Not being from England I cannot really answer this. I have heard that there is a resurgence in Europe in the Catholic Church, but I cannot confirm what I heard is true.
Our Church gets new Missals every three year cycle, because I think they do change slightly. I’m not sure if this is a decision made on a Conference of Bishop’s level or on a Publisher’s level.
I get your frustration. Every Parish I go to uses different hymnals and Missals. One Church here in town has had the same Missals for years. These are hardbound and probably cost a pretty penny. But at our normal Parish, they order the smaller Missals that are just for that year and then swap them out every Liturgical New Year. These are paperback and they slip them into a hard binder. I sure these are cheaper at the time of purchase, but have to be replaced yearly, whereas the ones at the other Church are used until they break down or are stolen.
I believe the changes were not all bad. The Pre-Vatican II Missal only used 1% of the Old Testament and 16.5% of the New Testament for Sundays and Major Fests. Since the changes, you now will hear 3.7% of the Old Testament and 40.8% of the New Testament!
And if you attend Mass daily, you will now hear 13.5% of the Old Testament and 71.5% of the New Testament! This is a huge improvement.
If anyone attends Mass every day in the Catholic Church, they will hear 89.9% of the four Gospels in a three-year cycle. In the words of the Comedy movie Nacho Libre, “And they don’t think I know a buttload of crap about the Gospel, but I doooooo.” : )
We Catholic Christians now hear more of the Bible than most Protestant and Non-Denominational Christians do in their Services. And we, like them, are also encouraged to read and study Sacred Scripture outside of Church.
Here in the United States, most Christians Churches have Wednesday Night Bible Study Groups. I attend a weekly Thursday night Catholic Mean’s Bible Study, in addition to doin a Bible Study with my Protestant Co-Worker through an app.
Catholic Christians have always taken Sacred Scripture seriously, but most struggle to recall chapter & verse. Ironically, it was an English Scholar who later became a Catholic Bishop in the 1200’s who numbered the Bible (gave the Bible chapters & verses).
You can ask, but generally, the new Missals (from what I understand) all have the same Readings (though sometimes they have multiple passages to choose from). Why this is, I’m not sure. Might have to do with the length.
First, I’m glad you were able to go to Confession during Lent! I try to make it a habit to go to Confession during Lent and Advent.
I prefer face-to-face, but I also understand that some do not. It depends on the Priest here in the United States. I’ve been to Penitent Services where one Priest is behind a screen and other Priests are face-to-face. I remember when I was a kid having to go into a dark box and found this to be uninviting.
Confessing our sins is never fun. It flat out sucks sometimes. Some of the guys in my Men’s Bible Study all go to the Marian Shrine about a half-hour away once or twice a month. That way the Priests do not know who they are. And because the grounds are quite beautiful there. Some do the outdoor Stations of the Cross and others Pray a Rosary while enjoying the nature that surrounds the Shrine.
Using Covid is an excuse sound like a load of crap if I’m being honest, but I’m someone who is still bitter that Churches closed their doors during a time of fear and uncertainty, when we needed God most!
Many of our Priests and Bishops have become cowards. I get being obedient to your Bishop as a Priest, but there are times when it is more prudent to do what is right & just, namely, when your Bishop has sold their soul to politicians and individuals with money.
Here in the United States, many faithful Catholics stopped tithing to the Church and tithing to other charitable organizations, because their Bishop started going with the culture instead of standing firm in truth. If you want to get the attention of your Bishop more than a letter, stop giving them money. They will notice, but a letter explaining to them why you have stopped giving to them might not be a bad idea, because surely many of these Bishops will make up some other reason for a decrease in funding. Some will say that it is because of Covid or inflation. No, it is because too many Bishops are linking arms with those who want to replace God. Of course the Priest scandals do not help either.
But, I have hope for the Church. I think many young men see what is going on in the Church and want to be the solution. The Diocese that I grew up in just ordained 8 young Priests! My Diocese ordained only 3, but I will take 11 good Priests over a hundred bad Priests.
I would challenge you not to hold this view. I have friends who do not go to the Doctor, because they do not like what the medical system has become (pushing the experimental messenger RNA and not allowing Doctors to practice what they know to be good for their patients over what politicians have decided is good). And the Doctors went along with it, because they feared losing their jobs. Some great Doctors did lose their jobs for not going along with it.
My point is though, not going to Reconciliation is not good for you in the long run. And just as a fear of Covid is an excuse for many, so is a fear of face-to-face an excuse. There was an episode of The Chosen where Mary Magdalen fall back into her old ways and when the Apostles go rescue her and bring her back to camp, Mary, our Blessed Mother, tells her to go speak to Jesus (face-to-face) and she tries to make excuses for why she shouldn’t. Embarrassment and shame are two reasons that prevent us from coming to Jesus and reconciling. When Adam & Eve sinned against God, they hid from Him. When Mary Magdalen fell back into her old ways (in The Chosen), she did not want Jesus to see her face.
A good Priest is not there to judge you. A good Priest is there to heal you. And if you still do not feel comfortable confessing to your own Priest, drive a half-an-hour to go to a Priest who doesn’t know you.
Exactly, this is why I said that it sounds like a load of crap. I suspect that this was a decision not made on the Diocese level, but on the local level and Covid is just an excuse. The one Parish I mentions that has the more permeant Missals does not have the old style Confessionals, but they have put up one of those Chinese Change thingies where the Priest will sometimes sit on one side and the Penitent on the other.
A similar thin has been said in another thread in this forum last week about reaching out to the Diocese level and not hearing back in a timely manor. I do not know how many inquiries and letters they receive, but I would bet it is a lot. We human beings like to complain probably more now than ever in history (because that is what social media has formed us to be—complainers—sometimes warranted and sometimes over things that are less important). I am not making an excuse for why you have not heard back. Just thinking of reason that you might not have heard any update.
Complaining is nothing new. We see St. Paul addressing this often in his epistles. Imagine how long it took to hear back from the Bishops in the Early Church (from the Apostles and their successors)! The letters had to be delivered probably on donkey or by foot. Or simply by word of mouth, and that is if the individual doesn’t forget to pass along your message. They say our brain dumps information every time we walk through a doorway. How many times do we walk into a room and forget why we even went into the room? It happens to me more than I would like to admit. So, I walk back into the room where the though came to me and then I remember (if I’m lucky : )
I feel your pain. There are some things that the Church is doing that make little-to-no sense to me. And some of these changes, though maybe good intentioned, have had the opposite result of the intended purpose. They removed the alter rails thinking it would get rid of the division between us and God (which was already there when Christ died for us on the Cross and Rose to be at God’s right-hand), but these decisions to remove some of these traditional things has also removed with it the reverence and respect owed to God.
I think many of the decision were done to make God more approachable and I get that. Some of the old ways of doing things are intimidating to some of us, especially when we do not understand the meaning behind what might otherwise be viewed as beautiful.
Pope Francis saw the old ways and described them as being “rigid.” While others see the tradition as being reverent. Many Protestants view dogma as being in competition with Scripture, but as G.K. Chesterton said, there are two types of people in this world: those who are dogmatic and know it and those who are dogmatic and don’t know it. Some atheists believe the Bible was made to control people, whereas most Christians view the Bible as an expression of a Father’s (God’s) love for those who were once lost (which is everyone, even those who are still searching or think they know a better way than the one that God has revealed to us in His only begotten Son, Jesus, Who is the way, the truth, and the life). He is Love incarnate (even if Diddy tried to steal the name ; )