I must post this. And then I have a mind experiment for you. If you don’t have Spanish …
In 2001, Coca-Cola announced that it sold 4 times more than Pepsi. Pepsi did not respond with words. It responded with an 11-second ad that is studied today in the world’s top marketing schools.
En 2001, Coca-Cola anunció que vendía 4 veces más que Pepsi.
Pepsi no respondió con palabras.
Respondió con un anuncio de 11 segundos que se estudia hoy en las mejores escuelas de marketing del mundo. pic.twitter.com/E3cocVZBCr
— Suma Y vive (@SumaYVive) May 3, 2026
Swap out some terms in the video.
Coke is, in the video, the Novus Ordo, even celebrated well, even with all the traditional fiz and maybe some Latin.
Pepsi is, in the video, the Vetus Ordo, 99% of the time now celebrated well.
The boy is growing up, but is not yet fully grown. He has by now experienced both, Coke and Pepsi. He’s ready to pay twice to get what he now prizes and even leave the other thing behind. He even stands on the Novus to get to graduate (“step up”) to the Vetus. Pretty soon, he won’t have to do that. But now, it’s worth it.
St. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 3:2:
[Brethren, I] could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it….
St. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 13:11:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
Discuss.
Hint: For people in Columbia Heights, this is not about whether you like Pepsi better than Coke. If you didn’t get that before you read this, you might just read the combox.
Ok, but there are considerably more than 4 times as many NO masses than VO, and the vast majority are celebrated absolutely fine. I hate it when we dunk on any mass, I long to get back to the days of ordinary and extraordinary form, and let’s see where the mutual enrichment takes us.
I grew up with the Vetus Ordo; the liturgy was changed when I was in high school and college. Years later (in the 200o’s), I received a blurb from a publisher asking people to buy copies of their new V.O. missal; I bought one. As I leafed through it reading the prayers for the Ordinary, my immediate reaction was “How could we ever have given this up?” I began my “conversion” back to the V.O. and never looked back!
I have since spoken with some fervent 20-year olds; they all prefer the V.O. to the Novus Ordo without exception. They are not against the N.O. per se, but find it somehow lacking for their spiritual journey.
I find the commercial an apt analogy for the situation. The N.O. is idea whose time has come and gone in my opinion. This is why you have some in the hierarchy pursuing “scorched earth” tactics; they are losing, and they know it. It will take years, but I believe (and hope) in ten years or so, you find the V.O. being celebrated everywhere with greater attendance than the N.O.
Father, as an example of Coke in your post, here is a brilliant demonstration, via parody, of the inanity of the music that has replaced Gregorian Chant at most Novus Ordo Masses. It’s a recording of “The Worship Song Song.” I’m guessing you might want to post it ?. https://x.com/terrigreenusa/status/2050701632841674757?s=61
Wild thought I don’t think I’ve run into elsewhere (though it may be common!): in how far is the Vetus Ordo even in its various Uses, Rites, and 1570 Pian form analogous to the history of chess as we now know it, and the Novus Ordo in both its most reverent Latin form and its wild profusion of ‘other forms’ (to put it neutrally) analogous to fantasy chess? In the long run, as fun as some fantasy chess may be, and legitimate in its degree, how many people given experience and choice of both would not largely favor chess as we know it? And, similarly…?
jhogan, I did the same thing. I picked up a traditional missal, read the mass, and I was astonished. Who stole THIS from us??? I had converted to Catholicism at age 40, and there was nothing but the novus ordo in my city in 1985. I read the traditional mass in about 2003, with ZERO history of it. I’d never seen it, never heard it, had no nostalgia for it. It was JUST BETTER. “The Latin mass” came to my city in 2004. I was at its first mass (so were about 1,000 other people) and never left. The FSSP took our congregation the next year.
The only “enrichment ” I see is one-sided. And that would be the “reverent” NO. The TLM seems the same to me. Not seeing any “mutual”.
So if the TLM is the same and the NO is enriching itself because of the TLM then what was the purpose of the NO?
Looking at the average young age at the typical TLM, and considering the large number of children there, I think it appropriate to quote a popular Pepsi slogan:
“It’s the choice of a New Generation.”
As @haydn seeker says, the majority of NO masses are done properly, it seems there are less of the “clown masses”, “hootenannys” and other abominations we used to see. This is not to dump on the NO, but even one that is done properly, even with smells and bells and some Latin, is still a mass that was essentially created from scratch in the 1960s with less than 20% of its content in common with the VO.
The comparison with Coke vs Pepsi is bad in a way because this is not about taste or preference. One mass is one that grew organically over the centuries from the early worship of the Apostles and is a re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The other was created essentially from scratch in the 1960s and minimizes references to the sacrifice and instead emphasizes the Mass as a meal. One only has to compare the offertory prayers in the 2 masses to see the difference and see which one preserves the sense of the mass as a sacrifice.
I agree though that I would like to see the Church go back to the days of Summorum Pontificum and let the 2 masses exist side by side and see what happens.
@WVC: there’s plenty of young people attending the Mass of St. Paul VI as well. Catholicism is on the rise around the world, and a rising tide lifts all boats.
Our parishes around here are full of young people, and none of the ones I frequent offers the Mass of St. John XXIII.
That both are full of young people is a good thing, but I think it’s missing the forest for the trees to say younger generations prefer the 1962 liturgy. Theres not really anything that indicates that as much as there’s a lot that says they’re interested in Catholicism overall.
Can the N.O. be used as a stepping stone for the V.O.?
Yes, if you squint and ignore the abuses and that frankly many of those formed in the NO are just protestants in disguise. The Children may find their way to the VO over time.
No, if you are a pure statistician and want to see success in numbers. The boomers and Gen Z’s are too plugged into the guitar masses, the personality of the priest, the garbage of Bugnini. These aged parishioners cannot be unplugged as the Matrix reminders us.
There is no easy answer.
If a true Pope were to suppress the NO liturgy and fully promulgate the 1955 liturgy with it’s calendar the schism that his behind the facade will become apparent and there would be the truly non-Catholic schismatic sect separate. I’m guessing that would number around 70% or more of the NO goers while most of the remainder will grungily submit to the old liturgy and ways. Some the latter will fall off in the first year as it will be found to be too strict…
IF we are not at end times, then it may take 3 generations to heal fully, but yet another protestant Church will be borne from it.
The NO experiment cannot be corrected/repealed without such a fracture as it has created and authorized Protestantism within the Catholic Church and married to the modern life style of convenience – it will be hard to bring them to true Catholicism.
@R2D
Do all the people at the Mass of Paul VI take light hearted jokes as seriously as you, too?
[Careful…!]
Can the NO lead to TLM? Yes and no. Or no and yes. The limited elements in the NO that are pulled from the TLM simply cannot be done well — they can be done good enough — because they are disconnected from the rest of the liturgical structure of the Rite. If we accept that the Rite is “of a piece,” that is the totality of the Rite and not just the Mass, the disjoint is very jarring — and I only know a little of it (intentionally), and that has already driven me a bit mad in trying to figure out how to reverse Ship of Theseus everything.
There is a good chunk of people who get interested in the NO, who desire to worship God, and not self, they see the discongruency and start digging, wanting to be better and to worship better. It is this act of interior conversion that leads people to TLM, or to make the NO as close to TLM as they can (though honestly, they are stifled on all fronts).
If it were just about Coke vs. Pepsi, then that is more of an extrinsic element of satiation, but it is much deeper and more profound than that. If TLM were the only game in town, you wouldn’t have NO people running off to worship in abandoned strip malls. They’d go be Protestants if they left. As a former Protestant, Protestants do the non-TLM elements of the NO so much better.
As to the commentators above who say that the NO is much better nowadays — we live in different areas of the world. Where I live, it is still much of the same. Put succinctly, too much, from priest to the one in the pew, is focused on an active participation that gets in the way of an actual participation.
We had a Mass for grown-ups for 2000 years but we replaced it for a Mass for children? How does that make any sense?
For those saying the vast majority of NOs are ‘celebrated fine,’ I’d like to know what your definition of ‘fine’ is. At least in my diocese, most are not fine. They’re valid, they’re ok, but there’s always an army of EMHC at every Mass, even daily Mass. There’s always communion in the hand, there are lay people busying themselves up at the Tabernacle and altar, there’s banal 90s music, there are altar girls, there are people waving the 60s hippy peace symbol, there’s talking before/after Mass.
I could go on but this is definitely not ‘fine’.
If any soda is going to play stand-in for the Latin Mass, it’s Dr. Pepper.
You can feel Coke eating the enamel off your teeth, and Pepsi tastes like furniture polish.