Your experience sounds pretty grim and troubling Aul Lad, and it speaks to the broader societal brutality of the mid-20th century, a time when the world was a much harsher place to live all over the globe, both inside and outside the Church. However, it is vital to recognize that the severity you endured was not universal, nor is it an indictment of Catholicism or the Latin Mass. Abuses of power and harsh treatment were widespread during this period, especially in countries without a Catholic tradition, such as New Zealand and South Africa. These were failures of individuals and the broader societal structures of the time, not a reflection of the Church’s true teachings or liturgical heritage.
The Latin Mass, far from being oppressive, was a profound act of reverence and transcendence, designed to orient the faithful toward God. The failure to teach altar servers anything beyond rote sounds is a failure of catechesis, not of the Mass itself. Similarly, the abuses you describe, while abhorrent, are betrayals of Christ and His Church, not products of Catholic doctrine. The liturgy cannot be blamed for the sins of those who corrupted their vocations or for the societal flaws of that era.
The Church’s failures since Vatican II are impossible to ignore. Before the Council, the Catholic Church was thriving, with millions of conversions each year and a clear identity rooted in tradition, reverence, and discipline. Since then, it has been in a state of freefall, marked by dwindling congregations, moral compromise, and a liturgy stripped of its beauty and transcendence. Instead of standing firm as a beacon of truth, the Church has tried to conform to the world, becoming more cringeworthy and irrelevant with every passing year.
If this were a business we were talking about, the results would speak for themselves: the collapse in “customer loyalty,” the alienation of its base, and the hemorrhaging of its numbers would have led to the immediate dismissal of everyone in leadership. Yet, those responsible remain entrenched, doubling down on the very strategies that have driven this disaster. The Church does not need more modernist experiments; it needs to return to the tradition that once made it a force for conversion, sanctity, and truth in the world.