Saturday, August 07, 2004

Cacciaguida linked to this Newsday article:

"Conservative Catholic groups share reverence for doctrinal orthodoxy"

He is right to say the article is surprisingly better than it might seem from the headline. But there was this jawdrop from a "theologian" Paul Lakeland:

"With the Latin Mass, you had people praying rosaries and reading about the saints because they couldn't follow along," said Paul Lakeland, a theologian at Fairfield College in Connecticut. "The new Mass was created for participation -- to keep people's focus on the Eucharist."

I have attended the traditional Latin Mass many times and have never seen people praying rosaries or reading about the saints during the Mass, but I have seen this before the Mass or afterwards. Perhaps things were different before the 60's but I doubt that things were as bad as some say they were. I have noticed people reading the parish bulletin during the novus ordo Mass which I think is worse than praying a Rosary or reading about the Saints. The next part of this quote is something traditionalists would jump on and with good reason: "The new Mass was created for participation". I thought the Mass could be developed naturally over centuries but that no one, not even the Pope had the right to "create" a Mass? And if the Mass was created to "keep people's focus on the Eucharist" then so far it has failed miserably. I don't like to nitpick one quote from somebody but a Google search will quickly show what Lakeland's agenda is:

"keynote speaker Paul Lakeland, professor of religious studies at Connecticut's Fairfield University, told the Newton gathering that Catholics were "suffocating from structural oppression" and advocated the abolition of the College of Cardinals, the ordination of women as deacons and lay participation in the election of bishops.
And, Lakeland predicted, future priests would consist of "some married, some not; some straight, some gay, some women, some not."

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