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Entry: A Silence That Speaks Volumes Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/a_silence_that_speaks_volumes#7975 Post contents: @Adriana: As a traditionalist (small t) Catholic who has had extensive experience with a number of the Church's liturgies (and academic knowledge of even more), and who, with my wife and six children, now attends a Traditional Latin Mass, I think that you've oversimplified things. Our oratory offers two Masses on Sunday. Between the two, about 600 people attend on an average Sunday. The average age of those people is probably around 30. Even though our oratory is not a geographical parish, it has perhaps the strongest parish life of any Catholic parish in Rockford. Far from there being a wall between beloved priest and the congregation, Father Bovee cannot keep up with the social invitations from members of the congregation. My wife and I spent two years as active members of a Byzantine Catholic parish in Northern Virginia (and almost switched rites, until our daughter came along and we decided to move back to the Midwest). Our experience there was very similar, even though about half of the liturgy was conducted in Church Slavonic, rather than English. I think that the problem that modern men and women have with the traditional liturgies of the Church has nothing to do with the language in which they are conducted and everything to do with the fact that, rather than being hard to comprehend, they're all too understandable (once, of course, you're used to them). Those liturgies stand as signs of contradiction to society today. That makes some (many? most?) Catholics very uncomfortable. Sent at: 2008 07 23