Dear Ukrainian Catholic,
Whether this is "so, so bad" depends on the context - perhaps in this context you describe it is bad.
In Ukraine, many UGCC parishes have these services.
I've spoken to Ukrainian Catholic priests there and the First Friday devotions, Our Lady of Fatima, and Stations of the Cross with Rosary are WILDLY popular, especially in the wake of the fall of the Soviet empire and of the "Soviet Orthodox" Church as he called it.
In addition, Eucharistic Adoration is VERY popular, especially the 24 hour a day Adoration - he said that in his village EVERYONE has an assigned hour of Adoration when they come to Church, day and night, to pray - including schoolchildren who bring their prayerbooks with them to school and often spend an hour in the afternoon after school's out, on the way home, in adoration in Church.
The Holy Hieroconfessor Josef Slipyj the Patriarch, when he was in Rome, went DAILY to the Church of St Neilos there for his Hour of Adoration (and it could have been longer, I don't know).
Certainly, this is not for the "Orthodox in communion with Rome" crowd!
Even Orthodox Churches in Ukraine and other E. European countries have Stations of the Cross and Sacred Heart devotions et alia where the Catholic Church is very strong - and where devotion to the Sacred Heart is a kind of "litmus test" of whether one is a real Christian or not!
We can bemoan the fact that there is a voluntary Latinization there - but let's also remember that those people, after years of being under the Soviets and the Russian Orthodox Church have come to get a "bad taste in their mouth" when it comes to "Easternization."
For them, Orthodoxy is definitely not "flavour of the month" and represents the spirituality of the oppressor, foreign cultural imposition and the like.
For them, Latin devotions that the Orthodox don't have, are attractive precisely because they derive their Greek-Catholic identity from them, their sense of "we're now free from the Soviets and the Orthodox Church" and the like.
Priests from there have told me that it is often the case that their parishioners have asked them, sometimes quite adamantly, that they stop using the term "Orthodox Christians" in the Liturgy - when they sing that, their Presbyteras notice many people in Church shaking their heads or otherwise making a "sour face" upon hearing that.
It is a different situation over there from ours and perhaps the priest you mention is either from there or has been there. If he is alienating people, that is not a good thing.
Alex
