Say someone is convinced that the Vetus Ordo is a better channel for living our Catholic identity in this vale of tears.
While not doubting that the Novus Ordo is a valid rite and not wholly ineffective, just not as good, and as one contemplates the parallel courses now charting between the world and the Church, one could be prompted to scratch one’s head.
After all, Vatican II was supposed to bring about a new springtime of Catholic life. That hasn’t happened, and not because some people who decided to remain Catholic fought it.
No. The world and the smoke of Satan entered through those opened windows.
What do we all see now? We see the highest of church officials consorting with one world government advocates and population reductionists and climate panic fomenters and homosexualists and disease terrorists. Even lauding abortionists.
Powerful people are trying to control the food supply and force us to eat insects, which they are sneaking into prepared foods. Others are trying to stomp out the Vetus Ordo and force everyone into the Novus Ordo.
Can we survive on crickets? Sure. Consider it fast food. Ever try to catch a cricket? I think we’d rather fast. Can we survive on the Novus Ordo? Sure. But… in most cases it’s sort of like fast food.
I wonder if it is a coincidence that Andrea Grillo (“cricket”, hence “Mr. Cricket”) is one of the chief enemies of the Vetus Ordo. Crunchy food for thought.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
There is a lot of content available online about confessions, marriages and fulfilling one’s Sunday Mass obligations at an SSPX chapel. To our spiritual benefit, my family and I have made use of these permissions that Rome has generously seen fit to extend to the faithful. Nonetheless, I still feel a slight hesitation in going “all-in”, as it were, and making our local Society chapel our exclusive “parish” which serves as the focal point of our family life (inclusive of baptisms, confirmations, CCD, altar serving, social clubs, general involvement, etc.).
Is this hesitation justified?
A few clarifications, which most already know.
Firstly, as great as they are, SSPX chapels are not parishes. That’s a technical term.
However, it is a term that is losing meaning. Parishes are being combined or merged. People leave territorial parishes and drive across entire counties to go to another church where they “register”, which does not one jot change their canonical status (unless it is a national or personal parish). And there are, indeed, personal parishes without boundaries. What the heck is a parish? A parish is a portion of the people of God, sometimes circumscribed by territory, sometimes not. It seems that the only reason parishes are important anymore is for the reception of old bequests and for determining which pastor, parish priest, has the right to marry, or can delegate, and where marriages, etc., are to be recorded in the official books.
So… what is a parish? The way diocesan bishops treat them in this time of priestly drought, who knows? It seems as if the only solution they have is to shut them down or merge them. They absolutely AVOID trying anything like… tradition. They’d rather see a smoking crater filled with bleach and salt than a happy community of young families who thrive on the Vetus Ordo. To be fair, occasionally a wise bishops gives a dying church to a group like the FSSP. Then interesting things happen. But FORFEND that they should be given TWO parishes!
That said, as a father of a family you have responsibilities that surpasses your obligations toward a territorial parish. You, not the parish or the bishop, are chiefly responsible for the spiritual, religious upbringing of your children. You have a vocation to help your wife get to heaven. You are obliged to find the best means to accomplish these goals.
All things being equal, it would be better to be involved in a diocesan parish where you can find all the good things you need.
Are things “equal” where you are? That’s the big question. Thus, your “hesitation”.
Bishops are making all things very unequal, because many of them are crushing out the Vetus Ordo from parishes.
Hence, if you stick to the purely diocesan route, if you are genuinely not able to go to a parish for the Vetus Ordo, you might have to go to a chapel with none of the things you want from a parish. If there is such a chapel.
So, a dilemma.
- Go to an SSPX chapel which functions pretty much like a normal parish ought to, with all the activities that a parish would provide (and the Vetus Ordo).
- Go to a diocesan approved chapel for the Vetus Ordo, but have little or nothing of the parish life you want.
- Go to a regular Novus Ordo parish and, probably, also not have the regular things of parish life that you want (sound preaching, frequent confession, activities with other strong identity Catholics).
Sure there are exceptions, but we need to be reductive to make a point.
I understand that you hesitate. You should not have to make such a choice! This has been inflicted on you by those who ought to be helping you.
You have to make the call, friend.
What I find execrable is that bishops are putting people into this quandary when they don’t have to.
If you leave the gate open on purpose, and the cow gets out, then you wanted the cow to get out.
If a bishop takes away the Vetus Ordo (or make it really hard to people to travel to one) such that their only alternative is to go to the SSPX, and then they go to the SSPX, he wanted them to go to the SSPX.
Or he wanted to break their hearts.
In the Divine Praises we pray:
