Smaller, more conservative, Catholic Church

After all of the hippie priests retire, we get our church back!!

If all you got from that article is some Catholics prefer the TLM, it was because you were searching for it. That was less than 3% of the article.

It was clear the author was lamenting that all those stupid Catholic rules against contraception, gay marriage, etc are coming back and that's such a shame. Look at all the people leaving now that Catholic teaching is being taught again! Its terrible!!!

At the end of the day I don't care what the AP has to say about The Church. But I will say that it's sad that even this reporter can see just how much The Church failed to teach the true faith for so long. Hearing the truth isn't easy but hopefully it can make its way back into the mainstream and those that have been misled for so long can accept it.

ETA: I personally loved how they intertwined progressive churches with caring for the poor. Because traditional Catholic parishes never help the poor or anything. And I agree with you on not dividing the universal church with those labels, but it's difficult to describe what the article is offering without using the author's preferred terminology

So many pearls clutched in that article...

A voice in my head kept saying "you say that like it's a bad thing" while reading that article

And of course Pablo (the other, liberal one) fumbles the ball, like he always does

A lot of liberal priests from the '60s turned the Catholic Church into a social justice organization. And while I truly support helping the poor, and do, the Catholic Church, in my view is so much more than that. It holds the keys to the kingdom of God, which Jesus took away from the Jews in Matthew 21:43.

And how one worships determines how one believes. Hand holding, sappy sermons about being nice, and effeminate priests have chased a lot of men away from the Church. Hopefully, a lot will return when the Mass has no more dancing priests, no more emcee priests encouraging clapping for whatever, and biblically based sermons that actually mention the reality of committing serious sins and the horrible end result....

747Ag said:

---

So many pearls clutched in that article...

---

Eric Sammons discusses the article here:
https://crisismagazine.com/podcast/is-the-catholic-church-in-america-becoming-conservative

Article itself really isn't about our favorite liturgy war past time here... It's much larger. One of the points is that people have left and are leaving.

Quote:

---

At St. Maria Goretti, once steeped in the ethos of Vatican II, many parishioners saw the changes as a requiem.

"I don't want my daughter to be Catholic," said Christine Hammond, whose family left the parish when the new outlook spilled into the church's school and her daughter's classroom. "Not if this is the Roman Catholic Church that is coming."

---

Christine seems to have a distorted view of the Faith. But hey, bonus points for the use of the term requiem.


And to scratch Pablo Serna's itch on the Mission...
https://crisismagazine.com/podcast/problems-with-the-new-evangelization-guest-msgr-charles-pope

For those unfamiliar with Eric Sammons, he attends a FSSP parish in Ohio. Convert to Catholicism.

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

You seem to continually miss the point in this whole debate while insinuating the other side is being mislead by the devil.

The next time you are honest in this discussion will be the first.

I would suggest that you are equally as caught up in the liturgical battle as those you lambast (TLM goers). The vast majority of Catholics that desire priests to teach the truth do not attend a TLM. And again, it's a tiny piece of the article. The vast majority is about social issues. You are picking that particular piece out. I believe it's because it's a bit of a pet issue for you, as it is the TLM proponents.

Secondly, while a mass can be valid without any of those trappings, to ignore the physical is also an error. We are body and soul composites. What we do with our bodies (and experience) does matter. Does it make the mass more valid? No. Can it lead us to a sense of something greater? Yes. Otherwise why not do away with the standing and kneeling. Why does the way we receive the Eucharist matter? Why not one handed or in a tray that gets passed around? We know what happens physically does have an effect on the interior.

This is coming from someone who has never been to a Latin Mass and has suffered through some truly terrible more modern masses.

powerbelly said:

---

You seem to continually miss the point in this whole debate while insinuating the other side is being mislead by the devil.

The next time you are honest in this discussion will be the first.

---

Don't hold your breath

Captain Pablo said:

---

powerbelly said:

---

You seem to continually miss the point in this whole debate while insinuating the other side is being mislead by the devil.

The next time you are honest in this discussion will be the first.

---

Don't hold your breath

---

Would you say it is a Pablovian response?

I will see myself out now.......

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

The more conservative parishes seem to be growing.

What should have been more of a "unite the clans" moment has become another front of the so-called liturgy wars. Sad.

People desire reverence in the Liturgy. Many, especially the younger faithful, crave it. And that's the point of the ethereal experience comment. People desire Truth. They crave it. Many of the younger faithful don't mind being challenged by the moral teachings that run afoul of contemporary societal mores. They see no conflict between the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy. And much of this is laid out by Eric Sammons in the first podcast I shared.

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

I think the opposite happened. Treating the mass irreverently and inculturation, subordinating Catholic culture to popular culture has decimated Church membership. Large dioceses like Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and others have had to close a lot of Parishes, and it didn't happen because of what's being described in the article.

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

I think the opposite happened. Treating the mass irreverently and inculturation, subordinating Catholic culture to popular culture has decimated Church membership. Large dioceses like Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and others have had to close a lot of Parishes, and it didn't happen because of what's being described in the article.

---

See Germany since they started their idiotic Synodal Way, and went rogue. 522,000 gone in 2022

2023 numbers are not in, that I know of. Wouldn't surprise me if similar numbers left

They're leaving for the same reason Protestant churches are drying up. Liberalism. Destroys everything

Look at the Methodist churches that have left the liberal UMC over the last couple of years….Lots of new growth and energy!

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

I think the opposite happened. Treating the mass irreverently and inculturation, subordinating Catholic culture to popular culture has decimated Church membership. Large dioceses like Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and others have had to close a lot of Parishes, and it didn't happen because of what's being described in the article.

---

What's your evidence that Church membership would not have tanked if they had just been way more conservative and strict?

---

It's impossible to know what would have happened. I just know what happened.

Sapper Redux said:

---

powerbelly said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

The more conservative parishes seem to be growing.

---

Not the one in the article. A single parish that offers a very conservative interpretation may grow as it draws from surrounding parishes, but where's the evidence that if the conservative approach was adopted universally that the Church would grow?

---

I know it's a bit old school, but these parishes seem to be growing organically. A parish that attracts 100 families with 6 kids on average will do much better than 3, 100 family parishes that have 2 on average. Because the true Catholic faith is being taught (be open to life as a blessing from God, Sunday obligation, consistent confession, etc) chances are the singular large family parish will outstrip the other 3 in short order.

I could talk about the many other beneficial byproducts of these types of parishes (which primarily is adherence to 2000 years of orthodoxy for the benefit of souls), but since you want to boil it down to simple economics/consumer base, I'll stop there.

This is where we would have to parse words between traditional parishes and non, especially when it comes to teaching from the pulpit. The Church went through a monumental upheaval in the 70s that non-Catholics (or even younger Catholics like myself) can not fully understand unless they look deeply into it.

Let's take my current parish. Pre-WW2: large families (5+) and very faithful. Donated the modern equivalents 1.1 million dollars in the 1920s to build a new church. The population was 957 at the time. The countryside was obviously pretty populated, but that's a ton of money for a community that size.

Come the 60s, it's still at 5+ kid (on average) community. Vatican 2 is about to happen. Let's raise money for a new building to hold our bigger congregation!! 1.7 million in todays dollars. Town population is still less than 1000 with a populated countryside. Not bad!

New priest comes in. Changes the design of the church. Think of the gaudiest interior decor of the 70s you can and apply it to this rural parish. I'm not joking when I say orange carpets, green walls and didn't even have a crucifix behind the altar. That's what happened. I believe it is an easy guess as to what happened next. (Fun fact: priest is credibly accused by children at this parish and his next two stops)

If that happened in a minuscule town in east Texas, imagine how bad it was for the mega parishes around the States and around the world. It flipped on people overnight. People that poured a significant portion of their money and time into the parish. People that sacrificed to have 5+ kids when the changing culture told them not to. How do you think they reacted? How seriously do you think their 5+ took the faith?

One can not prove a negative, but it seems to me that the Church embracing the modern culture did not work at all. And there are basically zero control samples. The change was so wide sweeping that we can not empirically say that such and such change garnered such and such result. There simply were no true control samples. Even the sects that tried to hold to the traditional mass and teachings were penalized by Rome, so it's hard to see what their success rates would have been.

So, unfortunately, we will have to satisfy our scientific curiosity by seeing what happens next. From a faith perspective, I don't have many concerns with which style will win out. From a science perspective I'm curious to see how right or wrong I am. And because of that all future growth models will have to be predicated on faith. It should be regardless, but even if we wanted to use data, we have nothing useful.

Excellent point. By isolating, targeting, and suppressing traditional Catholics, the current leadership is doubling down on the same mistakes made post V2. It's almost like they just want to put their head in the sand about it and deny that real harms were done post V2 - and to do that they have to intimidate and silence their critics (Bishop Strickland for example), suppress TLM, promote the liberal wing, etc. We can't have traditional Catholics getting in the way of "progress", but right now there is a hunger for liturgical correction.

The momentum is definitely swinging back to the more traditional side and they are doing everything possible to keep that from happening. Having TLM and/or a more traditional NO communities threatens their "progress" and exposes the reality.

I'm not concerned about TLM. I certainly don't need it. It's not a bad thing to have Mass in the local language.

That doesn't mean you can't get back to basics, even if the mass is conducted in the local language

The toxic, corrosive, destructive forces of liberalism are destroying congregations.

Not the English language.

Captain Pablo said:

---

I'm not concerned about TLM. I certainly don't need it. It's not a bad thing to have Mass in the local language.

That doesn't mean you can't get back to basics, even if the mass is conducted in the local language

The toxic, corrosive, destructive forces of liberalism are destroying congregations.

Not the English language.

---

Nobody is focused on "the language". The current problem is that the TLM is being suppressed and denied to those that do want it. Nobody is working to deny your ability to go to Mass in the local language, but right now Catholics are being denied the ability to attend the TLM.

The liturgy was drastically changed with the NO…if the church had simply translated the Latin into English and left everything else alone the Mass today (NO) would look very different. The desire to modernize the Mass and make it "more relatable" and appealing had the opposite effect. It just took a generation or two to realize how much was lost.

ETA: I attend a NO Parish. I am not a TLM Catholic, but the church's eagerness to snuff out the TLM worries me greatly.

Faithful Ag said:

---

Captain Pablo said:

---

I'm not concerned about TLM. I certainly don't need it. It's not a bad thing to have Mass in the local language.

That doesn't mean you can't get back to basics, even if the mass is conducted in the local language

The toxic, corrosive, destructive forces of liberalism are destroying congregations.

Not the English language.

---

Nobody is focused on "the language". The current problem is that the TLM is being suppressed and denied to those that do want it. Nobody is working to deny your ability to go to Mass in the local language, but right now Catholics are being denied the ability to attend the TLM.

The liturgy was drastically changed with the NO…if the church had simply translated the Latin into English and left everything else alone the Mass today (NO) would look very different. The desire to modernize the Mass and make it "more relatable" and appealing had the opposite effect. It just took a generation or two to realize how much was lost.

ETA: I attend a NO Parish. I am not a TLM Catholic, but the church's eagerness to snuff out the TLM worries me greatly.

---

Agreed. A discussion on the differences between the two missals (1962 vs 1970) would be interesting, but in another thread. There was an interim missal (1965) that was quickly discarded (see the video of "Let Us Pray" by Elvis Presley for a likely glimpse at it).

My family and I were "bi-Roman Ritual" until about a year-and a half ago. If you count daily Masses, we still are, but our Sundays and most holydays are now at the TLM. It's been a journey. Started off with craving reverence, but soon began to see real differences in the prayers, rubrics, and calendar. Reverence, though, has been the driver. And I posit that if our bishops took that seriously, these so-called liturgy wars would be much smaller.

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

Bob Lee said:

---

Sapper Redux said:

---

I thought the idea was to grow the Church?

---

We've traded orthodoxy for membership for decades, and all we have to show for it is a bunch of Christine's. People whose faith is so fragile, as soon as the Church doesn't serve their perceived self interest, they split. What have we lost REALLY when all the Christine's leave? If all it takes for you to leave the body of Christ is exposure to right teaching, and outward signs of metaphysical realities, what's the difference?

---

So what exactly do you get when you drive off more than half the parish in your zeal and wind up having to shut down things like schools because of a lack of interest in your brand of Catholicism? Conservative Christians mock mainline Protestant denominations as weak for losing members and then turn around and find ways to lose members. But somehow it's a sign of strength and a positive?

---

I think the opposite happened. Treating the mass irreverently and inculturation, subordinating Catholic culture to popular culture has decimated Church membership. Large dioceses like Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and others have had to close a lot of Parishes, and it didn't happen because of what's being described in the article.

---

What's your evidence that Church membership would not have tanked if they had just been way more conservative and strict?

---

It's impossible to know what would have happened. I just know what happened.

---

Im assuming that if you're going to argue that "the opposite has happened" and that a reversal will improve things, you have some evidence to support that argument? Right now it seems like a lot of projection that "because I like 'x,' it will result in good things while 'y,' which I do not like, only results in bad things."

---

Everything being equal, higher Church membership is good. read the article though, what are people's apparent grievances with the shift? Teaching the four last things. Purgatory. Young families following the Church's teaching on human sexuality and not using contraceptives. Mantillas? At what point do we just say, yeah you actually hate Catholic doctrine and Culture? And what are we supposed to do about that?
We have to put first things first if we want to form saints, which is the actual "idea" as you put it. 1 Corinthians 11:27 says whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. Do the stakes get any higher than that? What should we say has gone right when 30% I think it is, of mass going Catholics believe in the dogma of transubstantiation? That is bleak.
Trying to make the Church more attractive to people who hate the teachings of the Church is self defeating.

This from a radio broadcast by Cardinal Ratzinger in 1969 where he predicts a smaller Church…the reasons are still relevant:

Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

"The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.