at the funerals, weddings, and similar solemnities of non-Catholics

Everyone loves to just ignore this part.

Everyone loves to just ignore this part.


It's hard for me to understand how a stable person sitting in the back praying their Rosary is going to be perverted.

It's also hard for me to understand how anyone who is reasonably stable would be scandalized by that action either. There is such a thing as "taking scandal" though. A malicious ploy of the Pharisees.

It’s also scandalous to the novus ordo people, who by your attendance, can think/be tempted to think:  “Oh, I know that person, and they go to the Latin mass.  If they are here, then the new mass must not be as bad as people say.”

There's almost zero chance of either.  Attending funerals to pay respects, for social reasons, is so widely practiced that no one is going to infer from your attendance that you're an adherent of whatever religion is performing the funeral service.  Agreed on the perversion as well.  If someone would be "perverted" by witnessing an isolated NOM his faith is weak indeed.

So let me understand the distinction here: the man in the back row of the Novus Ordo funeral praying his rosary is "passively" attending, whereas the man in the front row praying his rosary is "actively" attending?  It is O.K. morally to passively attend, but not O.K. to actively attend?  Who is to distinguish between active and passive attendance?
 
Are you joining in the prayers that are part of the service? The gestures; i.e. standing, kneeling, etc? Rocket science it is not.

The popes are perfectly free to give us their opinions on active and passive attendance at either non-Catholic or supposedly Catholic ceremonies, but at the end of the day, it is moral advice, and the pope in his private capacity is just as fallible as any other theologian.  Aside from the pope/Holy Office saying a Catholic "must" or "must not" perform an action, anything else is, once again, moral advice, which may be correct or incorrect. 

Some were imputing mortal sin to those who choose to follow the Pope's "advice".

As for me, I told my family many years ago that I would not attend weddings or funerals if there is a Novus Ordo Mass involved; that move has made my life wonderful, because I choose not to participate in that Novus Ordo nonsense anyway. 

You are perfectly free to make that choice. However, some think that they are not their own and should at least try to do the Lord's will, not seek their own comfort.

 15 For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.