First, those who love the Traditional Mass are secluded, and then they are accused of being secluded. They are set apart and then that marginalization is used as proof that “they divide”. It is a perfect circle of exclusion and blame. But reality should be precisely the opposite: when the Vetus Ordo coexists with the ordinary form, it does not generate fracture, but a fruitful balance. This is what Benedict XVI explained in Summorum Pontificum and in his letter to the bishops: both forms of the Roman rite should not confront each other, but coexist in peace. Where it has been applied correctly, parishes and seminaries have been filled again.
Since 1969, the liturgy has gone through notorious crises: abuses, improvisations, banalization of the sacred, loss of the sense of sacrifice. In this context, the traditional rite acts as a liturgical katechon, a restraining force that preserves the continuity of the faith, the centrality of worship, and respect for the mystery. Its presence does not divide, but balances; and it reminds the entire Church that the liturgy is not a human experiment, but a received gift. At the same time, the Novus Ordo facilitates certain texts and prayers to be heard and understood better in a de-Christianized society, without thereby renouncing the depth that has shaped Catholic worship for centuries.
An Inescapable Fallacy
Communities that live the Traditional Mass are imputed with faults that do not belong to the rites, but to human fragility. They are accused of feeling superior, of judging or of dividing, as if a way of celebrating dragged with it moral sins. It is a fallacy that arises from a logical error: words or attitudes of individuals are taken and projected onto a millennial rite. That criterion operates asymmetrically: no one judges the Novus Ordo by the excesses of those who banalize the mystery or spread opinions openly contrary to doctrine; on the other hand, it is enough for a faithful of the Vetus Ordo to express himself clumsily for the entire rite to be attributed a spirit of division.
That asymmetry reveals that the problem is not in the liturgy, but in the ideological reading of the liturgy. It is an inescapable fallacy because it does not appeal to reason or truth, but to impressions and fears. Rites do not judge or boast; men do. And where man is weak, the liturgy—celebrated with reverence—precisely corrects, educates, and elevates.
By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them
This matter should not be resolved with suspicions or feelings, but in the light of the fruits. How many priestly and religious vocations arise in communities linked to the Vetus Ordo? How many large families, faithful to the sacraments, live the faith with joy, order, and spirit of service? In proportional terms, the spiritual fruits born after Summorum Pontificum are of such magnitude that they can only be explained supernaturally. Where the traditional liturgy is celebrated, vocations flourish, frequent confession grows, family life is strengthened.
Ignoring these facts is closing one's eyes to the action of the Holy Spirit. One cannot continue discussing with vague accusations while silencing visible fruits of grace. Go to the traditional seminaries, pilgrimage to Chartres, to Covadonga, to Luján or to any pilgrimage where the Traditional Mass gathers thousands of young people: the love for the Church is breathed, fidelity to the Pope, devotion to the sacraments, and the joy of belonging to the Body of Christ. There is no division or exclusivism, but communion lived intensely. It is impossible for a spirit of pride or rupture to produce such lives of surrender.
The “boomer fear” and the decline of an argument
Much of the resistance to the Vetus Ordo comes from a generational fear, more sociological than theological, inherited from the seventies: fear that “the priest turns his back on me”, of “a language I don't understand”, or that “the community loses prominence”. Those of us born after 1990 no longer buy that seventies merchandise. We do not aspire to be Eucharistic ministers nor to star in a horizontal rite. We do not feel the Mass closer because a parishioner reads the readings or because the priest improvises. We seek the opposite: the permanent, the eternal, the mystery, the timelessness, a form that transcends us and displaces us from the center.
That argument with which the Traditional Mass was dismantled has aged poorly. The cracks are visible in the light of time and fruits. Although some—profiles like Cupich—continue to write letters with those old slogans, a serene and intellectually honest analysis no longer sustains that framework. The young people who fill seminaries linked to the traditional rite do not long for an idealized past: they seek depth, coherence, and Truth. That is why the Traditional Mass, far from being a relic, appears today as a sign of hope and real unity.
Help Infovaticana continue informing