WOW. Balance, where do you get the idea that somehow Traditional Catholics don’t care about having a relationship with Christ?? Please step down off of your self-righteous pedestal.
You’ve misunderstood me, and I’ll accept that it might have been because I wasn’t as clear as I could have been.
Again, you use the phrase “Traditional Catholic” and I’d ask, what exactly do you mean by that? Is that something different to a “Catholic”? Do you and I belong to different churches or to the same one? What, then, exactly differentiates us - or to put it another way, why do you choose a label that makes a distinction between you and me?
So I don’t believe that “Traditional Catholics” (whatever that means) don’t care about having a relationship with Christ.
what I said was: “I want the same things you want - but it seems to me you and your ilk want them so that some kind of triumphant “Catholicism” can again reign supreme, not so that the ordinary men and women of this world can find peace and love and healing in Christ.”
What I meant was that it seems to me that what comes through to me in the posts of many people who *label themselves * “Traditional Catholics,” thus setting themselves apart from the rest of us Catholics, is a kind of spirituality which seems to be focussed on the things of God rather than on God himself. They speak a lot about “abuses” and “correct liturgy” and “mortal sin” and so on (and mostly, everything they say is orthodox) but Christ seems to come second a lot of the time. Read the message boards, read the things people say one second and how it matches what they proclaim themselves to be in the next second. It’s there in the posts - this is not something I say from reading one post, it’s something that comes across from reading many, or, in the real world, from knowing someone for a while.
This is not a statement I make lightly, believe me. But I have met, again and again and again, people who loudly and fiercely proclaim themselves to be “Traditional” or “Orthodox” but whose behavour is so often suspicious, hard-faced, rude, confrontational, uptight and uncharitable. The people I know who are *really *orthodox (ie, in love with Christ and his Church) and whose faith is rooted in the traditions of the Church don’t
ever need to label themselves as such. They just get on with it.
I’m not saying every person who labels themselves “orthodox” or “Traditional” is like this - it seems to be a trend though.
I do think that Catholicism “reigning supreme” will help men and women find peace, love, and healing through Christ–don’t you?
No I don’t! For a start, the Church will never have the place in society that she once had. What will help men and women find Christ is lay Catholics waking up and living out their call to love.
They don’t have to state it first thing on their website because they DO it.
But isn’t it telling, in a world that needs a clear proclamation of Christ, that the first thing on their website is not a clear proclamation of Christ but an obscure sentence about the priesthood? Completely orthodox, but not that clear.
Actions speak louder than words…
That’s my point about many who label themselves with things like “Tradional” or “orthodox” - their actions speak loudly than their words. Their words are all about love of Christ, and devotion, and obedience, and authority, and their actions are often something less.
I’m not on any high horse or pedestal here - I used to be a bit like what I’m describing - then I grew up.
Do you think that the SSPX has some kind of evil motive and doesn’t want people to know Christ?
Umm, now that you mention it…
No, unlike many Catholics I’ve met, I don’t buy into conspiracy theories.
I think they do want people to know Christ - I just think they’re going about it in a
very wrongheaded way.
And it doesn’t “suggest” they are ordaining priests is the end in itself–YOU suggested that when you read that into it…apparently you want it to suggest that.
Yeah, maybe I was reading a bit much into it. i still wonder why they wrote it like that though.
The SSPX … who attend their chapels are QUITE loving and charitable and focused on Christ (hint: that’s why they attend a Mass that’s focused on CHRIST and not on other people!)
I attend Mass that’s focussed on Christ and not on other people too.
Archbishop Lefebvre (may he rest in peace) didn’t “excommunicate himself.”
Well, that’s what excommunication is, a personal choice to put oneself outside the Church, after repeated attempts by the Church to encourage the person in question to put aside their sin and disobedience. Archbishop Lefebvre decided not to repent, and so excommunicated himself. That’s not what his followers see it, but it’s how actual Catholics see it.
. *If *the Wesleyan tradition is in such a bad way, of course you should be concerned about it.