There is an interesting piece – interesting because it was in the first place written and published – from the AP about the shift among younger Catholics to “conservative” and even – gasp – traditional ways. HERE
‘A step back in time’: America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways
The title doesn’t capture the reality. The shift toward “the old ways” is really a step forward into the future.
Much of the article seeks to fill in the background for readers not so well informed. The meat of it, however, is going to irritate quite a few of those who hold the positions of power in the US Church and perhaps also in Rome.
The fact is, and this article points to this reality, that there is a vast demographic sink hole opening up under the Church. I’ve written and warned about this for many years now. In the end, there was be a few strong identity groups left active in the Church. They will, of necessity and survival for institutions, find each other and integrate. While there will be some frictions to work out, I believe the result could be amazing.
It will be amazing, in fact. This is precisely why some who hold power in the Church are desperately trying to stomp the life out of one of these strong identity groups: those who adhere to the Church’s Tradition. In fact, it is this group that will provide the solid foundation for everything that will survive the inexorable slide into the sink hole and the collapse of many Church entities. What I have, in the past, called “The Biological Solution”, that is, the ever-ticking clock, is changing the landscape around the and within the sinkhole. The article points this out with a couple of quotes, including one from a priest of my native place who used to address us in seminary: “They say they’re trying to restore what us old guys ruined.”
And they sure did. The ruin they brought about was devastating. But emergence from the ruin is not only possible, it is happening. Think of the redecoration (at quite an expense) of wrekovated churches (which our forebears paid for with sweat and money) just to implement a modernist agenda woven from systematic lying and brutal clericalist oppression.
There are signs of life, indeed. But there is still oppression. It’ll take awhile longer, but “Change is gonna come”, as Sam Cooke once sang.
I invite you to read the article and comment on it.
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There’s no question that the “biological solution” is a real phenomenon, and is playing out before our eyes in real-time. It’ll be ironic if Pope Francis, hailed by his hagiographers as the beginning of a “new Church,” turns out to be the last gasp of an “old Church.” I recently heard a heartening report from a reliable source who was speaking with a diocesan seminarian of one of America’s leading liberal prelates. I won’t name names or places, but the ordinary is a notorious bete noire of us on the trad side. Anyway, said seminarian reported that “most” of his classmates, though discreet about it, are trad-friendly conservatives who love EWTN and read sites such as this, Rorate Caeli, The Remnant, etc. What does that tell us? Things are most definitely trending our way. I do fear, though, the powers that be in Rome doing everything they can to throw a monkey wrench or three into the conservative ascendancy. What forms could said wrenches take? Sadly, I can think of a few: female diaconate, female ordination, married priesthood, gay-married priesthood. Don’t laugh, as the liberal protestant sects that our liberal hierarchy aspire to copy already have all those things.
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I may be going out on a limb here, but isn’t this the Holy Ghost at work in Christ’s Church today?
Let’s simplify this headline:
Orthodox Catholicism on the rise in US
Thus, Biden aka POTATUS, and Merrick Garland, spying on Catholics. And I’m sure it is still going on.
Re the first comment, I also have a bete noire archbishop and talk to some seminarians and new priests, some of whom are from a famous latin mass parish–and I see things as half empty. It’s naive to think that one of the most machiavellian archbishops in the world is not going to dramatically influence young “orthodox” seminarians and priests, even some of the older priests, even some leaders. For instance, several years ago one of the new priests at this famous parish went on at length on two occasions about how Francis has done nothing wrong.
Gonna take a while for the full effect to be felt. Priests ordained from say 1992 through 2015 are generally trad friendly. They don’t per se like it but they get it and appreciate the big families and faithfulness. They are something like the Essenes. They don’t like what is going on so they are trying to make it better but they don’t have the whole playbook. Some will come along, some will not but they will not be enemies. At least that is my take.
What I find sad about this article is the mention of Catholics who would rather leave the Church than have to deal with being advised to go to confession from time to time. Unfortunately, this group of Catholics, not insignificant in number, will likely fall away into Protestantism as the Church grows more traditional.
There was this piece and another one on the same general topic. The article seemed to waver back and forth between straight reporting and strawman tactics (the latter only seemed to kick in later in the article, but there was a whole raft of “I don’t feel at home in the Church” comments in response to…uh…priests mentioning Church doctrine?).
In one discussion about one of the articles, there was a linked article to a bit from France. In translation, the quote was:
“And they are like the young Catholics of today, whose bishops note with horror that they prefer the mass in Latin.”
My sense is that many of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms (the Concilium not the Council, as a friend has often said) have turned out to be a failed experiment – a generation of priests came in, tried to change things, and nobody came in behind them (e.g. most of the sisters at my school back in the 90s/early 00s were already in their 60s; there were no younger sisters coming in behind them that I recall). The school president (a sister) also reacted, verbatim, “Oh, no!” when Benedict was elected Pope in 2005 (we were in the hall together when it happened – I was on a break between classes).
But as many have noted, both here and elsewhere – the folks attending a Latin Mass trend younger, with bigger families, and the lines at Confession are often overwhelmingly younger as well.
One other observation: It isn’t “just” parishes swinging wildly from a 70s/80s progressive to a highly orthodox pastor. In a lot of cases, I think you’re seeing a middle-of-the-road type landing in a parish that might (in some cases) be considered “culturally Catholic” and in places where there has been extreme laxness at play it is causing quite a ruckus from folks who are being reminded that yes, there is such a thing as Church doctrine.
[I’ll note that my old parish – I did fall away from attending Mass for some time – is currently undergoing a renovation. The “pews on either side of the sanctuary with the altar in the middle” design from the 1980s is being replaced with something as traditional as they can get within the existing footprint (to quote the FAQ, “The inclusion of kneelers in the pews, the raising of the Altar of Sacrifice, and the placing of the Baptismal font all bring our parish into these rubrics for worship, and will ensure that the prayers and ritual of the Roman Missal are in agreement.”) – and yes, they will have a communion rail. They also offer Confession 3x/week (it used to be Saturdays only).]
This amused me:
“You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?’” said another ex-parishioner at St. Maria Goretti, whose family eventually left the church, describing the 2021 promotion of a new pastor, and a sudden focus on sin and confession.
Like many former parishioners, he spoke only on condition of anonymity…
“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I grew up going to church every Sunday,” he said. “But I’d never seen anything like this.””
I’m sad these people are leaving the Church BUT many of them haven’t actually been participating in or “practicing” the Roman Catholic faith. They are protestants.
Imagine leaving the Catholic church which is known for talking about sin & confession because the priest starts talking about…sin & confession.
Do these folks know what they sound like? “That priest started talking about sin & confession and I had to hightail it out of there for a place that was more comfortable for me…you know one that doesn’t mention sin or expect participation in confession.”
I do wonder what they would say if traditional Catholics said the same about their Masses…”You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?” Or “I’d never seen anything like this.” (Or maybe I can’t stand your “worship” music. Lol). Oh, wait that has happened for 50 years!
Too much doom and gloom in the comments. Denies reality; it’s a bad moment, not a bad forever.
[Too much ambiguity in your comment. To which comments do you refer? Those on this blog about the AP piece? Comments at AP? What “reality” is being denied? Do you deny that things are as people here report them or that the article’s writer has denied reality? Of course it’s not a bad “forever”. Only Hell is that. What constitutes a “moment” in this context? You might explain to your fellow commentators, and to me as well, what you were trying to say.]
“I’m not a Catholic anymore,” said Hammond, the woman who left when the church’s school began to change. “Not even a little bit.”
Considering how easy it would have been for her just to start going to some other parish, what she is finally coming to is that she hasn’t been Catholic at all for some time, probably decades. While it isn’t good to leave the Church, a realization that she has left the Church might be the first step to her actually looking reality in the face for once, and eventually turn to unite with the real Church that has been here all along. We can hope and pray.
The AP article is written as pap and gruel for those who like their religion watered down, washed out, molecular sized bites, with lots of alternatives sandwiched in. Written BY people who don’t understand religion, for people who don’t WANT to understand religion. And even so they managed to get a few points right.
Unfortunately, the orthodox are still a small minority, where they are going to continue to suffer dreadfully from so-called “friendly” fire for years and years still, possibly until Francis’s replacement as pope passes on to his “reward”, and the African bishops constitute a big enough block to force an orthodox choice onto the others. But I can’s see how the mechanics of that works out, given that each pope, if he elevates others heterodox like himself, can seemingly perpetuate the cycle ad nauseam. All the orthodox priests in the world wouldn’t prevent an insistent pope finding 100 guys who still want the Concilium church.
Fr. Z:
Welcome back to the US and you touched down at JFK in one piece. Sticking to Delta must have paid off instead of taking United.
Anyway, thanks for covering this article. I read it yesterday on Yahoo News. I was glad the growth of a young adult group was covered at a parish. When I was a younger adult there was only one parish in the area that had Eucharistic Adoration (quite frankly I didn’t even know what it was circa 1998 when a friend invited me to attend) and a Wednesday night Holy Hour at 8 PM was reserved for a young adult group. 30-40 people showed up regularly and this group helped me grow. Young adults are looking for substance and a balance, not a place where the main focus is a drinking club or a pick up place.
I also liked the coverage of Benedictine College in Kansas and how involved students are in their faith.
The (Novus Ordo) parish I currently live usually has about 30 people that attend our only “Sunday” Mass (which is held Saturday evening, as the priest has 3 churches he handles alone on the weekend). Of those 30 or so there are exactly 2 families each of which has one child. The rest of the congregation is predominantly people in their 60s or older. The other 2 churches in the parish are similar. So what will this parish look like in 20 years?
Contrast this with the parish where I am moving, an FSSP parish with hundreds attending each of the 2 Sunday masses, most of them young families with several children of various ages.
It is pretty obvious to me where the future of the Catholic Church lies.
Most amusing line: “Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, PARISH FOOD PANTRIES [my emphasis] and casual indifference to church doctrine.”
Ah, those annoying food pantries! Yes, those food pantries have always stuck in my craw . . . the nerve of them.
That one line reveals the tawdry tendentiousness of the article. You can almost hear the writer grinding his teeth as he reports on this.
This so wonderful, regardless of the tone. Many of these faithful priests and young families, students at colleges like Benedictine, Christendom and TAC are the products of homeschooling families. Homeschoolers have been the catacomb Church for decades, shunning contraception, memorizing the Baltimore Catechism, protecting innocence and building up the church from the trenches! May God bless Mary Kay Clark, Laura Burquist, the Crotty family and other selfless homeschooling visionaries!
But I can’s see how the mechanics of that works out, given that each pope, if he elevates others heterodox like himself, can seemingly perpetuate the cycle ad nauseam.
But Francis was elected by Cardinals who had overwhelmingly been appointed by John Paul and Benedict. So “packing” the College of Cardinals doesn’t necessarily work.
PARISH FOOD PANTRIES
That’s one of the things I’ve always found alternately amusing and frustrating about post-Vatican II apologetics: this notion that the Catholic Church suddenly just discovered poor people in 1965. As if large numbers of religious orders hadn’t been ministering to the poor for centuries. For that matter, until the mid-20th century, many Catholic parishioners in this country *were* “the poor”.
I give this author credit for noticing and trying. He does reference far and wide yet he does not even realize the full scope of the problem and our hope. We moved to a seeming conservative area in Oregon from California to escape liberal politics but then discovered a worse liberal church when we converted to RCC thanks to the dying breath of John Paul II. It was truly awful for a while locally until our new Archbishop Sample took a road trip south with his buddy Cardinal Burke to the first Sacred Liturgy Conference held here (and organized by just us folk). Even then it was a while before we had weekly diocesan Latin Mass 45 minutes away from home. That sole Latin Mass celebrated between Sacramento and Eugene is still there and well funded but suffers from small population base. Our local NO parish still has holdover terrible modern music but the new pastor travels same 45 minutes to celebrate Latin Mass (only pastor of two in area now who rotate), and he recently moved in kneelers for receiving communion at NO parish. If we had known we’d become Catholic, we certainly would not have chosen this place. We miss Pope Benedict. Yet here we are, halfway between here and there, and we pray God uses us well for the struggle.
adriennep-
Sorry to hear about your liturgical desert. Oregon gets better, at least liturgically, as you go North. I believe Salem offers the TLM.
Ironically, Portland has several parishes with the Mass. Thanks to our awesome Bishop. I live just north of the Columbia – a lot of options.
Even the SSPX is just 20 minutes away. They moved north across the river a few years ago. Not sure why – maybe too much competition in Portland. A few weeks ago I met a couple after Mass that drive in from Bend. That’s dedication.
Wonderful article. We have been in a desert for 50 years. Even small rays of hope are encouraging. I think Benedict Xv1 prophecy of a small faithful remnant may be coming about and bearing fruit, Allen Murphy Ft Myers, Fl
This article was passed around my circles. We all had a wonderful laugh about the tone. My favorite line was “those still in the church have outsized influence compared to the wider Catholic world.” Utterly hilarious. But also, props to the reporter for at least noticing it, even if he doesn’t like the trend.
A couple of things I thought of when reading this article. One in particular that I noted is that this article (and some of its … interviewees) seem to conflate committed/orthodox Catholicism with political conservatism. I think this is the beginning of an attempt to smear orthodox Catholicism as a “hateful” political force as a precursor to open attack on Catholics. If you look at uninformed comments on social media, youtube, etc. there are already commenters who write things like “because Christianity” as an ignorant way of caricaturing Christians. Unsurprisingly, this usually has to do with controversial social issues. Anyway, the more we can call this stuff out, show the true faith, and share the Catholic intellectual tradition the better. Some are trying to create a new “black legend.”
No children = no future.