Expert: Fr. Michael - 7/19/2008

Question
I was wondering if you are one of the fathers on the Traditio website. As you may know by now I belong to a N.O. parish. I was having a discussion with my "priest" about certain abuses in his church lamenting the irreverence of the services and telling him that I wish there were a traditional mass that I could attend. His response was that he grew up with the traditional mass which was really not so great since the priest was unable to preach and spoke "high" theology. When I asked him what he meant, he claimed that people could not understand and that the priest hid behind all the latin. He went on to say that were it not for Vatican II there would be no folk music and steelpan in the mass. He also stated that the church has ALWAYS believed that there is more than one way to God including the Charismatic movement. He spoke about the power of the laity saying that he refused to exorcise on his own since he is unable to discern and some lay people are so "good" at this. Naturally I refuted all his points since they were so weak and stupid.

Answer
I agree.  You were getting typical Novus Ordo nonsense.  The duty of the Church, and teachers as a whole, is to elevate the knowledge and undestanding of those being taught, not to dumb everything down to the lowest level.  Forty years of the Novus Ordo demonstrates clearly that Newchurchers are in fact dumbed down religiously.  Most of them don't even know by heart the basic statement of Christian doctrine, the Apostles Creed, much less what it means.  They are abysmally ignorant of the great Saints, who they are and what they did.  They don't even really understand the New Mess, vernacularized as it is.

It is shocking to think how in forty years Newchurch has dumbed down the greatest religion in the world, which has produced intellectual giants such as St. Paul, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas.  Most Newchurchers today would have trouble understanding the Baltimore Catechism, which was mastered by all educated Catholics before Vatican II (1962-1965).  Newchurch agrees with me in this, as it constantly laments the ignorance of its people -- which Newchurch itself has caused!

As to music, no serious person wants trash when the Catholic Church has been the inspiration for Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony written by inspired composers such as Palestrina, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.

You really need to get out of the Novus Ordo environment in which you yourself are being dumbed down, whether you know it or not.  Find a traditional Catholic site near you and improve your understanding of the true Faith.  For further information, see the Official Traditional Catholic Directory, which is available at http://www.traditio.com/nat.htm