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Sunday, 11 July 2010

Info Post
My hands are up in the air, criminal style, I could be writing this sequence of posts forever. Some methods that I’ve seen Trads use to discourage others are esoteric and clearly neurotic. If someone wears a combination of red and black they get told off with, “those colours inflame the passions of men, I don’t’ want to see you in those clothes”. Then there's the neurotic nagging, “you broke your fast for Communion by brushing your teeth; the toothpaste may have had calories!” And – then there’s the micro protest of trying to ‘catch people’ going into a church and then trying to prevent them going to a certain Tridentine Mass because of the priest who will offer the Mass.  
I need help understanding this one. And maybe I'm not the only one...
Yesterday, at 4pm I went to Westminster Cathedral for the 4.30pm Tridentine Mass (this is exceptionally early for me, I am such a late person), a middle aged man walked up to me with lots of leaflets and wanted to prevent me going to Mass. His reason?
‘Those priests that say the Mass in there…and the Brompton Oratory priests…' he said, cue much shaking of his head and a sorrowful look in his eyes that made me feel very sorry for him, 'those priests have not been ordained in the Old Rite of Ordination.’
‘OK sir, so I shouldn’t attend the Tridentine Mass of a priest who has not been ordained in the Old Rite?’
‘You should only go to a Mass that’s being offered by a priest who was ordained in the Old Rite.’
I didn’t have a rebuttal ready; was he basically arguing that Catholics should not attend any Holy Mass, celebrated by a priest who was not ordained in the Old Rite?
‘I know’ he said with a weary sigh, ‘that there are many Traditional Catholics who go to Brompton Oratory. I hope to go down there and talk to them.’
‘Sher…grand...’ I said in a guttural Irish accent and giving a nervous smile whispered, ‘maybe you’ll see me at the Oratory. I had better be going. God bless.’
‘No, wait…’ He tried to step in front of me.
‘I’m going to say my Rosary in the Cathedral, and will offer a decade for you. You don’t have anything against the Rosary do you?’
‘Oh no. No.’

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