Massive Support For Tridentine Mass Among Churchgoers, Poll Says
No, they are not being "rude"
According to Anna Arco at the Catholic Herald, a poll conducted among Catholic churchgoers in several European countries reveals that 43% of them think they would attend the Latin Mass every week if it were available to them, and 66% once a month.
As those who attend to two masses every Sunday are rather rare and those who attend several times a week are also not terribly frequent, what emerges is that without even having access to the TLM, almost half of the interviewed say that if the Latin mass was available, they would ditch the Novus Ordo and proceed to excusively attend the Tridentine Mass.
This calls, I think, for the following considerations:
1) all those “trendy” bishops who do whatever they can to boycott the Tridentine in their diocese very well know why they do it. They may claim that there is no interest but they perfectly well know that the interest would be huge;
2) the survey was made among generic churchgoers; there’s no reason to assume a disproportionate amount of them has had any significant exposure to the Tridentine Mass. It is the tradition that moves them to say that they would attend the TLM, the clear conscience that this is what their forefathers did. This tells a lot about the attraction of the TLM even on those unaware of its intrinsic beauty and reverence.
3) If someone would inform a Coca-Cola drinker about a new type of Coca-Cola, would he say that if introduced he’d automatically switch to the new type? Though not. Why? Well, because he likes Coca-Cola as it is and would therefore not switch to something else just because it is different. What does this say to us about the popularity of the Novus Ordo?
I think that vast part of the churchgoers find the Novus Ordo rather childish, not reverent enough and, in general, superficial. They instinctively know, even without having assisted to a TLM, that the Church has much better to offer. Therefore when someone prospects to them a Mass they don’t know in a language they don’t know, almost half of those asked say they’d prefer the unknown product they wouldn’t be able to immediately understand to the known one whose shortcomings they understand all too well.
As things are, the TLM would sweep away the Novus ordo in no time, were it to be rolled in in every parish and celebrated reverently.
Unfortunately, it appear we’ll have to wait and do the Sixty-Eighters the favour of waiting that they die. A favour they didn’t grant to old people in the Sixties.
Mundabor
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Posted on September 4, 2010, in Catholicism and tagged Anna Arco, Catholic Church, Catholic Herald, Catholicism, Coca-Cola, conservative catholicism, Latin, Mass of Paul VI, Novus ordo, Tridentine Mass. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Mundabor's Blog 
“…almost half of the interviewed say that if the Latin mass was available, they would ditch the Novus Ordo and proceed to excusively attend the Tridentine Mass. …
As things are, the TLM would sweep away the Novus ordo in no time, were it to be rolled in in every parish and celebrated reverently.”
Oh Mundabor, I can’t tell you how much I hope that you’re right! It would be like a miracle!
Well Mimi, it is not I, it is the survey.. 😉
But it does seem credible to me, tradition and Latin do have a certain appeal on people.
M
What a pity it is that there were not more prelates with the courage and conviction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebre at the time of the imposition of the Novus Ordo, who could have helped to keep alive the cause of Tradition, as he did. It was an impossible task to do this on a worldwide scale wth so few priests to begin with, but nonetheless it is almost entirely thanks to the efforts of the SSPX, that the old rite of Mass has not been entirely lost.
The results of the survey you quote surprise me. Had the same survey been conducted in Great Britain alone, the figures of those who would attend a weekly, or monthly Tridentine Mass, would, I am sure , have been considerably less. There is a strong protestant ethos amongst English Catholics, which renders the very protestant New Mass acceptable to many of them.
I have been following a debate on “Rorate Coeli” which has filled me with abject terror. There they are discussing Pope Benedict XVI’s desire for the mutual enrichment of the two forms of the Roman Rite. The suggestion is that he wants to see a merger of the two forms, resulting, perhaps, in some form of hybrid Mass. Absolutely terrifying.
Today, the number of practising Catholics is now about a third of what it was in 1970 and the Church cannot afford to see a further decline in numbers. Any attempt to modify the Tridentine Mass would see another revolt in the Church, and this time the SSPX would not stand alone.
Misericordia,
I agree with you, every “merger” would contradict the spirit itself of the opposition to the NO. But I frankly do not think that Benedict would think of something like that.
As for the UK, I can easily imagine that many who do not speak out loud in the parish would “vote with their feet” at the first occasion, but you are right that there is a protestant element in the thinking of many Catholics here (the insistence on the “community” and the various strains of heterodoxy and “niceness”) which had to be cured. But I think a ocuple of years of TLM would be just the thing for it 😉
M
M
Unfortunately, Benedict has already begun tampering with the traditional Rite. His altering the prayer for the conversion of the Jews in the Good Friday liturgy (a prayer already altered by John XXIII) due to, let’s be honest, his fear of the media and Jewish pressure groups, shows that he is not above playing around with an ancient liturgy. And why not? The precedent was set with the execrable novus ordo.
While some will disagree I believe his tampering with the Good Friday prayers is thus far the single most shocking act of his pontificate, one he will in time deeply regret. And even though it was already somewhat emasculated by John XXIII, Benedict’s further senseless changes only made matters worse.
Schmenz,
Pope Benedict has indeed changed the prayer for the conversion of the Jews but in my reading of the texts he has done it by substituting the previous, extremely PC post-Vatican II text (I read it and it was amazing, basically it didn’t deal with conversion issues at all) with a new text, far less politically correct, pointing out to the prayer for their conversion.
I must also break a lance for him in Jewish matters. This is the Pope who clearly paved the way for Pius XII beatification amidst great cries of Jewish (mostly liberal) critics. he has been, if you ask me, far too lenient in other matters (talking about Pius XII, I think he shouldn’t have come to Israel without Pope Pius XII being removed from the “unjust” side of their Holocaust monument; more in general, I think he is far too weak in his bishops’ appointment, see Nichols, Peter Smith or in the US Niederauer; also I think of his caving in on Wagner in Austria) but frankly we could do much worse and compared with JP II I think he is a marvel.
M
As a priest put it many decaes ago, the tragedy of the Jews is that “they are like travellers at a railroad station waiting for a train that passed 2,000 years ago.” So it goes without saying that working for their conversion to Catholicism is the greatest act of charity one can perform for these sad people. The Faith is, after all, their birthright, and it is their rejection of it which is at the heart of the problem.
With all due respect, Bendedict’s revision does not invite them to conversion – not if you read it quite carefully. Oh, there is a general remark about faith in there but nothing definite, solid, unequivocal and demanding, as one finds in the prayers for the conversion of pagans, Muslims, heretics, etc. The differences between those clear and terrifying prayers and this new namby-pamby one composed out of fear are striking.
The best analysis that I have read on this matter can be found in the pages of Rod Pead’s fine publication, Christian Order. Author James Larson does a thorough job of research here and it would be difficult indeed to refute what he has written. I’m not sure the article is up on their website yet but it might be.
I am one with you when it comes to seeing how much better Benedict is over his troubled predecessor but at the same time I cannot gloss over some of the outrageous actions that Benedict has done. As I said he has an enormous fear of the media and certain noisy pressure groups and he responds to that by tampering with the very rituals of the Church. Or in talking rubbish, such as his recent idiotic comments on “global warming” and other such nonsense. And so I fear, along with misericordia2, that there will be more tampering with the ancient rite in the future. Please God that I am wrong, but that itch for change – which Josef Ratzinger was all caught up in years ago – is still the predominant mindset in the Vatican. They just can’t keep their grubby mitts off tradition.
The New Mass, the NewNew Mass, the “Luminous Mysteries” (good grief!), etc., etc. One day this madness will stop….I hope.
I agree Schmenz,
Benedict re-phrased the prayer in a less clear way than the pre-V II one, but my point is that he still modified the existing one to improve it. Whenever you compare benedictwith, say, Pius XII’s standard he is going to fall short, but I think of JP II and thank God anyway.
He is a good first gear; his successors will have to put the foot down and gear up.
But I personally do not think that it will be possible to tamper with the Tridentine. The Tridentine is protected by many centuries of tradition. Every attempt they would make to “novusordoing” it would in my eyes fail because people would immediately realise that they do want the original. This is, I think, why they just try to boycott it.
M