A reader sends a useful comment

I received this from a reader.  My emphases and comments:

I really enjoy your blog and have learned a lot in reading your posts; however, I’m going to stay away for Lent.

The comments are just too polarizing; the traditionalists and SSPX-ers/supporters, presume that every Novus Ordo Mass is a clown fest; those who attend liturgically improper Novus Ordo Mass and like it, are phobic about Latin long before they get to Extraordinary Form Mass and the presumed evils thereof. Neither side contemplates the possibility of a middle ground.

There’s also a bit of contentiousness between cradle Catholics and converts; as an adult Catholic who has yet to be confirmed, I fall somewhere in between. What I notice is that each group somehow feels superior to the other; while it may be true that cradle Catholics tell people they don’t or can’t understand things as converts, sometimes there is no substitute for experience. I have also encountered converts who think they have all the answers and are quick to correct others, even if they’re correcting someone whose statement was not wrong.

I am praying for Pope Benedict XVI, that he may have the strength to lead the church on its true course through these turbulent times. I’m not attached to any vision of how that will manifest but know he has a better shot of discerning God’s will than I.

This is a Friday in Lent.

I ask some of you who have been commenting here to get on your knees and give some considerations to what this reader offered.