I post it as a reminder of the drastic decline since the 60s that has also hit Protestant churches in Europe and North America, and that there really is no way to know if the NO contributed to the collapse of the Western Church, since the NO has only existed in the decades when all the other Christian churches fell to bits for reasons other than Vatican II.

The Montinian reform broke all this apart, improvisedly inventing a new rite adapted to the needs of the modern world and transforming the sacred Catholic Liturgy from being theocentric to being anthropocentric. From the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross repeated in an unbloody manner through the action of the sacerdos, we transitioned to the assembly of the faithful led by its “presider.” From a salvific and even exorcistic instrument, we passed to a horizontal populist gathering, susceptible to continual autocephalous and relativistic changes and adaptations that are more or less “festive” and whose supposed “value” is based on winning mass consensus, as if it were a political instrument aimed at the audience, an audience however that is progressively completely disappearing.

The idea that Catholics are pining for the Tridentine Rite is the trend story that never dies. It is the line that Trads have been feeding everyone for decades, and it was amplified by church leaders like Pope Benedict XVI, who in broadening the use of the old rite in 2007 said that his move was prompted by ongoing requests from around the world and that “even young people” were drawn to it. First Things editor and Latin Mass loyalist Matthew Schmitz echoed that view in a 2017 article in the Catholic Herald: “Wherever one looks, the kids are old rite.”

...

The problem is that none of these anecdotes are supported by data. In fact, the numbers show a tiny number of Tridentine faithful whose ranks are not growing, and certainly not globally.

...

The tendency of the Latin Mass fans to self-select, to gather intentionally and often with greater effort than many parishioners, is a natural function of their passion and that’s a chief reason why they can project an image of a growing cohort. They are visible and they are often outspoken about their beliefs.

13. A schismatic spirit or actual schism are always gravely evil, but there is nothing about the UA which fosters schism.

14. (...) The UA is a living form of the Roman Rite and has never ceased to be so. From the very time of the promulgation of the Missal of Pope Paul VI, in recognition of the great difference between the UR and the UA, the continued celebration of the Sacraments, according to the UA, was permitted for certain convents and monasteries and also for certain individuals and groups. Pope Benedict XVI, in his Letter to the Bishops of the World, accompanying the Motu Proprio «Summorum Pontificum», made clear that the Roman Missal in use before the Missal of Pope Paul VI, “was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”

15. But can the Roman Pontiff juridically abrogate the UA? The fullness of power (plenitudo potestatis) of the Roman Pontiff is the power necessary to defend and promote the doctrine and discipline of the Church. It is not “absolute power” which would include the power to change doctrine or to eradicate a liturgical discipline which has been alive in the Church since the time of Pope Gregory the Great and even earlier. The correct interpretation of Article 1 cannot be the denial that the UA is an ever-vital expression of “the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.” Our Lord Who gave the wonderful gift of the UA will not permit it to be eradicated from the life of the Church.

16. It must be remembered that, from a theological point of view, every valid celebration of a sacrament, by the very fact that it is a sacrament, is also, beyond any ecclesiastical legislation, an act of worship and, therefore, also a profession of faith. In that sense, it is not possible to exclude the Roman Missal, according to the UA, as a valid expression of the lex orandi and, therefore, of the lex credendi of the Church. It is a question of an objective reality of divine grace which cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority.

The problem is that none of these anecdotes are supported by data. In fact, the numbers show a tiny number of Tridentine faithful whose ranks are not growing, and certainly not globally.

This drama with the rightwing of the Catholic Church has been going on for more than fifty years now, and for that entire time popes from Paul VI to John Paul II, and, most especially, to Benedict XVI, have bent over backwards and even twisted tradition and basic reasoning to make special carve-outs for the Trads.

Those of you who go to the EF Mass, what changes to the OF would entice you to go?

I don't think it's wise to place the TLM as being more Holy, more beautiful, etc., then the OF. Doing so proves the Popes case the need for the change.

Those of you who go to the EF Mass, what changes to the OF would entice you to go?

intentional departures from (in many cases, implicit if not explicit rejection of) what came before it.

Four hundred years before Christ the prophet Malachias referred to the adorable sacrifice of the Mass to be offered in the distant future by the Gentiles. The prophet, speaking in the name of God, said: ‘For, from the rising of the sun even to the going down My name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place there is sacrifice and there is offered to My name a clean oblation.’ (Mal 1:11). Four times each second, throughout the whole twenty-four hours of each day, the Sacred Host was raised by the hands of a priest, to plead for blessings on sinful man, to atone by this Divine sacrifice, for his sins. Then came the Council and its first fruit, the Novus Ordo Mass. (“A bad Council and a bad Mass” – Third Secret conversation / Card Ratzinger / Fr Ingo Dollinger).

The Roman mystic, Bl Anna Maria Taigi, saw this time of great peril and darkness for the Church commencing in the second half of the 20th century. Similarly, Ven Anne Catherine Emmerich wrote that Lucifer, chained by the merits of Christ's passion, would be let loose for a time about 50 or 60 years before the year 2000.’ Chained by the merits of Christ’s passion but loosed by a loss of efficacy in the Mass, this occurring about the time of the visible crisis caused by the Council and culminating in the liturgical vandalism of the Novus Ordo Mass.

St Alphonsus, Doctor of the Church, explained that the devil aimed ‘to get rid of the Mass by means of the heretics’ making them the precursors of the Antichrist who would succeed in taking away the continual sacrifice. (Dan 11:31) Prior to this, in Dan 8:12 we read that ‘strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground.’ It is sin that causes the Holy Sacrifice to be taken away.

Dom Prosper Gueranger described the collapse or failure of the Mass as the necessary prelude to the Antichrist before he appeared and abolished it. Dom Gueranger described this collapse and consequences when the ‘intensity of the Great Sacrifice of the Mass has been diminished.’ He continued: ‘Terrible as this is, it is but the beginning of that which is to happen, when the devil and his agents let loose upon the earth, will pour out a torrent of trouble and desolation everywhere, as Daniel has predicted … the devil will at length prevail so far as that the celebration of the Great Sacrifice will be suspended, - then will come those days of horror and misery for our earth.’ (Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass, Dom Prosper Gueranger).

St Paul refers to something which restrains the Antichrist, but that when removed, permits him to be revealed. (2 Thess 2:3-8). He describes this restraint as being both neuter (what) and masculine (he). Similarly, Daniel prophesied that ‘the victim (masculine) and the sacrifice (neuter) shall fail: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation’, the Antichrist. Surely this restraint is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Other references (linked to Daniel) are found in Matt 24 and Mark 13.

In 1990, Card Ratzinger, when Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described the New Mass as ‘devastation, a fabricated liturgy, a banal product’ which had ‘degenerated so that it has become a show’ with ‘momentary success for liturgical fabricators’ and recognized those who do not look to the liturgy for a ‘spiritual show-master.’ (Revue Theologisches, Vol. 20, Feb. 1990, pp. 103-104).

Again, in 1992 he wrote; ‘I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter anymore whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us. … But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?’ he asked. Ratzinger lamented, ‘too often the community is only celebrating itself without its being worthwhile to do so.’ (From My Life: Remembrances 1927-1977).

Dom Gueranger explained ‘were the Mass to be done away with, we should quickly fall again into the state of depravity in which pagan nations are sunk: and this is to be the work of Antichrist: he will take every possible means to prevent the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so that this great counterpoise being taken away, God would necessarily put an end to all things, having now no object left in their further subsistence.’ The emergence of the Antichrist precedes his public appearance. His arrival occurs at the height of the apostasy and follows the advent of the Antichrist’s precursor, the False Prophet, the antithesis of St John the Baptist, who prepares the way for the ‘man of sin.’

It would seem that Pope Benedict missed his opportunity.

I take comfort in this decision from the fact that, after the Council of Trent, St. Pius V also abrogated all the rites that could not claim a proven antiquity, establishing for the whole Latin Church a single Missale Romanum.

Consilium itaque ad exsequendam Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia deputatum, prae oculis habens generalem rationem instaurationis Missae, hanc novam recensionem accurate redegit, quam Sacra haec Rituum Congregatio, utendo facultatibus sibi a Sanctissimo Domino nostro Paulo Papa VI tributis, probavit atque uti typicam declaravit, mandans ut publici iuris fieret, et in novis Missalis romani editionibus assumeretur, ita ut normae ibi contentae ab omnibus fideliter serventur.
Contrariis quibuslibet minime obstantibus.