Immediately following the publication of Traditionis Cojones, a hue and cry rang out from the depths of the so-called traditionalist movement (more appropriately, the tradservative movement):
But the Latin Mass parishes are thriving! In many dioceses, they’re the only ones that are growing! Not only that, they are full of young families with lots of children, while the typical Novus Ordo parish is overwhelmingly octogenarian and female!
What those who joined in the chorus failed to appreciate is the degree to which they had allowed themselves to get trapped within the snares of the Devil.
In his letter to bishops accompanying Traditionis Cojones, the Evil One’s righthand man shared what led to his decision to make the Novus Ordo Missae “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite [sic],” writing:
I instructed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to circulate a questionnaire to the Bishops regarding the implementation of the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. The responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene.
With this, the Holy Fibber attempted to define the parameters for any pro-tradition responses that might follow, and lo and behold, the mouthpieces of the “movement” couldn’t fall into line fast enough:
We’ll see your questionnaire responses and raise you some demographics!
The tradservative media outlet, LifeSite News, even decided to counter Bergoglio’s polling data by… get this… inviting readers to sign a petition to “Show Pope Francis the Latin Mass will survive any suppression.” They promised, “LifeSite News will hand-deliver this petition to the Holy See, recording the moment traditional Catholics from around the world stood up for the Traditional Latin Mass.”
Actually, they’re a little late to the dance: The “moment” Catholics stood up for the true Mass was more than fifty years ago, the very day it was jettisoned from parishes worldwide in favor of the bogus service of Paul VI.
In any case, the petition to “show Pope Francis” what’s what was launched more than two months ago. As of this writing, it has a whopping 33,000 signatures from among the more than 80 million Catholics in the USA and Canada (where LifeSite News is based).
If you listen closely, you can almost hear the Bergoglians laughing from here. Evidently, however, they haven’t had their fill of amusement at the expense of the tradservative movement just yet.
Yesterday, National Catholic Reporter published an article from Rebecca Bratten Weiss under the title, Contrary to traditionalist claims, many Catholics are fleeing Latin Mass parishes.
Even though the cat was let out of the bag in the headline alone, Weiss presents her thesis, writing:
But even if some are drawn to traditionalist parishes and communities, others are leaving them. But those interviewed by NCR say it’s not necessarily that they fell out of love with the liturgy. They withdrew due to the bigotry and toxicity in traditional parishes.
Don’t let the back-to-back “buts” fool you, Weiss isn’t necessarily a dummy (though her editor evidently is). She has learned well at Bergoglio’s unbending knee, setting essentially the same trap that he set by inviting tradservatives to focus on all the wrong things:
The liturgy itself is not the issue, see? The issue is the attitudes of the people. And now they’re losing parishioners!
Based on some of the reactions I’ve seen on social media, the bait is being taken. Again.
She’s full of it! My Latin Mass community has outgrown the church buidling! The motu proprio backfired! Attendance has skyrocketed ever since it was published!
Get a grip, folks. Questionnaires and petitions and demographics don’t matter one iota.
This isn’t about numbers, and to the extent that they tell us anything, Sacred Scripture plainly tells us that there will come a time when Evil will flourish and only a small remnant will endure in the true faith.
Even so, NCR’s Weiss cannot help but gloat:
But in a nation with approximately 70 million Catholics, that’s about 10 venues [that offer the traditional Roman Rite] for every million worshippers. And it’s around 4% of the total 16,700 Catholic parishes in the United States. Globally, only 63 countries even have churches where the traditional mass is celebrated, and many of these have only one or two venues.
There’s a reason for this, ladies and gentlemen: The preponderance of parishes across the globe have fallen prey to the diabolical operation known as Vatican Council II, and the way proposed by Satan is easy and attractive and, therefore, o’ so popular.
As I wrote shortly after Traditionis Cojones was published, the present assault on the true Mass is really all about the Church’s indefectibility.
There is enmity between the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the conciliar church-of-man. The former is the Mystical Body of Christ, the latter, a construct of the Infernal Enemy. For Bergoglio and others likewise committed to the conciliar revolution, the real problem is that the Catholic Church still exists at all.
At issue is not, as Weiss claims, “the bigotry and toxicity in traditional parishes,” it’s that the ancient rite is indeed the lex orandi of the true Church! As such, regardless of how many or how few embrace it at any given time, for as long as the Traditional Latin Mass is allowed to exist, it will be as kryptonite to the conciliar counterfeit church, ever raising up new generations of Catholics, members of the one true Church of Christ that Satan so arrogantly imagines he can destroy.
In light of the present crisis, of course we are a tiny minority. Embrace it; it’s a sign of confirmation that we’re persisting in the truth.
