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Entry: A Silence That Speaks Volumes Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/a_silence_that_speaks_volumes#8011 Post contents: @Adriana: <i>" You should rather look into churches who are gaining or retaining members, and what their age is…"</i> Which is why I did. St. Mary's Oratory is gaining and retaining members, and the average age of congregants is dropping. When I attend the Novus Ordo locally or while visiting my parents, I'm always surprised at the lack of children at Mass. And one of the first things that visitors to St. Mary's say is, "I expected the people to be much older!" This idea that people can't understand the Traditional Mass or the Divine Liturgy when it is conducted in Latin or Slavonic is simply not true. If you want to understand it, you can. It took precisely two Divine Liturgies before I could follow it in the pew book, even when it was sung in Old Slavonic. The very first Sunday that my wife and I spent at the Byzantine parish in Northern Virginia, I sang in the choir (after two hours of practice the Wednesday before). This isn't because I'm some sort of liturgical whiz kid or rarefied musical type. I listen to country music and Bruce Springsteen, and I grew up with the Novus Ordo (literally). The fact is, the Catholic Church was not suffering mass attrition before the promulgation of the Novus Ordo and the nearly universal change to the vernacular. It was growing in numbers in the United States, and the rate of growth slowed in the 70's and early 80's, though it picked up later in JP II's pontificate. Sent at: 2008 07 23