A simple question for defenders of "THE Council"

Again and again, those who love the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass supplanted by the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, are required to answer some form of the question, "Do you uphold the Second Vatican Council as a work of the universal Church, ratified by her bishops? Do you view it as valid? Do you accept its teachings, even though we agree that it was not dogmatic, as its own documents assert?" 

Anyone who is somewhere on the scale from "the Council in its evident results represents a super-dogma and I think it should be re-examined with a more critical eye" to "the Council was fine but was reduced to an amorphous 'Spirit' that makes me uneasy and has not quite borne the fruit it claimed would result from its implementation" finds himself required to preface any opinion or critique with an obligatory recitation of his credo, his "I believe" -- not in Jesus Christ, but in the Council.

But let us remember: The hand that strikes also blocks. The time has come to shed this defensive posture.

Martin Mosebach, in his First Things article responding to the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes in 2021, offers his usual insightful commentary. But perhaps the most important insight to help us overcome a fatally defensive position is this one:

"Francis appears to sympathize with the “hermeneutic of rupture”—that theological school that asserts that with the Second Vatican Council the Church broke with her tradition. If that is true, then indeed every celebration of the traditional liturgy must be prevented. For as long as the old Latin Mass is celebrated in any garage, the memory of the previous two thousand years will not have been extinguished."

A Christian ought to ground his faith in tradition. The Church Fathers are utterly unanimous on this. St. Athanasius exhorts us to have recourse to Scripture and to "the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept.  Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called” (Ad Serapion 1:28)

Therefore, let those who seek to suppress doctrinal and liturgical tradition answer the simple question: "Do you follow a hermeneutic of rupture? Do you hold that Vatican II broke with tradition?" 

Every thing they say must be prefaced with an answer to this question, and if the answer is "No, I do not," then every subsequent statement must be shown to be in continuity with tradition, as outlined in Sacred Scripture (see the letters of St. Paul) and the Magisterium. Or it must be rejected. 

It's a simple question. The conversation starts there. "Does Vatican II represent for you a break with tradition?"

The post-traumatic stress of the anniversary of Vatican II

As the tentative and notably uncelebratory observations of the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council wafted around the internet the other day, I was struck again by the phenomenon of commenters of a certain age (around my age and from my milieu, so I recognize their sort) keeping a desperate grip on the fantasy that the Mass of Paul VI, the Novus Ordo, can never be left behind -- that it is a permanent fixture. 

They think this even though the Novus Ordo itself was imposed with cataclysmic sudddenness, which certainly implies that it could as readily be changed back. Despite the obvious reality that the whole Roman Catholic world worshiped according to the 1962 Missal when it was promulgated, they insist that today's (virtually) universal practice of worship in the new form is decisive to its permanence, and they call it a fantasy to think otherwise. But theirs is the fantasy!

Permit me to wonder if their commitment to this dream-that-is-a-nightmare perhaps arises from their investment, academic or otherwise professionally, in the workings of the modern church -- even in their opposition to its worst manifestations. Some of them work for bishops. Some work at universities in which their positions depend on the status quo. Some depend on publishing houses that arose to offer a much-needed conservative voice in a time of turmoil but have not responded to unfolding events, culminating in Traditionis Custodes, appropriately.

Whatever the provenance of their loyalty, it is a kind of tribe, going by different and formerly respectable names (such as "the Reform of the Reform"), in which their prestige finds a home. But of course, Christianity cares nothing for prestige. To follow Christ means to follow the Truth. Perhaps they are and were wrong; perhaps they did their best at the time and now information that changes one's position, or ought to, has been revealed. But they are having difficulty admitting it.

They reserve to themselves the right to criticize the state of things. They often lament the situation in the church, a situation so dire that most of it is hidden even now. But they also hold in contempt those who, with ample evidence regarding the machinations of the past 60 years, seek to restore Tradition and rescue our precious Church from the continual process of liturgical and doctrinal destabilization. That is, they are angry at those who are not content just to deplore but seek a remedy. These traditionalist critics by necessity attack the fantasy of the permanence of this regime of change, and for that they are dismissed as fools.

The Novus Ordo defenders, who as far as I can tell have found rare bunkers (call them bubbles if you prefer a less besieged metaphor) where they are somewhat insulated from irreverence, can't face the internal contradiction of their position. Nor do they demonstrate much pity for those not able to find the same sort of refuge. 

This state of denial makes them testy and causes them to reject factual arguments with contempt and ad hominem attacks, or to cheer on those who do so even if they themselves refrain, which speaks to some private conversation amongst themselves (to which I too have been privy, back in my Reform of the Reform days) that is even more extreme. 

This attitude is dishonorable. They should either go all in on all the sequelae of the imposition of the Novus Ordo, along with accepting the virtually universal episcopal acquiescence of the decline, or they should face the conclusions of the evidence before their eyes and change their minds. They should not play both ends against the middle and cling to the juvenile pleasure of complaining without being willing to change.

Honor requires following logic to its conclusion, regardless of how that leaves one in worldly terms.

You can read more about why I say all this here, about Asking the Right Question:

"The liturgical situation, made so (uncharacteristically) clear by Pope Francis, leaves us then with no choice. We simply cannot accept a liturgy that has within itself the mechanism to become ever more banal and worldly, and the custodians of which demonstrate that they consider it to be in rupture with the past."

The poison in the system

How often has this happened to you? 

You are reading along at (the Novus Ordo) Mass or praying familiar parts of it (like the Creed) and suddenly you become aware that the priest or deacon or lector omits or adds certain words ("man" and "men and women" for "men," respectively). You ponder how frequently this happens and often forget that it's been decades, actually...

You wonder why. Is it laziness? Is it some well meaning desire to avoid offense? It does grate -- especially if you are one of the 99.9% of woman with any sense of self respect and dislike of being patronized, vs. the 0.1% who possess an untrammeled urge to exert political power, say. 

Well, you should know something, something that is in danger of being forgotten. 

The priest (now laicized, it seems) who is most responsible for giving us "inclusive" language in Scripture and liturgy, as well as a handy "canonical" interpretation to facilitate any change desired and make freelancing redaction look official and retain a sort of bullet-proof existence, is Fr. John Huels. His influence has changed how people perceive their faith, their relationship to God, and their relationship to each other in countless subtle ways, mostly because the very words that transmit the Word to us, and the very gestures with which we worship in the Novus Ordo, have gone through a filter facilitated and rationalized by him. 

Let's take this translation of a Gospel reading:   

"He turned and said to Peter,

"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. 

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do"*

After a while, this sort of thing takes its toll in its banality, imprecision, and subtle manipulation. But how does it relate to Huels?

Helen Hull Hitchcock** wrote about him in an article in 2002, after the Bishops' Dallas meeting at which they created their "Charter" to address the problem of sexual abuse in the Church. She described the shocking account given there by a man, Michael Bland, who left the priesthood after being abused by John Huels. Bland was told by the authorities of his order in Rome to reconcile with Huels. 

When he refused, the authorities turned against him; whereupon he left the order and the priesthood.

The priesthood lost me, but kept the perpetrator," Bland told the bishops, noting that the abuser, whom he did not name [but who was later identified as Huels], had recently been promoted to full professor and vice-dean at a major Catholic university."

Huels was not just any priest or academic. Hitchcock writes: 

John Huels has been greatly influential in shaping the opinions of liturgists on a wide range of issues -- altar girls, posture and gestures of the people during Mass, so-called "inclusive" language in liturgical translations, placement of tabernacles in churches, roles of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, and even the kind of bread to be used for Mass.

He was a skilled operative for the older academics active after the Council, whose ambition was to transform the practice of the Church according to their progressive and libertine views (and lifestyle). 

Huels received his degree in canon law from Catholic University of America. His dissertation director and mentor was Monsignor Frederick McManus, emeritus professor of canon law at CUA.

Monsignor McManus exerted profound and pervasive influence over nearly every aspect of the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council -- from church architecture to music and rubrics and translation.

Huels, like his mentor, believes that the interpretation of liturgical law should determine liturgical practices, and he advocates "legislation by interpretation" of the Church's liturgical rules.

A key principle is that if he finds a particular law unpersuasive, the canonist's objective is to find justifications for interpreting the law in such a way as to legitimize a change in practice, which may conflict with the actual law.

This is the "make a path by walking on it" principle of changing or reversing laws one finds objectionable. Huels was a sexual abuser whose immorality fueled his desire to change everything about the way we worship. To this day, his extensive works -- and influence -- continue to be used and felt in seminaries all over the country (and in other English-speaking countries as well). 

In other words, he had the credentials not only to study and teach Canon Law, but to use it to effect change in ways no one could oppose (unless they -- bishops -- possessed both the authority and the will to do so). His prestige and expertise were used to defraud the ordinary Catholic of his one recourse when afflicted with liturgical innovation and abuse: the law.

"If confronted with an unwanted law, Huels repeatedly advises, create a new "custom":"He empowered "liturgists" to do away with tradition (such as kneeling) and to substitute whatever they pleased."

Read the whole article; these matters we encounter in the liturgy, ranging from little irritating tics to outright license and liturgical abuse, are not merely random differences in approach, nor are they solely the result of laziness or carelessness. The reason they are so difficult to combat is that they have a specific goal, tacitly acquiesced to at the highest levels, to undermine the reality and complementarity of the sexes and, ultimately, our nuptial human nature. 

Huel's work is a poison has remained in the system, even though the poisoner was identified long ago. 

Asking the right question

 ... is much more than half the battle!

Or to put it another way, he who demands that a certain question be answered controls the conversation.

Ever had this feeling? That you are going around and around... that you have answered the question, in this case, "Do you believe the Novus Ordo Mass is valid," over and over, and yet you are still in the same wrangle, getting nowhere?

Well, this essay -- and I won't deceive you, it's long --  offers that blessed sense of release only found when the right question is finally asked.

In Cancelling Pope Benedict: Reflections on a recent article and the “hermeneutic of rupture, a priest responds to a defense of Pope Francis' Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, making this important point at the end (I have highlighted it for you):

Here we have yet another rearguard attempt to achieve the permanent institutionalization of the “hermeneutic of rupture” which Benedict XVI had dedicated his pontificate to combatting. We are told in this article that with his motu proprio, “Francis defended both the liturgical reform of Vatican II and the council’s ecclesiology,” but that “to be more thorough...Francis should correct a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) from 2007, which asserts that Vatican II did not change the doctrine on the church.” In the rest of the article we can easily see the point: the author seems to bang his fist on the table and insist, But, yes! Vatican II really did change everything! Nothing can be the same anymore! You can’t believe like they did before the Council and you can’t worship like they did the before the Council! Although the author slams those he calls “Lefebvrists,” it seems not to occur to him that he shares their basic thesis that “Vatican II changed everything,” disagreeing only on whether the change was good or bad.

The importance of this article -- the decisive importance that I hope everyone will internalize -- is the author's question, which is bolded in the original, and which addresses the main thrust of the Motu Proprio:

The pressing problem in the Church today, then, is not: Do traditionalists accept Vatican II, but rather: Do the anti-traditionalists accept everything that came before Vatican II? The common lot of people attending Latin Masses today do “accept Vatican II,” inasmuch as it was legitimately convened and concluded by legitimate popes; yet they are not willing to let “accepting Vatican II” be a pretext or an occasion for rejecting or neglecting what came before Vatican II. And this is the real reason for the rage of the anti-traditionalists.

This point is what those who love tradition have trouble articulating, simply because we are always on the defensive, answering that other question of whether we consider the Novus Ordo valid. We are never allowed to get to the point, which is that we need more than mere validity to flourish, and that a bare adherence to not being invalid is ultimately corrupting of matters beyond liturgy, like doctrine and morality.

By the way, I include in "those who love tradition" people like myself, who up until recently considered ourselves "Reform of the Reform," Ratzingerian Novus Ordo faithful -- that is, not Traditionalists with a capital T. I understand that many will have in mind those who had always insisted on cleaving to the old form, but it's important to recognize Catholics like me who thought a "mutual enrichment" could be achieved and to understand why we we are puzzled that we didn't win out on something that to us seemed rather self-evident. 

We had thought and trusted, really, that reverence and true worship was actively being sought in at least some parts of the hierarchy who were faithful to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. With this Pontiff, have realized that our hope is in vain. Better late than never!

The liturgical situation, made so (uncharacteristically) clear by Pope Francis, leaves us then with no choice. We simply cannot accept a liturgy that has within itself the mechanism to become ever more banal and worldly, and the custodians of which demonstrate that they consider it to be in rupture with the past. 

That realization can feel like it puts us in the wrong, until we see that it's our defensive posture that creates that impression. We must stop accepting the premise that validity equals sufficiency. Yes, we think the NO is valid, but we also don't think that the barest legalism, affirmed by that response, can provide a fruitful path for what is, after all, the whole reason for our existence -- to worship God. 

Only when we ask the correct question -- does the anti-traditionalist accept everything that came before Vatican II -- that is, is our interlocutor in fact a Catholic -- do we recover the proper orientation. 

I urge you to read the whole thing. It's very freeing.

Please don't throw me into the briar patch, Brer Reese!

Tom Reese SJ's latest embarrassment, The future of Catholic liturgical reform, is an elaborate trolling effort. Extra high marks to him for embedding incorrect assumptions in an absurd thesis, which is the troll master's greatest aim; because as we all know, it won't hurt his cause if the troll manages to get the target to agree to fallacies, even if it means that his main claims are dismissed. Distraction is one of the troll's best weapons in the war of disinformation.

Since this particular Jesuit's function is to further the (corrupted) Jesuit cause, and my aim is to oppose it, I will start by noting a few good and witty articles that energetically expose Reese's preposterous claims:

• Phil (my husband): On banning the Tridentine liturgy, and selling the Edsel

• An FSSP Parishioner Responds to Fr. Reese by Claudio Salvucci

• Jane Stannus on the Dangerous Latin Mass

But I can't resist adding a few observations of my own. Fr. Reese's article is like a mini-guide to the Spirit of Vatican II in action, including the desultory and unsupported form in which it's written, so redolent of our era's mode of thinking up mischief on the fly. So I can't help going through the whole thing. In the end I will tell you why I think he has done a service to the cause of Tradition.

Let's start with the first sentence: 

Other than sex, nothing is more heatedly debated by Catholics than the liturgy. Everyone has strong opinions based on years of personal experience.

Interesting, because the Catholic Church has only one idea about sex, that it is a God-given expression of love, oriented to the procreation of children, and its context is sacramental marriage. There is really nothing to debate, heatedly or otherwise. Thus it strikes me that it must follow that there is nothing to debate about liturgy either.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Pope Paul VI implemented revolutionary liturgical reforms laid out by the Second Vatican Council, but after his death in 1978, the Vatican put a stop to the changes. It is now time for a second phase.

Here is the first big fallacy that Fr. Reese slips by the reader before going on to his real point. We might be tricked into forgetting the afore-mentioned "strong opinions based on years of personal experience" of a sentence ago... but let me say it: No, the Vatican put no such stop to changes. It's precisely years of personal experience that remind us that our lives as Catholics have been nothing but a long series of changes, to the point that whenever things quiet down, the faithful get a little twitchy. 

Chanceries helpfully hire experts to calm the itch they have created by producing novelties on a regular schedule, while also incentivizing individual clergy to spring the occasional innovation on the congregation in a random manner, just because they can -- keeping the faithful hopping by constant freelancing. At the very least, the liturgy is punctuated by little jokes and asides, even on the most solemn occasions (like Ordinations and Easter Vigils). No one need worry, in the post-Vatican II era, that any given liturgy will proceed without a tweak of some kind! 

But does Fr. Reese advert to John Paul II, the successor to Paul VI (we will discount the one-month papacy of John Paul I)? That pontiff certainly did not put any brake on liturgical changes! While upholding doctrinal clarity for the most part, he embedded many overt innovations and allowed even more, implicitly. The nature of the post-Vatican II church being what it is, these reluctant concessions were taken for permissions and cartes blanches, and no one, besides those intransigent Traddies, ever looked back.

That "second phase" gag is cute! If every successive year's changes don't constitute phases of their own, then what will this second phase look like, we wonder! Some sort of quantum leap, apparently. Well, yes, he's getting to that. 

But first:

I argued [in a previous column] for more transparency and consultation in keeping with the principle of collegiality promoted by Vatican II and the principle of synodality promoted by Pope Francis.

The purpose of a transparent and collegial process is to develop good liturgy that is supported by a consensus within the community.

When a progressive calls for transparency, he means that he wants to use power covertly. When he calls for collegiality, he means he wants to deprive rightful authority of its prerogative. When he calls for consensus within the community, he means he wants to silence those who disagree. 

Inculturation

The Roman rite was developed in Italy and Western Europe centuries ago.

That's one way of expressing that the Roman rite (like all traditional rites) grew organically from ancient times into a beautifully articulated sacramental system that transcendently relates a culture to God -- as it must, for do we not all live somewhere? -- offering worship and subsequently transforming that culture, patterning it accordingly. It's an inadequate and fatally laconic way, but a way. 

St. John Paul II wrote beautifully about the importance of inculturating Christianity — grounding it in cultures beyond its European base. 

The unanswered question is how to carry out inculturation in concrete terms in the liturgy today.

Each bishops’ conference needs to be encouraged to gather scholars, poets, musicians, artists and pastors to develop liturgies for their specific cultures. When liturgy is out of touch with local culture, it becomes boring and dies. These new liturgies need to be beta tested before adoption. 

This superficial treatment ignores the cultural riches of the liturgy where it is transmitted intact, that is, with Gregorian chant and traditional principles of art and architecture. It also ignores the more fundamental question, which is the inculturation of the Roman rite in the first place -- for even in Italy and Europe (in Reese's poverty-striken formulation) the rite was at one time an emergent, that is, non-inculturated, phenomenon. Or does he equate the TLM with cultural imperialism? That's a big claim to pass off without support.

Ministry

Bishops’ conferences should discuss whether new liturgical ministries are needed and who may be called to perform liturgy. Can the work of liturgy be separated from the work of administration? Do all liturgical leaders have to be celibate, male, full-time employees? Can a deacon or layperson anoint the sick or hear confessions? In an age of declining numbers of priests, such questions must be faced.

Reese in this paragraph reveals something that might be overlooked at first reading, but which actually represents the heart of the progressives' agenda. Like all liberals, Reese and those he represents don't believe in the possibility of life organizing itself organically, whether we are speaking biologically or liturgically. For him (and I really do use him as a representative here, a sort of spokesman for a much larger entity within the Church), the question is one of administration. He views the Church as a bureaucracy, the functionaries of which can be interchangeable and bear no transcendent value. A woman can do a man's job; a layperson can replace an ordained man. Why not? 

Note also the defeated attitude of that "in an age of declining numbers of priests" -- as if by some inevitable, inexorable process, a man's desire to answer a call heard in other more challenging times has waned, soon to disappear: a sort of law of anti-fecundity.

Ecumenism

Besides liturgical renewal, Vatican II emphasized improving relations with other Christian churches. One way to do that is to move our liturgical ceremonies closer together. Is the Eucharist a sign of the existing unity among churches, or can it also be a means of fostering unity? The former excludes intercommunion; the latter does not.

The tired-out catalog of change offered as given. As a good progressive, Fr. Reese dishes up old ideas as if they are new, but we have to notice that moving our "liturgical ceremonies" closer together always means making ours more like theirs. We've seen how unsuccessful that strategy has been. We know that the ancient rites succeeded in bringing Christianity to the whole world, whereas it's precisely our remodeled rituals that have lost members and frittered Catholic influence. 

Translations

When he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, insisted that liturgical texts be translated word for word from the Latin. Experienced translators and liturgical scholars disagreed, and consider the resulting English translation woefully inadequate. There was another, better translation done in 1998, which was approved by the English-speaking bishops’ conferences but rejected by Rome.

Fr. Reese's experts handily to support his conclusions, but who are they? If we knew their names, would we find that we trust them in other matters? There is a reason the 1998 translation was rejected. It was not good, primarily because it sought in every case to implement the corrupt vision of the Church as a flattened and secularized entity.

It is more important that the meaning of the text be communicated clearly than that the translation be literal. There is no reason the hierarchy could not allow priests to use the 1998 translation as an alternative, allowing the priest decide which translation works best in his parish. This option would be limited to the priest’s prayers at Mass, since it would be too confusing to change the people’s responses without extensive preparation.

Nice concession there to the need not to confuse the people; just a bit too late. Dynamic equivalence simply ratifies innovation. 

It is time to return to bishops the authority over the Tridentine liturgy in their dioceses. The church needs to be clear that it wants the unreformed liturgy to disappear and will only allow it out of pastoral kindness to older people who do not understand the need for change. Children and young people should not be allowed to attend such Masses.

The bishops retain de facto authority over the "Tridentine liturgy" despite the de jure freedoms offered by Pope Benedict. The issue of obedience, something that needs to be confronted squarely, but perhaps not here at this moment, renders priests reluctant to celebrate the Mass of their and our birthright. This reluctance is not only attributable to respect, but reflects the reality that bishops can remove a given priest's faculties -- his raison d'être -- without due process. No priest committed enough to his calling that he would wish to express it in its fullness is willing to subject himself to the consequences of so doing. 

But it bothers Fr. Reese no end that at least in theory, he could.

At this point we enter the portion of the article addressed to great effect in the links above. It's beyond parody that Fr. Reese thinks the Traditional Latin Mass needs to be authoritatively withheld from young people. If the replacement is so self-evidently good, why does it require the strong arm of governance (usually so repugnant to his sensibilities) to enforce it?

And who is going to care for the children while their benighted parents attend this retrograde abomination? Is Fr. Reese volunteering to babysit for them at the local Novus Ordo? Will he personally watch them in cry rooms? Do he and his fellow Jesuits intend to stand athwart the doors of the FSSP parish, forbidding the literal hordes of young people entry? How does he envision his sanctions being implemented? 

While you are distracted with that point, he has others:

More important than the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is the transformation of the community into the body of Christ so we can live out the covenant we have through Christ. We do not worship Jesus, in this sense; with Jesus we worship the Father and ask to be transformed by the power of the spirit into the body of Christ.

The church needs more and better Eucharistic prayers based on our renewed understanding of the Eucharist. 

Strange to think that the new Mass hasn't already provided for this new understanding, and that we need newer new prayers to make it ever more clear. And yet, where is our faith if we believe what he states here, noticeably without any support whatsoever, that the community is more important than the attributes of Jesus Christ Himself? Or does Fr. Reese believe that the Eucharist is somehow separate from Him? What does he believe -- and is it Catholicism? Who gave him leave to impose his beliefs on us?

It would also be nice to have Eucharistic prayers that use more biblical language. When the Gospel reading is from Luke, the priest could use a Eucharistic prayer evoking the language and theology of Luke. A unique “preface” for each Sunday that picked up themes from the Scripture readings could also tie the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist more closely together.

Other Eucharistic prayers might develop other themes — the church’s concern for the poor, or for justice, peace, healing and the environment. All of these new prayers would require beta testing before adoption. 

Now he's just messing with us, although I grant that "themes" are central to the Novus Ordo Church, where every year, synod, gathering, and Sunday has a theme, easily exploitable by the aforementioned experts. But -- "It would be nice" -- imagine if the Roman rite had been invented in this casual, almost supine manner. Then indeed it would be the object of derision and reform. But it is his proposed rite, with everything up for grabs -- that has this slapdash quality. Again he strongly implies that liturgy is cooked up, as in committee, and then "beta tested," like a computer program or a pasta dish for a restaurant chain.

The rest of the article peters out in this lackadaisical manner. Having barraged us with spurious history and factitious observations, he hardly expects anyone to remain attentive to the end, nor are we.

All I am saying is that our internet age has bestowed on us a sharper understanding of situations in which someone is not proceeding with good will, but instead goads with distractions and falsehoods; in short, acts as a troll. 

Once we identify the treatment, the author's real anxieties are revealed. And truly, Fr. Reese and his cohort are anxious! They worry when they notice that however far-off the final reckoning, demographics are not on their side. The many-passengered vans are not lining up in the parking lots of those strictly progressive churches meeting with Fr. Reese's approval. When one surveys the backs of the heads of TLM congregations, one notices few gray hairs. 

So I say, all the more power to Brer Reese! The more he keeps up what he thinks is consolidation of gains from constant change for the sake of change, the more he convinces the actual younger generation, with whom he apparently has no contact and about whom he has no understanding, that they are on the right track. He also reveals to us in the older generation that our faith in the "reform of the reform" and "mutual enrichment," while it may have been pardonable in a more hopeful era, is now quite, quite defunct. So throw me into that briar patch too! I am happy to be one of the few graying heads in a sea of children -- all for Tradition.