I was of a generation raised in school to “duck and cover”, to fear Communist aggression and to expect the possibilities of a global nuclear conflict at any moment. Yet these were happy and carefree days on the most part due to the cheerfulness, almost giddiness, of our parents who began a new life as the conquerors of the vanquished. After all they had prevailed against the evil of this world and returned home victorious and triumphant from the Second World War.  

Our parents were heroes and we, as a united people, felt invincible and yet a bit apprehensive due to the technological advances that we ushered in with the nuclear age. The weapons of war had become frightening. It was an age of schizophrenia; jubilant, prideful, carefree, happy but with the underpinnings of a looming disaster lying in wait just around the corner.

Ike was our president and though we were at war in Korea, it was spoken of as a mere police action while we spent our time setting off nuclear weapons in the Pacific atolls not far from Pearl Harbor, ground zero for our forced involvement in the Great War. But life in Hawaii was good and full of fun, sun and beaches. We kids swam and played as our parents engaged in almost endless games of bridge, canasta, hearts and other amusing card games though those times were certainly beginning to feel a bit of the creeping unrest to come: the stalemate in Korea, the development of missiles capable of putting a “sputnik” into orbit, the fall of Cuba to the Communists and the realization that nuclear missiles were being installed only a short distance from our shores.

We were dealing with the matter of Civil Rights, of note the “I have a dream” speech in ’63, then the shots that rang around the world: first the shots at Dealey Plaza, November 22nd, also in ’63, which killed JFK, preceded by our involvement in Cuban Democracy and South Vietnam’s push for independence. As if on cue, other shots rang out, almost an echo of the Lee Harvey Oswald shots occurring though they happened some 5 years later; and MLK lay dead. Obviously, tensions rose both domestically and internationally and we were getting much deeper into a seemingly endless fight with the Vietnamese Communists. Social unrest turned into social upheaval and we have never looked back. 

Yes, we were a society of Ozzie and Harriets and the Mickey Mouse Club but we had become a nation of Psychedelic Rock, drug addiction and all around pleasure seekers. I wonder if we were trying to convince ourselves that we could run away from evil or join forces with it in a type of truce so that we might continue our carefree youth or extend it. Alas! That was not to be: for our past had been completely uprooted.

We were the Boomers, the kids of the Greatest Generation, who rode the coattails of our parent’s exuberance in all that they had accomplished. They had a right to their positivism as they had earned it. We had not.  And most of us would come to learn this truth in the many long and painful lessons which were to tear our families apart, our faith apart and our societies apart. 

Even the unchanging Catholic Church was speaking of ditching Latin in the Mass and replacing it with the vernacular and that the old Gregorian Chant was in places being replaced by folk music, drums and nose whistles . . . according to the 3rd page of the LA Times: coincidentally, this was reported on the same day that JFK was assassinated. A connection between Heaven and Earth at a time when the Third Secret was supposed to be revealed to the world? It was not.

So it does seem to me that the world changed rather suddenly with the murder of JFK. It was as if we had lost our innocence and had experienced something deep within our souls that forever changed us as a people. It had awakened the truth that there is an ever-present evil in this world and, once again, our eyes became open to the fact that even blue skies are eclipsed by storm clouds with regularity. Even though we all know that should we rise above the clouds, a blue sky is still extant. However, from our vantage point, all seems rather dark and foreboding. Yes, the days of our parents are over and a much more evil and sinister world has now been placed in hands that were and are persistently unprepared for this global war on society: a war we are losing at present and, perhaps, a war we were not meant to win. For this is a war that is waged supernaturally in heaven and all we can do is resist evil and pray. We fight only to delay the inevitable. But even our seeming worthless resistance will be rewarded by the real victor of this War, Christ . . . lest Satan wins our souls for all eternity. Christ will not let that happen to those Who fight along side Him no matter our frailty or our inabilities. And our efforts to aid in that fight will not go unrewarded. For nobody is more generous than Our Lord.

Those of my generation, who have survived this age until now, are seeing evil as we never saw it before. In politics and in a lack of true stewardship of souls by our parishes and our clergy. So we again choose sides and resist and we send up our prayers for fortitude and wisdom. Whether this is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning, we don’t know. But for us, it is the quintessential battle of our day. Good vs. Evil. And it is the battle that has raged from the beginning. It may be ended in my lifetime or far into the future. But we have our part to play in this battle. Let us not lose heart.

by Charlie

Overall, however, when weighing the two forms, I think the gains outweigh the losses. The 50th anniversary of the Novus Ordo’s debut is, therefore, a time to thank God for those gains.
FATHER ROGER LANDRY

I believe Father Roger Landry is a good man and a good priest with a lot of good intentions. I also think he is deluded by his own good intentions in this Register article, “Celebrating the Novus Ordo as It Ought to Be.” I always grew up hearing that old saw that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. This was my introduction to the law of unintended consequences.

When welfare programs began many decades ago, the intention was to help families in their hardships. The unintended consequences of those programs was to foster generations of unwed mothers and fatherless sons who would become savage criminals who have turned urban life into urban hell. I am crazy, but I think the solution to the problem is to end the programs. Why repeat the same mistake expecting a different result? And if the current result is worse than the problem the solution was intended to cure, you abandon the solution. This would be common sense.

The Novus Ordo Mass had many good intentions behind it at the outset. But good intentions don’t count. What we have to see are the potential unintended consequences of our actions. The unintended consequences of the Novus Ordo are plain to see. We see a decline in vocations, church attendance, and belief in the Real Presence. Liturgical abuses are common. The atmosphere of a typical Novus Ordo Mass has less reverence than what you will find at an Episcopal or Lutheran church service. And the Novus Ordo opened the doors to all sorts of innovations from the modernists in other areas. How can Father Landry seriously claim that the gains outweigh the losses?

The biggest loss is that priests like Father Landry cannot see the destruction the Novus Ordo has brought to our parishes. It’s like living in a town with a paper mill. After awhile, you don’t notice the rotten egg smell anymore. But your out of town relatives notice it when they come to visit.

There is only one upside to the Novus Ordo Mass. It makes you appreciate the real thing when you encounter it. When you attend a Latin Mass, you are struck immediately by its beauty and reverence. When you kneel at the rail and take communion, you see how much better and efficient it is than the clumsy attempt at a supermarket express lane with extraordinary ministers of holy communion. Worship is not about the utilitarian, but the utilitarian arguments against the Latin Mass are without substance.

The Novus Ordo should be totally abolished. There was and is nothing wrong with the Latin Mass except that it put restraint on bad priests in the liturgy. The Novus Ordo opened the doors wide to innovations that are ongoing even today. The changes never stop. Ultimately, those changes will invalidate the Mass altogether, and the Real Presence will vanish in an abomination of desolation. This is the ultimate destination of all these good intentions. When we reach the end of that road paved with the stones of all those good intentions, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in Hell nor claim that we weren’t warned.

by Charlie

An excessive need for admiration and praise and with this comes an equally excessive need to avoid criticism. Often this is associated with obvious attention seeking behavior. These narcissistic traits are frequently found in those who introduce and participate in liturgical innovations.
PAUL VITZ

If I had the power and the authority to change things, I would abolish the Novus Ordo from Catholic parishes and demand a return to the Tridentine Mass. I did not always feel this way or even care. Then, my parish got a narcissist for a pastor, and my views on the Novus Ordo changed dramatically and permanently. This is because the Novus Ordo allows the narcissistic excesses of priests to be on full display.

We already know this. There was the priest who rode a hoverboard into the sanctuary at the beginning of the Mass. There was the priest that offered the Super Bowl Mass. Then, there was the use of a drone to elevate a monstrance with a consecrated host through the sanctuary. I wish I was making that last one up. Like it or not, liturgical abuses are the norm and not the exception in the Novus Ordo.

The fundamental problem with the Novus Ordo is that it brings the attention and focus from the sacrifice to the celebration of the community to the final celebration of the priest himself. This is sickening stuff. Now, not every priest who celebrates the NO is a narcissist. Many of them probably hate the Novus Ordo, but they are not given the option to abandon it. But the narcissist priest loves the Novus Ordo. It becomes his time to shine.

My priest is one of those narcissists. He parks his presider’s chair directly in front of the Cranmer table altar where he sits like a king and presides over his court. His homilies are just warm ups before going into long talks about himself and what sorts of television programs he likes to watch. When this becomes boring, he will launch into song which brings applause from the idiot herd in the pews. Or, he will have a quiz show where he gives away prizes for correct answers. I am not making any of this up.

This weekly spectacle is nauseating for me. I feel physically ill when this narcissist takes the stage for his clown show spectacle. To negate the scandal, I now attend the Spanish Mass where he presides but has to tamp down his ego because of his tenth grade Spanish language skills. My own comprehension of Spanish is less than this, so his homilies and antics disappear into a gibberish I do not understand. I also sit to the side of the sanctuary where I don’t have to look at him directly.

This narcissist priest noticed that we were doing this and stopped in the middle of his Spanish homily to declare in English his displeasure at Anglos attending the Spanish Mass. He had become wise to our trick, and his ego could not let it go. We still go to the Spanish Mass, so he punished us by nixing one of the English masses and moving the Spanish Mass to that time. He does these passive-aggressive type moves constantly.

When people hear of our travails with this awful priest, they ask the obvious questions. Have you written to the bishop? Yes, I have done this. Others have done this. Have you considered attending a Latin Mass? The nearest one is a two hour trip from us. What about some other parish with a priest who isn’t a narcissistic jerk? That would be a thirty minute drive where the Novus Ordo is only marginally less offensive with a priest who turns his homilies into a social justice diatribe. I think half of our parish already goes there now.

This priest who I refer to as “Father Jerk” essentially wants his parishioners to love, adore, and worship him instead of Jesus Christ. As for his parishioners, he holds them all in disdain. Many men in my parish have expressed a desire to punch him in the face. One fellow had to go outside and get some air before losing his cool with this clown after some dreadful comments Father Jerk made to his wife.

This guy doesn’t belong in the priesthood. This is a given. Yet, what drew him to this vocation? I highly doubt he was called. I think the reason is obvious. He saw in the Novus Ordo his chance to be in the spotlight. He was drawn to it like some fat moth to a bug zapper on some redneck’s back porch. He might have made a fine lounge singer or an actor, but most people who opt for these careers become nobodies. But the Novus Ordo allowed him to receive the adulation he sought while also making use of those singing and acting talents.

Would the Latin Mass have prevented this? I think so. Narcissists aren’t attracted to tradition. They want to break the rules. The Latin Mass is about Jesus Christ. The Novus Ordo is about the priest.

The only upside I can see with Father Jerk is that he has made a traditionalist out of me. I probably wouldn’t have cared about the liturgical issues, but Father Jerk has made me care. His spiritual director recommend to Father Jerk the Litany of Humility. Father Jerk’s response to this was to assign it as penance to his parishioners who confessed that week. Apparently, pride is everyone else’s problem but his own.

Priests Tampering with the Mass