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KA Byrnes's avatar

I am a post-Vatican II Catholic. I've watched organ music and traditional hymns replaced with guitars and '70s music. Middle aisle churches were closed so that updated amphitheater churches could be built. Icons were replaced with felt and burlap banners.

My overarching feeling is that the Church cheated me. Why was a Mass tradition good enough for centuries changed? Why was something beautiful -- the buildings, the music, the smells and bells -- traded for the latest artistic fad? I think my generation is bitter. We saw a few years of the old ways and could compare what was to what it became. That sadness and loss can't be whisked under a rug.

I didn't even know what the SSPX was until a few years ago. This isn't an existential push for a complete disavowal of the post-V2 Church. It's just heartbreak and confusion. Bishops who restrict access to the TLM with rules that seem random or punitive don't feel like they're listening to the average Catholic who finds more Mystery in the older tradition. It feels like they're giving bombastic social media voices too much attention.

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Brendan Buckley's avatar

The elephant in the room is that this argument actually IS deeply doctrinal and theological. But it is not just the trads that make it so.

The real irony with TC is that the extremists on both sides are actually arguing the same thing: that a rupture occurred after Vatican II and that one side must conquer the other.

Look, for example, at Cardinal Roche's comments in regards to TC that the church's theology has changed and that the role of priest and laity is somehow different in 1970 than it was in 1962. I don't know how one could possibly make this statement and say that the Church is a continuous deposit of faith.

On the other hand, you have ultra traditionalist talking points from the SSPX that the entirety of Vatican II cannot be accepted and that the faithful should not attend NO liturgies.

Benedict XVI saw that arguments like these were two sides of the same coin and that is why Summorum Pontificum and the hermeneutic of continuity are the only thing that make sense.

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