Now that I have uploaded her comments, I would like to echo them. Redundant it is, but I want to stress that although I do share Kim´s concern for the potential for sacrilege here, elsewhere I found your comment very effective saying very much in such a concise space.

There is clear, powerful expression here of important things and I find myself wanting to see more like this at your own site (accessible through your name above, of course).

I know you may have very good reasons for not going so much into these things over at your own site – at least as far as I have seen – still I think you could offer people reading you there a real service. But of course, only if it feels right to you.

Finally another particularly concise, powerful way of getting at these issues is found in The Ratzinger Report, wherein the man who has become our Holy Father declares that Catholicism should not become a “clone” of Protestantism …

As you say, that which people experience at (usually only) Sunday Mass is that which determines what Catholicism is. Sadly, you are so right!

Because of my travels over the last years and because I am a daily Mass goer, I have experienced so many different Masses, many of them Novus Ordo. The variety has been quite incredible. Yes, as you pointed out from my post, the Mass has become ’so ordinary that people don’t seem to care about accessing it.’

In all cases I find the Novus Ordo lacking, And real harm is frequently being done. I am very open to far more harm being done than any of us realise.

Yet, I have to say, I can only relate to your Doritos analogy in terms of the liturgy, in particular, the ‘pop’ songs. But if we were to apply this to the Eucharist itself, it would be a sacrilege.

For, the consecration IS valid. And therefore we still meet the Real Presence in adoration at the elevation and in Holy Communion.

We cannot compare this meeting, even if it is surrounded by ‘junk’ , with ‘junk’ itself.

But yes, absolutely, that which surrounds this True meeting, (if one is able to access the depth), is often so far from the sublime, prayerful beauty that is the True Faith – that which you have so importantly summarised here, when you wrote …

“If that one hour doesn’t impress on them the truth of the Real Presence; if it isn’t presented as a Sacrifice; if it seems like a communal meal with some light singing and praying; if it doesn’t tell them about the Saints and the Blessed Virgin; if it never stresses the dangers of sin and hell; if it seems to be little different from the Protestant service down the street—then that’s what they’re going to understand as Catholicism.”

I do not think the Novus Ordo is fine, absolutely not. And as I wrote, I do not simply prefer the Tridentine Rite. Through regularly experiencing both, I see just as you say, the Tridentine Mass ‘affirms the basic tenets of the Faith’, whilst the Novus Ordo usually ‘doesn’t even come close’. Yet it not only informs us of these, it imprints them deeply in our souls, as we are guided and held through the sacred journey of the Holy Mass.

In my opinion, the Novus Ordo is valid but lacking—and in most real-world cases, harmful. My favorite analogy is to a bag of Doritos and a six-pack of Mountain Dew. It might be a “valid” meal, since it has calories which will fill you up and keep you from starving, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be good for you, and if you eat it every day, you’ll end up fat, diabetic, and dead early. I won’t attend the NO anymore unless it’s for an important wedding or funeral. I’d like to be one of those people who takes the magnanimous-sounding middle-road: “Oh, the NO is fine; I just prefer the TLM; please don’t think I’m a crazy trad.” But the more I learn, the less I can honestly take that stance.

For most Catholics, the Mass is their primary (or only) source of catechesis. Ideally, we’d all spend plenty of time studying Scripture, participating in devotions, reading papal documents and the lives of the saints and so on, and develop a deep understanding of our Faith from a variety of quality sources. But the reality is that most Catholics get what they understand about Catholicism from that one hour on Sunday morning or Saturday night. If that one hour doesn’t impress on them the truth of the Real Presence; if it isn’t presented as a Sacrifice; if it seems like a communal meal with some light singing and praying; if it doesn’t tell them about the Saints and the Blessed Virgin; if it never stresses the dangers of sin and hell; if it seems to be little different from the Protestant service down the street—then that’s what they’re going to understand as Catholicism. Unsurprisingly, conversations with Catholics and polls show that’s what they do understand as Catholicism today.

I don’t think the Novus Ordo should take all the blame for that; there were a variety of changes during and after Vatican II that contributed, and certainly many attacks on orthodoxy and tradition from inside and outside the Church. But it has to take a large part of the blame, since it provides the bulk of the catechesis for most people. Even a well-done Novus Ordo, done reverently according to the rubrics using Eucharistic Prayer 1 and without any abuses, still falls short in many of those areas. A poorly done one, which is much more common, doesn’t even come close to affirming the basic tenets of the faith.