Chapter 5. You're a dinosaur.

Catholics who feel that radical transformations are taking place have difficulty in standing up against the relentless propaganda they encounter, and which is common to all revolutions.

They're told, you can't accept change. Yet change is a part of life. You're static.

What was good 50 years ago isn't suitable to today's mentality or way of life.

You're hung up on the past. You can't change your ways.

Many have given in to the reform to avoid this criticism, unable to find an argument against the

sneering charge. You're a reactionary, a dinosaur. You can't move with the times.

Cardinal Ottiviani said of the bishops, they are afraid of looking old. But we have never refused certain changes,

adaptations that bear witness to the vitality of the church. In the liturgy, people my age have seen

some of these. Shortly after I was born, Saint Pius X made some improvements,

especially in giving more importance to the temporal cycle in the missile, in lowering the age

for First Communion for children, and in restoring liturgical chant, which had fallen into disuse.

Pius XIUS came along and reduced the length of the Eucharistic fast,

because of difficulties inherent in modern life.

For the same reason, he authorized afternoon and evening masses,

put the office of the pascal vigil on the evening of holy Saturday and rearranged the services

of Holy Week in general. John the 23rd, before the council, added his own touches to the so-called

right of St. Pius V. But none of this came anywhere near to what happened in 1969 when a new concept of

the mass was introduced. We are also criticized for being attached to external forms of secondary

importance like Latin. This is a dead language they tell us, which no one understands, as if Christians

understood it in the 16th or 19th centuries. Such negligence on the part of the church,

in waiting so long to get rid of Latin. I think the church had her reasons, yet we should not

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