A Lesson to be Learned from New Coke

...While Coca-Cola realized that they had gone too far in changing the venerable traditional formula, the Roman Catholic Church (at least in the words and actions of most of its hierarchy and clergy) just ignored or tried to suppress those who complained that they wanted the Traditional Latin Mass.

These folk were often ridiculed for making comments similar to the Coke protesters: "We want the real thing" and "Our children will never know refreshment.”

Over the past 40 or so years, the protests have not dimmed, but the ridicule and oppression of those seeking the Traditional Mass has not abated (Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum not withstanding).

This would be understandable if the New Mass had accomplished what it was formulated to do: to increase the faith and devotion of Catholics and make the faith clearer to the modern Catholic.

Unfortunately the opposite has occurred: the number of Catholics attending the New Mass has steadily declined, as have vocations to the priesthood and religious life, not to mention the knowledge of the faith amongst the vast majority of Catholics who still attend Mass weekly.

Please don’t misunderstand, just as “New Coke” was Coke just like “Coke Classic,” the Novus Ordo Missae is Mass – it is both valid and legitimate – but also like “New Coke” there is something missing from the traditional formula, and that something cannot be ignored and is desired by many who have now “tasted” the traditional formula.

It took Coca-Cola executives only 79 days to realize that they had made a mistake, and this before there was any appreciable decline in their sales or market share.

Why, oh why, has the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, after 40 years of declining numbers in almost every measurable category and appearing, at least in the United States, more and more like a corporation, not begun to ask themselves whether the problem might just be with the product and not the consumer?

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