I thought this would be a good thread for us to share how we discovered Traditional Catholicism. Afterall, most Catholics born after Vatican II start off as Novus Ordo Catholics before finding Tradition years later. I'll tell my story to get us started.

I started off as a Novus Ordo Catholic and was baptized at a young age. I grew up with a Protestant father who was Catholic-friendly at first but slowly drifted further and further away from his original Catholic-friendly self. I remember watching our local Protestant service with him on tv when I was very young and thought it was "cool". Fortunetly, I never attended a Protestant service (atleast I don't remember attending one). Still, I was close to going down a very dangerous path. To keep this from happening, my mother took me to Mass every Sunday. I remember usually sitting there bored, not really paying attention to what was going on. Afterwards we would usually go out to eat for lunch. Sometimes afterwards (when I was in the about the 2nd grade) I'd attend Sunday school, which I remember being filled with the typical "warmth and fuzziness" crap you'd expect from the Bogus Ordo. Of course, I knew nothing about Tradition at the time and really was always caught up in materialism.

My mother knew there was something wrong with the Church but couldn't put her finger on it. Research led her to discover what happened during Vatican II and what Traditional Catholicism was. She passed all of this on to me, and I believed it. Yet I remained a spiritually lazy Novus Ordite who was still more interested in materialism. I attended my last NO in 2008 (it might have been 09 actually, but definitely no later) and haven't been back since. I attended my first TLM in 2007 in South Carolina and attended 4 more afterwards. I attended my most recent one in November 2009, which was the first in my area in over 40 years. After just one TLM, my bishop took it away. It was really just a diocesean one though, more of a hybrid really. In June of that year, I had watched a movie about Fatima that inspired me to start praying the Rosary daily and to start wearing my Brown Scapular more frequently. But I still was caught up in materialism, which was rather embarassing given that I was certainly old and mature enough to get away from all that.

In January 2010 I officially became a Traditional Catholic, after I realized I needed to stop being spirituall lazy and get away from materialism. Most of you know what happened from there. Not long afterwards I felt the strong desire to post on a Traditional Catholic forum. FishEaters was the first one I looked at, I wasn't really impressed with it. Then I tried to join here but couldn't for some reason. So then I joined Catholic Answers without really looking at it and soon realized how modernist it was. I was banned on May 20, 2010 for "contempting Catholicism" and "refusal to follow moderator directions" (I didn't refuse to follow any directions, I only asked why I was given an infraction, LOL) for cutting down Vatican II. Later that day I tried to sign up on CatholicInfo again and was successful, and now here I am a year and a half later.

That's my story. Feel free to share yours.

I just got banned from CAF today for introducing Fr. Luigi Villa lol.

I have one person to really thank my traditional coversion- Fr. Malach Martin. Maybe he was a double agent, idk, but the man was so brilliant and interesting on those Art Bell tapes. Fr. Malachi Martin RIP.

I stopped going to Mass as a teen. Around 35 years or so I was non -practicing. A few years ago, I decided I had better get back.  I had missed all the fuss. The NO was still new when I stopped going to Mass, and I doubt I'd have known what was really happening in the Church if I had stayed.  So I never got used to the NO, and I suppose that was a blessing.

As I lurked on the forums, unbiased,  it didn't take long for me to see who the real Catholics were. New Rome isn't a derogatory label. It's a real group of evil men. And the NO must certainly be poison, because those who grew up on it are blind. I can see it in their posts on CA.

Thank God for traditional clergy.

I grew up NO Catholic in a small town. We had a fairly conservative priest from 1980-92 (who later died of a heart attack while on a trip to the Holy Land) whose influence held for some time after, so I never experienced anything too bizarre. I went to a Lutheran university as it was the closest college to my house and realized sometime during those years that, despite having had 14 years of youth catechism, I knew next to nothing about Catholicism.  

After college, I had more time for self-study and did learn quite a bit, but none of my approaches led to anything Trad -- I still had no idea that the Latin Mass still existed. However, the things I did learn from, among other places, some very conservative NO religious, predisposed me to the integral Catholicism found among TLM attendees, as well as, to a lesser degree, the TLM itself.

I was introduced to Traditional Catholicism when I met Matthew on Catholic Match. He mentioned the SSPX in his profile as if everyone should know what that was and my first correspondence with him was to ask what SSPX stood for. I began attending the TLM exclusively perhaps about 6 weeks later.

We became "online" Trads when I left work after our first child was born in 2006. I started looking online for other Catholic mommies and landed at Fisheaters.

We have something in common, I found out about SSPX through Catholic Match too.

Great stories everyone.
And thanks, RomanCatholic1953. Much happier to be here instead.  :cheers:

I just got banned from CAF today for introducing Fr. Luigi Villa lol.

I have one person to really thank my traditional coversion- Fr. Malach Martin. Maybe he was a double agent, idk, but the man was so brilliant and interesting on those Art Bell tapes. Fr. Malachi Martin RIP.

To be banned from NOA (Novus Ordo Answers) is a badge of honor! Wear it proudly!  :rahrah:

I was banned after ONE WEEK for showing my true colors as a sedevacantist.  :roll-laugh1:

I was raised as a Jєω, by a born-Jєωιѕн father and a mother who was raised Italian Catholic but converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1944 when she married my father. However, I was much closer to my mom's family, and discovered traditional Catholicism through them (they all left the Church in 1970 after the changes, and I grew up as a kid hearing them complain about and discuss the changes. Their discussions made me curious, and so as a teen, I began investigating to find the True Church.)

I first became a Catholic in the mid-1970s, via the traditionalist movement in existence at that time. I've only been to one, maybe two novus ordos in my life, so I consider myself blessed in that regard (one wedding, one funeral, if memory serves). Everything I know of the novus ordo religion, I know from fellow Catholics who were involved in it.

However, the group I was involved with was sede, and so was/am I. When they disbanded due to the death of their priest, I had noplace to go...I drifted into the Eastern Rite but because they accept the modern "popes", that again left me out in the cold.

I sort of became a home aloner for a long time, and unfortunately because of that I came to believe the gates of hell had indeed prevailed. It was only within the last few months that I decided that they did not, because I have missed my Catholic Faith so very much, and have always been on the periphery, wanting back in, but not knowing where or how (where I live now the closest sede TLM is about 2 hours away by car, and I am unable to drive...though I am trying to find out if anyone local to me goes to them and maybe I can share gas expenses if they take me.)

I have looked over this forum.....I cannot believe how starved I have been all these years! So many issues we all think alike on, apart from TradCatholicism! Vaccines, survivalism, Masonry, zionism....I thank God this forum is here, and thank you to Matthew for being so kind in helping this older lady who is not very computer savvy get signed up (my registration was messed up at first).

I have contented myself with watching videos of TLMs on YouTube; thank God my son told me about that!

I am so happy to be home, and to be here! Deo gratias!

I was raised as a Jєω, by a born-Jєωιѕн father and a mother who was raised Italian Catholic but converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1944 when she married my father. However, I was much closer to my mom's family, and discovered traditional Catholicism through them (they all left the Church in 1970 after the changes, and I grew up as a kid hearing them complain about and discuss the changes. Their discussions made me curious, and so as a teen, I began investigating to find the True Church.)

I first became a Catholic in the mid-1970s, via the traditionalist movement in existence at that time. I've only been to one, maybe two novus ordos in my life, so I consider myself blessed in that regard (one wedding, one funeral, if memory serves). Everything I know of the novus ordo religion, I know from fellow Catholics who were involved in it.

However, the group I was involved with was sede, and so was/am I. When they disbanded due to the death of their priest, I had noplace to go...I drifted into the Eastern Rite but because they accept the modern "popes", that again left me out in the cold.

I sort of became a home aloner for a long time, and unfortunately because of that I came to believe the gates of hell had indeed prevailed. It was only within the last few months that I decided that they did not, because I have missed my Catholic Faith so very much, and have always been on the periphery, wanting back in, but not knowing where or how (where I live now the closest sede TLM is about 2 hours away by car, and I am unable to drive...though I am trying to find out if anyone local to me goes to them and maybe I can share gas expenses if they take me.)

I have looked over this forum.....I cannot believe how starved I have been all these years! So many issues we all think alike on, apart from TradCatholicism! Vaccines, survivalism, Masonry, zionism....I thank God this forum is here, and thank you to Matthew for being so kind in helping this older lady who is not very computer savvy get signed up (my registration was messed up at first).

I have contented myself with watching videos of TLMs on YouTube; thank God my son told me about that!

I am so happy to be home, and to be here! Deo gratias!

We should not listen to Popes anymore? I thought whatever the Pope says is bound in heaven.