Reason 7

7. Because in times of confusion such as now, we are guided by the words of our Lord: “By their fruits you shall know them.” Fruits of the New Mass are: 30% decrease in Sunday Mass attendance in U.S. (NY Times 5/24/75), 43% decrease in France (Cardinal Marty), 50% decrease in Holland (NY Times 1/5/76).


I would like to first point out that the opening sentence seems largely unnecessary. We are always guided by the words of our Lord and there is no reason to think “By their fruits you shall know them” is any more related to a time of confusion than normal times. The phrasing attempts to create a sense of urgency that is not necessarily accurate.

It is true that the fruits of an activity are very important and I do not doubt these numbers (though I have not looked them up). That being said, there is no reason to believe Mass attendance is in fact the primary or even a good marker of positive fruits. There are several reasons for this: first, we know nothing about those people who have stopped attending. It is possible (though, I concede, not absolutely likely) that every single person of these 30% who stopped attending Mass were the people who never attended confession and received the Body and Blood of our Lord in an unworthy manner. By ceasing to attend Mass (where in they received Communion) they would cease to blaspheme the Lord (this is, it should be noted, not the best solution to the problem but it is a solution nonetheless).

Secondly, we do not know the true devotion of those who continued to attend Mass. It may be possible that they worshiped the Lord with greater reverence and received His Body and Blood in a more worthy manner.

Furthermore, we cannot rightly say Mass attendance dropped because of the reformation of the Liturgy. Again, I do not know the source of these numbers, but are they comparing numbers from the years after the Second Vatican Council to the numbers in 1975, or numbers before. I suspect the numbers started to fall after the Council and prior to the reform of the Liturgy as misguided priests and theologians began the proclaim certain things the Council never intended, such as the idea that missing Mass was not, in fact sinful, much less a mortal sin. Or it may be that the increase in dual income homes caused Sunday to become one of the few family days and more laissez-faire Catholics stopped attending regularly. There simply is not enough information to be had.

This objection also ties into the previous one in that I suspect if the entire New Mass was abrogated in favor of the traditional Mass, attendance would yet again drop. A transition is naturally going to scare people away who are not particularly strong in their faith.

Finally, this reason does not show a problem which is necessarily inherent in the New Mass, but may only reflect the manner in which it is celebrated. Thus liturgical abuses, rather than liturgical reforms, could be responsible for this change of attendance if it is in fact caused by the liturgy itself. Again, we simply do not, and probably never will, have enough information to make an accurate and useful judgement.