'If there's a bad Novus Ordo Mass, you can't improve those priests, I'm afraid. So just go anywhere else,' Mutsaerts told LifeSite at the Catholic Identity Conference.
PITTSBURGH (LifeSiteNews) — Bishop Robert Mutsaerts said that Catholics who attend parishes with irreverent Novus Ordo Masses should find a Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) or another reverent liturgy instead of attempting to transform their home parish.
During a brief October 3 interview with LifeSite after his talk at the 2026 Catholic Identity Conference (CIC), Mutsaerts responded to a question about whether the faithful should try to improve their home parish with a bad liturgy or attend the TLM.
Mutsaerts, a conservative Dutch bishop who only knows how to celebrate the Novus Ordo, stressed that trying to improve bad parishes is futile. Instead, laypeople should go somewhere where their faith and that of their families is actually nourished.
Attending a parish that nourishes your faith
“If there’s a bad Novus Ordo Mass, you can’t improve those priests, I’m afraid. So just go anywhere else,” Mutsaerts told LifeSite. “I used to think, ‘Support your own parish.’ I’m not saying that anymore … because you might lose your faith there. Go somewhere where you think, ‘This is right, this is authentic, this is true.'”
“Go there, and if you have children or youngsters, go where they’ll meet other young people. That’s what stimulates,” he added. “And young people, they meet one another in the Vetus Ordo, the Novus Ordo, but (at) places where they find the sacred, where the liturgy is in order … You need some encouragement (from your parish community), you don’t get it if you’re 18 and all the rest (of the parishioners) are 80.”
In recent months, several Catholic thinkers have debated whether the faithful should try to fix their geographical parish, as Catholic writer Patrick Neve argued in a January Substack post titled “The parish you hate might need you.” Still, others have agreed with Mutsaerts in saying it is more important to attend Mass where you are spiritually fulfilled, even if that requires driving a long distance.
Keeping the faith in a period of ‘synodality’
On keeping the faith as the Church hierarchy promotes synodality, one of the themes of his conference talk, Mutsaerts encouraged the faithful to cling to the Church’s traditional practices while slamming the “fruits of synodality.”
“Well, do the regular (Catholic) things. Go to a Mass where there’s proper liturgy, pray the rosary, give a good example (to others),” he said. “And if synodality doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t go there; it’s a waste of time. We’ve been going on eight years, and can you see the fruits? I can’t. Nothing but a waste of time.”
“In the meantime, just stick to the regular Catholic things, as I just mentioned a few of them. Like the Catholic Church always has, try and find the truth; the truth will set you free,” he added.
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