My mother is age 83 and she is remaining New Order. Now, is it true about not knowing their catechism. Well, I can only say how my mother came across and not all are going to be like her. Here goes. It was my Grandmother, my mom's mother who was educated via my great-great uncle Fr. Stoltz. He was from the Precious Blood Society, trained in Collegeville, IN in 1898 or such and at Carthegenia, OH at St. Charles seminary during the early 1900's and was ordained in 1907 a priest for 34 years. When he came to the family, in Indiana, they had talks and rosary and dinner. That was how they were educated. Whatever Fr. Stoltz was taught, it came to the family. Books were not around as much as they are now, or at least not in our area. It was my grandmother, who was known to say, "There goes the Church!" when Vatican II was begun. See, she knew! My mother was the youngest of 8 children, born in 1931. She was in a catholic school. She was not a reader and did not have desires there. She married at age 19 and had 9 of us and I was number 2. If we, my parents were to be educated on the Faith, it came from the pulpit. We had the Sunday Visitor and that was it and the newspaper. A library was not in our catholic school til I was in 3rd grade. We did have Vision Books of the saints. But as to education of what was coming, like modernism and such, no, it was not there. There was no talk of if at our kitchen table. What was talk, was where will we hide for fallout for protection. You see, it was talk of the bodily. Then what was floating around was in the backs of our heads from the protestant relatives from my dads' side. (my dad was a convert when married). What that was, was that the protestants could be saved too. Like the catholics are not better than protestants. So, even though it was not talked about, it was in the brains of us. If you did not have the catechism, you could not answer to the things coming into the mind. So, when changes came in about 1963 or such, those who did not understand their Faith, or could not answer to what was happening, went along with it. And continued to go along with it and some liked the changes. The women wanted artificial birth control, they wanted remarriage after divorces and such. They wanted to be accepted and so, modernism played a big part in the changes. The priest, if they were infiltrators, kept the reasons for accepting the wrong as good changes. My mother fell for this. She did take on the "PILL" in 1966. Then when dad died, 5 years later, my protestant Aunt got her introduced to a twice divorced man and the New Order priest helped my mother to rig the issue. My mom played the game. She had to go without sacraments for a year, while the man's 2 divorces were annulled and he became a New Order catholic and my mom went to the priest for confession and all was made right, but I was the only one of the 9 kids who did not accept the dodging of laws. So, I am the outcast and my siblings don't call on me or my husband. So, this 80year old lady makes a good point. I had to learn and I had to educate myself. If you desire a Faith that is true and solid you have to educate yourself, and you have to know where the truth is or waste your time.
My mom was busy with 9 children and there was no rosary being said in the home. See, there are lots of things going on that leads up to what I just told you. Having Faith takes work. When things came up in the family with protestants involved, my mom gagged herself to keep false peace. She did not know what she was doing, just that she thought that was the way to handle things. We have been conditioned and we need to educate ourselves to know what being Catholic is, how we conduct ourselves and present ourselves and such. Without a good example, we are like orphans who are on their own, pre se to learn.