I am not very far along in my walk in the Church as I will finally be getting confirmed this weekend. What most surprises me about becoming a Traditional Catholic is finding out that many people I know who are not Catholic are also not ignorant of Traditional Catholic Dogma.

I always had the mind of a Traditional Catholic without knowing the errors of Vatican 2 versus Traditional Catholic Doctrine. I have found out many people I know who are not Traditional Catholic also appear to have known much more about Traditional Catholic Doctrine than I did just before becoming a Traditional Catholic.

Why do so many people who know so much about Traditional Catholic Doctrine lack the strength to become a Traditional Catholic?

Most people are comfortable in their little way of living, and don't want to change. My uncle said once, "I would rather obey the pope, and be SAFE, than listen to you." See, they think they're "safe" if they just follow the herd.

I think the saving grace of some people is going to be the fact that they're devoted to the Rosary.

For years, my cousins were not allowed to talk to our family (thanks to my Novus Ordo Indifferentist [except when it came to us... we were going to hell] grandmother). Now they're coming of age, and a few of them have come to talk to me, specifically from a family of 12 children that I've kept in some contact with for a lot of years (even though they basically dismissed me as nuts too.)

One has been coming to Mass with me for a month or so now. One more talked to my father several years ago, and then recently talked to me about going to Mass himself. Then another one has just recently started asking me questions. It's wonderful.

One of them pointed out to me that their parents were listening to some program (by a protestant minister) that mentioned something regarding Saint Malachy's prophecies, and said that this pope now was going to be working closely with the antichrist, but wouldn't be the antichrist himself.

She asked me why they weren't getting it, and I said, "There's something that just has to click with them. We don't know what that is, but we just have to keep praying that whatever it is, they will find it. That one thing that's just going to go...

:idea: 'Oh yeah... DUH WHY DID I NOT SEE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?'

Whatever it is, we just have to pray for them to find out what that something is..."

It's very comfortable living in a lie. People don't want to lose friends, they don't want to change their lifestyle at all, and they don't want to feel ostracized. This is the main reason why people don't have the strength to see the truth most of the time, in my opinion.

I no longer belonged.

Once that feeling become strong enough for me in the Vatican 2 Church I never looked back.

One of the tactics of the masons was saturating society with sinful pleasures and vices, because those who are ensnared by these things fall more easily into their hands. I think this is a major factor. Because it makes people follow their passions, instead of reason. The consequence is that they start basing their spirituality upon these passions, because they want to view their passions as something good or spiritual at all costs. It is radically opposed to the ascetical lifestyles of the Saints, who mortify their own will so that Christ can reign in them.

People have been seduced to sentimentalism and phenomenalism, concluding that if it feels good, then it must be good. This is of course a great deception.

Eucuмenism, for example, is not based on reasoning at all, despite the fact that many intellectuals attempt to present it as such. No, the only reason people love eucuмenism is because it makes them 'feel good'. This kind of 'sensual spirituality', in my opinion, lies at the root of a great deal of today's blindness, because this emotional subjectivism arrogates to itself the throne of reason, which in reality belongs to objective Truth, and that Truth is Christ.

Matthew has, some time ago, said on the forum that many men are so effeminate today, almost totally ruled by subjectivism and emotion. I must agree with him on this one.

It's basically a lack of an interior life consisting of devout, humble and persevering prayer, together with the neglect of mortification, that culpably disables an individual from cooperating with the actual graces that would lead to an efficacious act of supernatural faith (together with the acts of the contrition, hope and charity) that is necessary for the attainment of a living faith.

One can theoretically know even the most sublime apices of philosophy and sacred theology, but if prayer is neglected then such a one will never attain to supernaturally infused faith, which is a gift freely bestowed upon a person out of the inexhaustible loving-kindness of God.

This is why most of the heresiarchs that have plagued Christendom throughout the ages have been endowed with exceedingly great intellectual abilities but have failed in persevering in prayer.

Luther began to fall as soon as he stopped praying for the sake of "studying" the Bible. A the instant wherein he gave in to the temptation to stop praying, and confided in his own abilities rather than on docility to holy grace by means of prayer and penance, Luther sealed his reprobation as well as that of millions upon millions of souls who have given themselves over to his heresies.

It's a very frightening thought: with the same hand wherewith you cast away your Rosary beads or your prayerbook, you open the gates of hell.

Why do so many people who know so much about Traditional Catholic Doctrine lack the strength to become a Traditional Catholic?

It's not strength really.  It's grace.  We knew for years that something was wrong in the NO, we just didn't know what to do about it.

Once we knew we had to leave, it didn't take much strength at all.  It was a relief actually.

Was it hard to leave friends?  At first.  But now, it's hard to talk to them.

Some of our best friends are so lost and don't really want to know the Truth, because once you know the Truth you have to take action.