You tire of the attacks on the N.O. but I tire of the arguments that say stuff like this:
"Don't worry about incense. You don't need that. Don't worry about the priest facing the Lord's altar instead of the people. Don't worry about cheesy music and praise bands and Go Tell It on the Mountain! Don't worry about hand-holding during the Our Father. So what if people clap and act informally during the liturgy. No big woop if Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist try to bless your kids and play priest. So what if the communion is in the hand. Who cares if there are altar girls or lay readers or people dressed like they're going on a picnic. No big deal if the wording isn't that hot. What's your problem? The Eucharist is still there; that's all the matters."
If I had a penny for every time I've heard that argument online for the last seven years, I'd be Trump.
I can certainly understand your frustration, and at times I've shared it with many of these elements (though I've been fortunate enough not to experience most of them in the same place).
From my perspective, though, a few points occur:
1. It isn't about me and what I think.
2. Who said the liturgy (or being in the Church, for that matter) should be easy? (As parents are wont to say: offer it up!)
3. The essential question is: which Church holds to the true Faith? Everything else can be suffered and offered up for that: the Kingdom is like a pearl of great price...
I agree that it's "unnecessary and sad" to strip the liturgy of its beauty, and I know just how painful such Masses can be, and how hard it is to pray in those circumstances. But the beauty of the liturgy is for God, not for us (even though it can be so hard to pray when what is around us is sheer banality).
With that said, you appear to have made up your mind to leave the Catholic Church, so I'm puzzled as to what this thread is about. Perhaps you're asking "what reason is there for me to stay?", which is a perfectly reasonable question. The only answer I can offer is: because it's true. Because the keys were handed to Peter. I'm not sure there
is another answer worth the name.
But was not the Patriarch of Antioch also a direct consecration by St. Peter himself? The See of Antioch was Petrine.
Rome was the place of martyrdom of both St Peter
and St Paul. This has traditionally been te clinching factor for Rome.
It is also worth noting that the Patriarch of Antioch who can claim legitimate historical succession is in communion with Rome, after the Patriarch of Constantinople (Jeremias III) declared the election of Cyril VI Tanas (in 1724) to the Patriarchal throne of Antioch invalid and excommunicated him on dubious grounds, and ordained a Greek monk first priest and then bishop and appointed him Patriarch in his place. The majority who followed Cyril came into communion with Rome, while the minority who followed Sylvester remained with Constantinople.
There are two things which this illustrates, I think: the first is the degree to which the quarrel between Orthodox and Catholic is a quarrel between Rome and Constantinople (since both sides have patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria, not necessarily related to the actual historical succession of patriarchs*).
The second is that Constantinople has historically claimed just as much authority over other bishops and patriarchs as Rome has, and been willing to exercise it, to boot.
If you want to become Orthodox, then good luck to you. But look carefully at both what Orthodoxy is now, and what it has been historically, in detail, first. Because the sales pitch for
any church (or anything else, in fact) is always half the story.
(*Alexandria can clearly be seen to have its historical continuation in the Coptic Orthodox Church; as such, both Orthodox and Catholic Patriarchs may be seen to be "uniate", as they were set up subsequently; the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem claims to be the original historical succession; the Melkites I have covered above. Far from "four against one" as it tends to be painted, with Rome the lone dissenter from four patriarchates, it's more like two versus two, with one on-looker.)