So, we are 5 1/2 years removed from Summorum Pontificum and by and large we have seen no applicable change in the attitude of mutual enrichment. The question is why?
I have my ideas, but I already know that most people disagree with the assessment that I make, citing, that there hasn't been enough time to see the fruits...I call BS on that.
There has been ample time, but the resistance to the mutual enrichment has been so great, by the liberal "50-70 somethings," that nothing can take place. They just refuse to see the broader picture. They are close minded and rigid. Were they authentically open to reform, they would see that the way to enrich the Novus Ordo isn't to resist, but to embrace. Isn't that what they preached all through the 70s and 80s? Now that the script has flipped, they are looking like those whom they accused all these many years.
Bottom line, if pastors and curates are truly interested in the "reform of the reform" then they will take aspects of the TLM and apply it to the Novus Ordo. They will catechize as to why and they will make the change.
1. Use Latin
2. Turn the altars around
3. Eliminate profane music and improper/forbidden instruments
4. Restore all male altar servers
5. Restore Communion on knees and eliminate Communion in the hand
6. Sing the Mass
7. Use all of the ceremonies for the principal Mass
8. Open the confessional before Mass
9. For God's sake, celebrate both forms of the Roman Rite in each parish.
I firmly believe that the clergy are afraid of the "50-70 somethings." I firmly believe that they don't want to offend them in any way, but have no problem offending the fastest growing segment of the Church. Why?
Bottom line, MONEY. Pastors are afraid the money will shut off if they stop using guitars and pianos. If they stop singing Haas and Farrell and Joncas. If they start treating the Mass less like a community organizing event and more like a sacrifice. Bottom line, MONEY. I can tell you, there are a lot of "20-40 somethings" who make good money who would pick up the slack, if these priests would have the cojones to do enrich the Novus Ordo.
Until that happens, this will be nothing more than an academic exercise and that is too bad, because the reform of the reform will fail until there is action behind it.
Until then, I will send my monies to places which support traditional practices and not to my parish. If they don't want to take the time to listen, then they don't deserve my energy and my tithe. Sound familiar? Sad thing for those priests, I am the future of the Church. The "50-70 somethings" are the past, they just don't know it yet.
I think once people get through with being offended by trivial things, they come to accept what they can't change.
ReplyDeleteThing of the past??? Roman Catholic traditionalist priest and member of a ecclesiastical institute,recognized by Rome, which offers the TLM exclusively. I'm 50 and I AM the future of the Church...;-)
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the money though...everything and I mean everything in every diocese in the world of Novus Ordo land boils down to money. Sad...
Father G.;
ReplyDeleteI can tell you honestly, you get my money.
You might be 50, but you are "on the fringe," compared to 99.9999% of your peer group. I cannot stress enough that if your diocesan counterparts would step up and stop worrying about Caesar and things associated, well...
We'd both be liked better by the 50-70 somethings....