drawing the line

Since becoming Catholics, Tim and I have done our share of parish-shopping. We didn't have a choice the first few years in Italy, it was the base chapel or a local Mass in Italian so we just went to the elementary school cafeteria with everyone else. We liked the priests, but enduring the screech of folding chairs, posters of food groups on the walls, kneeling on dirty tile floors during the Consecration, and the overwhelming odor of french fries made it a bit lacking. "When we get back to the States we will find a real church again," we told each other. Then we got back to Virginia and would attend Mass in one parish for a few weeks before we attended one too many liturgies that grated us the wrong way. One too many homilies with sports or movie themes combined with a denial of some Catholic teaching that we knew hadn't been eliminated from the Catechism.

We ended up bopping around 5-6 parishes in 3 years before finding St. Benedict's Chapel, offering the Traditional Latin Mass and priests who really taught the Faith. We spent 4 years there, making many friends and happy as could be in a truly Catholic community. Now we are in liberal la-la land in North Carolina and have started the parish shuffle yet again. We have cringed through the two local parish Masses and struggled through the TLM an hour away. That priest has many issues, one of which is a lack of charity toward those parishioners with small children. After being chastised yet again for Timmy's chatting I don't wish to return.

Today we went to the Cathedral and it was pretty good, the only issues being loud clapping at the end for both new folks and the choir and that the priest ran out of hosts just as we came forward for Communion, leaving us to receive from the lay person, which I feel strongly is wrong. Now all this leaves me in a dilemma: I know the arguments for attending your geographical parish, but there is a line in the sand that distinguishes between a priest's duty and a parent's. Yes, a priest has the responsibility of caring for the souls of his flock and if they stray because of him then he will answer for that. But a parent has those same souls in their care and have a greater responsibility to make sure they are properly educated and nurtured in the Faith. (The same case can be made by parents who homeschool their children and don't send them to the local Catholic school.)

But the problem is where is the line? Is before or after:

invalid Consecration (bread with extras in it, added words...)
ideas contrary to Catholicism offered during homily
co-Consecration with non-Catholics
multitude of lay women in skimpy outfits distributing Communion
teens giving the homily
folk tunes sung during Mass
improper respect given to Blessed Sacrament (in a multitude of ways)
Mass treated as entertainment rather than sacrifice

Every parent, given their different background, will likely draw the line in a different place. Of course many Catholics today find all of the above acceptable, which is the reason we have so many liturgical abuses at all, but that is for another day. Today we are just trying to find a church home that brings us closer to God and sustains us through the week. My last idea is to call the local Catholic homeschool group and see if there is one parish many large families attend. It is likely that that one would be more orthodox than the others, but if we just have to spend the next 8 months ignoring everything around us in Mass except for Jesus we will do so. There are many places in the world where martyrdom and torture make it much harder to be a Catholic than just having to endure a poorly executed Mass.