Promoting Traditional Catholicism in Central Iowa

Link between the Traditional Mass & Vocations?

In a recent article over at “The Liturgy Guy”, he posted a beautiful reflection from a priest of Norwalk, CT.  While he contrasts the number of vocations from young men attending Traditional liturgies with those attending the Novus Ordo, the reason we post this here is to emphasize the trajectory of Traditional Vocations, and the role the Traditional Mass has in those vocations in general.

He says he’s been doing some research on vocations, and it would be neat to see those results.

Below is the article, which is taken from here.

The following guest post was written by frequent contributor Fr. Donald Kloster, parochial vicar at St. Mary’s in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

I’ve been mulling over many questions lately that pertain to the families of those who enter a Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) vocation to the Priesthood and/or Religious life. A related query is how well the Traditional Latin Mass retains those children now being brought up within the Traditional Latin Mass since their early childhood or at least from the time of their earliest memories.

My experience with those raised in the Latin Mass prior to the Second Vatican Council tells me that the knowledge and retention of the faith is promoted by the Vetus Ordo.  My Novus Ordo observations tell me that it leaks faithful like a faulty gasket of an engine leaks oil.

The Novus Ordo culture has produced a plethora of faithful who know very little about their faith despite a myriad of “new” catechetical gimmicks. The Rite of the Mass cannot but help to nourish the soul in the degrees of fidelity to the Apostolic praxis.  We are the result of the Mass we pray. In the Novus Ordo, the engine still runs, but it runs at a diminished capacity because of a minimalist design.

My priest friends who don’t say the TLM are almost single minded in their rebuttal of my conclusion. They insist that it’s all about the families in which people are raised.  Wrong.  On both sides of the argument, either one can point to families that were fairly exemplary but their children don’t practice the faith once they leave home.  Or, as I’ve come across, many others whose parents did not practice the Faith regularly and now their children have chosen to do so as adults on their own.

I’ve lived in 11 different US Dioceses and lived on three continents. Perhaps that speaks less in my favor as it pertains to my being bounced around as I was!  Anecdotes can only be dismissed if the sample size of the given observation is small and fairly isolated. My sample size is quite large.  Sometimes anecdotal occurrences are repeated so often that the conclusion should not be dismissed; that is as it pertains to reasonable thinking.

I’ve been involved in TLM circles for 28 years and have said the Traditional Mass for 20 years. I am, however, a product of the Novus Ordo. I never even saw a TLM until I was 24 years old. I went to the Seminary and was ordained as a Novus Ordo priest. My first TLM was as a 3 year ordained priest in 1998. I have no dog in this fight.  Really, when I began to say the TLM I thought it was just for the good of my priestly spirituality. I never thought the TLM would catch on again in any wider scope; ever.

This past year, I have been doing a National Study on the TLM only parishes in the USA. Currently, there are around 70 of these but they are exploding in numbers with each passing year because the TLM priestly vocations are outpacing Novus Ordo priestly vocations by more than 7 to 1. My preliminary numbers are exceeding my initial expectations.

There is a huge wave transforming the Catholic landscape and it is largely being ignored by the Catholic leadership.  I can now say what I suspected last year. The Novus Ordo is dying and it will be replaced by the Vetus Ordo sooner than anyone had foreseen, but certainly by 2050 the TLM will be the dominant liturgical practice once again.

My instincts tell me that 30-50% of the current vocations coming from the Traditional Latin Mass were not raised in it. Next year, I’ll try to test that feeling with the aforementioned study. A great number of the young men and women entering the TLM orders discovered it themselves; it wasn’t their family upbringing. My belief is that the Ancient Mass is the vocations catalyst and not the family per se.

One can certainly find a vocation as a Novus Ordo attendee, but all of the evidence suggests that many, many more are found as a TLM attendee. One huge proof is the precipitous vocations drop off after the Council and the abandoning of the 1962 Missal. The other proof is that vocations continue to rocket up in 2018 in the TLM and have leveled off at a very much lower level in the Novus Ordo seminaries and convents using the 1970 Missal. The Novus Ordo closed convents and seminaries will never reach their previous levels because there is no upward trend; not even in the same ballpark.  Remember, all Catholics live in the same society and we all have similar temptations and spiritual obstacles to overcome.  “By their fruit ye shall know them” (Mt. 7:16).

Finally, let’s be clear. This article is not intended to disparage anyone. Not one of us should cling to anything that is passing away. There is no reason to put your faith in something in order to win an argument or simply because at one time you thought things would improve with the Novus Ordo. Instead, things got much worse.

At the dawn of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, we bled a big majority of Mass attending Catholics. No one asked them what they preferred. No one gave them any options. If they had been asked and/or allowed to attend the Mass of the Ages, the Novus Ordo would not have supplanted the formative Mass of every canonized saint to date.

Now bishops often repeat the stale quoted refrain, “almost no one wants the TLM.” Why do they suddenly care what the proverbial “people” want? They didn’t care back in 1970 when almost none of the faithful wanted a vernacular Mass. It’s true the Church is not a democracy.  She is a theocracy and God will have His way! Everything is coming back full circle and I have a lot of buried relatives and friends who, if living today, would be overjoyed.

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2 Comments

  1. Francis

    I would love to have the relavant studies that back up Father’s observations

  2. Barbara Henry

    Let me attest, as one among the living who was there, to your second to last paragraph.
    Startled by the loss of the Mass of our life we were left with nothing but faith in the magisterium and yet doubt in its wisdom.
    Now as I get closer to departing this earth I rejoice in the choice.! But I was left to raise my seven children without the true theology so vividly expressed on the altar .
    You are so correct to note there was no choice. No choice in liturgy and by extension no choice in theology.

    Armed with believe we had in the ability of the Holy Ghost to keep this ship afloat my husband and I stayed aboard. Having been launched in marriage pre-Cana by the wisdom of the fearless Msgr. George A. Kelly we escaped the lure of the post conciliar catechesis .
    I concur with your anecdotal observation that the hope of the church is in orthodoxy and the only faith that exists in the younger generation does so among those who are attracted to that orthodoxy. This is so I observe among my twenty-three grandchildren not raised in TLM . Those who have been drawn deeper into the faith have done so by exposure to the true theology. The expression of the true theology anywhere and everywhere – the liturgy, the pulpit, the university – was suppressed leaving an entire generation ignorant. But I do see in this current generation of university age students an interest in truth and thus hope for the church.
    I see young couples marrying now fully open to life. And yes, I see some entering religious life !
    That I can observe the pendulum swing so far and begin to move back in my lifetime is pretty hopeful in an institution that moves very slowly.

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