As we continue to absorb this kick in the gut called Traditionis Custodes, let us resolve to remain faithful to those Traditions handed down to us over the centuries by the Apostles, who received them from Christ Himself.
At this particular moment, however, you might be feeling a little low about this latest diktat from Rome. That’s understandable. I offer you this, a short lament set to the song “Babylon” by Don. McClean…
#MassOfTheAges
If you are of a traditional mindset, you are likely to find yourself dismayed and angered by this latest news from Rome. Our Holy Father’s latest motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes, which has placed new restrictions on the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, is most certainly a source of consternation and dismay, and, yes…anger.
It should certainly not be a surprise, however. We knew it was coming. All of the sniper fire coming from the Holy See regarding “rigid” Traditional Catholics pretty much telegraphed their hostility towards us.
Nobody is quite sure to react. I’m writing this Friday evening, 16 July, and we’re still waiting for all the dust and debris to settle. The FSSP is taking a cautious wait & see approach in their Statement Regarding Traditionis Custodes.
Caution on our part is called for as well.
Now is not the time for nastiness. If we take to social media ranting and railing against the injustice of it all, and begin trading insult-for-insult with others Catholic netizens who think this latest news is just marvelous, well we simply play into the hands of the Modernists, don’t we? “See? SEE? We told you those toxic Traddies were a hateful bunch. Just look atall the venom they’re spewing on social media!”
We have many Catholic brethren who are fence-sitters when it comes to this controversy. They haven’t been paying attention. They’re content and comfortable with their Novus Ordo parish; they might be aware that some of their friends “prefer” the Latin Mass (in much the same way that somebody might “prefer” a Whopper to a Big Mac), but they really don’t have a clue as to what’s at stake. They will have progressive/Modernist friends (maybe even their pastor) who will tell them that Trads are a schismatic cult. They’re modern day Pharisees, only nastier. If we react with outrage, jabbing our fingers wildly this way and that as we point out the heretics among us, what kind of an impression do you think that will make on your non-Trad friends?
That doesn’t mean we have to sidestep the issue. Certainly not! What I would suggest to you, however, is that we take a calm and rational approach when we explain the situation to our friends. It won’t be easy to do in the 90 seconds you might have at the office water cooler, but if you stop and think it over, I bet that you can come up with a succinct and reasonable explanation regarding the situation at hand. They’re called “elevator speeches,” because you have them more or less preplanned and rehearsed in your mind, allowing you to make your points in the time it takes the elevator car to go from the lobby to the second floor.
Keep your cool. Keep your rationality. Keep your sense of humor. Keep your faith.
#MassOfTheAges
If you are a Traditional Catholic, you probably know that the revolutionary clique controlling the temporal reins of Holy Church doesn’t care for it very much. Judging by the language used by the highest levels of the hierarchy, they don’t care much for you either, if you’re a Trad. Summorum Pontificum certainly seems to be in the crosshairs, and nobody quite knows what that will mean for Catholics who prefer to worship as Catholics before them did for century upon century.
The question remains: why do they fear the Traditional Mass (and us)?
And…why does Hank Igitur look so odd in this video???
Another video worth watching is this one. Why do they fear this?
#MassOfTheAges
13 Dec 2020 Update – The original premise of this article was utter nonsense. All of the nasty surprises seem to be flowing only in one direction: from them to us.
8 APRIL UPDATE – It would appear that the answer posed in this article’s title may well be “no.” We’re hearing now that Pope Francis** is setting in motion yet another “commission” to study the question of female deacons. The good news from the Vatican just never ends, does it? Who knows where this will go, but in the meantime it seems purposely designed to keep the “churn” and general rate of chaos high among the Faithful. The Trads are getting their chains yanked, regular Novie Catholics are getting their chains yanked, and maybe even the Modernists are getting their chain yanked. What is the purpose of all this? Seems like classic Peronista tactics, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising this many years into this pontificate.
We simply must keep praying for our Church, for our Pope (whether or not he considers himself the Vicar of Christ) and that Our Lady will soon clean house in this troubled, chaotic and pretty messed up human component of the Body of Christ.
Oremus!
** Formerly known by the very accurate title “Vicar of Christ.” You may have heard that this august title has fallen out of favor with the former Cdl. Bergolio. The term has been relegated to a historical footnote in the current edition of the Vatican Yearbook.
Original (prematurely optimistic) article:
Today–12 February 2020–is the day the much anticipated/dreaded Papal document on the Amazon Synod came out. We were all bracing for the worst sort of news when it came to married priests and lady jungle deaconesses, but instead the document says something rather different.
Here is the text of tweet made by EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo:
The Pope’s final Amazon document is a shock and a wakeup call to progressives who have sought “revolutionary” change in the Church. Pope Francis has reaffirmed the tradition of ordaining celibate men, and ruled out ordaining women. Expect a ferocious response.
Does that mean we’re out of the woods? Probably not. As many online commentators–each with much deeper thought processes and way larger numbers of followers–have been warning, the whole idea of adding married priests and/or female deacons into the post-Vatican II Church was never the objective. Rather, the goal was to move the Catholic Church in ever closer alignment with the secularist goals of the UN and the likes of Jeffery Sachs, George Soros, and of course little Greta. The climate and environment are the real threats to mankind, and globalism is the only solution. The salvation of our souls and the methodologies used to obtain said salvation is a back-burner issue. And I’m afraid that while the current (and let us not forget temporary) leadership in Rome works ever harder to make the Church the UN’s favorite NGO, the issues of married priests, lady deacons, and eventually full-on priestesses is far from settled.
Still, isn’t it delightful to think how disappointed all the Modernists are at this moment? All of the coquettish hinting that the door was open for massive new changes and innovations to the priesthood. Oh, how they must have been anticipating it!
This pope is a master of weaponized ambiguity, and no mistake. Most of that ambiguity has worked to the advantage of the Modernists (think Amoris Laetitia). Each odd little statement he makes at an audience or airplane presser is like a little hand grenade of weaponized ambiguity tossed into the foxholes of Faithful Catholics with devastating effect. You “progressive” theologians, priests, bishops and laity have loved lobbing those grenades at us. But every now and again, one of those ambiguous hand grenades might just blow up in your own face.
Take a close look at this “O-Antiphon” tweet by the USCCB from Wednesday, 18 December. Do you see any symbology which looks a little…well…Masonic?
O Wisdom of our God Most High,
guiding creation with power and love:
come to teach us the path of knowledge! pic.twitter.com/VGfU3QW43W— U.S. Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) December 17, 2019
And, yes, I do know that the eye within the triangle, the “All-Seeing Eye of God” has a Catholic history. You can see it displayed in the artwork of old churches and manuscripts. But for the last several hundred years, it has been co-opted by the Lodge as a distinctly Masonic symbol. As such, it has gained a fair degree of toxicity. It’s no different than the rainbow. What was once thought of as the universal sign of God’s pledge never again to destroy the world with water, it has now become the universal sign of something rather different, hasn’t it? So it is with this symbol.
The question begs itself: was this simply a slip-up by the poor seminarian whose collateral duty it is to pretend he’s tweeting on behalf of all the bishops in the USCCB? Or was the symbology fully understood ahead of time.
Has the USCCB, in fact, gone “full Modernist?”