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(Page 7 of 18)

Yes, I agree that the 1969 Mass might have gone a bit too far, and frankly some of the spinning around looking for reassertions of "reverence" are beginning to wear. The newest thing is the proposed set of "translation modifications" that make it sound like a new age encounter with the great continuity, instead of a beautiful prayer to God.

HOWEVER...

The New Mass is not the problem. Frankly, the Latin Mass is going to attract a small percentage of the folks who are already in the pews. And most will be pretty old. It is nice for the Pope to give the oldsters back their Latin Mass, I cannot fathom why Paul VI virtually banned it. But the return of the Tridentine Latin Rite Mass is not going to solve the problems that the Roman Catholic Church faces. It will just make the already faithful feel a little better, and give them some insulation against the ravages of the rest of the world. (Maybe that is a good thing, I don't know.)

The problem that the Church faces is that it has a tool box built for pre-20th century humanity. The assumption that the precipitous fall off in attendance and reverence is due to the "relaxation" of standards starting with John XXIII's miracle of Vatican II is fallacious reasoning. Who knows, if Pope John had not instituted Vatican II, perhaps the Roman Catholic Church would be a minuscule side bar of far fewer attendees than 1959, when I was born. Vatican II happened. The changes occurred, and history is what it is. It is fruitless to indulge in fantasies of perpetual continuums of Tridentine devotion.

The world changed in the 196's. The Western world has become secular. It has actually become reflexively anti-religious.

The Roman Catholic Church's challenges are manifold:

A.) It must figure out how to deal with its dying priesthood. I am not going to get into deep discussions of the discipline of celibacy, only note that in the modern world, few people are willing to eschew their chance at family. Families are much smaller, and vocations are less attractive for parents to push that last one or two of seven kids...into (and don't tell me that didn't happen...because it did...it was almost an obligation.)

B.) Catholic lay people are not receiving a real intellectual understanding of the Catechism. Unless someone is a convert, like my wife, most religious education stops just after Confirmation. Unfortunately often, instead of reasoned debate and open discussion, the church falls back on the old brow-beating tactics of faith threats. More people are literate, and can read for themselves. The dangers of self-interpretation of the Holy Bible are plain in our sister Christian sects. The results are fragmentation, argument, and dogmatism. There is little real effort to explain, educate, and inform.

C.) The West no longer responds to the "dictatorial" model of personal behavior. People want to know why they are being told not to do something. And they need to be told consistently. The Church rightly preaches against abortion, but it does little to correct or punish the behavior of those who publicly flout the ban.

D.) The Priesthood is isolated and the hierarchy hears only its own voice. Bishops should live in the smallest parish in their diocese, maybe rotate parishes. Parish and Diocese should be managed by professional business and management specialists who account for funds, allocate resources, and manage the day-to-day plant operations of parishes in the diocese. Priests and Bishops need to concentrate on that vocation, because it is a difficult one.

C.) The New Mass does need to be stabilized and standardized, but weird searches for "better" translations usually means "new ways to impose unseriousness."

D.) Get the girls off the altar. They are not going to be priests, and should not be directly serving Mass. Emphatically and permanently deal with the apostate notion that women should be ordained. Priestesses are the first step in a recipe for a trip down the Episcopalian Trail. HOWEVER, women deserve a greater role in the operations of the church, and the functions of parish life. They also deserve a place in the hierarchy. There has to be a way, in a Church where a woman is so amazingly important, and considers itself the "Bride" of Christ, to find its faithful female worshipers a more satisfying role.

E.) If the Church is saying Mass in the vernacular, it needs to stick to that rule. No more Spanish Masses, and dual parishes where it is "Everyone Else in English" and the Hispanics form their own separate and distinct parish within a parish. This is a disaster.

There are many other things... but only one of them is tangentially caused by the lack of a Latin Mass.

Until the Roman Catholic Church fixes what is truly in need of repair, the pews will continue to empty...and the influx of Hispanics will not change that, they don't go to church that much, either.

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