Responses to liberals - Part 1

Recently, I wrote two posts chastising far-right-wing conservative Catholics who obsess over valid Church practices in place for many years now. They claim these valid practices will bring nothing but doom and gloom to the Church! However, these two posts are addressed to the far-left-wing liberals in the Church; trust me, I haven’t forgotten about you! I’ve been attacked by the far-right-wing conservatives in the past for my posts. Far-left-wing liberals, now it’s your turn!

To you far-left-wing liberals in the Church; a lot of what you mistakenly believe and promote is due to ignorance on your part, either by choice, or by not being properly catechized to begin with as children, especially if, like me, you came of age in the 1970’s and 1980’s following Vatican II. Unfortunately, you never took the time to educate yourselves in the faith when you reached adulthood, mistakenly believing that you knew everything you needed to know to be a Catholic Christian once you received the Sacrament of Confirmation sometime in your teens. If you were like me, receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation was nothing more than Graduation from CCD!

At Mass, many of you mistakenly imitate the priest in ways that the Rubrics don’t call for; for example, holding your hands in the Orans position (hands and arms outstretched) during The Lord’s Prayer, a posture proper to the priest alone at Mass as dictated by the Rubrics; deacons don’t even do this! And what’s with the hand-holding thing many of you do during The Lord’s Prayer? Last time I checked, that’s not in the Rubrics either! So why do you do it?

Specifically, to you far-left-wing liberal catechists and DRE’s; can you please stop with all the trite and unneeded ceremonies you painfully put our children through? And does EVERY child receiving First Holy Communion really need to have a “job” to do at their First Holy Communion Mass, for example? At my First Holy Communion Mass, only two of my classmates had a “job”; they proclaimed the First and Second Readings. I remember at the time wanting to do that myself, and was disappointed that I wasn’t chosen to read one of the readings. But guess what; I survived! So just stick to the curriculum (presumably based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church!) that’s been specified by your parish and diocese, in partnership with what their parents are teaching them, and the kids will turn out just fine!

Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you people championed the now-infamous Folk Mass, complete with guitars and tambourines! As a result, you went to Mass to be entertained by the “music ministry” playing pop music, instead of going to Mass to worship Jesus Christ! Fortunately, those days appear to be gone, at least in my part of the country. Now we just need to flush the politically correct lyrics out of the hymns in the parish hymnals!

Then there are those of you who seek positions of authority and prominence within the Church (specifically, your parishes) for the sole purpose of pushing your own agenda, twisting Church documents (especially those relating to Vatican II), and misleading people into believing that changes in Church practices have taken place that never took place! Allow me to give an example from my youth. When I was preparing for First Holy Communion in 1970, we were told that we’d be receiving this Sacrament in the 2^nd Grade, but wouldn’t have First Penance until the 4^th Grade. To the best of my knowledge, no parents questioned the parish priests or catechists over this change in Sacramental practice. After all, Vatican II had just ended five years earlier, and lots of changes in Church practices had already taken place. To the parents (who all grew up before Vatican II), this was one more change Vatican II brought about that they accepted without question. Keep in mind that my parents and their contemporaries grew up in a generation where to question what Father or Sister said, was to question God Himself! As a result, no one dared question the catechists and parish administration over this issue. Fortunately, the Vatican put its foot down in 1973 regarding this practice through the Declaration “Sanctus Pontifex”, published on May 24, 1973. By the time one of my younger brothers received First Holy Communion in 1975, the valid order of these Sacraments was restored in my parish, as dictated by the Code of Canon Law. However, as late as the late 1990’s, the practice of First Communion before First Penance was still in occurring in places like the Diocese of Worcester, MA (where I lived in the late 1990’s).

To be continued in Part 2……..