Every time I attend a family ceremony at a Novus Ordo parish, I find myself amazed at how much change is going on, for the worse.
Yesterday I went to a "rosary" for my friend's mother, who passed away last week. Well, it wasn't a rosary. A parish deacon led the ceremony, and he explained that we would have "a decade." So after a brief introduction that looked like it would be another de-constructed Novus Ordo "mass," he went into the Creed, in which everyone joined with him. There were about 200 people present.
Then he said an Our Father, and everyone piled on those words, too. Then he started a Hail Mary, but the crowd waited for the second half to join in, "Holy Mary, mother of God..." I thought, "he didn't announce a mystery." But after 3 Hail Marys, he said a Glory Be, to which the crowd responded, "As it was in the beginning..." etc. So things were picking up, so to speak.
Then he announced the mystery of the Resurrection. So it was a resurrection decade. He read from the Gospel of John describing the holy women going to Our Lord's tomb for a minute or two, then went into the Our Father, which the crowd habitually joined in from the first words, to the last. He said 10 Hail Marys, thus:
"Hail Mary, full o'grace, the Lord's with-ee. Bles'd are YOU among wom'n an' bles'd th' fru-th'-wum Jesus."
The word, YOU, stood out as the most clearly recognizable English word he spoke. The rest was literally a blur.
His manner of speech was clipped and slurred, which I tried to depict with the spelling, above. The point is, if you didn't know the Hail Mary, you would be hard pressed to recognize what he was saying. Later I was told that a lot of the people present were not Catholic. So I had to wonder what impression they had of Catholics, who mutter unintelligible nonsense when they "pray?"
He concluded with a Glory Be, after which one Filippino lady in the back chimed in with "O my Jesus forgive us our sins..." but she faded out because no one was saying that.
They continued with "the intercessions," which is a pile of innovation wherein the crowd responds with "Lord hear our prayer," after a woman mentions some aspect of the deceased's life where she had demonstrated a Scriptural value.
I spoke to the deacon after the service and asked him how they arrived at a decade instead of a rosary, and he explained to me that the Bereavement minister went to the family with a checklist this past week and got their answers, and the family had decided that it would be too "boring" and "inconvenient" for the non-Catholic attendees to sit through a whole rosary, so they decided on a decade instead.
I asked him if the bereavement ministry explains to the family that there is no indulgence attached to one decade, but that there is an indulgence attached to a whole rosary? He said that he didn't think they tell them that.
I replied that this was an opportunity for the deceased to receive the graces of 10,000 rosaries, for 100 people together praying one rosary results in each person getting the grace of 100 rosaries, and if the deacon asks everyone to make the intention of the deceased receiving the indulgence, then she would have the grace of 100 x 100 = 10,000 rosaries. He said, "you know, I've never thought of it that way. Perhaps God has sent you here tonight to explain this to me."
Altogether, we were there long enough to have prayed 3 rosaries, but we actually prayed none.