The Legion in Korea: not just for old ladies

Fr Zuhlsdorf usually has very interesting commentaries on liturgy and other Church issues. He's an ardent admirer of the Tridentine Latin Mass. However I found what he implied in one post going a bit too far:

John Carmel Cardinal Heenan apparently said this after attending the first demonstration of the Novus Ordo.

"At home it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come regularly to mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday in the Sistine Chapel we would soon be left with a congregation mostly of women and children."

I scrolled down the comments and many where suggesting that the Cardinal was right and that the Novus Ordo Mass is somehow responsible for the decline in the participation of men in Church.

However, here's something elseI came across.

South Korea, where I currently make my home, unfortunately does not have the forma extraordinaria celebrated anywhere in the country, apart from the SSPX chapel in Seoul. The Mass, though, is celebrated with great devotion and reverence. Korean Catholicism, though, has not become emasculated. Indeed, some of the most active parishioners are men.

In my old parish in Gwangju (I now live in Seoul), we had many Legion of Mary groups, many of whom had quite a few men involved. I once attended a Mass at Seoul’s Cathedral where Legion of Mary groups from across the archdiocese were participating. So many men and women were there, many of them young. The Legion of Mary isn’t just a group for old ladies here.

Yay! :)