I am not going to try to prove to you my orthodox credentials. I really don’t care what anyone thinks about my choice to critique traditionalists, and I don’t care who I get mad at me. Traditionalists identify themselves as such, and the term sticks. There are plenty of those who stand outside the modernist fold that critique modernism for their traditional readers. Your complaint just proves the assumption of my post, that traditionalists are largely incapable of self-examination. I preach against the vices of the congregations (readers, viewers) that are present to me. I don’t bother to preach against other congregations’ vices in order to indulge the tastes of my own fold. I experience traditionalism up close and personal. I know it from the inside. It squirms when you put a finger on it.
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There is no question that the nonsense perpetrated by bishops is your strongest argument and my weakest link. But traditionalist apologetics, history and theological analysis, ala Bishops Fellay and Williamson, Roberto De Mattei and Mons. Brunero Gherardini, are not efforts at straightforward intellectual assessment. There is always an axe to grind against the Holy Fathers and the Council. It is always propaganda, a syllogism bent to prove a predetermined conclusion: all at the expense of the position advocated by the Vicar of Christ.
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I define “traditionalist” as someone who holds his opinion of Tradition, that is, his reading of Church documents to be the measure of judgment of the teaching of the reigning pope. I do not hold that it is never licit to question this or that teaching or this or that disciplinary norm, when it is done appropriately and with the intention of ultimate submission. Traditionalism is something else. It is a habit of mind, an airtight system of thought which sets itself against an ecumenical council and fifty years of papal teaching. I do not hold that a man is a traditionalist only if he “wholeheartedly and without exception completely reject the documents of the Second Vatican Council.” I hold him to be a traditionalist because he engages in a hermeneutic of suspicion in regard to the Council and the conciliar and postconciliar popes. I would generally apply such a definition to someone who manifests such opinions publically as a change agent set against the living magisterium.
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I have no objection against the old Mass and am happy to celebrate it. However, I do not hold that that the Extraordinary Form ought to be the Ordinary Form. I do not believe it is superior to the novus ordo or that it is more pleasing to God than the new form of the rite. I know there are arguments to the contrary. They do not have the support of the Council or any of the conciliar or postconciliar popes. I will not fault anyone for their opinion on the matter, as long as they understand it is only their opinion. However, if they commit themselves to be a change agent on the basis of their belief, I will, in perfect good faith and with a Catholic conscience, resist them as the traditionalists they are. I do not believe one single Catholic anywhere or at any time should have the old rite imposed on them, and I happen to know for a fact, that there are many traditionalists who are precisely intent upon the abolition of the new rite.
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I have been a religious in my community for twenty-five years or so and a priest for twenty. The problems that I deal with on a day-to-day basis are not modernist problems. If anything they are tradtitionalist problems. Anytime someone sets themselves against an ecumenical council and fifty years of papal teaching, they step out into the realm of personal opinion, which is never objectively binding on anyone’s conscience. At the very heart of my objection is the moral weight traditionalists attach to their opinions and the vigor with which they attempt to convict the consciences of others. I am not denying anyone’s right to their personal opinion, only asserting mine to resist them absolutely and without apology.
As I have said the bishops are their own worst enemies and make my position hard to defend. I openly admit that. However, no one is going to die for modernism, but they will for traditionalism, and traditionalist absolutism is akin the fascist nationalism that is arising in Europe in the face of the secularist denial of Europe’s Christian roots. In fact, Catholic traditionalism is related philosophically to Perennialism, that both in religious and secular contexts is playing footsie with political fascism. BTW, anyone willing to think their way through Michael Voris’ argument for the disenfranchisement of the non-virtuous will know that such a thing can only be accomplished at the point of the gun. Do some research on the SSPX and you will find some very unsavory political connections. No, I do not, nor will I cultivate a hermeneutic of suspicion in regard to the magisterium in defense of fascists, schismatics and self-appointed elitists.
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Bishop Schneider’s request may be reasonable in terms of a correct reading of Vatican II. His position, however, is not the same as that of the SSPX or, for that matter as far as I can see, that of Roberto De Mattei and Mons. Gherardini, whose open letter to the pope the bishop did not sign. The SSPX, De Mattei, M. Gherardini and the traditionalists as I have described them, dispute the possibility of a hermeneutic of continuity.
Furthermore, underlying the “taking” the traditionalist “side,” implies not simply a clarification of but a repudiation of the new Mass, collegiality, etc. Even more, the principles of the SSPX and many of those who I personally know to be sympathetic to them, make it perfectly consistent for them to attempt to ram their elitist opinions and practices down the throats of faithful Catholics who disagree with them.
Yes, of course, this has been the modus operandi of the Modernists for the last fifty years. I understand that. Hence, I keep pointing out the irony and reaffirming the fact that I have no intention of rolling over to tyranny, whether from the progressive left or the fascist right.
Traditionalism simply is not to be identified with faithful, orthodox, traditional Catholicism. It is a private opinion, an aberration, to which no one is objectively bound in conscience, and with which no one ought to be subjected against their will. Again, modernism and traditionalism make strange gnostic bedfellows.
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Again, I am not engaging in Vatican diplomacy. And I would have no problem signing anything the Holy Father gave me to sign in respect to Vatican II. Why am I, so to speak, on trial? Because I accept the Council without qualification? Does that make me suspect in respect to the true Tradition?