Welcome, Cosmos.  

Lighthouse, I believe 'EF' refers to 'extraordinary form', is that correct Cosmos?

70 years old hopefully = thick skin.  You may need it for the "polite correction" your brothers in the Faith will provide.  Some have a bullet-between-the-eyes approach, but the heart is in the right place.  

Stick around and get to know the members, and vice versa.

Yes, and thanks.

Quote from: Lighthouse

Well, you might start by explaining what this "EF" is that you speak of.

So, do you think that the traditional Latin Mass has been appropriately marginalized by the Novus Ordo "Mass"?

I use it just to distinguish it from NO.

I have some words of my own to accomplish that.    :wink:

Good to see you back, Cosmos.

All my evidence points to the Latin Mass "plowing" it's way through the protestant ritual.

What part of this world, or which extraterrestrial planet do you come from?

Unless you are in China or Australia, it's high time to get out of your pajamas.

 

I came here with the naïve idea that Pope Benedict's motu had set the world straight (or at least firmly upon the right path).  I definitely no longer believe that.

Nor do I.

Another good book - particularly one for reading Summorum Pontificuм in a very illuminating context - would be The Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Msgr. Klaus Gamber. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the introduction to the French version of the book. That introduction is the source of Ratzinger / Benedict's famous quote describing the Novus Ordo as a "banal, on-the-spot fabrication." The future (now former) pope also went on in that introduction to call Msgr Gamber (I'm paraphrasing) the best representative of the "center" of the Church's liturgical thinking, and he more or less openly endorsed the solution to the liturgical crisis laid out in that book.

That solution, briefly put, was to restore the TLM, and establish it as the official Roman Liturgical Rite. The Novus Ordo would be re-branded as an "Ad Experimentum" Rite; it would be permitted to exist for a limited timeframe (soemthing like 10 years) and would be offered no more than once a day in any given parish, and never offered instead of the TLM. If, at the end of that timeframe, the "experimental" rite had not brought forth good fruits (which, of course, it has not and would not), it would be abrogated and the TLM would remain what St. Pius V declared it to be in perpetuity - the one and only official Roman Rite of Mass. Most importantly, the two Rites would be established as two separate, distinct and totally different Rites (which they objectively are).

Well, despite endorsing that plan in word, Benedict XVI brought about something far different in deed. Summorum Pontificuм, in yet another postconciliar violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction, declared that the TLM and the NO are not separate and distinct rites, but merely different "forms" of the same Roman Rite (by which logic, we'd have to declare all other Rites - Mozarabic, Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, all of which are far more similar to the TLM than the NO is - to merely be various "forms" of the one Rite - utter absdurdity). Worse, it establishes the NO as the "Ordinary Form" and the TLM as the "Extraordinary Form." Worse still, it actually relegates the Traditional Latin Mass - the Mass of Ages - to the ignominious position of being merely "an" (not "the") "extraordinary form" of the Roman Rite (one wonders - what are the other "extraordinary forms" of the Rite?). It also goes out of its way to insist that the TLM should be provided merely as a "pastoral" favor to those weak souls "attached" to, or who "prefer" that Mass that Quo Primum defined as the one and only Rite of Mass for the Roman Church, in perpetuity, under pain of sin and the Wrath of Almighty God and Saints Peter and Paul - and not because the Novus Ordo is an objectively inferior, "banal, on-the-spot fabrication" (to quote the pope who promulgated Summorum Pontificuм), and therefore an abomination that can never replace the TLM.

But the era of Benedict XVI's weak, milquetoast, compromised overtures to Tradition is now over, replaced by the current infelicitous reign of Bergoglio, who has opted for a campaign of open hostility and antipathy for the Traditional Latin Mass, and even the Catholic Faith and Morality itself. In an era when Catholics who merely wish to pray and live as Catholics always have are openly derided and slandered by the Occupant of the Papal Throne as "Rosary Counters" and "Promethean neo-Pelagians," and when the very Natural Law itself is being put up for debate at two putative "Synods" called by the pope and engineered by his Modernist cronies, one would have to be looking at the world through some seriously vision-imparing rose-colored glasses to think that the great Restoration of Catholic Tradition lies anywhere at all in the near future.

I note a lot of reference material is recommended. What's the general feeling on this site in regards to the caveats of Nihil Obstat?  

Thanks.

Welcome aboard, Cosmos.

You were in your early 20's when Vatican II took place.  What was the general attitude of your fellow parishioners when the Mass was changed?  

How old were you when your parish started using Communion in the Hand?

How did you discover the FSSP?

Observably it was very subtle. I just did what I was told as regards to anything about my religion. To understand why, you need to live through the "Angela's Ashes" days of the early 50's. There was none of this liberal permissive free thinking that there is now.

My first in-hand I recall, but it wasn't significant to me. When the changes were fed to us peacemeal, it would be hard to read that has a premonition of disaster. Again, I guess some would say that it and other changes were a part of the grand conspiracy, and perhaps that is true.  Back in the 70's I recall someone questioned the facing the congregation altar, and it was then that I felt the first indicators something was wrong as I agreed to the reasoning that we should face God, and He should not see our backs. Maybe wrong is not the word, but it was not UNLIKE the protestant churches I attended a few times. (An explaination. In the military of 1963 Germany, 30Inf 3rd Div, schedules for worship were not that dependable, and sometimes I felt it was OK to drop in on a protestant ritual at the same building when I couldn't attend a Mass. It was all of general interest to me, and being staunchly Catholic, it was more entertaining than influencing. There was never in my life where I did not believe we were members of the True Church.  

About 4 years ago I joined the ofs in the city 80 miles away. Arriving in town early for the meeting, I had time for a mass and found myself in a traditional mass.  That's when I had my most pleasant re-discovery. Never looked back.

Ecuмeni-what? was the next negative in my view, as it smacked of a love wish with being protestant, not a gradual introduction to Catholicism as it should be. A lot of bargaining with majority protestant churches and close calls had me nervous. Concessions were a great worry. But there is bases in my suspicion. I felt it betrayed the mothers of Catholic children for 2000 years who sought to bring their children in the front door of learning. To ensure they were baptized Catholic and taught catechism. They had to convey a trust to Christ first as every Baptizm is. These moms ensured they were brought up in a domestic environment that actually lived the Church. No, it sounded to me too much of presenting a silver platter with no show of qualification or effort. Sort of like a RCIA en-masse, a wave of a wand and 4 million Catholics are baptized.  

Back then we children would correct each other. We would state it when we sinned. We were seriously concerned if we missed confession. We would take great pleasure to hide behind the bushes to watch the well dressed Jehova Witness reps get dispatched with a straw broom by a stern Mom when the door of the Catholic home was opened. No sir, you wanted to become member of the Catholic church, there were no ticket scalpers to count on. If you tried to persuade us, good luck. Everyone came in the same door to my Church.

I have read all of Archbishop Lefebvre's papers to the community, and the story of the insurgent activity in the Vatican, such as the Masonic infiltration and such. I'm not sure if all that is true. Is there any citation of the validity of this, even from neutral upper ecclesial echelon.? If true, there should be some.

What does this - neutral upper ecclesial echelon - mean? Just who did you have in mind.

You didn't respond to my earlier comment, or are you reading http://padrepioandchiesaviva.com/Padre_Pio___Fr.html

If you are expecting popes to confirm Masonic infiltration you might wait a while. Here is an except from the link above;

Almost sixty years ago, “Padre Pio first met Father Luigi Villa, whom he entreated to devote his entire life to fight Ecclesiastical Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ. Padre Pio told Father Villa that Our Lord had designs upon him and had chosen him to be educated and trained to fight Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ within the Church. The Saint spelled out this task in three meetings with Father Villa, which took place in the last fifteen years of life of Padre Pio. At the close of the second meeting [second half of 1963], Padre Pio embraced Father Villa three times, saying to him: ‘Be brave, now…for the Church has already been invaded by Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ!’ and then stated: ‘Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ has already made it into the loafers (shoes) of the Pope!’ At the time, the reigning Pope was Paul VI.
 

Would what Saint (Padre) Pio had to say, and the seven assassination attempts on the life of Fr Villa convince you? Pope Leo XIII also had something to say about it, and not for no reason. Humanum genus http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus.html