By Randall Smith, The Catholic Thing, Feb. 23, 2022
Randall B. Smith is a Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas. …
A friend driving across the United States stopped to visit a former colleague who attends the Tridentine Mass. My friend attends a very reverent Novus Ordo Mass in a parish renowned for its orthodoxy, excellent Catholic school, and tremendous sense of community. But her friend told her: “Your Mass; it’s a different Church.” A different Church? As in, not. . .Catholic? Such was the implication.
Later, she stopped for Mass at an unfamiliar parish. “It was horrible,” she told me: a homily empty of serious content; music for second-graders badly performed; and a dull liturgy sloppily done. …