For this topic, one must look at both the Title and the Opening Post in order to understand the question:
Faithful Novus Ordo Catholics: What keeps them coming to church?
We’re not talking about the radical Modernists who are, in fact, Protestants who call themselves Catholics. We are talking about “faithful Catholics”.
Now, I have a certain amount of experience on this matter. I was a faithful Catholic who, for many years, attended the Novus Ordo. What kept me going to the Novus Ordo?
First of all, when “the changes” came in the late 1960s, I was a young child, but I did notice the changes and I didn’t like them. I receive “religious education” through the parish C.C.D. program through to the 1970s where I learned almost nothing about the Catholic religion. Upon becoming an adult and having Protestant evangelicals try to “save my soul”, I decided to learn something about the faith and happen to find the book,
Catechism of the Council of Trent. It was an eye-opener because I discovered that the Catholic religion is quite easy to understand in its basics and is completely logical.
Over the years, I remained with the Novus Ordo because I didn’t know anything about tradition except what I read in books. This, of course, confused me greatly, but it is actually quite easy when you are part of the Novus Ordo to never hear anything about tradition at all. Even though I had many questions, answers just didn’t come. We didn’t simply go to the nearest parish, but would shop around for a “conservative” parish where the Mass was said in a “reverent manner”. This, I think, is what all “faithful Catholics” in the Novus Ordo do.
In the past, there was no internet to look for answers on and even today, one might not think there is a need if they happen to have one of those priests at the parish who is “conservative” and provides services that
feel reverent. Faithful Catholics still attached to the Novus Ordo still want tradition, but they don’t really know what tradition is and they continue to trust the apostates and heretics that run their churches.
For every faithful Catholic in the Novus Ordo, I think, there will be a breaking point. For me, it was the “Luminous Mysteries”. Well, actually, that’s not quite right. I was all set to accept them and incorporate them but my wife was not so sure. She had just read a short biography of Saint Dominic and couldn’t understand how the pope could just add a whole set of mysteries to the Rosary given to us directly by the Mother of God. If the Rosary was good enough with 15 decades for Mary, why should we add five more? Who told John Paul 2 to add them?
This is when I started to research the subject using a new (at least for me) tool: the internet. As I searched in those first days after the announcement of this newest change, I found internet articles praising the Luminous Mysteries and internet articles condemning them. The ones condemning them actually explained why this was not a good thing. The ones praising them gave, unanimously one reason: They were given to us by the great John Paul 2. This one thing led me to a number of websites and periodicals that were devoted to tradition that I had never before known about.
That one event was the catalyst for me finding tradition. Frankly, I think that what keeps the faithful Catholic in the Novus Ordo is essentially the same thing that keeps the traditional Catholic attached to or long to be accepted by the Conciliar structures: The firm conviction that the man who claims to be the pope is, in fact, a Catholic and a pope. This being the General Discussion Forum, however, I will say nothing further on the subject.