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It’s very clear as you peruse the Internet that young people are increasingly drawn to a more “traditional” Catholicism. In fact, post Summorum Pontificum, it appears that the bandwagon is getting more crowded every day. Just visit any parish that has either a very “reform of the reform” attitude or offers the extraordinary form of the mass from the ’62 missal and you will see more young people than old. Even the eastern rite parishes are literally busting at the seems with youthful faithful.
You would think that this would be welcomed by most of the clergy and leadership of the Church (it’s better than all the young people leaving the Church right?), but on a local and parish to parish level it’s met with a strange and confusing opposition.
This opposition can confuse and discredit those dishing it out. Why? Because by telling us (the young) that something that was of value and held to be sacred in the past is not sacred now, you communicate that our Faith is something constantly seeking to be relevant thus making itself constantly irrelevant (trust me...you'll never be "caught up"). We don’t want the Church to constantly seek to chase the world and its ways and attempt to conform to it. No, we want to discover that rock which is the Catholic Faith that we can build our lives on to withstand the changing and chaotic winds of the world. That’s why traditional Catholicism appeals to me so much. It communicates so much more than the often uneventful or irrelevance of a parish trying to appeal to me instead of worshiping God.
At "traditional" liturgies and parishes there is an attitude which communicates that what is happening at the altar is the most important event they will ever attend. At a "come in your flip flops and eat a meal with us" parishes, the attitude communicates that this is one among many activities we participate in and its farely....well....(and this is what it seems to youth, trust me).....unimportant.
Now, are there anti-sematic wacho so called traditionalist out there? Yes, and they are nuts. But just like many liberal Catholics have never seen a real clown mass, many traditional Catholics have never met a so called Traditionalist who acted more Catholic than the pope.
Please support any expression of authentic Catholicism. If that means that youth are drawn to a byzantine of tridentine parish, so be it! In fact, you should actually support that with all the muster you can. This is harder for the last generation who may have to admit that all their liturgical, theological, and ideological experiments may have been, well, wrong (or worse). I understand, but don't you dare have the arrogance to impose an impression that if you like traditional liturgies, you're crazy. Its not crazy to hold sacred what was held sacred by our ancestors. If you think it is, time's are changing and you're the one in the dark ages.
You would think that this would be welcomed by most of the clergy and leadership of the Church (it’s better than all the young people leaving the Church right?), but on a local and parish to parish level it’s met with a strange and confusing opposition.
This opposition can confuse and discredit those dishing it out. Why? Because by telling us (the young) that something that was of value and held to be sacred in the past is not sacred now, you communicate that our Faith is something constantly seeking to be relevant thus making itself constantly irrelevant (trust me...you'll never be "caught up"). We don’t want the Church to constantly seek to chase the world and its ways and attempt to conform to it. No, we want to discover that rock which is the Catholic Faith that we can build our lives on to withstand the changing and chaotic winds of the world. That’s why traditional Catholicism appeals to me so much. It communicates so much more than the often uneventful or irrelevance of a parish trying to appeal to me instead of worshiping God.
At "traditional" liturgies and parishes there is an attitude which communicates that what is happening at the altar is the most important event they will ever attend. At a "come in your flip flops and eat a meal with us" parishes, the attitude communicates that this is one among many activities we participate in and its farely....well....(and this is what it seems to youth, trust me).....unimportant.
Now, are there anti-sematic wacho so called traditionalist out there? Yes, and they are nuts. But just like many liberal Catholics have never seen a real clown mass, many traditional Catholics have never met a so called Traditionalist who acted more Catholic than the pope.
Please support any expression of authentic Catholicism. If that means that youth are drawn to a byzantine of tridentine parish, so be it! In fact, you should actually support that with all the muster you can. This is harder for the last generation who may have to admit that all their liturgical, theological, and ideological experiments may have been, well, wrong (or worse). I understand, but don't you dare have the arrogance to impose an impression that if you like traditional liturgies, you're crazy. Its not crazy to hold sacred what was held sacred by our ancestors. If you think it is, time's are changing and you're the one in the dark ages.
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