Nevada (US), Aug 10 (ANI): Hindus have commended Vatican for altar girls outnumbering altar boys for the first time at the altar servers gathering in Vatican on August four.Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that “it was a step in the right direction”. He also applauded Pope Benedict for appointing record 25 women to participate in October 2008 Synod of Bishops on the word of God.Pope met with over 53,000 altar servers from over 17 countries of Europe on August four in St. Peter’s Square for once-in-five years “International Pilgrimage of Altar Servers,” and about 60 percent of young pilgrims were reportedly female.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/hailing-altar-girls-outnumbering-boys-hindus-urge-vatican-to-be-more-kind-to-catholic-women_100410011.html

I'm beginning to think there is no reverse gear on these post-Vatican II changes. I hear that there are more conservative seminarians now than in the previous few decades but I don't know if that's true or not. Even if it is true, are they actually tradition-minded, or just interested in rectifying a few of the more obvious abuses? And even if they are tradition-oriented, it will take a few more decades before any of them are in a position of authority to enforce a return to tradition, and even then it would be difficult to imagine any of them getting all the way up to Pope, and even then the liberals don't pay any attention to the Pope anyway so they would just ignore his directives...

Someone please explain to me how all of these modernist innovations can be reversed or eliminated within the lifetimes of the majority of us on this forum. I doubt the SSPX talks in Rome will amount to anything. The majority of clergy and laity have become too habituated to the post-V2 way to be willing to change now.

I've become convinced that only direct divine intervention, Three-Days-of-Darkness style, can restore the Church now.

Darn it, Stevus! That's not the answer I wanted! I was hoping you or somebody else would tell me not to worry, that things were getting better, that I had to be patient, that the Church operates on God's time and not man's, that there were a lot of hopeful signs, that the Pope was moving slowly but surely in the right direction, etc. Not too long ago I would have said the same things myself.

I have met so many people who want a change, who realize something is wrong, who are willing to read Trad material, that I get optimistic for a while. I am overseas now, no longer in Houston, and there are some young people here I know well from when I lived here before who seem to be genuinely interested. I also have a coworker who was raised Adventist but has been going to the evening N.O. Mass and seems receptive to a lot of the info I have been giving him. There is even a 75-year old N.O. priest, ordained in 1959, who seems open-minded as far as restoring some of what has  been lost. The nearest Latin Mass is a 10 hour bus ride away to an SSPX chapel. I'm going to try to organize an excursion during Christmas break (almost everyone here gets 10 days off work) to assist at that Mass. Otherwise my best hope is the aging N.O. priest if I can convince him to give a TLM.  

All of these things seem promising but the other day I asked a few of them who they thought would get to Heaven. The answer came quickly: Everybody! So I started to explain the illogicality of that belief, why would the Church exist if everyone is saved without belonging to Her, Jesus's statements to the contrary in the Gospels, references to the Book of Revelations and Church dogma, Papal encyclicals, etc. I asked them if the Church's doctrine changes every so often then why can't it change now and the modern teachings get thrown out just like the modernists have thrown out the old ones. So far all I've gotten are nods and puzzled looks. The problem is that the hierarchy never ever talks about these things. I don't know if they're afraid of losing paying members or if they themselves just simply don't believe. I have to think that it's the latter case; if they really believed they wouldn't be swayed by monetary considerations.

Pope Benedict is putting a few bandaids on things (I have noticed more orthodox sermons here, for example, and less namby-pambyism and liberation theology) and His Holiness is promoting reception of the host while kneeling, etc. but I really can't foresee any wholesale return to the True Faith of our fathers. I'm not even certain exactly where the Pope stands on some of these issues.

You're 100% right, Stevus, the Vat2 mentality has become totally institutionalized in the majority of Catholics.

Maybe these are the last times and we are in the Great Apostasy. I guess I'm just a spoiled brat because I want to know for sure. Even the Apostles didn't get to know that much! I just wish I knew if I am doing the right thing. It seems like our elders and our ancestors were more sure of themselves. I've been infected with this liberal Masonic wishy-washyness just like Charlie Brown.

There are little pockets of the Church Militant here and there.

Don't let the devil discourage you.  Even though it would be great if Sunday was regenerative rather than difficult.

We were born for these times.

went yesterday to Byzantine Chapel-they hada woman read the NT reading and another woman re-read it in Spanish...most would nver allow that at all, then again, women make up 75% of that chapel and 80%+ of active doers there..figures....

Sorry to hear that the conciliar mentality has infected the Byzantine.  Had heard rumors of such...

more than ya think-hearing some bad stuff..

some priests/laity/deacons say that Trent does not apply to them, at all....V2 is almost, not quite, but almost universally fantastic to them,etc.No real change in liturgy, but under the covers...

Jude,

If you wanted optimism from me, you came to the wrong place!

Unless you know of some diocesan paradise, I'm not aware of, 98% of all parish Novus Ordo Masses I've attended are of the lame variety. Some egregious mix of the following: EM's, girl altar boys, lame songs, folk songs, rock songs, congregation dressing like slobs and. or promiscuously, CITH (people nonchalantly zipping the Host in their mouth and scampering off), sign of peace, faithful outstretching their hands like priests during certain prayers, holding hands during Our Father, etc etc.

I've actually only been to two different Novus Ordo locations in my life that I can say were very reverently done. I've been to many parishes where the priests were personally orthodox, but the congregation still dressed like bums and the priests seemingly gave in or had no control over the lame music.

Even if you are an orthodox priest in the N.O. you are basically held hostage. The laity at these parishes have entrenched power that they will not give up easily. They have their "parish board", all sorts of crazy groups and committees so they feel "involved". Liberals are a lot of times in charge of CCD so the religious ed is shot. If a priest really wants to make a change in a lot of these places, he would literally have to clean house and face a furious backlash and excoriation.

Then the complaints would flood the Bishop's office and we all know how that goes. Most Bishops just want "peace" at all costs and will tell the priest to chill out and knock it off. After all, I suppose that upset parishoners equal less money.

So what you usually have is the priest little by little trying to make gradual changes over time. If he is successful at all, the process takes forever and the faithful get a few new crumbs every year. It is simply demoralizing.

I see you lived in Houston. I'm sorry. That Archdiocese is one of the worst I've seen and I see absolutely no desire on the part of the hierarchy or priests there to improve it. The Motu Proprio has been dead letter there from day one and the Cardinal simply does not understand the point of the MP or else is playing coy. He said they have the Mass in many languages there so no pressing need for Latin. Seriously? Does he think the MP is about Latin only? Sigh...

I just wish I knew if I am doing the right thing. It seems like our elders and our ancestors were more sure of themselves. I've been infected with this liberal Masonic wishy-washyness just like Charlie Brown.

It is tough, Jude. Where do we go? Unless one lives near an FSSP or ICK chapel  they have absolutely no "regularized" full service Tradition alternative. Next best are the Motu Mass outposts in some dioceses where you can get the Mass and maybe Baptisms in the Old Rite. Other than that MAYBE you find one N.O. parish that says the N.O. with reverence?

Then you have the vast wasteland that represents Novus Ordo-dom. Varying shades of all I described and worse.

And if you don't fit in your diocese you can go to the Society/ Independent chapels. Then you have Tradition, but if you are concerned about jurisdiction issues, still being a part of the diocese, etc. it can seem isolating.

I feel torn apart at times trying to reconcile what I see around me with the Catholic Faith. I do meet individual Catholics who attend the N.O. who still have the faith and this stuff somehow doesn't bother them. It is like they have been desensitized to it. I think it is ignorance. They trust that the Mass is the Mass, no matter how lame and they superimpose their knowledge of what the Mass is upon what they see. They say their rosary, are very moral, have large families, are modest, etc.

I simply don't know how they do it. I simply cannot attend your typical local N.O. "service" on Sunday without being filled with rage. The Neo-Caths would of course say the problem is with me, the "spiteful judger".

If I truly thought that was all it was I would be relieved, but deep down I know it is not just me. There is something wrong there. Objectively wrong. I don't know the solution and have no power over the solution and it is frustrating.

It is all one can do just to keep the Faith in this situation. Our elders and ancestors were more sure of themselves because they had a Church that was ONE Church that taught ONE Faith and had ONE Mass and ONE Creed. It was simple. They had to focus their fight on the world and sin with all the reinforcements of the Truth and Church behind them.

We are left with a Church in ruins, preaching 5 million contradictory things at once, 5,000 flavors of Novus Ordo Masses, laity taking over, secularization, lack of reverence. No doubt we are being chastised beyond measure though the sheep faithful are too dumb to even realize it because it is a spiritual chastisement and not yet physical. I can only imagine the sins that must have invoked this wrath in the early 20th century. If Our Lady was upset at Fatima God help us now.

went yesterday to Byzantine Chapel-they hada woman read the NT reading and another woman re-read it in Spanish...most would nver allow that at all, then again, women make up 75% of that chapel and 80%+ of active doers there..figures....

Even the Byzantine are going modern...that's surely not a good sign.