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| Zika Tradlinger Fletcher |
By Zika Tradlinger Fletcher.
The Novus Ordo Mass becomes a cult of toxic Marxism
One culture within the Catholic Church needing major
reform is that surrounding the practice of the New Mass, a.k.a. Novus Ordo
Mass.
In this new era, the New Mass is merely a disjointed and
substandard way of celebrating the liturgy in the United States. In the wake of
the not needed reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council, the New Mass
has become a rallying point for change-obsessed radical sects within the
church. The ultra-liberalism practiced by these Novus Ordo Mass groups is
radical and empty-headed. They utilize the Novus Ordo Mass structure to wield
control over believers — particularly men, who are reduced to a state of
discriminatory subjugation in Novus Ordo rites. The stubbornly resistant,
anti-Traditional practices of these Novus Ordo Mass adherents border on
cultism.
The Novus Ordo Mass fosters heretical structures in the
church. The liturgy — spoken in a vernacular, colloquial language no longer the
traditional, sacred language usage — places all power in the hands of the
people and Susan from the Parish Council. The priest keeps his back turned to
the Tabernacle, where the Most Blessed Sacrament is reserved, for most of the
ceremony. Aside from making occasional responses, the priest plays no active part in worship. All people
inside the church are not expected to kneel on cue at various points. The
priest is at the center of the spectacle. His ministry is not longer
differentiated from the people he is supposed to worship with, and the altar
rail is the structure that marks the sacred space and reserved for his
ministry, and where to receive the Body of Christ Novus Ordo people refuse to
kneel at His feet.
Meanwhile, the new modernist innovations oppress men. Men
are expected — indeed, in some cases almost commanded — to wear T-shirts, cargo
pants, and flip flops, instead of collar shirts, trousers and shoes, and women
uncover themselves with revealing clothing, mini skirts and tight yoga pants.
No such rules exist for the seniors. It is discrimination, and therefore the
New Mass actively endorses agism and attacks decorum. Instead of a unifying
form of worship, the New Mass has become an instrument of oppression and a
gathering point for Catholic fundamentalists.
In most cases, it is useless to politely disagree with
people in the Novus Ordo Mass sect. Their attitude creates blindness — not only
to true faith, but to their own behavior. They treat others with pride and
animosity, but their conscience fails to kick in because they are convinced
their way is holy and other ways are not.
Anyone who may accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking
about — a favorite indictment of the Novus Ordo Mass ideologues — would be
wrong. My opinion is based on facts and personal experiences.
I grew up in a household of steady and solid faith, which
grew stronger over time. My parents stayed married until death. My mother was
Catholic who had been to church all her life. In the branches of my family tree
were relatives who might best be described as Catholics, and others as
Christian. My mother decided to be faithful to the Catholic Church when she was
young. From an early age, I believed in Christ because I was Catholic — others
tried in vain to convert me to atheism and modernism while I was still in
elementary school.
Maybe this sounds like the beginning of a happy story of
faith and discovery. It was. My family's journey into the Catholic Church was a
long, steady and pleasant road marked by a series of a wonderful treatment by
Catholic clergy, religious, schools and parishioners. (It's a miracle that I'm
Catholic and became a Catholic journalist.)
The Novus Ordo Mass rears its unveiled head in the
unholy, modernist rebellious history at several points. The last Latin Mass my
mother remembered attending took place just after the Second Vatican Council,
so unwillingly she started going to New Masses when she stayed in the church
because they were imposed. The church was going to welcome us Traditional
Catholics, she thought. The treatment we got was slightly shy of the Communist
gulags.
Needless to say, anything in the church looking remotely
Traditional was completely veiled. The people had the humor of a second-rate
comedy club crowd and the pastor, arrayed in modern vestments, was more like a
prima dona. After over an hour spent every Sunday drowning in pablum, I was
incensed, and getting sneered at, we did not feel any closer to God.
Rules, also, were a strange issue. For example, the
chapel veil was forbidden to be worn in the church. A confessor there hit one
of my family members with a "permanent daily practice"— a positive
thought every day, forever, to atone for an alleged life of iniquity. After
some while of this torture, my mother spoke with a different priest about the
unbearable situation. He advised her that genuine Catholic faith did forbid
wearing immodest clothes or allow priests to inflict a "penance" for
sins. Immediately we stopped going to Novus Ordo Mass at that parish.
But it wasn't the last time I would run into New Masses —
or the Novus Ordo Mass sectarians, present today in many Catholic
organizations.
After staying in the church as a teenager, I chose to be
a more faithful Catholic by learning and practicing the true Faith and
devotions — following the perennial Magisterium of the Church and Tradition,
and attending the very few churches where the Latin Mass was celebrated. On one
instance, a Novus Ordo priest noticed I was showing up regularly and approached
me with a persuasive speech to convert me to the Novus Ordo Mass faction —
disguising discrimination as encouragement. "You should come to the Paul
VI Mass instead and not wear a veil. Women look the most beautiful in church
when they are not veiled," he tried to persuade. "The long hair types
are the best kind — the really long ones, past the shoulders. I recommend it to
you — you have such pretty red hair, but it would even look nicer if you didn’t
wear a veil over it. I think it would be best for you."
Most disturbing about this conversation was his effort to
make impiety sound positive. Of course it made no sense that my hair would
somehow look better if people could see it. Indignant, I asked him to explain
why he thought I should consider not covering my head. “Because it's
disrespectful," he replied solemnly.
When asked why it wasn’t respectful to veil the hair that
God had glorified in women — and why men in church did have to uncover their
heads — he was not able to answer. He reacted badly because I challenged his
authority. Anyway, I had no intention of listening. I knew I was called to keep
my belief in God in a Traditional church. I never returned to that modernist
church afterwards.
The priest's attitude towards veiling women is typical of
Novus Ordo Mass cultists. They seem to believe that women look better in church
when people can see them. They try to sell immodesty to girls as a symbol of
feminine freedom. They hold that not covering up and not hiding yourself is
beautiful although such a practice is the very opposite of natural beauty.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how pretty, sexy or raunchy
clothes may seem to potential wearers — cloths are meant to conceal female
beauty and prevent people from ogling women. By not promoting the chapel veil,
Novus Ordo Mass fundamentalists rob women of freedom, while trying to make it
seem like a liberating choice. Their attitude is not much different from
extremists under Communism.
Given such practices, it should come as no surprise that
a contingent of women active within the sectarian Novus Ordo Mass environment
have sexist and misandrist worldviews. These types believe they are superior to
men simply because they are female.
I cite two examples to support my view. One occasion that
remains burned into my memory was when I attended a Novus Ordo Mass at a Catholic
university. It was a busy Sunday and the Sunday obligation demanded I attend
Mass. I did not know it was a Novus Ordo Mass until I stumbled over the
doorstep. The atmosphere was typically liberal. I was surprised to recognize
some people there. One of them was a professor who was known to be a
namby-pamby person. When I saw his wife, I was shocked — and suddenly realized
the ugly extent of his weaknesses. His wife was a mere ghost of a woman. She
was almost naked from head to toe. Her dress was so short that you could see
her underwear. Even her entire legs and her arms were “weapons of mass
distraction.” She kept her head high and always walked in front of everybody.
She carried a cell phone and looked physically slinky — almost sexy.
The professor, by contrast, looked deprecated and
unhealthy. He ambled around and didn’t chat with others in church as she
strutted around and in front of him like a peacock. Seeing this, I believed I
had witnessed a very dark side to the professor's wife spirituality. Her
religion was a mechanism of abusive control.
My second example concerns a younger Catholic age group —
many of whom are apparently falling victim to the ultra-liberal Latin Mass
ideology promoted in Catholic activity groups and on college campuses. A female
acquaintance of mine, about my age, decided to brave the Catholic dating scene
— a recipe for disaster, in my personal opinion. Among the stories I heard from
her were of liberal Catholic males shopping for dates, asking her and other
girls, "Are you willing to get laid?" before marrying them. These men
did not want to associate with women whom they couldn't sexually dominate.
Men she met in this liberal Catholic peer group would
interview girls about sexuality before deciding to spend time with them — they
were arrogant and believed they were somehow morally superior to the women.
Instead of standing up for her own dignity, she decided to cave into the
pressure — go to liberal services and start wearing shorts. I still don't
understand why she wanted to associate with that group, or why she decided to
give in to oppression.
It is very unfortunate that younger generations of
Catholics seeking to deepen their faith are getting sucked into this vortex of
toxic, liberal radicalism. I saw few young families at a Novus Ordo Mass
recently when I was invited to attend a speaking engagement at a liberal
church. I happened to arrive before the Protestantized Mass was quite over —
having nowhere else to go before the event, and wishing to receive Holy
Communion, I decided to kneel during the Mass. Unsurprisingly I found myself
surrounded by almost naked women who entertained themselves in between chatting
bouts by casting disapproving glances at my chapel veil and rosary.
Looking around, I was astonished to see few college-aged
men and women among the crowd. The priests seemed to be in their 70s. Clearly
these people were too old to celebrate the times before Vatican II. Yet
something had drawn them here. Parental influence? Doubtful. It seemed to be a
shared spirit of ultra-liberalism. I found it frightening to reflect on how the
closed, Novus Ordo Mass mindset had managed to replicate itself over time and
spread like a virus.
Unsurprisingly, while there I had another memorably bad
experience. I went to receive Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue. Most
liberal-type priests I'd encountered in my lifetime would give me the Eucharist
only in the hands. This pastor too. He literally made a scene at the altar and
jerked the Eucharist away from me when I put out my tongue to receive it — as
if my tongue would contaminate the very Jesus who, according to the Catholic
faith, seeks Communion with my soul. I seriously considered walking out of the
church at that point, but decided not to receive the Eucharist and make a
Spiritual Communion instead, since I wanted to pray. After Mass I gave the
priests a piece of my mind.
Liberal clericalism defined the response I received. When
I informed an assisting priest that the pastor had been very rude to me at the
altar and asked that my views be relayed, he replied: "I won't throw our
pastor under the bus. He's the pastor. I refuse to tell him to correct his
behavior," the priest said. I reminded him that, as a priest, he was
supposed to worship God and value my feedback as a believer. The priest took a
step back and looked at me in astonishment, as if the notion of worship to God
had never occurred to him. "Very well. I'll tell the pastor what you
said," he said condescendingly. "But I don't think he did anything
wrong." His attitude was a trademark example of the culture within the
Catholic Church that encourages abuse. His first reaction was to default to
absolute loyalty to his pastor, then dismiss my views. When pressed further, he
flat-out denied all wrongdoing. To liberal modernists, Traditionalists are
always the problem — not those who belong to the herd, and certainly not
modernist clergy.
With liberal rigidity, the modernist priest argued in
defense of his liberal pastor against the traditions of the "Old
Mass"—a derogatory term used by Novus Ordo cultists to denote regular
Latin-language Masses. He said the Latin Masses I regularly attended were
abandoned “over 40 years ago" — as if that devalued them somehow —and
insisted they were only "allowed to exist, but not standardly
recommended." He claimed the church only allowed Communion on the tongue
“in extreme cases." Of course, I know this is not true. He capped his
radical fundamentalist arguments by saying the Novus Ordo Mass is a solemn rite
equal to Byzantine and Coptic rites and that rules cannot be changed for
anyone. He accused me of being "rude" by not expecting them "to
change their rites."
I feel it necessary to point out — lest readers be
confused by his illogicality — that the Byzantine and Coptic rites originate in
the traditions of distinct Catholic churches in foreign countries. The Latin
Mass, by contrast, is merely the perennial model of tradition practiced in the
United States and all countries since the early Church, and was never abrogated
by the Church nor adopted in almost every single country. Therefore the Latin
Mass can be compared to Coptic and Byzantine churches as Eternal Rome can be
compared to the New Jerusalem. Saints, martyrs and our forefathers will be
disenfranchised by changes made to the Latin Mass — just faithful Catholics
unable to let go of the sacredness and beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass.
What I gained from this experience was a deeper
recognition of how the Latin Mass foments a reverential, beautiful and rich
culture within the Catholic Church that Pope Francis is actively working to
change.
In his homily earlier last month, Pope Francis warned
Catholics against hypocrisy. He described liberal hypocrisy as "appearing
one way, but acting in another," and said that a hypocritical attitude
"always kills." Jesus did not tolerate hypocrisy, according to Pope
Francis, but enjoyed unmasking it. "A Christian who does not know how to
accuse himself is not a good Christian," the pope said.
The intolerant atmosphere against the Latin Mass stands
in clearly follows Pope Francis's description of what the new Church is being
forced to be.
“The post II Vatican Council Church is a fortress, a tent
incapable of expanding and offering access to people the richness, spiritual
depth and beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass of the Angels”, a
Traditional Pope would have said. "The church is 'following Tradition’ or
it is not the Catholic Church, either it is worshipping, always widening its Traditional
room so that all may enter or else it is not the Catholic Church."
Tradition defines true Catholicism. Radical liberal
modernists who cling to the guitars, felt banners and empty-headed, mindless
hippie rituals of the outdated 60s practices would do well to follow the advice
of St. Paul to the Galatians, Chapter 1: “But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let
him be anathema.”
