Maybe They Didn’t Take Away The Old Mass Because They Like Us

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By their fruits...

By their fruits…

The terrific Pat Archbold has the latest in a series of interviews with old-school Catholic and freedom fighter, Ann Barnhardt.  In it she makes two ‘transformational’ (as the Left likes to say) points about the Mass.  One regarding Vatican motivations, so alive once again in this seemingly sinister Francis Era; and the other about grace.

Before there can be any discussion of the Novus Ordo the concepts of  “validity” and “licitness” must be understood.  If a Mass is INVALID, Our Lord does NOT come down on the altar, the Eucharist is NOT confected and the Holy Sacrifice is NOT offered.  If a Mass is ILLICIT, the Eucharist is confected and Our Lord does come, but He is, depending on the severity of the infraction and motivation of the malefactor, in a range from displeased to very, very angry.  But with whom is He angry?  According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Our Lord is angry not only with the priest, but also with the PEOPLE who tolerate and embrace the liturgical faults and crimes of the clergy.  In fact, St. Thomas said that people who consent to liturgical abuse do not “obtain the reality of the sacrament”.

“Sometimes the one celebrating the sacraments differently [than prescribed] does not vary those things that are essential to the sacrament [i.e., the form and matter], and in that case, the sacrament is indeed conferred; but one does not obtain the reality of the sacrament unless the sacrament’s recipient is immune from the fault of the one celebrating it differently.”  (In IV Sent., d. 4, q. 3, a. 2, qa. 2, ad 4)

Now, when Thomas says they are not obtaining the “res,” or reality of the Sacrament, he doesn’t mean they are not receiving Jesus really, physically, substantially present in the Eucharist. Oh they absolutely receive our Lord, but not the benefit of receiving Him, not the grace. Rather, as St. Paul says, they eat and drink their own damnation. If one pauses and thinks about the gravity of what the Angelic Doctor said, one quickly realizes how the following statistics are not only possible, but entirely predictable given the Novus Ordo paradigm:

  • As of 2001, only 17% of Catholics in the U.S. attended Mass every week, which is, of course, obligatory under pain of mortal sin.
  • Of those who attend Mass “regularly”, less than 30% believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  For a non-trivial percentage of the 70% who do not believe in the Real Presence, it is because they have never been told or taught of the Real Presence in any way.
  • Among white Catholic Americans, 54% voted for Barack Obama in 2008.  That number dropped to a MERE 50% in 2012.
  • Among Hispanic Catholic Americans, 72% voted for Obama in 2008, and 75% in 2012.
  • In excess of 60% of American Catholics support sodomite “marriage”, and Catholics have consistently “led the way” in polls on this question.
  • All over the world, support for and active use of contraception among Catholics is in excess of 90%.
  • 55% of American Catholics support abortion in all or most cases.

I agree with Ann and many others that the Church, and the world along with it in our time, is suffering from a lack of Christian grace brought on by the suppression of the Mass.  The act of supreme faith and worship is much missed.  Although blindingly obvious, without eyes of faith it is impossible to see how much the Mass had elevated civilization, or how much it’s absence has debased it.

The Novus Ordo Masses are mostly valid, but the amount of grace flowing into the people, if what St. Thomas teaches is true, is little to none, not only because so many of them are receiving Holy Communion in unconfessed mortal sin, but also because the only way for an adult to receive the graces flowing from the Novus Ordo is to spend the entirety of the Mass begging God’s mercy and making reparation for the illicit liturgical actions freely chosen by the priest and consented to by the people, and further begging God’s mercy and making reparation for the massively compromised nature of the Novus Ordo itself, created as it was with full malice aforethought by Freemasonic-Communist-sodomite infiltrators of the Church, and again, consented to by the people, who have historically been the last and most strident line of defense against liturgical abuse.

What? Communists infiltrating the Church?  That would never happen, right?

Can we at least agree that the only Pope who ever, ever had the hubris to force his own version of the Mass may perhaps have been motivated by something other than a loving faith?

Or are you one of those weak-Jesus Christians who blames the world for the Church?

 

 

 

Worldwide FrancisChurch Emblem Discovered

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At “The Eye-Witness” they’ve identified the worldwide emblem of the ever forward-looking FrancisChurch.

When the discussions arise about reclaiming our heritage there are various cries instantly heard telling us that we cannot turn back the clock.  We are assured this cannot be done.

Even Rome has so stated: there is no return to those old days.  We must put these old practices out of our heads.  We have no further use of them.

Rome has spoken.

But something has now happened in Rome in the past two years.  It would appear that their minds have now changed on the subject and that there will be a going-back….

hip and cool

hip and cool

…to the late 1960s and the 1970s.

The Church of the Leisure Suit is at last being restored, and all is well with the world again.

My head is spinning.

 

Liturgy of the New Evangelization: Forward Into What?

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Is this forward enough?

This isn’t turning back, right?

Pope Francis, standing on the site of Pope Paul VI’s formal suppression of the Ancient Mass, said, “We must go forward, ever forward.  To go back is wrong!”

CWR’s Matthew James Christoff  seems to wonder:

Forward into what?

Despite the fact the New Evangelization has been an ongoing emphasis by the Catholic Church for over forty years, it has failed to stem the disastrous losses of the faithful in the U.S. Since 2000, 14 million Catholics have left the faith, parish religious education participation of children has dropped by 24%, Catholic school attendance has dropped by 19%, baptisms of infants has dropped by 28%, baptism of adults has dropped by 31% and sacramental Catholic marriages have dropped by 41%. Something is desperately wrong with the Church’s approach to the New Evangelization.

One reason the New Evangelization is faltering is because it is missing men. The New Emangelization Project has documented the serious Catholic “man-crisis” in the United States. 1 in 3 baptized Catholic men have left the faith and of those who remain, 50-60% of them are “Casual Catholics”, men who don’t know and don’t practice the faith. Of those who practice the faith, many are lukewarm, not converted to the point of conviction, a conviction in which they are prepared to make disciples for Christ and His Catholic Church. The New Evangelization has largely ignored men, with no substantial or sustained efforts to directly confront the Catholic “man-crisis”.

The Catholic “man-crisis” matters. The souls of men matter and many are being lost; for example, two thirds of Christian men are looking at porn at least monthly and the numbers are much higher for younger men. The faith of the children matter and huge numbers of young people are leaving the faith because they have followed their fathers out of the Church. Without a New Emangelization in which millions of Catholic men become newly committed to Christ and His Church, there can be no New Evangelization.

While a complex set of forces have driven the Catholic “man-crisis”, including both massive cultural changes outside the Church and serious missteps within the Church, the lack of engagement of men in the Mass is a major contributing factor: men don’t understand the Mass and well-meaning, but misinformed priests in many parishes have de-sacralized the Mass causing many men to simply “drift away.”

Mass in my parish is not only profane, it’s also loud, distracting and ugly. It’s not just feminized, it’s Broadway-musicalized.  It’s homosexualized and self-centered. The flat screen TVs are over eight feet high.  The prayers of the faithful go on for years, and the pastor always teaches something angry, sentimental, and destined to carefully unravel your natural beliefs.

Men of unsure faith and keen sense find our Masses repulsive, directly contrary to their virtues and instincts, and in many ways they are.

Christoff asks:

Why is the Mass a key driver of the Catholic “man-crisis”? Research shows that almost 9 out of 10 Catholic men don’t participate in a Catholic activity outside of attending Mass; if men aren’t being reached in the Mass, they aren’t being reached. Only about 1/3 of Catholic men are attending Mass on a weekly basis. Only 1 in 50 Catholic men have a monthly practice of Confession, underscoring the fact that many are attending Mass without a proper preparation to receive the Eucharist. 48% of Catholic men are “bored” in the Mass and 55% of Catholic men don’t feel they “get anything out of the Mass.” These statistics confirm what dozens of the New Emangelization Project interviews with top Catholic men’s evangelists know: men don’t understand the Mass. No man can truly understand the Mass and be bored.

After noting Cardinal Burke’s courageous and necessary recommendation to correct the destruction of the Mass particularly in light of men, Christoff concludes.

After forty years, the New Evangelization has so far failed to reverse the growing losses of Catholics in the West. Rather than a continued parade of programs and events, the Church needs to get back to the basics; the Mass and men. When there is a Mass Conversion of Men in which millions of men and priests are evangelized and catechized to the point of conversion in the Mass, the Church will be renewed and the promise of the New Evangelization will be fulfilled.