Saturday, May 01, 2021
Still more on church attendance
Phil Lawler makes a nice clear comparison. Catholic churches started losing people after Vatican II, and every "reform" since then has made the church more comfortable for elite intellectuals and more disgusting for working-class Catholics.
Now the Vatican is banning the traditional Latin mass.
Lawler's sharp point: Nobody needed to ban the Edsel, because nobody wanted to buy the Edsel. An object or practice is banned because it's popular. Rules don't forbid actions that nobody would do in the first place.
The Ford analogy also works the other way. When people ARE buying your product, don't screw it up by trying to make it resemble some other brand.
Old Henry never made that mistake. He produced the T for 20 years, and half of all the cars in America were Ts. He saw no reason to change.
When Henry II took over in 1948, he started making holdem/foldem mistakes, including the Edsel. He tried to copy GM's brands and practices, and failed every time. Ford customers bought Fords because they liked Fords, not because they wished Fords were more like Chevys.
Church leaders make the same mistake. At one time half of all Americans were Roman. Then the church decided that their customers would really rather have the cool "religion" seen in cool places, so they tried to copy academic and media weirdness. They shouldn't be surprised that they're losing. Catholics go to church to get real Catholic masses, not to get Unitarian Gaia-worship. If they wanted Gaia, they'd be in the Unitarian building.
¶ 7:21 AM 
