In his speech today to the Plenary Assembly of the French Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Ricard, again, claims to be speaking on behalf of the lay faithful who are supposedely distraught by any Petrine overture towards Traditionalists. The Church is not a democracy, quite right. Yet, since His Eminence and many other French Bishops have been claiming to speak for the laity, maybe they should check out the latest polls.
The pollsters at the CSA Institute, one of the most prestigious in France, were hired by the association Paix Liturgique to ask some questions reagrding the Traditional rites of the Roman Church (CSA interviewed 1,007 people throughout the nation, 55% of which identified themselves as Catholics, on November 8, 2006; the results reflect the opinion of those who identified themselves as Catholics).
The pollsters at the CSA Institute, one of the most prestigious in France, were hired by the association Paix Liturgique to ask some questions reagrding the Traditional rites of the Roman Church (CSA interviewed 1,007 people throughout the nation, 55% of which identified themselves as Catholics, on November 8, 2006; the results reflect the opinion of those who identified themselves as Catholics).
1) Do you believe it is desirable that Catholics may have the choice to, according to their sensibility, go to either the Traditional Mass in Latin with Gregorian chant or to the Modern Mass in French?
Yes: 65%
No: 13%
Do not care: 22%
2) If you had the occasion to occasionally go to a Mass in Latin with Gregorian [chant], what would you say?
I would go: 60%
I would not go: 39%
No answer: 1%
3) In your opinion, the fact that various kinds of celebrations of the Mass, one Traditional, in Latin and with Gregorian [chant], and the other modern in French, may be recognised by the Church would be...?
A good thing, because it allows for some diversity within the Church: 65%
A bad thing, because it risks provoking divisions within the Church: 31%
No answer: 4%
4) If a Mass in its Traditional form were celebrated, in Latin and with the permission of the Pope, close to your home, you would say...
I would go there frequently: 6%
I would go there occasionally: 31%
I do not know if I would got there or not: 12%
I would rarely go there: 29%
I would never go there: 22%
(Source: Paix Liturgique à Reims)
87% of all the French Catholic faithful, according to the poll, either want liturgical freedom or are completely indifferent to it (see first question). Well, if they do not share the opinion of the Pope, nor the opinion of the French laity, whom do the recalcitrant French bishops represent, except their own disastrous leadership, their dismal presence in the French society at large (as it happened with their inaction regarding the approval of the Loi Veil, on the liberation of abortions, 30 years ago), and bankrupt theological concepts?
