A word on Pope Francis for my fellow Traditionalist

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Eufrosnia

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Meditating a bit about everything I have written, I feel that at times I have been very critical of our new Pope. Has he done things that are somewhat questionable (only in terms of actions and not teaching)? Yes. Does it upset me? Deeply.

But at the end of the day, I have come to ask myself, how am I a follower of Christ if I cannot forgive those shortcomings? One may say that it is hard to forget because the Pope may destroy/undermine the Church with his actions. But at the end of the day, we have had Pope’s who were downright criminal in our past. We have had schisms, the reformation. We have had a church that endured the Arian heresy that thrived for 6 centuries even after its condemnation by the Church. What are we afraid of?

Sometimes in this cloud of things, we may even be losing sight of the good that Pope Francis does. But even more problematically, we may even be losing sight of the good that God can bring about even through the not so good actions Pope Francis might even do. Yet here I am, constantly nagging on everything the Pope does like it will bring about the destruction of the Catholic faith.

Perhaps it is in one sense due to information overload. I have noticed that in the time period where I did not read the news during the last week, I was more at peace and filled with more hope. The moment I turn on the news today, I see the washing of the feet incident and I got upset. At the end of the day, does it really matter? As long as we know what the Pope meant, that he obviously did not mean to send a message about female ordination and that certainly no one considers the act imprudent in the sense of kissing the feet of a woman, does it really matter?

Even as I was able to pass off the female ordination issue since I knew the Pope couldn’t change it, I can tell you that the issue of possible imprudence bugged me. I am sure many Trad oriented Catholics like myself probably would see imprudence in general as something that might lead others to do the same.

Some thought in to this has lead me to think that this concern is perhaps misplaced. Prudence develops mainly through culture. Prudence trads have today was not always present in the Church either. At the beginning it was probably very basic. It formed over centuries to what it is that we know. But in our post Christian culture, many today are unaware of the values of prudence that we once knew.

Now if we wanted to enforce these values or their consideration from top down, it will not work. If the Pope had not done it, he would have been viewed as merely backword and possibly his valuable message discarded. The reason being that prudential values cannot be enforced from top down. It must come from society. Otherwise they will just be hostile to it.

We trads probably experience this most with modesty. No matter how true our concerns and reasonable the standards, society will think we are trying to enforce old views or suppress women. It is because the society is what needs to change. Then prudence follows.

This is why St. Paul or St. Peter was not primarily concerned with spreading values of prudence. They were more concerned with spreading doctrine and making others Christian. Why was that? I believe that was because they knew that the values come after. You cannot make people appreciate the Extraordinary form of the mass. The person has to change to appreciate the mass.

In the same way, I believe that Pope Francis himself is aware of this issue. He knows that if he were to bring people in to the Church, their transformation will lead them to embrace everything else and even the values of prudence and tradition. His primary task is evangelizing.

Something that I think hasn’t sunk in to us is that we are in a very critical point in history. Christianity is losing ground to secularism, atheism, agnosticism, Islam and even New Age religions. We cannot enforce traditions or values of prudence on such a population. They will think it ridiculous. The values of prudence and traditions shine in the eyes of the people ONLY when they have truly embraced the Church of Christ as their source of salvation and consequently all its teaching. So it is that which we should all seek. It is that which Pope Francis is also seeking.

We should keep these values that have been passed down to us with us. We should pass them on to our children. As people come in to the church, they can be the ones who pass down these values to them.

But now is not the time to cause strife or worry over these things. Now is the time to keep these treasures within us and do all we can to bring everyone IN TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. The time for protecting and enforcing traditions from top down is over. If Rome were to suddenly say tomorrow that EF mass is all we will have etc. we will lose more faithful than we will gain. We are back in the time of Early Christianity. Our main concern is to get people in to the Church. The traditions and vales of prudence will then be discovered by them as they strive to embrace and live the teachings of the Church.

So let us join forces with our Holy Father. Let us understand where he is coming from and understand the dire situation we are in. Let us understand that our fight was lost and the only way we can bring about tradition and prudence again is not by disruption but by an organic evolution of the faithful and society back in to it. Let us be patient, pray and let God act through us and the Church as we work toward our primary goal to BRING PEOPLE IN TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

–Eufrosnia
 
Hi. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being a traditional Catholic and loving Pope Francis. Is not the tradition of the Church to be loyal and respectful towards the Pope. I love the Traditional Mass yet I also love Pope Francis.
I think what is concerning is that this whole fiasco of the Traditionalists being annoyed towards Pope Francis is awfully bad for their reputation as it makes them out to seem all focused on the exterior. Does not the Traditional Mass emphasize God as number one? Hence I don’t understand why people who say they have such respect towards God are so disrespectful towards the Pope?? :confused:
God chose this Pope. All Catholics should be obedient to him and respect him with a great respect.
It’s very sad how some people are behaving and it’s certainly not a good example for the Traditionalists.
However I am glad that you the original poster can see the beauty of Pope Francis.

God bless us all :gopray:
 
Amen!

Although I do not think the fight was (or is) lost. I think we all should be fighting together and not amongst ourselves.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
I think we all should be fighting together and not amongst ourselves.
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One of the biggest ways we can shoot ourselves in the foot is to divide ourselves into traditionalists/modernists or conservatives/liberals.

The Church’s teachings are ONE. There is not one set of doctrines for conservatives and one for liberals. There is only one set of doctrines, and it is for CATHOLICS.

There may be disagreements about things which are not doctrine, such as limited aspects of the liturgy, emphasis on different parts of theology, etc.

But to think that there are legitimate ‘parties’ in the Church in regards to adherence to her teachings is wrong. It confirms the outside world’s misunderstanding that Church doctrine can be altered or challenged like government policies.

One time I heard a recorded talk by Archbishop Fulton Sheen where he gave the Greek etymology of diabolic, which essentially means “to split apart”. Ever since, I have seen many situations where division is an obstacle to the will of God.
 
I was reading some of the comments made online by traditionalists (probably the extreme kind) regarding Pope Francis’ washing of the feet, and it really sucked the life out of me. It bothered me the whole day. What really depressed me was not so much the vitriol nor the venom they spewed, but everything behind the bashing.

I kept on wondering why so much hate and anger. Lent is supposed to be the time for reflecting on our own sinfulness, but here we are hurling stones at the Holy Father. We are scrutinizing each of the Holy Father’s actions, and finding fault where there is none. It was as if they are in the plaza shouting, screaming for Pope Francis to be crucified. Perhaps, as others in another thread have put it, it is borne out of fear, uncertainty, and a lack of understanding.

with that I’d like to post an excerpt from Pope Francis’ homily for Easter Vigil:
Dear brothers and sisters, let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives! Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.
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But let us return to the Gospel, to the women, and take one step further. They find the tomb empty, the body of Jesus is not there, something new has happened, but all this still doesn’t tell them anything certain: it raises questions; it leaves them confused, without offering an answer. And suddenly there are two men in dazzling clothes who say: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; but has risen” (Lk 24:5-6). What was a simple act, done surely out of love – going to the tomb – has now turned into an event, a truly life-changing event. Nothing remains as it was before, not only in the lives of those women, but also in our own lives and in the history of mankind. Jesus is not dead, he has risen, he is alive! He does not simply return to life; rather, he is life itself, because he is the Son of God, the living God (cf. Num 14:21-28; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10). Jesus no longer belongs to the past, but lives in the present and is projected towards the future; he is the everlasting “today” of God. This is how the newness of God appears to the women, the disciples and all of us: as victory over sin, evil and death, over everything that crushes life and makes it seem less human. And this is a message meant for me and for you, dear sister, dear brother. How often does Love have to tell us: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness… and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!
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Eufrosnia said:
Perhaps it is in one sense due to information overload. I have noticed that in the time period where I did not read the news during the last week, I was more at peace and filled with more hope. The moment I turn on the news today, I see the washing of the feet incident and I got upset.
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This is something thats very true for me as well. Its something that for me can really negatively effect my family relationships and I have to really be aware of it. For anyone else that gets upset or worried about these kinds of things, its amazing how much of a difference it makes when you remove yourself from the media and such.
 
This is a very good, thoughtful post. Much to think about.

I have stopped going on traditionalist sites some time ago. I just can’t stand the bitterness and the bickering and the ‘more Catholic than the pope’ attitude of many people. I can’t stand the mentality of being in the trenches, of being a church inside the church, of being special. It is so easy to fall into that mindset, and being Catholic is about something completely different. I have seen what living in a small traditionalist bubble is like and it is not healthy. Divisions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is the last thing the church needs right now.

It also amazes me when I see that people are oblivious to the reality we are in. As the OP said, the church is losing ground in the west to secularism in an ever growing pace. That is a serious problem. This pope knows how to reach people and has dealt with all sorts of issues back at home. We should trust him. Maybe, just maybe, EF mass is not the priority right now. I’m OK with that, although I wish with all of my heart that more people will come to discover our beautiful liturgical tradition.

It is possible to be a traditionalist and not obsess about liturgy at the same time the way that some groups do. It is possible to be a traditionalist and support this pope who is not exactly on the same page in that sense. We must pray for the church, for unity, for peace, for our pope.
 
I think there is a great rush to judgment concerning the new Pope. He is under a microscope, like some sort of insect, every move of his being watched and scrutinized and speculated upon. It is disgusting, IMO, and no Catholic should be taking part in this. I have to tell it like it is. Many “traditionalist” Catholics are displaying a disturbing distrust of the Holy Spirit in guiding the Church, a total lack of respect for the Pope (which BTW is about as untraditional as you can get), and a fear that somehow the Church will be led into doctrinal error because the Pope did something not “traditional”. That is impossible folks. The Pope cannot change doctrine or teach error–and if one believes he can he is flirting with heresy. Stay away from those kinds of so-called “Catholic” websites. And the so-called “liberals” are just as bad, speculating about what every move means, how the Pope is going to get rid of traditions, etc., trying to put a spin on everything he does that is different.
The secular media is a circus–but we know that, yet we continue to give credence to every speculation and opinion out there. We are feeding off of this.

We need to repent of this behavior, adjust our attitudes, and PRAY for our Pope. And refuse to get caught up in idle speculation and fear. That, folks, is the work of the Evil One, and he is having a field day watching us become divided and giving in to fear and distrust. If we continue on this path, we will be the cause of our own undoing, allowing Satan to divide and conquer. And we will have to answer to Almighty God Himself for this, because His will is that we may be one.

Pray for Pope Francis. May God’s will, not ours, be done. We need to let that sink into our hearts. That is something the Saints can teach us. Let’s follow their example.
 
CB_Catholic said:
I think there is a great rush to judgment concerning the new Pope. He is under a microscope, like some sort of insect, every move of his being watched and scrutinized and speculated upon. It is disgusting, IMO, and no Catholic should be taking part in this. I have to tell it like it is. Many “traditionalist” Catholics are displaying a disturbing distrust of the Holy Spirit in guiding the Church, a total lack of respect for the Pope (which BTW is about as untraditional as you can get), and a fear that somehow the Church will be led into doctrinal error because the Pope did something not “traditional”. That is impossible folks. The Pope cannot change doctrine or teach error–and if one believes he can he is flirting with heresy. Stay away from those kinds of so-called “Catholic” websites. And the so-called “liberals” are just as bad, speculating about what every move means, how the Pope is going to get rid of traditions, etc., trying to put a spin on everything he does that is different.
The secular media is a circus–but we know that, yet we continue to give credence to every speculation and opinion out there. We are feeding off of this.

We need to repent of this behavior, adjust our attitudes, and PRAY for our Pope. And refuse to get caught up in idle speculation and fear. That, folks, is the work of the Evil One, and he is having a field day watching us become divided and giving in to fear and distrust. If we continue on this path, we will be the cause of our own undoing, allowing Satan to divide and conquer. And we will have to answer to Almighty God Himself for this, because His will is that we may be one.

Pray for Pope Francis. May God’s will, not ours, be done. We need to let that sink into our hearts. That is something the Saints can teach us. Let’s follow their example.
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Amen to everyone here. I’ll just say this: if you don’t please everyone, you’re probably doing what is right. 😉
 
Traditionalists have become used to interpreting papal actions in the worst possible way ever since John XXIII, and I certainly was one of those who, despite my original conversion, which was initiated by John Paul’s extraordinary witness as a pope from behind the Iron Curtain at a time when the Cold War seemed destined to be a permanent feature of human life & the Soviet bloc an indissoluble political power, went from disappointment over the altar girls’ decision in 1993 to regarding him as all-but-heretical – why, after all, would anyone choose the names JOHN and PAUL otherwise?

I found myself almost instantly on the outs with the community I was worshipping in by receiving Pope Francis with joy – God gave us a pastor who was nothing like the pastor I believed I wanted; but then I saw that my will had become unyielding, my mind darkened, and my heart hardened by failure to take the saints’ advice in always construing others’ actions & motives in the best possible light. This can be very hard to do – which is why the saints all recommend that we do it. “When we speak ill of others,” Francis told the small group of workers at mass a few days ago, “we become Judas, selling them for thirty pieces of silver.”
 
Eufrosnia said:
Meditating a bit about everything I have written, I feel that at times I have been very critical of our new Pope. Has he done things that are somewhat questionable (only in terms of actions and not teaching)? Yes. Does it upset me? Deeply.

But at the end of the day, I have come to ask myself, how am I a follower of Christ if I cannot forgive those shortcomings? One may say that it is hard to forget because the Pope may destroy/undermine the Church with his actions. But at the end of the day, we have had Pope’s who were downright criminal in our past. We have had schisms, the reformation. We have had a church that endured the Arian heresy that thrived for 6 centuries even after its condemnation by the Church. What are we afraid of?

Sometimes in this cloud of things, we may even be losing sight of the good that Pope Francis does. But even more problematically, we may even be losing sight of the good that God can bring about even through the not so good actions Pope Francis might even do. Yet here I am, constantly nagging on everything the Pope does like it will bring about the destruction of the Catholic faith.

Perhaps it is in one sense due to information overload. I have noticed that in the time period where I did not read the news during the last week, I was more at peace and filled with more hope. The moment I turn on the news today, I see the washing of the feet incident and I got upset. At the end of the day, does it really matter? As long as we know what the Pope meant, that he obviously did not mean to send a message about female ordination and that certainly no one considers the act imprudent in the sense of kissing the feet of a woman, does it really matter?

Even as I was able to pass off the female ordination issue since I knew the Pope couldn’t change it, I can tell you that the issue of possible imprudence bugged me. I am sure many Trad oriented Catholics like myself probably would see imprudence in general as something that might lead others to do the same.

Some thought in to this has lead me to think that this concern is perhaps misplaced. Prudence develops mainly through culture. Prudence trads have today was not always present in the Church either. At the beginning it was probably very basic. It formed over centuries to what it is that we know. But in our post Christian culture, many today are unaware of the values of prudence that we once knew.

Now if we wanted to enforce these values or their consideration from top down, it will not work. If the Pope had not done it, he would have been viewed as merely backword and possibly his valuable message discarded. The reason being that prudential values cannot be enforced from top down. It must come from society. Otherwise they will just be hostile to it.

We trads probably experience this most with modesty. No matter how true our concerns and reasonable the standards, society will think we are trying to enforce old views or suppress women. It is because the society is what needs to change. Then prudence follows.

This is why St. Paul or St. Peter was not primarily concerned with spreading values of prudence. They were more concerned with spreading doctrine and making others Christian. Why was that? I believe that was because they knew that the values come after. You cannot make people appreciate the Extraordinary form of the mass. The person has to change to appreciate the mass.

In the same way, I believe that Pope Francis himself is aware of this issue. He knows that if he were to bring people in to the Church, their transformation will lead them to embrace everything else and even the values of prudence and tradition. His primary task is evangelizing.

Something that I think hasn’t sunk in to us is that we are in a very critical point in history. Christianity is losing ground to secularism, atheism, agnosticism, Islam and even New Age religions. We cannot enforce traditions or values of prudence on such a population. They will think it ridiculous. The values of prudence and traditions shine in the eyes of the people ONLY when they have truly embraced the Church of Christ as their source of salvation and consequently all its teaching. So it is that which we should all seek. It is that which Pope Francis is also seeking.

We should keep these values that have been passed down to us with us. We should pass them on to our children. As people come in to the church, they can be the ones who pass down these values to them.

But now is not the time to cause strife or worry over these things. Now is the time to keep these treasures within us and do all we can to bring everyone IN TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. The time for protecting and enforcing traditions from top down is over. If Rome were to suddenly say tomorrow that EF mass is all we will have etc. we will lose more faithful than we will gain. We are back in the time of Early Christianity. Our main concern is to get people in to the Church. The traditions and vales of prudence will then be discovered by them as they strive to embrace and live the teachings of the Church.

So let us join forces with our Holy Father. Let us understand where he is coming from and understand the dire situation we are in. Let us understand that our fight was lost and the only way we can bring about tradition and prudence again is not by disruption but by an organic evolution of the faithful and society back in to it. Let us be patient, pray and let God act through us and the Church as we work toward our primary goal to BRING PEOPLE IN TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

–Eufrosnia
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Thank you for having the courage and the humilty to post one of most refreshing messages I’ve read here in a long time, especially on this very topic.
 
One of the worse things any traditionalist can do is to present himself or herself as part of a movement in conflict with the pope. First of all, the love for tradition should not be a movement. Movements are driven by ideologies, not love. Second, movements divide rather than construct.

When the secular world looks at liberals and traditionalists and hears them speak as if they were some huge movement that truly represents what the majority of Catholics feel and think, which is not true for either side, the media spins its own interpretation. I’m getting tired of reading article after article in the secular press discussing how the Church is falling apart, losing ground and how Catholics are allegedly so dissatisfied with the Church.

As a religious who spend his life in the trenches, I can tell you that these comments made by the extremes leave a very bad taste with those Catholics who know little or nothing about either side. I’m not too concerned about the stale taste left by the side pushing abortion, same-sex marriage, women’s ordination and whatever else I may have missed. They’re pushing the impossible. If the media says that they are dissatisfied with the Church, the response is simple. The Church is not too thrilled with them either.

However, the traditionalists are very different. The majority of people who are traditionalists are not political. They are not out there scrutinizing popes to see what they wear, whose feet they kiss, where they live, or how they speak. The majority of traditionalists are really very simple people who want to find the Lord using the traditional means that were always available and that some idiots said that they are no longer useful. It’s that simple.

What happens when the radical traditionalists and the scrupulous traditionalists open their mouths is that they do serious harm to the image of the pope in front of the secular world. They also do serious harm to traditionalists inside of our Church, making them look like fundamentalists, political and disaffected Catholics, which most traditionalists are not.

Let’s face it, it’s always the case that the loudest noise comes from the smallest wheel. Unfortunately, that’s who gets the attention. If traditionalists want the respect and support of the mainstream Catholic, they have to learn to be faithful without being ideological. Ideologies have not place in Christian life. They’re great for political campaigns, not for the salvation of souls.
 
I consider myself a Traditionalist Catholic, and I’ve yet to hear someone speak against Pope Francis. If you really go looking online, I’m sure you can find people saying just about anything. Unfortunately though, in a non-Traditional setting, I could go on for some time about the things I’ve heard said in Catholic churches in regards to the very open rejection of Catholic doctrine.
 
Thanks so much, Eufrosnia! What a wonderful, thought-provoking post!

You and I would be pals in real-life!

Your comments are excellent. Yes, I would say that we need to focus on the Great Commission and preach the Gospel and bring people into the Church of Jesus Christ.

I would say that your comments also apply to the various social issues like gay marriage and sexual looseness–if people become Christians, then the Holy Spirit will work in their hearts and souls to convict them of their sin. Unfortunately, though, we all know Christians who are practicing homosexuals, and/or who practice sexual immorality. So becoming a Christian isn’t going to make people “good.” But it certainly sets us on the right path.

The issue I wonder about is abortion. In the Evangelical Protestant churches, there is/was a lot of discussion about the importance of evangelizing and leading people to Jesus, and THEN they will understand that abortion is evil, and Roe v. Wade will be overturned in our nation. So I knew a lot of Protestant pastors and laypeople who encouraged us NOT to protest or get involved with the politics of choice vs. life, but rather, to work to bring people into the Kingdom of God.

I don’t agree with this approach, although I certainly think we need to work to bring people into the Kingdom of God!

However, statistics show a sobering number of abortions performed on Christians (Protestant and Catholic). IMO, we can’t just ignore a grave evil like abortion and deal with it only by evangelizing. We must work to stop evil of abortion in our society. Abortion is the killing of human beings of all religions and all belief-systems. Even atheists are aborted. We need to have a dual approach–work to bring people to Jesus and work to stop abortion.

But when it comes to the actions of the Pope, I agree with you Eufrosnia–let’s pray and work to bring people to Jesus and into the Catholic Church!
 
Cat said:
The issue I wonder about is abortion. In the Evangelical Protestant churches, there is/was a lot of discussion about the importance of evangelizing and leading people to Jesus, and THEN they will understand that abortion is evil, and Roe v. Wade will be overturned in our nation. So I knew a lot of Protestant pastors and laypeople who encouraged us NOT to protest or get involved with the politics of choice vs. life, but rather, to work to bring people into the Kingdom of God.

I don’t agree with this approach, although I certainly think we need to work to bring people into the Kingdom of God!

However, statistics show a sobering number of abortions performed on Christians (Protestant and Catholic). IMO, we can’t just ignore a grave evil like abortion and deal with it only by evangelizing. We must work to stop evil of abortion in our society. Abortion is the killing of human beings of all religions and all belief-systems. Even atheists are aborted. We need to have a dual approach–work to bring people to Jesus and work to stop abortion.
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I am glad if the post was helpful in anyway 🙂

About the issue you speak of above, I think it is due to the problem of not truly being Christian. For most, including Catholics today, to be Christian is solely based on a personal relationship with Christ. The Bible, the Church is then viewed and filtered through that relationship. So this creates Catholics and non-Catholic Christians alike that sometimes disagree with teachings of the Church with perhaps a honest conviction that they are right. They will perhaps pray to Christ and guidance of the Holy Spirit and once their minds feel convinced, proceed to embrace their own view as that of Christ. Some Christians will embrace the spirit of the world. In this sense, they will make claims about religion itself. For an example, one Christian might say that “I believe, all religions are the same. Christ, Buddha etc are just different manifestations of God”. They will not question how they became aware of such a truth which without divine revelation is certainly not knowable to humanity. Anyway, all these groups will then proceed to filter the Bible and the Church or any other source of truth through their views.

But Christianity is not about that. Christianity is a primary assent to the authority of Christ and then as a result an assent to the authority of his Church. So the Christian, first and foremost assents to the Church. Then it learns about Christ through the Church. It is the Church that guides the faithful in their relationship with Christ through its teachings about Christ, sacraments, and prayers. Without the Church, we cannot know Christ with much accuracy. We end up super imposing our own views on to Christ. What is important to note is that in this sense, the Church comes even before the Bible. We believe the Church not because the Bible says so. Rather, a true Christian believes the Bible because the Church says so. The Church is our rock.

So I feel that the biggest issue today is that we indeed do not have Christians who understand this. Even priests today do not seem to understand the importance of the Church. I have had the misfortune of encountering several priests who bad mouth the Church and even try to equate the Church to pharisees on issues such as same sex marriage or abortion. That all stems from a misunderstanding on how our faith works and the order of our assent.

I think Pope Francis knows this too and I have read some of his homilies that point out the importance of the Church. He compares the Church to Mary at one point in a homily as a Cardinal where he compares how Jesus entered the world through Mary, the Church acts as a type of Mary that brings forth Christ today to its children. He goes so far as to say that just as we venerate Mary, we should also venerate the Church. Even defend it against those who try to deride it.

So I believe that if we were to re-evangelize our already mostly Christian brothers and sisters (both Catholics and non-Catholic) to understand that they must assent to the Church with their entire wills, then they will not only change society but also not be as confused from the spirit of the times.

This is why I said that our goal should be to bring people in to the Church.

Does it mean that no one will sin after that? No. People will fall and sin but they will pick themselves up, go to confession and continue to fight the good fight. What we have today instead are people who fall, then justify their sin as something good or tolerable through their relationship with Christ or from the spirit of the times (secularism, atheism, etc), and continue in their sin. The entire problem here is the distorted view of the phrase personal relationship with Christ and implicit raising of ones own ideas to the level of divine revelation.

But if we were to show these individuals the importance of the Church, they will grow in their relationship with Christ inside the nurturing walls of his Church and therefore not go astray. Society will change as individuals change, and even the old traditions and values of prudence will be rediscovered as individuals try to live their lives in a way pleasing to Christ.

In this way, we will be like the early Christians. They lived in similar times where the Roman empire was morally decadent. The Christians at the time did not primarily protest the empire. They protested in more deadly way through refusing to agree with what the surrounding culture imposed and converting others in to the fold of Christ, the Church. They were even willing to die for it as well. Instead of trying to have “good” non Christians, they primarily sought to spread Christianity so that others too will strive to be good. Perhaps that is what we need today as well. Get people in to the Church, then they will change society and in turn, everything else will follow.
 
Traditionalist need to understand, the pope IS Christ represenative on earth, he holds the keys of heaven and what is bound on earth is bound in heaven and what is loosed on earth id loosed in heaven. Pope Francis has done nothing against doctrin.
The RED is dispinlinary and he has the right to followe it or not, his decision.

Traditionalist need to take heed of Christ own words,
“get behind me satan, you are thinking as man not as God”
 
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