholicism (really, Roman Protestantism) served up in the majority of Parish Churches.
I do have difficulty being charitable, and Pope St John Paul II is a much better source of information than me. You can read his words in his letter Ecclesia Dei:
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html
Hi Lucy,
I am familiar with the lettter and organisation Eccelsia Dei, Pope Francis recently having done away with this organisation.
Note that there have been various significant developments in the decades since the Ecclesia Dei letter.
Approx 20 years ago, the then head of Ecclesia Dei, Cardinal Dario Castrillion Hoyos, said in an interview that the SSPX "are not schismatic" multiple times and so it is disappointing that this calumny continues.
The Church authorities have never formally declared the SSPX to be in schism, because they are not. It is true the SSPX Bishops were punished (since rescinded) for being consecrated without a mandate, but they have never set up a separate organisation or authority, nor failed to acknowledge the Pope.
In my opinion, Pope Francis fairness towards the SSPX (for example, clarifying their ability to conduct weddings and hear confessions), has been one of the few highlights of his Pontificate. He was also kind towards them when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
The developments over the past 35 years have been demonstrations of great mercy on the part of the Church. There has been no corresponding repentance shown by the leaders of the SSPX.
You certainly cannot mean that the words of Pope St. John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei are irrelevant because they are several decades old? Here they are, from paragraphs 1-4:
"With great affliction the Church has learned of the unlawful episcopal ordination conferred on 30 June last by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which has frustrated all the efforts made during the previous years to ensure the full communion with the Church of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X..."
"In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act."
"The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition."
However, neither communion in the hand, female altar servers, nor Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion are currently disobedient to the rubrics. One person can't administer both the host and the chalice, and many parishes only have one pastor, or so many Masses that each priest reaches his maximum limit per day without assisting at other Masses.
Insofar as SSPX acted in opposition to the Pope in union with the bishops, they were schismatic. Schismatic means separated from the Pope while continuing to hold the same faith as those with whom they have broken unity.
I find my NO Masses neither sloppy nor fake, and I get appalled by those who think they are.
I assure you, Francis will not be visiting any buildings of the false religion of traditionalism.
Well, in my experience there is always a surge in those entering the seminaries, male religious communities and usually more traditional (yes, some are NO communities) congregations of women.
While TC was ridiculous, unfair and scandalous, the Old Rite is not the only way to offer the Divine Sacrifice as seen in the various Eastern Churches and Liturgies offered at WYD (most in the vernacular of the people attending).
Great good can and does come out of these events along with some abuses and nonsense.
We are a fallen people. No event like this is perfect. We have to wait for the fullness of the Kingdom which is to come.
Hi Bisbee,
Of course the traditional latin rite is not the only way: no-one asserted it was - as you highlight, the eastern liturgies are venerable too. (Granted, I did mention latin).
Sadly, I am not convinced that "great good" comes out of these events. I confidently predict that most of the attendees of this WYD will not remain as practising Catholics.
I do not know of your local trends, but in the country where I live, Mass attendance has halved in the last 30 years. We do not have our problems to seek as a Church and I think its passed time we recognised that and took action, I do not think this style of sentimental religious festival does much to help!
You forgot that many of the pilgrims that come to these events are from societies, mostly from the developing world, that are not secular, unlike those in the West, and more often come to WYD with the sincere intent of renewing their faith. It's quite myopic to assume that the problems Western Catholics experience are the same problems African Catholics experience, most especially since the church in Africa is growing.
Hi Karl,
That is a good point, but I didnt mean to suggest that problems are the same everywhere.
WYD could be a good thing, if it sought to encourage piety rather than sentimentality. If it adequately reflected our beliefs - at every WYD, the shoddy treatment of the Eucharist shames the event.
Have you see the pictures of the plastic ciboriums used this year, which do not meet the requirements of the Catholic Church? Or the grey plastic tupperware tubs used as a tabernacle?
Why do things always have to be done so poorly? Why not do them properly and present a coherent system of belief to young people? How we worship informs how we believe - and vice versa.
It is good the Church is growing in Africa. The continent produces many good priests, which Europe increasingly relies upon. The Church grows there because African Catholicism is conservative (traditional in morality and catechesis, if not liturgy).
I have watched many pilgrims carrying the Holy Cross and images of the Holy Virgin and saints. I have heard the rosary prayed by different groups in their languages. I have seen the lines for confessions.
Many might attend for tourist purposes but many attend because it is a spiritual gathering.
Is there not room for these young people as well as the Chartres pilgrimage young people?
There is room for everyone in the Catholic Church.
(Though always on God's terms and not the kind of terms Francis seems to be advocating for).
But Pope Francis does not seem to think there is room for everyone, though - typically -what he says and what he does are far removed from one another.
Fresh from ejecting TLM-attending Catholics from their parish Churches, he announced at WYD that "there is room for everyone".
I do not know about you, but I do not like hypocrites, nor being patronised.
And strange that so many young people are at this event, yet are very conspicuous by their absence in the typical parish Church of today.
> I struggle to see any genuine worth in these events
Serious question: have you asked the Holy Spirit for help? If I am struggling to see something, then I ask God for help to see it. And I ask Him (impatiently and abruptly) for patience also because I think "usually He is pretty slow about giving me light", as I have usually forgotten that there were also a lot of times when He was alarmingly fast (along the lines of interrupting me mid-sentence).
As always, you have hit the nail on the head.
Hi Bridget,
As ever, I admire your suggestion of recourse to prayer - but I do not think my opinion of WYD is down to some spiritual blindness, but rather its my considered opinion based on trends.
The Church has been failing badly for decades now, especially in the West and Latin America.
WYD is part of this ongoing failure, as is ambiguous morality, poor catechesis, slop liturgy, bad music, ugly buildings, corrupt clergy and the Church neither giving people anything, nor asking anything of them in return.
I pray for the renewal of the Church every day. I find many Catholic react badly, if it is pointed out that our (The Church's) performance is lousy - and it is lousy.
We have to be clear sighted and honest about how things are going. That's all I advocate. If something is poor, its OK to say "this is poor", rather than pretend everything is going well, with a fixed smile.
If any of the attendees genuinely get something good out of WYD, then great! But we could have a WYD every year and I do not think it would help the Church in any way.
Apparently Francis has been preaching about climate action at WYD. Do you get into Heaven, if you cut your carbon footprint?
It is rocky ground all over and yet "God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham" (a contradiction that I do not understand, but have personally observed. In me.)
There are over a billion Roman Catholics and you think 16,000 is impressive? There are many more than that attending World Youth Day.
The prelates of whom I am aware are faithful to Jesus Christ and His Church. I attend a Novus Ordo parish of very faithfilled people and I get extremely tired of arrogant people who think they know better than the Church how she should be regulating the liturgy. The bishop of your diocese is the person who should be deciding how things should be done. For instance, my bishop has asked all the parishes to say the St. Michael prayer at the end of every Mass, so we do. If he didn't want us to we wouldn't. Obedience is a virtue.
I am also fluent in Latin so the language isn't the issue, humility and obedience are.
Hi Sue,
Yes, I think 16,000 is very impressive, when those 16,000 have travelled at their own expense to walk ~62 miles over 3 days in pilgrimage, sleeping in tents overnight. It would have been more, had the organisers had the facility to cope.
I wonder how many would walk ~62 miles to attend WYD?
I am familiar with the style of WYD. When I was at High School, groups of pupils were sent to the Vatican to attend the ceremony where a local Bishop was to be made a Cardinal. Like WYD, this was held up as an example of how pious and engaged our young people are.
Yet, when they returned, the stories were all about underage drinking and liaisons with the opposite sex. It was clear the the spiritual part of the trip was purely superficial. So it will be too, for many of the attendees here. (And don't get me wrong, I do not expect young people to live like monks).
Are you aware of Pope Francis, Cardinal McElroy, Cardinal Hollerich etc? Because there are good arguments and strong evidence that these men are not faithful to Christ and His Church.
As regards the liturgy, I do know who these "arrogant people who think they know better" are but I take my lead from the tradition of the Church, including the documents of Vatican II.
While conceding some scope for the vernacular, Vatican II advocated that Latin and Gregorian Chant remain prominent in our liturgy. It didn't say anything about altar girls, lay people in the sanctuary, communion in the hand, EMHC etc. Nor did it advocate an abandonment of the Catholic Mass in favour of banal protestant style worship, which is what has happened (as Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict) acknowledged.
Its not for nothing that the Novus Ordo is decried as a "bastard rite", it has no roots in the Church whatsoever.
It would be good if everyone familiarised themselves with the Vatican II documents and how our liturgy has drastically changed for the worse, without agreement or sanction.
After all, if there is anything worse than arrogance it is surely ignorance.
It is good that you say the St Michael prayer after Mass. But a Bishop would have no place attempting to stop you saying the same prayer - that would be clericalism.
I've read all the documents from Vatican II, thank you, and the only way I would go to an ad orientem Mass is if there was absolutely no other option. A bishop is the shepherd of his flock and it isn't clericalism for him to guide his congregations' communal rituals, it's his job.
And it is certainly arrogance to claim that the Pope in union with the bishops have guided the Church into a worse liturgy than what was there before. The only one capable of properly making the decision as to whether worship is better or worse is God, not some human being.
Hi Sue
I do not think it is "arrogance" to hold the opinion that the modern liturgy is "worse". I think it is arrogant to deny people an opinion. I think it is quite demonstrably worse, in terms of how good a job it does at reflecting Catholic belief.
The Pope in union with the Bishops did not create the Novus Ordo liturgy. Rather disobedient Bishops did as they pleased, despite efforts of Pope John Paul II to restrain them.
And so authority in the Church collapsed alongside the liturgy. And this is where we find ourselves.
You are right that Gods judgement is more important than ours. But in a majority of places - Europe, North America, Latin America - the mainstream Church is tanking, in terms of attendance and vocations. That suggests to me that God is not impressed with what he sees.
In contrast, the SSPX (that example again) most recently accepted a record 79 new vocations and, in Kansas, recently built their largest ever Church , which is undoubtedly the finest building completed in the USA in a generation or more. This suggests to me that God is pleased with their efforts.
I think the Church is big enough to have two forms of Mass, to cater for everyone. Why not? If we can use different languages, why should a traditional Mass be a problem?
The hierarchy seems to know that the novus ordo would not ultimately be most popular in such a scenario however, hence the crackdown. Their priority is to retain a protestant style liturgy, to permit continued shared services with heretics (which have done nothing over decades to advance unity).
Why do you dislike ad orientem Masses? I like them, as the focus of everyone present is God in the tabernacle. The priest addresses God directly, he does speak to the congregation in (in the words of B16) a closed circle, with God on the outside.
SSPX is schismatic. I personally have no problem with other people attending the traditional Mass provided that it is done in obedience to and in union with the hierarchy.
I prefer ad populum because it's not possible to see the tabernacle with the priest standing in front of it. It is possible to be more involved with the offertory and Consecration when one can actually see them rather than just hear someone saying the words. They have a much greater impact for me because I'm a visually oriented person. So that's what I prefer.
Hi Sue,
In fact the SSPX is not schismatic and so the authorities of the Church have never formally pronounced them to be so. We as lay people cannot declare things which the Church has not.
True, their consecration of Bishops without mandate was described as a "schismatic act" but they did that not to separate themselves from the Church, but because they consider the Church to be in a state of emergency - a contingency which Canon law allows for.
(I share the view that the Church is in a state of emergency.)
I respect your view on the traditional Mass - and of course your own liturgical preference. Your view makes sense to me.
However, when I attended the novus ordo liturgy, for the most part I did not even know what the consecration and offertory were. I only learned about these concepts from tradition.
Tradition is also what taught me what the Mass is, how to pray the rosary, about Fatima, and essentially everything I know about the Catholic faith.
Modern Catholicism taught me that everyone is nice and that the Jews and Protestants are brilliant. (seriously, that was it). I left school knowing more about Bar Mitzvahs than Catholic Sacraments. To this day, I know words and phrases in Hebrew - I cant think why!?! As a child, I thought the Mass was a kind of mediocre get-together for elderly ladies.
Ultimately, the only reason the SSPX exists is because many in the hierarchy are abusive authorities who bully and abuse Catholics who prefer a traditional approach.
My 3 small daughters and I (along with an entire healthy congregation) were recently expelled from our Parish Church because our Bishop does not like the traditional Mass and lacked the Christian charity to allow us to continue in peace.
He aims us to force us to attend modern liturgies. However, as a parent charged with passing on the faith to my children, I cannot do that in good conscience because - in my experience in my own diocese- the modern Mass retains very few people and those whom it does retain are often very superficial Catholics.
The situation might be different elsewhere, but that what we are dealing with here. I have to make decisions based on what I think will maximum the chance of my daughters practising the faith.
We - and many others - wanted to attend a Mass provided by the Diocese, but the Diocese itself prevents us from doing so. And so all of those people (and their donations) now go to the SSPX.
Its all so sad and needless.
We obviously have extremely different experiences. The members of my parish are extremely faithfilled. We have a booming Catholic school with which our pastor is heavily involved, but of course this being Indiana most grade school and high school students are publicly funded wherever they go to school. A recent Crisis magazine article listed our diocese as one of the ten best for migrating to if one wants to move to protect one's faith, so there's that as well.
It is arrogant to decide that one's opinion on a matter is better than that of the Pope on whom the Church is built.
HI Sue,
Sorry for the delay replying, but I am afraid that is a ridiculous thing to suggest.
Jorge Bergoglio, like every other Pope, is just a person like you or I, he is not a divine entity.
The modern phenomenon of "Papolatry" - that is, Pope Worship, is a serious challenge for the Church today. Catholics must realise that the Catholic Faith is a thing in and of itself. It stands alone, and would continue to do so even if we had no Pope, because the things it teaches are true.
The Catholic Faith is not "whatever Pope Francis has said on a whim now".
While Catholics must assent to the teaching of the Church, that does not mean our opinions on any matter are automatically subject to those of the Pope.
Catholics should also realise that the personal opinions of the Pope may differ from the formal teaching of the Church.
It is crazy to suggest that a Catholic is not entitled to form their own opinion on the liturgy based on their own experience, historical information, how well it reflects their Catholic beliefs and the trends it is responsible for. Or that an opinion is invalid, simply because Jorge Bergoglio does not happen to share it.
Look at the contrast between Benedict and Francis: the former said the Traditional Mass was a good thing and that is was justifiable for Catholics to desire it. The latter says the precise opposite.
Who on earth could take this seriously, this flip-flopping which is only politics and not faith?
At the end of the day, the liturgy does not belong to the Popes and they have no place attempting to dictate to Catholics which they should prefer. I could not think of a worse example of clericalism.
Neither I nor most other Catholics worship the Pope. We do believe that he in union with the bishops throughout the world is infallible in matters of faith and morals when he speaks, and that he should be respected due to his office.
One of the things the Church teaches is that Jesus said it was founded on Peter and therefore on the papacy.
Certainly the Pope says some things off the cuff which he shouldn't have said, but there has been much more twisting of his words to make them say what he didn't say, who am I to judge being the first I really noticed. He has by now a long history of not correcting those who misquote him or misinterpret what he has said, which is why I don't read most of what is said about him. I don't trust the sources to report accurately what he says so I don't waste my time on them.
Traditionally the Pope in union with the bishops has changed things for the good of the Church in specific circumstances. In the original Church everyone received, probably under both species. Eventually only the priests received under both. The laity went from receiving daily or weekly to receiving 3 times a year and then to receiving once a year. Now we are back to daily or weekly reception, with both species available at least on Sunday. These changes were decided by the hierarchy in every case.
Given that there are huge numbers of people who attend the Novus Ordo and there were very few who attended the Latin Mass, even when it was allowed, the idea that the old rite is going to do away with the Novus Ordo is foolish. My fairly small diocese had 7 priestly ordinations this year, and that's just one of over a hundred dioceses in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
Finally, the priest speaks to God directly in a way that allows the people to more fully participate in the conversation. Since He is on the altar, He is most definitely on the inside of that circle, not just on the outside.
Hi Sue,
It is true that comparatively few people attended the traditional Mass, but also true that it was growing strongly all the time. Summorum Pontificum was an ongoing great success (like the SSPX).
I in no way thought the TLM would overthrow the modern Mass, nor that people should be forced to attend any particular liturgy. I do not seem them an opposing forces and im wary of tribalism in the Church.
What I think is that the TLM will continue to grow (even despite efforts to kill it) and the modern Mass will continue to waste away, like the protestant liturgies it seeks to copy. And that is how change will occur, though it could take decades or centuries.
Its great news you guys had 7 ordinations this year. Our diocese is not so lucky and is now reduced to ordaining pensioners and increasingly relying on Conservative African missionary priests.
I once met a man in his 60s, retired from his career, who was training to become a Priest. He became a priest but is now already dead. And so this desperate stop gap will not buy the Church much time.
The modern mass, a direct import of protestant worship, is built on sand and is unquestionably a failure by any metric. In contrast it is almost amusing to see Francis think he can succeed in killing the TLM, where any number of protestant reformers and tyrants failed.
The fact that a Pope should savagely attack his own flock, is a great sign of how disorientatedand dysfunctional the modern Church is.
Countless martyrs went to their deaths for the sake of the TLM. Saint John Ogilvie was martyred in my own City. Who would ever go to their death for the sake of the Novus Ordo?
The modern Mass was not designed to copy Protestant liturgies, it was designed to make the liturgy more intelligible to the people. The Protestant liturgies were designed to deny the sacrificial nature of the Mass and transsubstantiation. Those are two extremely different things.
Countless martyrs are now going to their deaths for the sake of the Novus Ordo. Our bishop went to Nigeria last summer and assisted with confirmations because there were so many there, and yet over 5000 Christians have been murdered for their faith there in the last 10 years.
Are you saying that Pope Benedict XVI denied that transsubstantiation occurs in ad populum Masses? Forgive me for not believing you.
Hi Sue,
Of course not - I did not suggest anything like that.
The novus ordo liturgy was authorised by the Church and so "works", even if in practice it will often be invalid due to the amount of invention, ad-libbing and clowning from the priests. The rubrics are meant to be followed closely.
What Benedict was getting at was the fact that the main focus at the Novus Ordo is the interaction between the priests (and supporting cast in the sanctuary) and the congregation.
I attended it for many years, I know what it is often like. Priests often resort to jokes and anecdotes to engage the congregation, as if painfully aware of the banality of the proceedings.
In contrast, the focus at the TLM is only God.
I am blessed to have priests who follow the rubrics for the NO. If I bump into a priest who doesn't, and it's never a diocesan priest but a very few others of a certain age from a religious order, I simply don't attend his Masses a second time. As far as I'm concerned, the main interaction at the NO is between the humans and the sacrificial elements on the altar. The rest is irrelevant.
Perhaps the differences we experience are due to national differences, as the Pope seems to have a certain disrespect for the American mentality and we keep on being who we are.
Just one more thought - you mention obedience.
Are you aware that essentially all of the major features of the liturgy you attend are born of disobedience to the Holy See?
They tried to cover this up by issuing retrospective indults, but these efforts were only putting lipstick on a pig!
Before the indults, someone asked me what I thought of female altar servers and I said, "Disobedience is not a virtue." That cuts in a lot of directions, both left and right and personal as well as for other people.
I have led groups of 35+ youth to fived different WYD. For some it meant nothing, for others it changed their lives dramatically for the better. The same thing that happened to those who encountered Christ when he walked the roads of Palestine. To be bitter about WYD, to see it as a negative, is simply to have a very narrow view of what brings people to Jesus.
Hi Eric,
Because I have criticised WYD does not imply "bitterness" - not at all. I love the Church and all my brother and sisters, we should be capable of having frank discourse, including when we feel things are not up to scratch.
We have had WYD for most of my lifetime and it has done nothing to arrest the steep decline in the Church. I think it does a poor job of presenting Catholicism and is more informed by secular trends than Catholic ones.
The Church is capable of so much better, than is the real tragedy in my eyes.
I agree people can encounter God in many ways, even unusual ways, but the trends for decades now suggest that ever fewer people are having such an encounter.
Maybe its time to rethink?
If the kids want to dance around wearing devil horns, while a "priest DJ" spins the decks, then can get that in any nightclub in their own town or city - they dont need to go to WYD for it.
Should the Church not offer something different to secular society?
Hello all! As we continue to discuss World Youth Day, may I remind you of the comment policy here at The Pillar: Christian charity.
I believe that we can discuss substantive issues candidly and frankly, with real disagreement and engagement, while modeling at the same time charity for both our interlocutors and those whom we are discussing. I expect that of Pillar subscribers, actually.
in the jubilee year 2000, Pope John Paul II, whose initiate gave birth to WYD told the world’s Catholic youth: ‘It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.’ (https://coramfratribus.com/notebook/)
// it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle //
In these days when electronic communications, especially television, are enabling a great increase in mass propagandizing, the stifling is intensifying far beyond anything possible before. Propaganda well done can be extremely effective.
I've not been able to subscribe to coramfratribus.com from the iPad (the software refuses to recognize the Return key). I will try to remember to try later from the PC.
My daughter is at WYD as I write this. While I admit to grave doubts at the direction in which Pope Francis seems to want to take the Church, and my heart sank when I read Bishop Aguiar's denial that conversion to Christ is the goal of WYD, I am nevertheless hopeful that daughter will grow in faith, hope and love as a result of this pilgrimage. I can assure you, Graham, that (like the Chartres pilgrims, whom I respect greatly) we paid our own way and participated in many fundraisers over two years in order to fund the trip. I can also assure you that all the young people attending from our small diocese are actively practicing Catholics who are at Mass every Sunday and active in other Church ministries as well. My daughter has gone to Mass every day since she left home July 25 and to confession at least once as well. She has received solid catechesis while in Portugal, prayed the rosary each day and experienced the universality of our beloved Church. The pilgrims have stayed in very Spartan accommodations and anticipate walking at least 20 miles (to the closing Mass and back)--not 63 miles, but not too shabby either. I urge you not to write off these experiences as worthless. If she has an opportunity to participate in the Chartres pilgrimage, I would urge her to do that as well. I love the Latin Mass and attend from time to time, but know dear brother in Christ that there is faith in the rest of the Church and in WYD as well.
WYD is a huge event with over 1 million young people, not all go with good motives, nor do all the people organizing events know exactly what they are doing. If you want to go to Mass and focus on the server picking his nose and the man who is bored and there only to make his wife happy, go ahead. But, you will be a happier man focusing on the positive. For 17 years I have run a very successful student center. I would say in the last 15 years close to 50 men have gone into the seminary, and perhaps half the number into the convent. It has been a center of true conversion and because of it we were able to build a gorgeous Center and Church. https://uwcatholic.org/ Every Wednesday night there is a candle light Mass with chant and close to 100 students all receiving communion on their knees. WYD was a huge part of getting students motivated to love Jesus and make the ministry a thriving happy place. I took students there every chance I had.