They have been taught that EVERYONE goes to heaven, therefore they are just looking for a social club where they can spend time with the other heaven-bound people.

I have friends and family in the NO system and they are absolutely clueless as to what the church teaches unless it is related to abortion.  They have never heard of the 7 Deadly Sins, or the 4 Sins crying to heaven for vengeance much less the 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost or the 12 Fruits of the Holy Ghost, and don't even bring up applying the 10 Commandments to modern life.  They have no idea what it means to live their faith.
 
My NO sister actually told me that the "best" thing about church is meeting up with friends for breakfast afterwards. :cry:

They really believe (along with prots that I know) that all it takes is being a "nice" person and pro-life to fast-track you to an eternity in Paradise.

Debating with someone in the NO is rarely fruitful, they are there because it is comfortable.  You might be able to get Dad to do some deep thinking by giving him a little book like My Daily Bread as that would give him "sips" of true Catholic thinking and perhaps reading a few paragraphs a day will help him to find the truth.

Do most people not even want to go to heaven?

Frankly, I don't think most people really believe in heaven, hell, or anything supernatural.  They may say that they do, but their actions and statements tell the precise opposite.

I have found over the years that debating with family over the NO is counter productive. It becomes a personal thing . Even though your family might actually agree with you, they will not admit it, because then they are giving into you.
In the past I sent my parents and siblings trad  magazines , articles etc, I would bait them into discussions where I would pulverize them with facts lol , little came of it.
But then I decided to stop with all the debating. I told myself that I would only talk about the NO if they brought it up or asked a question , then I would try to reply as brief as possible. I let the fruit of my families lives speak for the Faith. My children's example has won over my parents and younger brother more than any theological argument.
IMO go to your famliy's houses , enjoy a meal and their company, keep your mouth shut and they will on their own ask you questions and come into our camp

I wonder why your dad gets teary eyed? Is it a sign that the sacrilege in new church makes him sad?

When we see folks around town that ask my husband why they haven't seen him at Mass, he tells them that he would rather travel to a traditional Latin Mass than go to the Novus Ordo. They get this confused look on their face, and you can tell they are thinking, "What does Novus Ordo mean?" Seriously some of them have no clue. Every once in awhile they'll hear priests speak from the pulpit about crazy traditionalists and that's the full extent of their knowledge. I remind my husband that he's got to come down to their level and use words that they'll understand, haha.

Then you get the people, like the local deacon here, who are incredibly hostile to tradition. Before we were married and my husband was still going to the NO, he said that the last two times he went the deacon fumbled the host, making it fall to the ground when he knelt down to receive on the tongue- no one else knelt and received on the tongue. How rancid must your heart be towards Our Lord to drop him on the ground. I do believe he did it intentionally.

And then you have the people who are curious about tradition but never get the guts to explore it. They think that because the vast majority of Catholics are NO, the trads have to be wrong. Either that or they are too overpowered by human respect to make the change.

And then there are the people who are most comfortable in a church that validates their ho-hum, lukewarm lifestyle. Or their sinful lifestyle.

The reasons are diverse, and so must our reactions to them be. I handle each potential convert differently according to where they are at. The ones who are hostile towards tradition, I have the hardest time with. Same with the ones who won't leave the NO because of human respect. The ones who are good willed but ignorant, IMO, are the ones most easily persuaded. Surprisingly, at times, a little nudge out the door is all they need. Other times, no human attempt on my part will persuade them. Those cases get sent directly to our Mother and that is where they stay until I have reason to believe my assistance will be helpful, if ever.

Quote from: jmid

I have found over the years that debating with family over the NO is counter productive. It becomes a personal thing . Even though your family might actually agree with you, they will not admit it, because then they are giving into you.

This is especially true in my case when I am the youngest child of the family.  The older children, with one exception, simply do not want to hear anything from me as if the "bratty younger brother who was always in the way" can tell them something.

The exception is my eldest sister.  We are several years apart.  In fact, my earliest memory of her is the day she was moving out of the house.  She left the Novus Ordo when all the changes to all the "changeable" things started.  She just didn't see the point.  I told her about the one traditional Mass in Alaska (an SSPX chapel) once a month and she went to check it out.  She told me later that when the bell rang and the priest came out all the memories from her youth came flooding back and she said to herself, "This really IS the Mass!"

My other siblings, however, want nothing to do with tradition.  Of course, my older brother laments that when he's on business trips to the east coast, there's nothing to do Sunday mornings because the football games don't start until 1:00 pm (On the west coast, the games start at 10:00 am!).

By the way, this is a little off-topic since they don't go to any service--even the Novus Ordo--on Sundays.

Since we as Catholics are so marginalized, it is amazing we bother so many people as much as we do.

if you are under 60 years of age, you will have no memory of the real Catholic Church.

But it is so sad that people who have memories of the Church before Vatican 2 have accepted the "changes" hook, line, and sinker.  All of my siblings should (I really don't know if they do because they won't say) have memories of the traditional Latin Mass and all of them had catechism classes from before the Council.  But every one of them (except my eldest sister) seemed to go right along with all the changes until they finally decided to give up on the Novus Ordo altogether.  (After all, they've been taught well that no particular denomination is better than any other.)

Since we as Catholics are so marginalized, it is amazing we bother so many people as much as we do.

Actually, the fact that such few numbers of traditional Catholics bother so many people as much as they do is one of the things that made me start thinking that perhaps it was the traditional Catholics who are on the right track.  Since Vatican 2, I really haven't heard many people who really object to what they think is Catholicism.  In fact, I once heard an ardent anti-Catholic (Pat Robertson) say that he just couldn't say that John Paul 2 was the Whore of Babylon and he really couldn't see any reason anymore not to accept [Conciliar] Catholics as being Christians.  The evil traditionalists, though, they are a different story.

The fact that the world no longer objected to Catholicism seemed to me to be backwards, especially in light of the fact that the world was descending ever further into the pit of depravity.

Quote from: RomanCatholic1953

if you are under 60 years of age, you will have no memory of the real Catholic Church.

But it is so sad that people who have memories of the Church before Vatican 2 have accepted the "changes" hook, line, and sinker.  All of my siblings should (I really don't know if they do because they won't say) have memories of the traditional Latin Mass and all of them had catechism classes from before the Council.  But every one of them (except my eldest sister) seemed to go right along with all the changes until they finally decided to give up on the Novus Ordo altogether.  (After all, they've been taught well that no particular denomination is better than any other.)

Quote from: Truth is Eternal

Since we as Catholics are so marginalized, it is amazing we bother so many people as much as we do.

Actually, the fact that such few numbers of traditional Catholics bother so many people as much as they do is one of the things that made me start thinking that perhaps it was the traditional Catholics who are on the right track.  Since Vatican 2, I really haven't heard many people who really object to what they think is Catholicism.  In fact, I once heard an ardent anti-Catholic (Pat Robertson) say that he just couldn't say that John Paul 2 was the Whore of Babylon and he really couldn't see any reason anymore not to accept [Conciliar] Catholics as being Christians.  The evil traditionalists, though, they are a different story.

The fact that the world no longer objected to Catholicism seemed to me to be backwards, especially in light of the fact that the world was descending ever further into the pit of depravity.

Years ago my uncle asked me to watch

What we have lost... and the Road to Restoration - Full Vid

Not long after watching the video I called my dad and asked him to watch the video with me and prove the video wrong. My dad said he would, but then he never would watch the video. Within a short period of time I was going to the Traditional Mass where my uncle goes.

Not long after going to the Traditional Mass, I informed my dad I was going to the Traditional Mass and I thanked him for convincing me to become a Traditional Catholic because of his refusal to watch the "What we have lost... and the Road to Restoration" video. He then told me he would have watched the video if he had known I would become a Traditional Catholic.  :scratchchin: