This photo was taken last April, the Sunday before our parish entered the Catholic Church on April 15, 2012. It’s the last time then Bishop Carl dressed in his episcopal garb.
Then a long period of wearing civvies, and now he’s back in clericals, praise the Lord!
The picture shows our former Fr. Deacon Michael Trolly, who is our organist, a cantor and expectant father (and all-around impressive young man with a deep faith and a solid educational formation), myself, then Bishop Carl, my friends Mary and Barbara and Peter.
There is Fr. Deacon Carl, back in uniform at the reception following his ordination to the diaconate.
Yesterday, I had a camera course to teach me how to use the bells and whistles of my new equipment. Since the course took place at the same time as our Mass at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I went to Mass earlier in the morning at one of the Catholic churches not far from where I live.
The church building is so modern that the Tabernacle is in a separate room, surrounded by kneelers. The music was contemporary praise-song like. Altar girls, women EMHCs wearing slacks. I prefer our Anglican Use form of worship, but I loved being there. The church was full of families and small children; the priest is really solid ad the community was warm, friendly and full of love, with gestures of affection among all members.
All I could think of is how happy I am to be Catholic, to be able to find myself at home in parishes across my city, across my country, across the world.
I am so thankful to Fr. Deacon Carl Reid who has been a true shepherd and not a hireling, willing to lay his life down for his sheep. What green pastures he has led us to through his obedience to the Lord!
The kenotic humility shown by leaders of those coming into communion with the Roman Catholic Church is a great gift to all of us, and edifying. Thank you.
Mrs. Gyapong, you wrote:
“The church building is so modern that the Tabernacle is in a separate room, surrounded by kneelers. The music was contemporary praise-song like. Altar girls, women EMHCs wearing slacks.”
I’m so, so, so, very sorry about that. It’s like… My favorite friend finding out my messy, unkempt bedroom. Or encountering that embarrassing uncle who gets drunk at parties. Please don’t think every cradle Catholic prefers that sort of worship! I also love the Anglican Use too, really!
Deborah,
You wrote: The church building is so modern that the Tabernacle is in a separate room, surrounded by kneelers.
The provision of a separate blessed sacrament chapel is not unique to modern church buildings. The 1969 and 1975 editions of the General Instructions to the Roman Missal (GIRM) actually indicated that a separate chapel of reservation, suitable for adoration by the faithful, was the preferred arrangement. As a result, many parishes with older churches converted a spare room adjacent to the sanctuary or the sacristy into a chapel of reservation. The current edition of the GIRM drops the indication of a preference, but still permits this arrangement (internal quotations removed).
You wrote: The music was contemporary praise-song like.
I know that this wrackles the ire of many traditionalists among us, but it is clearly permitted by current liturgical directives. The real concern, though, is the suitability of each selection for its place in the liturgy.
You wrote: Altar girls, women EMHCs wearing slacks.
I don’t like the idea of anybody entering the sanctuary during the liturgy in street clothing. The provisions for liturgical vesture in the 1969 and 1975 editions of the GIRM actually began quite explicitly (emphasis added): “The alb is the liturgical vesture common to all ministers of every rank.” Note that this statement made no distinction as to the person of the minister, whether ordained or lay, male or female. A subsequent provision allowed substitution of a cassock and surplice by those who did not wear a chasuble or a dalmatic. Unfortunately, the current edition of the GIRM muddied the waters considerably (emphasis added).
Here, No. 339 reflects particular legislation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for the dioceses of the United States so I’m not sure what legislation by other episcopal conferences may provide for other places.
You wrote: The church was full of families and small children; the priest is really solid ad the community was warm, friendly and full of love, with gestures of affection among all members.
This is very important. One cannot worship the Body of Christ which is the eucharist in any authentic way while neglecting the very same Body of Christ which is the People of God.
Norm.
Norm, you responded to Mrs. Gyapong:
One cannot worship the Body of Christ which is the eucharist in any authentic way while neglecting the very same Body of Christ which is the People of God.
The holy hermits of the desert, who in following Christ’s isolation from the world to commune with God, would beg to differ. (Although it seems to be the Will of God that they attracted communities which formed the first monasteries.)
Yes, community and family is important, but founded upon Christ. The danger at the opposite extreme is in turning the church into the “Church of Nice”, where the community is God, and it’s okay to not show proper respect for the Eucharist, so long as everyone gets along and is happy. It’s a very protestant attitude.
The Eucharist is what binds us all together, whether you are in Canada or Los Angeles, or London, or Australia; anchorite, convert, priest, Pope or saint.
Ionnes,
You wrote: The holy hermits of the desert, who in following Christ’s isolation from the world to commune with God, would beg to differ. (Although it seems to be the Will of God that they attracted communities which formed the first monasteries.)
Ah, you are misreading this situation. The desert fathers and desert mothers withdrew from wanton society, but they tended to live in clusters where they looked after the well-being of one another. But on the other hand, they would always receive any visitor who came to their camps with generous hospitality. Here, I recall an account read during one of my stays at a Benedictine monastery in Indiana: a couple monks notices smoke rising from Fr. Anthony’s cabin which, in the heat of the Egyption desert, could only be from a cooking fire, on a day that the monks observed as a day of fast. When they went to find out why, they found that a visitor had come to him, and thus that he had broken fast out of hospitality for the visitor — which, according to their rule, was the proper thing to do, the law of hospitality being greater than the law of fast. The Benedictine rule, observed by Benedictine and Cistercian (including Trappist and Trappistine) monasteries and convents, states that the monks must receive guests as they would receive Christ, for it is Christ who comes to us in the person of the guest.
In modern times, hermits are not confined to their homes. Rather, they simply remain at their home unless and until a need arises for them to be elsewhere — whereupon they go where they are needed, and return to their homes when the need comes to an end.
You wrote: Yes, community and family is important, but founded upon Christ. The danger at the opposite extreme is in turning the church into the “Church of Nice”, where the community is God, and it’s okay to not show proper respect for the Eucharist, so long as everyone gets along and is happy. It’s a very protestant attitude.
Yes, of course everything centers on Christ, whose body we are by virtue of our baptism. In fact, the worst problem in our congregations today is that people don’t understand, and take to heart, the significance of that sacrament. In his last homily on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Pope John Paul the Great preached on the fact that, in all four gospels, our Lord’s baptism marks the beginning of his public ministry and the profound significance of this reality with respect to our theology of baptism and what it means to be baptized. Those of us who are baptized into the Body of Christ need to act with the holiness that baptism has bestowed upon us. “All the members ought to be molded in the likeness of Him, until Christ be formed in them.” (Dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium, No. 7.)
You wrote: The Eucharist is what binds us all together, whether you are in Canada or Los Angeles, or London, or Australia; anchorite, convert, priest, Pope or saint.
Actually it is baptism that does that by fusing each of us into the Body of Christ. The eucharist is the celebration and renewal of that reality.
Norm.
At the risk of, again, derailing the topic, which is Fr. Carl’s glorious return to the clergy, let me make an addendum:
The Desert Fathers’ entire point rested on asceticism and alone-ness with God, (not to be confused with loneliness- which is impossible for those who commune with God.)
I advocate for a sort of spirituality fitted for a bunch of socially-inept loners that an increasingly technologically savvy generation is becoming. We don’t have the same sort of conversational or social skills older generations have. In our daily lives, we’re fixated with our iPhones, alone with our own thoughts at our workplace, never really having time to “hang out” and “discuss” with our peers. This is why the “Everyone, hold hands and be social” form of worship is starting to be less attractive than a form of worship where the priest prays with us silently, like us facing towards God, and we’re given space and time to read the prayers, watch, think, meditate, contemplate, and silently participate in the mass. The forced participation of the popular masses get distracting, because sometimes, for example, the songs just don’t fit the readings, gospels, or homily- they’re not prayers that happened to be sung- they’re songs that seem to be tacked on. The words of the priest, in the vernacular, are so abrupt and forgettable. The shaking of the hands with strangers who you’re suddenly supposed to pretend is a familiar friend is uncomfortable and a bit dishonest. Communion on the hand is a perfunctory act. Along with other things that would take too long to put down here.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way, and I am not surprised that my generation is starting to find the usus antiquior more and more appealing.
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I think you are projecting your own preferences on to your generation, which has the usual percentage of socially inept loners and of gregarious networkers. The latest Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate study on mass attendance shows that 63% of Catholics have “no opinion” on making the EF more available. 25% favoured the option; support was higher among “older Catholics.”
Oh, I’m not basing my statements on how many young people go to mass and what their opinions are, I’m basing my statements on the greater phenomenon of “Extended Adolescence”, the unemployment numbers, the recent correlated numbers of suicides in my generation (ages 18-26), and maybe even the correlated loss of faith. What remaining “friends” I have in my age group are mostly atheists and agnostics who will constantly remind me what a joke my belief in God and religion is. I don’t even know why I still talk with those people, perhaps I still think they can be converted back to the faith- but it really seems dim; they’re being very reasonable and convincing about what they don’t want to believe in- and it has driven me into an aggressive state of mind, lest I start to believe their lies. Because God exists and atheists are liars.
Let me tell you, the moment I stop believing in God, there would be an immensely terrible incident that would probably end in murder-suicide. Don’t forget that those mass murderers in Arizona, in Columbine, in Aurora, in Virginia, in Connecticut, were committed by my age group. Their ages are closest to mine than probably to any of you kind folks on this blog. It’s becoming regular now, this pattern of incidents consisting of the same narrative: “He was such a quiet, nice boy” is the usual comment they’d make, and some surreal number of casualties would be broadcast for an entire week before being forgotten a few months later. But none of that matters to a mind that has lost its sanity, its stability, its moral objectivity, its fear of God. All it has is its anger against the world, and no hope of Salvation- life ends at death, and nothing else really matters. So nothing really matters.
———————————-
The Five Traditional Milestones of Adulthood are:
1. Leaving Home
2. Becoming Financially Independent
3. Completing School
4. Marrying
5. Starting a Family (not applicable if the person makes a conscious choice not to have children or is infertile; this choice has been shaped by the relatively recent discovery of female birth control)
#4 and #5 usually are accompanied or symbolized by home ownership. I just can’t see that being accomplished my peer group. Probably because I live in Los Angeles, where land is at a premium? Perhaps some other young adult in rural areas know what’s going to happen with their lives and have a different understanding of social responsibilities? Maybe entirely different values and upbringing and sense of community is a factor? But I know for certain more people of my age group (I don’t know if it’s generational- the word seems more broader than 18-24) are moving back home with their parents, either looking for work or trying to figure out what to do while carrying some $20,000 student loan.
Although I have work, It’s barely enough to save anything. I live with my parents, and even they are trying to find work with no luck. I don’t know about my “friends” but I gather if they have enough money to spend for their drugs and alcohol, and nights out, I’m sure they have well-paying jobs or they have rich parents.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as of March, 2012: “The outstanding student loan balance now stands at about $870 billion, surpassing the total credit card balance ($693 billion) and the total auto loan balance ($730 billion). With college enrollments increasing and the costs of attendance rising, this balance is expected to continue its upward trend.”
There goes Financial Independence, marrying, and settling down!
Now, you can gather all you want about the phenomenon of “Extended Adolescence” or what can be called “Peter Pan Syndrome”- and its correlations with the economic situation of the United States, a better standard of living, etc. over the internet and elsewhere- but what I’m driving towards is- this isn’t just me projecting my own preferences to my generation, these are independent numbers growing. How is praying or believing in God, or liturgy relevant to the world we live in and our problems? The Novus Ordo Mass is ridiculous. I don’t care how you like it and how I’m a young whippersnapper, the Novus Ordo Mass is ridiculous. It’s naive to think that “New Evangelization” means “Easy Evangelization” so we have to look at the hard truth- MY GENERATION HAS NO FUTURE- at least not the futures envisioned by our parents. Our quality of life in the U.S. at least, will become inferior to how it was in previous generations, it will become a harder life. What then? “Sing a New Song Unto the Lord”? Nothing is more outdated than a novelty trying to be relevant. And not to be morbid, but those priests who talk about “The Spirit of Vatican 2″ will all be dead in 20 years, and a younger generation of priests want stability, something that they can’t get from the turbulence the Vatican 2 generation unleashed on the Church. Perhaps a more conservative understanding of what the Second Vatican Council meant will prevail. There is always the biological solution.
Any intelligent individual can find anything to criticize with the new Mass, because it IS easy to criticize in comparison to a more mysterious, dense, substantial Mass found with the traditional communities. The only level of criticism outsiders can show is caricature and exposure of their own ignorance.
Ioannes,
You wrote: Oh, I’m not basing my statements on how many young people go to mass and what their opinions are, I’m basing my statements on the greater phenomenon of “Extended Adolescence”, the unemployment numbers, the recent correlated numbers of suicides in my generation (ages 18-26), and maybe even the correlated loss of faith.
I strive to avoid discussion of politics on this site, but this is an issue in which the mathematical analysis is very clear. The current economic morass that has so many young people here in the States “sleeping in their childhood bedrooms and staring at fading Obama posters wondering when life will begin,” as former U. S. Representative Paul Ryan eloquently put it, is the direct result of economic and regulatory policies pursued by the present administration that have conspired to quench our economy. The recent reelection of this administration only ensures that these policies will continue for four more years, after which the economic future is uncertain. The full implementation of the so-called “Affordable Health Care Act” popularly dubbed ObamaCare is only going to make the situation much worse. I’m hearing a lot of rumors that many restaurants and other businesses where staff make decent money on an hourly basis are about to adopt policies limiting all non-management employees to a maximum of twenty-nine (29) hours per week so they will be below the threshold of thirty (30) hours per week so they will be under the threshold at which companies will incur tax penalties for not providing health insurance that meets the new requirements, as such policies will be considerably more expensive than most current policies, and I seriously doubt that the restaurant industry is alone in this. The bottom line here is that many people will soon be working two part time jobs, and will have to buy their own health insurance. In one of my high school chemistry classes, we learned Le Chatelier’s Principle: “Whenever a stress is applied to a system, the equilibrium point changes a manner that diminishes the stress.” This dynamic is yet another example of how Le Chatelier’s Principle extends far beyond chemistry, and into the sphere of economics.
But the other reality is that the current economic morass absolutely is not the cause of the absence of faith in the present day, and may even be the consequence of it. Fundamentally, you cannot lose something that you don’t posess, and most of the present generation never had any real faith in the first place. The reality is that there are many ethnic ghettos in our major cities where the Catholic Church survived as a central element of the enthic culture, with young people going through the motions of receiving the sacraments and going to Sunday mass because that was how one fit into the ethnic society. For several decades now, the young people who left those ethnic ghettos, whether to attend college, to serve in our nation’s armed forces, or to seek employment and their futures elsewhere, typically stopped going to mass as soon as they were free of their childhood environment. Where there was faith among the young, it was typically because chaplains at colleges and universities and in the armed forces managed to pull them back and instill it.
So why the real lack of faith? The primary problem is a misplaced emphasis in our catechetical formation programs — one that has long stressed teaching of doctrine, which is certainly necessary, but completely neglected evangelization — that is, the formation of a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior — which is absolutely essential. But what has been even worse is the lack of standards in the catechetical formation programs in many parishes: so-called “social promotion” is rampant, with students who never mastered the lessons of one grade nevertheless moving on to the next. Thus, even the indoctrination never takes root. Further, the “social gospel” often guides preparation for formation, with participation in a few volunteer service projects carrying the day and presence of real faith not even being considered.
You wrote: What remaining “friends” I have in my age group are mostly atheists and agnostics who will constantly remind me what a joke my belief in God and religion is. I don’t even know why I still talk with those people, perhaps I still think they can be converted back to the faith- but it really seems dim; they’re being very reasonable and convincing about what they don’t want to believe in- and it has driven me into an aggressive state of mind, lest I start to believe their lies. Because God exists and atheists are liars.
Yes, exactly.
I would strongly recommend that you abandon this lot and find some real friends — brothers and sisters in Christ who are into the Truth.
You wrote: Our quality of life in the U.S. at least, will become inferior to how it was in previous generations, it will become a harder life. What then? “Sing a New Song Unto the Lord”? Nothing is more outdated than a novelty trying to be relevant.
There is no doubt that much of the new music written for worship in the decade after the Second Vatican Council was trite. This may shock you, but I actually agree with your comments regarding its lack of ability to form, to sustain, and to nurture faith.
But there is also a body of music that followed with words that speak of spiritual reality in very profound ways written by composers who really do “get it” with regard to spiritual truth.
The scripture says:
I think that this applies to new liturgical music, just as it applies to prophecy.
Norm.
Norm,
1. You wrote: “the current economic morass absolutely is not the cause of the absence of faith in the present day, and may even be the consequence of it.”
Yes, that’s why I stated “Correlated loss of faith” and not “Consequent loss of faith.” I trace this back to the sort of liberalism popularized in the “Enlightenment” where all you need to save the world and yourself is to have a “Cultivated Mind” and while this mentality has caused the discovery of many medical wonders, and even have put men on the moon- they are products of human hands and have failed to prevent things like World Wars or terrorism. In fact, the whole point of the “Modernist Movement” is to critique the notion that the Enlightenment is the solution to the human condition. Unfortunately, the post-modernist movement has taken over, and suddenly, “everyone is right”. Nothing is more evil and ridiculous than that notion.
To put faith in humanity, to talk too much of the godliness of mankind is to forget the fallen nature of mankind, that no matter how intelligent a person gets, he will die regardless of how much he knows. Why? Because God is the master of life- this just isn’t understandable to an atheist mind, or a mind that has been so indoctrinated by secularists in institutions such as schools, colleges, academia, etc. that I have no other recourse but to expect a calamity from these people- Hopefully, you all know history- throughout history, liberals have tried to make a “New Society” – you have your Lenin, your Robespierre, your Julius and Augustus Caesar, they are all well-intentioned individuals who claimed to have a “new idea” but what came after- was a deterioration of society. Gulags and guillotines, concentration camps and killing fields. That is the destiny of liberalism.
Now, what? We have overt support for the mass murder of children by their mothers. And yet somehow, people are shocked when one man kills a relatively smaller number of children. We have people supporting sodomitic, pseudogamy among homosexuals. All of these things are forms of demographic suicide- the birth rates do not lie!
2. You wrote: “The reality is that there are many ethnic ghettos in our major cities where the Catholic Church survived as a central element of the enthic culture, with young people going through the motions of receiving the sacraments and going to Sunday mass because that was how one fit into the ethnic society.”
I am Filipino, and this is truth. But also, this fact, along with a sort of apathy from our clergy, does nothing for the inevitable rejection of the faith. All it takes is one atheist lecture or a fraternity/sorority party for children who have been taught to hate their parents, to change. It is frustrating, because on one hand, I don’t know exactly what priests are doing besides what we see and hear at Mass; on the other, I know what is the state of the church based on the fundamental questions asked and left unanswered by people like clergy and religious. Do you know the rates in which Poles, Irish, Italian, Hispanics, and Filipinos leave the Church annually? Does the Church even bother to count? I bet it’s some discouraging number.
3. You wrote: “I would strongly recommend that you abandon this lot and find some real friends — brothers and sisters in Christ who are into the Truth.
Sometimes, I feel that you really don’t “Love your enemy” when you have given up on correcting their error. But I understand that there are some people with whom you can argue until you become blue in the face- and nothing will change- it would take brute force and the inflicting of pain and suffering before anything would happen.
Now, in finding similar-minded groups, this is more difficult. One of the central expressions of our Faith is the Liturgy. And I am a supporter of traditional liturgies in Los Angeles. Try to compare the amount of traditional parishes and non-traditional parishes in Los Angeles using the Archdiocese’s website. http://www.la-archdiocese.org/SitePages/Parish%20Directory.aspx
Yes, I can try and get along with my fellow parishioners at my own parish. But, see, there’s no such thing as “fellowship” in my parish. As soon as the Mass is over, everyone goes to the parking lot as fast as we can. I suppose we have more exposure to the people from the workplace or school than the brief moment we shake hands during Mass.
It’s not the same situation as, say, Hasidic Jews who live near each other, work with each other, and maintain a strong sense of identity and unity in their faith.
Anyways, I do not wish to further this depressing direction of the thread. This is supposed to be the happy occasion of Fr. Carl becoming a member of the clergy.
Like the Ordinariates, He represents hope, real hope.
EPMS,
You wrote: The latest Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate study on mass attendance shows that 63% of Catholics have “no opinion” on making the EF more available. 25% favoured the option; support was higher among “older Catholics.”
One wonders to what extent these statistics might be skewed by the fact that many young adults (basically, those in the period from confirmation to marriage) are absent from parishes and dioceses that largely ignore them, and thus were not participants in these surveys.
But having said that, I doubt that the missing young adults want a reversion to a church whose ministers literally turned their backs on the congregation. Rather, they want a church that meets them in their current circumstances with a relavant message that brings meaning in their present situations and hope for a bright future. They want a church which welcomes their talents, their gifts and their giftedness, their hopes, and dreams where they can find a spouse that shares their values and a spiritual home in which to raise their children. They want a home where compassion and caring are genuine. Reversion to a liturgical use that’s incomprehensible to them will not provide it.
Norm.
Young adults want stability, and want a priest who will face God with them.
What an insulting thing to say that the priest is “Turning his backs on them” By your logic, the priest is turning his back on God. Loving people without loving God is as false as loving God without loving people. The Mass is about God, not about you, me, or my neighbor. It is about the Eucharist, not about your sense of community. It is anathema to relegate the Eucharist into the background, when our whole universe must center upon the Eucharist. I don’t care how you interpret documents from Vatican 2 or the Catechism, you are a heretic once you do not believe the Eucharist is Jesus Christ and do not treat Him in the proper manner.
To say that the priest is “Turning his back on us” is a lie, Norm. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you are not qualified to speak for me or my generation. You may say that I don’t speak for my generation either, but if I truly spoke for my generation, we wouldn’t be speaking at all. I’d be attending Occupy Wall Street or some stupid pro-choice or pro-homosexual, sodomitic pseudogamy protest. I’d be hurling insults at your God and your Church at any moment I breathe- but one thing I can agree with those people? Older generations ruined a lot of things for our generation, and that includes trashing the ancient Mass, replacing sacred, eternal polyphony or Gregorian plainchant with empty, out-dated PROTESTANTIZED folk songs.
You see, even if you have your Novus Ordo- it is not going to change the perception of suspicion against religion in general. I, as a person who constantly struggle against the world, would prefer we did not try to make compromises with the world in how we pray and how we worship, a compromise which is the supposed “Spirit of Vatican 2″.
Fr. Joseph Kramer (FSSP) speaks more accurately of the frustrations we the faithful youth have about the older generations and their “new” Mass.
The richness of the last 2,000 years cannot compare with the ridiculous artifice of the last 40.
I aspire to be a radical (from the Latin word radix, meaning “root”) traditionalist. And I will resist modernism within the Faith, in all its forms, to its face, from the bottom of my heart so long as I live.
Ioannes,
You wrote: What an insulting thing to say that the priest is “Turning his backs on them”
Gestures open themselves to different interpretations, and one interpretation is just as valid as another.
By your logic, the priest is turning his back on God.
Only if (1) the tabernacle is on the main altar (very stongly not recommended by the magisterium) and (2) you believe that God is present only in the tabernacle.
When we celebrate the eucharist, Catholic theology recognizes the presence of Christ (1) in the people gathered, (2) in the person of the minister, (3) in the scriptures proclaimed, and finally (4) in the consecrated eucharistic elements. This does not depend upon the presence of a tabernacle in the worship space. Thus, a worship space configured in a manner that forces the principle celebrant to turn his back on the Christ who is present in the people gathered in order to face the Christ who is present in the tabernacle is theologically problematic. This is why many Catholic parishes now have their tabernacles on a side altar or in a separate blessed sacrament chapel.
You wrote: Older generations ruined a lot of things for our generation, and that includes trashing the ancient Mass, replacing sacred, eternal polyphony or Gregorian plainchant with empty, out-dated PROTESTANTIZED folk songs.
I’m not sure that “protestantized” is a fair characterization. A hymn that does not express Catholic theology would not gain approval from episcopal conferences for use in the Catholic Church.
Having said that, there is nothing in the Pauline revision of the Roman Missal that threw out polyphony or Gregorian chant. I’ll grant you that there are gross deficiencies in the manner of celebration in many parishes, but that is not the fault of the missal itself. In fact, the manner in which many parishes actually celebrated (?) the Tridentine mass in the early 1960′s was even worse. Fortunately, those who seek to preserve the Tridentine form of mass generally do care enough to celebrate it in the proper manner. I think, if you were to see the present ordinary form of mass celebrated in the proper manner routinely, that you would have a very different opinion of it.
You wrote: I aspire to be a radical (from the Latin word radix, meaning “root”) traditionalist. (emphasis in original)
I, rather, aspire to be an orthodox Catholic Christian. You cannot be more Catholic, or more orthodox, than the pope. Pope Benedict XVI may often celebrate mass in Latin (which was never forbidden), but he does so using the current ordinary form rather than the Tridentine form.
Be careful. Many hard-core traditionalists have lost touch with true orthodoxy, instead exaggerating innovations of the middle ages, often to the point of heresy. In the case of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), this ultimately led to full schism. It’s fortunate that some of their number recognized the error of their ways and formed the Faternal Society of St. Peter (FSSP) to remain in the full communion of the Catholic Church, but many ardent traditionalists adhere to the heresies of the schismatics.
Norm.
What nicely dressed people in those photos!
I’m hoping that, soon, we shall see some Anglican-cut cassocks for daily use in public. Failing that, the Roman or French cuts would be all right. Better a cassock on any occasion than the black clericals. Jeans and a tee shirt equals liberal priest. Black clericals and collar equals conservative priest. Cassock and rabat equals traditionailst priest. A traditionalist is as far above a conservative as the sun is above the earth.
P.K.T.P.
Double-breasted cassocks? I’d like to see that!
How frequently are they used in the Anglican Communion, anyway?