Flapping away center stage at OLOS.

Just the same old "center stage" flapping.  Before V2 I never saw any chant or choir in view of the "audience." It is unseemly and I hate it.… about as much as I hate 5 bells at the consecrations— something else I never saw before V2.

... about as much as I hate 5 bells at the consecrations— something else I never saw before V2.

I don't care for that either.  It's meant to specifically highlight the elevation (in case you weren't paying attention, I guess, and missed the first bell, or have trouble counting).  But everything else in the Mass is in 3s, in honor of the Holy Trinity.   I guess maybe they look at this as 3 within a 3.

The flapping should have been the giveaway.

Well, that and the fact that they all insisted upon wearing ankle-length fancy lace surplices that could have been mistaken for women's lingerie had there not been a black cassock underneath.

Admittedly, I wasn't onto them either, since most of them did not exhibit the stereotypical mannerisms generally associated with fαɢɢօtry. 

I was also rather naive at the age of 21, as there was a guy from IHM to whom I actually gave a ride up to STAS who was an obvious flamer (textbook), and yet I filtered it out, in my naive mentality, since he appeared externally to be pious and devout otherwise.  Perhaps you know of whom I speak.  We made the mistake of getting to STAS a weak early.  I still recall walking into the chapel, not knowing where to go, and seeing only now-Father Soos praying in the choir stalls, who came over, realizing we were "lost" and took us to where we needed to go.  Well, I had hoped by arriving early to be able to take a few days of personal/mini- retreat to prepare for the seminary, but we were put to work immediately, since they were just moving to Winona from Ridgefield.  It was hard work, carrying furniture (tables, pews, boxes of books, etc.) in 95-degree (and humid) weather.  I recall that this guy seemed to no-show and disappear from the work details, and I found him in his room, with his feet kicked up on his desk, sitting in front of an electric fan he had purchased, and declaring (flailing with limp wrists and speaking in an obvious pronounced lisp) "These hands were made for chalices, not callouses."  Thankfully, he was gone after a week, since he couldn't deal with Bishop Williamson's "Anti-Semitism".  During the drive to Winona (from Cleveland), a large bug flew in the window at one point, and the girlish soprano-pitched shrieking emanating from the back would have put the movie "scream queens" to shame.  Despite all this, I remained oblivious, having been a rather naive fellow at that young age.

What's a flapper?

This is a reference to the "choir" being put up front at Mass with a "conductor" of sorts gesticulating in an alleged need to direct the singing.

Guy with his hand up in this picture is the "flapper".


It's a huge distraction.  You'll notice how they're blocking view of the altar, and just imagine the guy flailing away with very animated gestures, and SSPX are not limiting this to clerics either.

Also a conductor is not needed. I agree this is a HUGE distraction.

Neither are MCs needed for a Missa Cantata. At those Masses an MC is likewise a distraction. Save them for Solemn and Pontifical High Masses.

Has anyone here seen "3 within a 3" before V2? If there is any legitimate claim to being "traditional," I'd like to hear it.

If you're talking about *ring* for the genuflection, 3x *ring* for the elevation, and then *ring* for the second genuflection --

Tom Nelson did it this way at his independent chapel which he started in the early 70's. Tom Nelson was the founder of TAN Books and was a pioneer of the Traditional Movement. I'd certainly describe Thomas A. Nelson as a "pre-Vatican II" Traditional Catholic. And that's how he trained me to serve, so...

So all I can say is -- don't get dogmatic about it, don't let your personal preference(s) intrude TOO far into the "dogma and true Tradition" department of your brain.

We all have our personal preferences. Some like a quiet Low Mass, some would go out of their way for a good High Mass. Neither is WRONG.

As an aside, I'd call receiving something in person from your ancestors as LITERALLY tradition in action. What is more traditional than a line-of-sight, person to person handing down of something? We're talking an unbroken line here, not something a dude looked up in a manual or read about on the Internet. I find that many modern-day Traditional Catholics, especially in the Indult, often flail about, because they have to *re-discover* Tradition. They have to re-start Tradition, jump start a dead car -- the line HAS been broken for them. There's something special about an UNBROKEN line, like many of us received from +ABL for example.

I know one Indult couple who showed a picture of their steak dinner on Ash Wednesday (it was Valentine's Day this year) -- the same couple had a Catholic feast day party, at which they prayed the Rosary IN LATIN. Not something most Trads do. See the problem? They made a big show of praying the Rosary in Latin (once), but meanwhile do they say the Rosary (in English) regularly as a family in private? Do they fast and abstain like Trads? Like I said: they flail about. They're all over the place.

Even with my puny brain, I can understand something of God's wisdom in having a LIVE human being be in charge of His Church (the Pope). You need that kind of individual monarch to make decisions, to apply common sense, to decide disputes, to judge and rule. And to personally oversee the passing on of Tradition as a whole bundle. "Tradidi quod et accepi".

Your consolation is well-intentioned and appreciated, but is it not the case that the rubrics of  the Mass are prescribed in detail by authority? If this custom was juridically accepted from a canonical authority, I'd like to know of it. It's not too much to ask.

Lex orandi, lex credendi.  The Holy Trinity is "three-in-one," not "three-within-three."

I don't have Fortescue or other manuals of Liturgical rubrics handy, but I realize that's what you're looking for.

Actually, although I'm not an expert, I do seem to recall that "it's a matter of custom" -- i.e., NOT IN THE RUBRICS. It's not something the priest does, so it's not written in red! (Our word rubrics derives from the Latin word for RED.)

As for me personally, I'm going to go with trusting the men who personally passed the Faith on to me in the first place, that they weren't just innovating or pulling stuff out of their butt.

It's a rational thing to trust them. If they wanted to innovate or improvise the Liturgy, no one was forcing them to make such great sacrifices to be Traditional Catholics in the first place...