Imagining the present pontiff as a guardian of any "tradition" save that which began with him getting the white hat is bleakly hilarious, in fact.
You can say trads misbehave and don't always conform well to the Roman church. And such is often accurate--I've seen it myself.
But then many--gleefully or otherwise--leap from high-profile misbehavior to the conclusion that their demerits deprive them of the right to worship.
And that makes you a functional Jansenist, no matter however you kit yourself up as an open-hearted apostle of Christian mercy.
And an inconsistent one at that. After all, there is no shortage of those attending the "reformed" liturgy who quite publicly and consistently deny the validity and legitimacy of giant swaths of genuine tradition, along with spitting at the power of their bishops to do anything about said denials.
Yet somehow the same folks never suggest such miscreants have their masses shuttered.
No matter that those deniers of legitimacy and validity include some wearing collars, holding public office or staffing local Catholic-for-tax-purposes-only institutions. But no gimlet-eyed clerical commissars are being dispatched by papal directive to uproot and suppress their spiritual lives.
Such as they are.
He's an abusive, bad father who likes other children more than his own. The faithful have a right to the liturgy of their grandparents and likewise have the right to protect themselves accordingly. One only has to look at the fate of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate to imagine the "lively pastoral charity and sense of ecclesial communion" heading their way.
And note Article 4 in particular: the long-term goal is clear. The powers that be intend to choke out the existence of the worship at the center of the Catholic faith which existed worldwide not quite sixty years ago.
And so much for collegiality and the power of bishops to manage their dioceses without being "franchisees of Rome," to quote a progressive from the dark days of JPII. Quite the micromanager when it suits him, our pontiff.
Unless you're having a national synod which repeatedly states its intention to replace the Faith with the Zeitgeist. Then, well, you know...it's complicated and needs the soft touch.
I don't attend the Latin Mass much these days--the last time was late summer (?) 2020, and the trads infuriated me that day, but that's a story for another time. But I have had family figuratively slapped in the face by NO priests and attendees (e.g., "you need to take your baby out"), too. Yet these functional burial clubs which celebrate the Mass of '70 will be spared "lively pastoral charity" as they continue their long spiritual hospice.
The bottom line is that even given my gritted teeth anger at trads, the moment an Archbishop of Detroit suppresses any of the Latin Masses going in this diocese, that's the last time it sees a dime from me.
And bluntly, this action makes me question what Rome teaches about itself in the catechisms.
Lex orandi, lex credendi, eh?
Whither the Catholicism of 2021?
Very well said. The title should read “Guardians [Against] Tradition” as in “blocking” [!] the way of Tradition for those who would follow in it. Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us!
ReplyDeleteA priest remarked that "custodes" can also be translated as "jailers". ;)
ReplyDeleteLa pandemia ha fatto esplodere la sana informazione a grandissimi strati della popolazione mondiale di tutti e cinque i continenti dell’esistenza e della non abrogazione della Messa cattolica pre innovazioni conciliari sui quali non oso pronunciarmi certo io, che sono alla ricerca della verità e non sono in grado di donarla ad alcuno. Certamente ho professato in modo aperto e leale perchè pubblico il mio compiacimento per la scoperta della libertà di recarmi ad una Messa in latino appena finite le proibizioni alla deambulazione nel mondo reale, sopportando di dover resistere davanti ad un pc. Scoprire di essere stata prevenuta con un Motu Proprio per fermare ogni possibile richiesta al Vescovo è vera e propria persecuzione artata traendo informazioni per rivoltarle contro a chi non tradisce e agisce nell’oscurità. Un massone deve riunirsi in segreto; perchè opera con il male, un cattolico agisce come figlio della Luce davanti agli altri affinchè risplendano le sue opere buone e sante..
ReplyDeleteI don't get the angst over this document. Its thrust is quite traditional: self-styled good Catholics don't get to deny the authority of a Council, and the bishop is in charge of liturgy in a diocese, not individual priests. All the press releases I've seen from bishops toed the same line: everything stays as is while we figure out what it means.
ReplyDeleteEvery diocesan bishop has to man up and take responsibility. They can't pawn it off on a priest or two who know the 1962 Missal or a pope.
Todd: Well, that would be a decent reaction were the document actually leaving things in the hands of the bishops. However, since they're not supposed to allow the TLM in parish churches, establish new traditional groups, give permission for new ordinands to celebrate the TLM, etc, etc, etc, I really can't see how it does anything of the sort.
ReplyDeleteThe TLM needs to be phased out. Mutual enrichment turned out to be a fable. It looks like existing TLM parishes and chapels continue. I'm not sure there's much of a need for new groups--they've had 14-33 years to surface, and if they haven't done so by now, it's not likely they will. New priests will need to go through his bishop and Rome. I suspect the refusal to join in the Chrism Mass really burned some European bishops.
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