Just a note on how healthy the Roman Catholic Church is in the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis

Good Shepherd

Duncan Grant

Lincoln Cathedral

PSA

I'm not sure how it happened, but I get a lot of people on FB friending me - every time I delete friends.  A lot of people is maybe an exaggeration, but if I delete 3, 2 show up.  So I think it may have something to do with my art.  Most of the new people seem to be big 'T' trads - which is fine, I only delete them when they say or link to something crazy, knowing they will be deleting me sooner or later anyway.

Yesterday I came across a comment on one site I soon deleted, complaining about the Novus Ordo, saying everything NO drives him crazy - he hates it.  I thought, do these people even know what they are talking about?  The Ordinary Form of Mass is the Mass of the Church - it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Christ is confected in the Eucharist - the Real Presence dwells among us.

This is the main reason why I say social media is spiraling downward and sucking the faith from the users, when I read crap like that.  So many online are jumping on the news that Catholic church attendance is down, and people are reacting to that news.  Many continue to blame the Novus Ordo, chanting 'save the liturgy, save the world'.  Fr. Z knows who he is.

I went to Mass late in the afternoon at my parish yesterday.  I stopped in the Adoration chapel beforehand.  Whenever I go to the chapel there is always one or two young people there.  (Late teens, early 20's.) It's amazing what our very young pastor has done in just under 3 years.  Sunday afternoon Mass is filled - with young families.  Eucharistic adoration has been established, the school is thriving, the youth group is huge.  The ordinary form of Mass is celebrated - and celebrated well, with solemnity and devotion, confession times have multiplied, doctrine - Catholic doctrine is taught.  Twice yearly retreats are held.  There is so much new life in my parish it is astonishing.  We even have weddings again.  The parish is flourishing with our new pastor, who 'smells like his sheep'. 

I'd like to tell all the critics, all the seminary academics, all the priests who were kicked out of diocesan seminaries and had to find a bishop to ordain them, all the tradsters who claim the Novus Ordo is a bad Mass and Vatican II is a bad council - THE Church is alive and well in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Yeah.  So be very careful - beware - any Catholic who claims the Ordinary Form of Mass is a bad Mass, and be very wary of those who claim Vatican II was a bad council.