M
mgsk
Guest
Just musing on the topic, really. I couldn’t remain silent any longer!What are you talking about?
- Status
M
Marcin_L
Guest
I am extremely happy to see Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio becoming the new Holy Father.
At the same time, I am a strong supporter of Opus Dei.
What can we expect in terms of the new Pope - Opus Dei relations? Should we be mindful of the historic tensions between the Jesuits and The Work?
At the same time, I am a strong supporter of Opus Dei.
What can we expect in terms of the new Pope - Opus Dei relations? Should we be mindful of the historic tensions between the Jesuits and The Work?
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pnewton
Guest
I do not think this will be an issue. He is now the head of both.
D
Debora123
Guest
No. It shows that I have a sense of humor and make jokes every once in a while.
S
Sirach2
Guest
To you and to Malphono who applauded your post:
Where are my exact words **opposing **the S.P.? This is exactly the kind of disunity I was speaking about, particularly when trads deliberately misquote others to futher their own agenda. Please read my post in an honest manner.
M
mgsk
Guest
If it was a joke, it certainly wasn’t a funny one.No. It shows that I have a sense of humor and make jokes every once in a while.
But then I’m more partial to British comedy. Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, You Rang M’Lord?, etc. It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humour.
J
JReducation
Guest
The man has been pope less than a week. It’s hard to speculate where he’s going and what he’s going to offer. It’s like reading tea leaves. I think that if traditionalists pay attention, he’ll have a great deal to offer us.
The first thing that he will do for us is to help us broaden our view of what it means to be traditional. It goes beyond the liturgy. We have often narrowed traditionalism to liturgy and to customs. We’ve left out other elements that are important part of Catholic tradition. I just mention one simple thing and leave it at that. Jesuit religious life. Jesuit religious life is very much a part of tradition. It is a gift to the Church.
We have not had a consecrated man leading the Church since the 19th century. Every pope has been a secular priest. Pope Francis will bring the Jesuit experience to the papacy. His presence in the Chair of Peter will remind the world that religious life still plays an essential part in the life of the Church. It cannot be dismissed or ignored. Pope John Paul wrote that the consecrated life is essential to the Church and that without it, the Church would cease to be Catholic. Unfortunately, because of some of the insanity between Vatican I and Vatican II, the face of religious life was deformed. The recovery was been slow and painful.
He will also open our view of the Church. He will remind all of us that there is more to the Church than that which is important to me. There are other members of the Church with other needs and other gifts. They too deserve the Church’s attention and deserve to be included, not just those who profess a love for the EF.
I think that he will help us correct our view of the papacy. The papacy can lead men to Christ, protect the faith, and govern the faithful whether the pope is a an external monarch or an ascetic. There is not one absolute model of the papacy. The papacy has a human and divine quality. The human is a reflection of who the man is. Maybe he can teach us that we must allow people to be the men and women that God means them to be, not what we believe they should be. The latter is usually our own image and likeness, not God’s image and Likeness.
He’s already bringing Franciscanism to the forefront. I’ve been watching EWTN. Every two hours or so there is a little something on St. Francis of Assisi. Catholics who may have been watching EWTN are getting an intensive course on St. Francis and Franciscan ecclesiology, which is very much a part of tradition.
There are going to be those in the traditionalist camp and the liberal camp who are not going to get anything out of this man’s work and presence. They have their own agenda. I think that two greatest obstacles to the radical traditionalist are going to be the “Jesuit and Franciscan Spirituality” It is no secret the radical traditionalists would like to see Jesuits and Franciscans in Dante’s lowest circle in the Inferno. These folks are going to resist. But that’s not a surprise. No one is ever going to please everyone.
The first thing that he will do for us is to help us broaden our view of what it means to be traditional. It goes beyond the liturgy. We have often narrowed traditionalism to liturgy and to customs. We’ve left out other elements that are important part of Catholic tradition. I just mention one simple thing and leave it at that. Jesuit religious life. Jesuit religious life is very much a part of tradition. It is a gift to the Church.
We have not had a consecrated man leading the Church since the 19th century. Every pope has been a secular priest. Pope Francis will bring the Jesuit experience to the papacy. His presence in the Chair of Peter will remind the world that religious life still plays an essential part in the life of the Church. It cannot be dismissed or ignored. Pope John Paul wrote that the consecrated life is essential to the Church and that without it, the Church would cease to be Catholic. Unfortunately, because of some of the insanity between Vatican I and Vatican II, the face of religious life was deformed. The recovery was been slow and painful.
He will also open our view of the Church. He will remind all of us that there is more to the Church than that which is important to me. There are other members of the Church with other needs and other gifts. They too deserve the Church’s attention and deserve to be included, not just those who profess a love for the EF.
I think that he will help us correct our view of the papacy. The papacy can lead men to Christ, protect the faith, and govern the faithful whether the pope is a an external monarch or an ascetic. There is not one absolute model of the papacy. The papacy has a human and divine quality. The human is a reflection of who the man is. Maybe he can teach us that we must allow people to be the men and women that God means them to be, not what we believe they should be. The latter is usually our own image and likeness, not God’s image and Likeness.
He’s already bringing Franciscanism to the forefront. I’ve been watching EWTN. Every two hours or so there is a little something on St. Francis of Assisi. Catholics who may have been watching EWTN are getting an intensive course on St. Francis and Franciscan ecclesiology, which is very much a part of tradition.
There are going to be those in the traditionalist camp and the liberal camp who are not going to get anything out of this man’s work and presence. They have their own agenda. I think that two greatest obstacles to the radical traditionalist are going to be the “Jesuit and Franciscan Spirituality” It is no secret the radical traditionalists would like to see Jesuits and Franciscans in Dante’s lowest circle in the Inferno. These folks are going to resist. But that’s not a surprise. No one is ever going to please everyone.
D
Debora123
Guest
Booooo party pooper!
Haha, “M’Lord”…But then I’m more partial to British comedy. Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, You Rang M’Lord?, etc. It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humour.
Lol, ok anyway… let’s let the good people of this thread get back to the topic at hand.
J
JPCheryl
Guest
I am interested to know how one would characterize a “traditionalist?” What is such a Catholic?
J
JReducation
Guest
Bold is mine.
A pope is a traditionalist. There is no such thing as a non-traditionalist pope. As Pope Benedict said to the SSPX. The pope and only the pope can say what is and is not part of tradition.
J
JReducation
Guest
My guess, only a guess, is that he will probably affect the radical traditionalist more than the mainstream traditionalist.
My experience, belonging to a very traditional community myself, is that mainstream traditionalists are very open to the whole of Catholic tradition. This whole includes submission to authority in all things but sin. This too is part of Catholic tradition. Saints don’t become saint by bucking authority, but my submitting with an attitude of deference, respect, penance, sacrifice and detachment from self.
We have our preferences. We identify those things that nurture us and those things that we need to recover, because what we tried did not work. It was a good experiment, but it did not all work. However, just because something didn’t work, the mainstream traditionalist doesn’t take to the soapbox. He or she quietly works on fixing it, but always guided by the voice of authority. Good manners, respect, courtesy and self-effacement are very much part of our spiritual tradition.
The mainstream traditionalist is also a well educated person. He or she knows that within tradition there is great diversity. There has always been diversity. We allow room for that too.
The radical traditionalist will be affected in the sense that he or she is usually rigid. He has an image of the Church, the papacy and Christian life where there is no room for personality, diversity, culture, and human idiosyncrasy. I keep harping back to religious life, which I know bothers the radical traditionalist. But the truth is that religious life is very much an essential part of the life of the Church as the Council of Trent said and as different popes have said. We can’t pretend that it is not important and that it should have no influence in Church life, especially the papacy.
The truth of the matter is that it does. Whenever we’ve had a pope who is a religious, the charism of his community has shone through his manner of doing things and manner of governing. Some names that come to minds are Pius V, the great Dominican Friar. Stop and remember where the custom of white papal robes comes from. It was St. Pius V who wore the Dominican habit.
Cestine was very much the monk. His monastic vocation was so ingrained in him that he couldn’t tolerate being pope. What did he do? He enacted a law that allowed him and his successors to abdicate. We have had four Franciscan friars who have been popes. None of them were very efficient administrators. Why not? Administration is not a Franciscan strength. St. Francis of Assisi was the worse administrator in the history of religious life. Unlike St. Benedict who wrote a rule that covered every possible contingency, St. Francis left a great deal to Divine Providence. His successors and his sons have always flown by the seat of their pants. This was very obvious in their papacies.
Today, we have a Jesuit. Jesuits are missionaries, teachers, preachers, and common laborers. They are scholars, but they are not hierarchs. They have always shied away from everything that sets them apart from other the secular man. They never had a formal habit. Even though they make the same vow as Franciscans, St. Ignatius saw to it that the Church gave them dispensations from every demand imposed by those vows. Many people don’t know this.
St. Ignatius took the vows from the Franciscans. The Franciscans make solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They also make a solemn vow to pray the LOTH and to obey the pope. However, St. Ignatius felt that the vows imposed restrictions on the Jesuits. He got the Church to allow them to follow the vows according to the individual judgment of each Jesuit, rather than a communal and uniform observance as the Franciscans have. While they have the same vows as we do, they do not live them in community and they have the freedom to interpret them according to the circumstances in which the individual finds himself.
Now we have a Jesuit pope. He’s going to come with this historical background. He’s going to follow papal traditions and customs according to what he believes is appropriate for him, just as the Jesuits do with everything else. But this is not dissent from tradition. This is part of Jesuit tradition. However, I can imagine radical traditionalists unwilling to accept this freedom that St. Ignatius and the Church built into the life of the Jesuits. They will be upset each time that the pope goes left when custom says that he should go right. If they are to rigid about this, they’re going to be very upset by this man.
My experience, belonging to a very traditional community myself, is that mainstream traditionalists are very open to the whole of Catholic tradition. This whole includes submission to authority in all things but sin. This too is part of Catholic tradition. Saints don’t become saint by bucking authority, but my submitting with an attitude of deference, respect, penance, sacrifice and detachment from self.
We have our preferences. We identify those things that nurture us and those things that we need to recover, because what we tried did not work. It was a good experiment, but it did not all work. However, just because something didn’t work, the mainstream traditionalist doesn’t take to the soapbox. He or she quietly works on fixing it, but always guided by the voice of authority. Good manners, respect, courtesy and self-effacement are very much part of our spiritual tradition.
The mainstream traditionalist is also a well educated person. He or she knows that within tradition there is great diversity. There has always been diversity. We allow room for that too.
The radical traditionalist will be affected in the sense that he or she is usually rigid. He has an image of the Church, the papacy and Christian life where there is no room for personality, diversity, culture, and human idiosyncrasy. I keep harping back to religious life, which I know bothers the radical traditionalist. But the truth is that religious life is very much an essential part of the life of the Church as the Council of Trent said and as different popes have said. We can’t pretend that it is not important and that it should have no influence in Church life, especially the papacy.
The truth of the matter is that it does. Whenever we’ve had a pope who is a religious, the charism of his community has shone through his manner of doing things and manner of governing. Some names that come to minds are Pius V, the great Dominican Friar. Stop and remember where the custom of white papal robes comes from. It was St. Pius V who wore the Dominican habit.
Cestine was very much the monk. His monastic vocation was so ingrained in him that he couldn’t tolerate being pope. What did he do? He enacted a law that allowed him and his successors to abdicate. We have had four Franciscan friars who have been popes. None of them were very efficient administrators. Why not? Administration is not a Franciscan strength. St. Francis of Assisi was the worse administrator in the history of religious life. Unlike St. Benedict who wrote a rule that covered every possible contingency, St. Francis left a great deal to Divine Providence. His successors and his sons have always flown by the seat of their pants. This was very obvious in their papacies.
Today, we have a Jesuit. Jesuits are missionaries, teachers, preachers, and common laborers. They are scholars, but they are not hierarchs. They have always shied away from everything that sets them apart from other the secular man. They never had a formal habit. Even though they make the same vow as Franciscans, St. Ignatius saw to it that the Church gave them dispensations from every demand imposed by those vows. Many people don’t know this.
St. Ignatius took the vows from the Franciscans. The Franciscans make solemn vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They also make a solemn vow to pray the LOTH and to obey the pope. However, St. Ignatius felt that the vows imposed restrictions on the Jesuits. He got the Church to allow them to follow the vows according to the individual judgment of each Jesuit, rather than a communal and uniform observance as the Franciscans have. While they have the same vows as we do, they do not live them in community and they have the freedom to interpret them according to the circumstances in which the individual finds himself.
Now we have a Jesuit pope. He’s going to come with this historical background. He’s going to follow papal traditions and customs according to what he believes is appropriate for him, just as the Jesuits do with everything else. But this is not dissent from tradition. This is part of Jesuit tradition. However, I can imagine radical traditionalists unwilling to accept this freedom that St. Ignatius and the Church built into the life of the Jesuits. They will be upset each time that the pope goes left when custom says that he should go right. If they are to rigid about this, they’re going to be very upset by this man.
S
Sirach2
Guest
To expand a bit on the role of pope, I was impressed with Pope Francis’s audience with communications professionals. It received slight attention in our Catholic News forum, but it is a solemn truth that I hope was absorbed by the faithful who watched this on EWTN or elsewhere.
"Christ", he continued, “is the centre, not the Successor of Peter…Christ is the reference point at the heart of the Church, without Him, Peter and the Church would not exist”. The protagonist of all these events, said the Pope, is the Holy Spirit: “it was He who inspired the decision of Benedict XVI for the good of the Church, it was He who inspired the choice of the Cardinals”. It is important to keep this in mind, he added, as we try to interpret the events of the past few days.
[90 out of 115 votes is a most impressive “inspired choice.”]
Pope Francis then reflected on what he called the “trinity of communication: Truth, Goodness and Beauty”. “We are not called to communicate ourselves, but this trinity…the Church exists to communicate Truth, Goodness and Beauty”.
J
JReducation
Guest
S
spartan_cop
Guest
Then if eliminating the EF is the only way to bring unity and only allowing the OF then you can agree that charismatic mass and others like them should be taken away as well no? To only have the OF and the rubrics celebrated according to the book word for word for the sake of unity? I am sure there are many here who are very happy of the possibility of the EF taken away, and they don’t have to say anything they know who they are.
L
Limerickman
Guest
Rather than second guessing perhaps we need to wait and see how this Papacy evolves?
S
spartan_cop
Guest
That’s been going on for years. Can’t say anything good about SP or the EF without certain individuals coming on and stating things. So much for humility
F
flameburns623
Guest
A lot of my traditional-Catholic, traditionalist-Catholic, and other FB friends are going bonkers over things which His Holiness has done or hasn’t done as Cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
I’ve seen photos of the Cardinal supposedly giving a Masonic salute. (Or possibly, just scratching an itch, presuming the picture wasn’t photoshopped).
I’ve seen him in YouTube videos giving his approval to liturgically-irregular Masses.
I’ve seen who knows how many reports of thus-and-so, frequently contradicted by others reporting on the same piece of datum but with a different perspective and a different set of facts.
I finally posted on my FB page that while I am fully prepared for the remote possibility that Pope Francis is an antipope;
Or that the Papacy has been sede vacante since my grandparent’s day;
Or that there is a vast network of hostile, technically-advanced space beings residing on the proto-planet Pluto waiting for a sign from the Vatican to destroy the human race–
I’d sorta like to wait till His Holiness is actually installed before I surrender to entertaining such speculation in depth.
I’ve seen photos of the Cardinal supposedly giving a Masonic salute. (Or possibly, just scratching an itch, presuming the picture wasn’t photoshopped).
I’ve seen him in YouTube videos giving his approval to liturgically-irregular Masses.
I’ve seen who knows how many reports of thus-and-so, frequently contradicted by others reporting on the same piece of datum but with a different perspective and a different set of facts.
I finally posted on my FB page that while I am fully prepared for the remote possibility that Pope Francis is an antipope;
Or that the Papacy has been sede vacante since my grandparent’s day;
Or that there is a vast network of hostile, technically-advanced space beings residing on the proto-planet Pluto waiting for a sign from the Vatican to destroy the human race–
I’d sorta like to wait till His Holiness is actually installed before I surrender to entertaining such speculation in depth.
D
Debora123
Guest
Why would you think there might even be a remote possibility of this?
What has he done so far that would even make that thought cross your mind? Just curious.
P
PJD1987
Guest
Based on the context of the rest of the post, I believe he/she said this in a tongue-in-cheek manner.Why would you think there might even be a remote possibility of this?
What has he done so far that would even make that thought cross your mind? Just curious.
M
mgsk
Guest
The space aliens on Pluto helpedBased on the context of the rest of the post, I believe he/she said this in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
- Status