TIA,

In regards to your response to IRC on September 8, regarding attending the Novus Ordo or no Mass if it is the only one available, I feel that your answer was somewhat inadequate.

You admit that it is a valid sacrament in which case that would suggest missing the sacrament altogether when a valid sacrament is available would be considered breaking the Sabbath and would be a mortal sin.

So the question is simply: Is it a mortal sin to go to the Novus Ordo Mass when that is the only practical Mass available to you? Conversely, is it a mortal sin to miss that Novus Ordo Mass when it is the only one available to you?

• Before answering your questions, we must clarify a presupposition: You believe that when we admit that a Mass is valid, we are automatically suggesting that it is a mortal sin to not attend it. This is not precise. Many Black Masses are valid and of course they should not be atended. Most of the Greek-Schismatic sacraments are valid and we believe they should be avoided always, even when they are the only sacraments available. So, your premise is wrong.
  
• To your first question – Is it a mortal sin to go to the Novus Ordo Mass when it is the only available? – we simply answer: It depends; it may or may not be a mortal sin.
  
• To respond to your second question – Is it a mortal sin to miss a Novus Ordo Mass when it is the only one available? – we have to distinguish two perspectives: In principle and in practice:
  
  
  
  • In principle,
    
    
    
    • If the person is not aware of the crisis in the Church, the habitual rules of attending Sunday Masses and the Holy Days of Obligation apply to him. That is, it may be a mortal sin if he misses this duty, depending on the cause in each case.
      
    • However, if he is aware of the take-over of the Catholic Church by Progressivism, he must avoid going to this Mass so as not to fall into the sin of promoting an activity that has the flavor of heresy and for this reason is highly offensive to Our Lord. Therefore, he does not commit mortal sin by missing the Novus Ordo Mass.
  • In practice, adding to the reasons mentioned for normal times (3.A.b.), since April 2020, no Catholic is under the threat of mortal sin when he misses the Novus Ordo Mass, for the following reasons:
    
    
    
    • Pope Francis and the local Bishops dispensed Catholics worldwide from attending Masses under the pretext of avoiding the contagion of Covid-19. So, all were/are dispensed from attending it without pain of mortal sin.
      
    • Even where the churches are reopening, the imposition of social distancing is limiting the number of attendees to the Mass to a very small proportion of the church's capacities. All the faithful who exceed these limits are dispensed from their Mass obligation. Many Catholics may simply not try to attend it and still benefit from the dispensation.
      
      In both of these cases – those who exceed the permitted number allowed in the churches and those who do not even try to attend – there is no mortal sin.
      
    • If tomorrow the Conciliar Church were to return to normality in its Masses, it would be very difficult to convince Catholics that they must attend Mass under pain of going to Hell.
      
      Indeed, since the faithful see the ease with which the Pope and Bishops, just to follow the requests of the local governments, dispensed everyone from attending Masses and replaced it with the possibility of watching a streamed video "mass," it will be very difficult to convince those same persons that this possibility no longer exists and that they should physically assist at Mass under the former rule of commiting a mortal sin if they do not.
      
      Why not continue to just watch present or past "masses" on one's TV or electronic devices?
      
    • In conclusion, the unwise handlling of dispensations during this sanitary crisis seems to have compromised very seriously the teaching that those who do not attend Novus Ordo Masses commit mortal sin. This applies to the last months, the present and the future.

A good policy.

One of the reasons for the confusion is exemplified by the confused, non-answer TIA gives.

"Is it a mortal sin to go to the Novus Ordo Mass when it is the only available? – we simply answer: It depends; it may or may not be a mortal sin."


Snip from a sermon given by Fr. Wathen about 20 years after V2, which is of course, still true today:TIA's quote in the OP reminds me why I gave up on TIA a long time ago.

And what happened to the faith of those attending(and saying) the Tridentine Mass, that they let the New Mass come into being in the first place?

Fr. Wathen makes a decent point, but I don't think "people who do X are generally much more lax in faith" is enough proof to say that "doing X" is mortally sinful. It's an indicator to be wary, sure, but not proof it's grave sin by any means.

I don't think so.  I think that they are just making distinctions.  So often here on CI distinctions are mis-characterized as compromises even when they are not.

There are many distinctions in play, Stubborn.  So, for instance, objective vs. subjective mortal sin.  That is a huge distinction.  One could be certain that something is objectively a mortal sin but be unsure of the state of that person's conscience and whether that person was actually committing mortal sin before God.