Is it just me or is Traditional Catholicism (especially online) hijacked by a Pharisee spirit?

[Servant31]

I do agree with your general sentiment. But at the same time I think it’s best to be fair and also say that the other end (the very “liberal” Catholic side) also fall prey to this mindset…that they’re more Catholic than others.

There are a lot of flaws on this body and we need to take a step back and keep eyes on God and not politics or personal preferences.

Couldn’t agree more, I get frustrated at times tbh. On the one side there are the self righteous, fire and brimstone who fail to recognize that rather large plank in their own eye. On the other there are the compassion automatically equals permissiveness, and are often as rigid in the opposite direction. And yet the confessional lines are still quite short. It’s Jesus’ church not ours.

Edit: just for clarity, i in no way think all traditional Catholics fit in this mold. I think it’s the extreme types on either side of the spectrum, no matter what the form, NO or TLM.

 

[Shakuhachi]

And the unfortunate thing is, at least in my view, neither political side welcomes truly Catholic social justice.

 

[pnewton]

That was not how I read the OP, but insults aren’t very useful. Pope Francis has made similar observations. Neither name names, because that would be all that stuff you accredited do the original poster here, which is wrong.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Perhaps one problem is the definition of what is charitable and loving. It is not charitable or loving or merciful to allow a child to play near a cliff edge, however fun it looks. The motger who says no! will be perceived as harsh, rigid, uncharitable etc. But she will in fact doing what a loving mother should do.

The spiritual reality is much more delicate than that so the analogy doesn’t really do it justice.

Neither name names, because that would be all that stuff you accredited do the original poster here, which is wrong.

There needs to be a clear example otherwise they will not understand or talk past each other.

 

[francisca.chapter3]

The word “pharisee” does not mean something bad. Jesus condemned some pharisees at the time. Just a short comment from me.

Go back to the main topic, I think legalistic, rigid, close minded attitude in searching for God is wrong attitude for anybody, because God is so Great, that it takes humility & pondering heart on our part, in order that God reveals Himself to us.

And not only now, that such attitude present.

It was then at Jesus time, the pharisees & the teachers of the law then. And later, the individuals in the church, lay & scholars, and even at the councils too. There were & are always people who think they own all truths in their little minds, that they have somewhat, have figured it out all about God.

The absence of love in the rigidity of religion is the falsehood in itself.

Luke 10:21
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

 

[twf]

Yes, as a young zealous convert to Catholicism I was temporarily pulled into the “only a very tiny percentage of Catholics understand and hold the true faith of the Fathers” secret knowledge mindset. Oh how I loved to judge those ignorant “liberal” priests and faithful.

 

[francisca.chapter3]

Oh how I loved to judge those ignorant “liberal” priests and faithful.

All of us are ignorant.

Only God understands God. Therefore we ask The Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth.

Say to those councils of the past, who use sword to teach about God:

Zechariah 4:6
So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit ,’ says the Lord Almighty.

 

[Bill_B_NY]

I am finding it increasingly worrisome that Traditional Catholicism is being subsumed by a Pharisee spirit. Let me make my position clear from the off, there ought to be no left (“liberal”) or right (“traditional”) wings of the Church. Truth is Truth. However they make useful classifications, for the sake of argument. And they do help to distinguish between the forces behind the ebbs and flows of Catholic thought. In this context, Traditionals are those who for example who enjoy Latin Mass.

I don’t think this is a fair or useful way of expressing a concern. You have offered no specifics here except that everyone (?) who enjoys the Latin Mass is being subsumed by a Pharisee spirit? Obviously, you mean “certain individuals” are doing something that bothers you. But why pick on this group of people? Aren’t there people in every group that sin?

However, rejection of VII, the New Mass, and ultimately the embodying a spirit of insubordination is what seems to have consumed a considerable portion of Traditional Catholics (at least online). This is being exacerbated by the proliferation of social media charlatans, so prevalent in this space.

This is a very sweeping judgement about people. I think it actually is against CAF rules. We shouldn’t claim that a group of Catholics are involved in sin - while exempting everyone else.

This is why I am so grateful that we have CA. We should not take this community for granted. Having Tim Staples at the helm of CA Apologetics, is no small matter. I think this is one of the main reasons CA remains a such a great and level headed source of knowledge amidst SO MUCH noise out there at the moment.

Is Tim Staples free from sin? Is he holier than everyone else? I understand what you mean - you like Tim’s style better than others, or you like the topics he talks about. But let’s not throw condemnations widly around at people who attend Latin Masses. If there are attitudes that need to be corrected, there is a better way to do it.

I apologise if this comes across as a rant but I hope others might share their views too. Hopefully I am not too off beam with this!

I know what you’re getting at but I do not think this is the right way to address it. You’re pointing your finger at – just about anyone at all and the charge is certain attitudes that we can’t evaluate.
The goal is to understand others - help them. If someone has done something wrong, help to correct it. Or, maybe we can learn from others, even if we don’t like them.
Maybe traditionalists point out issues that we do not like to think about - so we attack them?
Have we considered that many who attend Latin Masses have made many sacrifices and suffered a lot of persecution just to have those Masses permitted in their diocese? It has not been an easy road - there has been (and still is) opposition all the way.
Let’s be kind to others, even when we might not like their personality.
if there is a sin - we have our own sins also, don’t we?

 

[PrayForMe]

In some regards, yes, Traditionalists can give off a Pharisaical vibe, but it depends on the person or group and their beliefs. I interacted with a good many Traditionalists online for a while before disavowing all of that a few years ago. As another poster noted earlier in this thread, the internet tends to attract people with extreme views anyway because it is a “safe haven” of sorts for them to confidently and anonymously peddle their ideology with sometimes little to no consequences. There are those in the Trad movement who hold some hysterically poisonous views, from declaring the Chair of Peter vacant to being “conclavists” who think they possess the authority to elect a Pope. I encountered one individual online once who claimed HE is the Pope! (To this day, never knew if he was serious or trolling.)

But Traditionalists like that represent a very small sample size of the Traditional movement as a whole. The majority of Traditional Catholics - including those whom I know in real life - are good people and faithful Catholics, even if I may not always share their beliefs.

As a general rule, Catholics who frequent Fraternity of St. Peter or Diocese-offered Latin Masses are fine. The SSPX contains a mixed bag, but it’s mostly when you move into the far-right Traditionalist circles - such as sedevacantists and the SSPX-MC/Resistance or whatever they call themselves these days - that you witness some real “cuckoo-crazy” ideology.

The real problem with the Traditionalist movement, as someone else noted in this thread, is they can (not always) become so absorbed in the Latin Mass and Traditional school of thought that they disregard the actual tenants of the Faith. They become so attracted to the attributes that they sometimes ignore the actual substance. They can also, at times, be so sure of their views that they arrogantly and uncharitably challenge anyone who doesn’t see things their way; in some cases, if you don’t share their views, you’re ostracized altogether. That is where Traditional Catholicism can occasionally exhibit a ‘Pharisee spirit’.

 

[Bill_B_NY]

The real problem with the Traditionalist movement, as someone else noted in this thread, is they can (not always) become so absorbed in the Latin Mass and Traditional school of thought that they disregard the actual tenants of the Faith. They become so attracted to the attributes that they sometimes ignore the actual substance . They can also, at times, be so sure of their views that they arrogantly and uncharitably challenge anyone who doesn’t see things their way; in some cases, if you don’t share their views, you’re ostracized altogether. That is where Traditional Catholicism can occasionally exhibit a ‘Pharisee spirit’.

It might be interesting if someone defended Traditonalist Catholics and attacked their opponents in a way similar to what we see here. I mean, someone who is ready to get kicked off of this site.

 

[LisaB]

This threat of a Pharisee spirit is truly a Trojan Horse- one unknowingly gives up their heart so as to appear outwardly wholesome. This allure of gnosticism and triumphalism is rearing its head in the widespread insubordination we see consuming Traditionals.

So to clarify, you believe traditionalists do things like practice old devotions and attend Latin Mass for the sake of appearance, to come across as better Catholics than everyone else? Is that what you are saying? If so, what would be the motive for anyone to do this? Maybe you can provide specific examples of what the Pharisee spirit looks like in daily life.

 

[PrayForMe]

You have it backwards. It’s the NO Catholics that have the spirit of the pharasees. If a traditional Catholic raises any kind of question about Vatican II or the NO Mass. They get treated as though they’re a bigger heretic than protestants.

Huh… so I guess those that criticized the First Vatican Council, as well as those who started the Reformation, were also right to question the motives of the Church?

Also, I don’t think it’s necessary to categorize all those in the mainstream Church as “Novus Ordo Catholics”.

 

[LisaB]

The real problem with the Traditionalist movement, as someone else noted in this thread, is they can (not always) become so absorbed in the Latin Mass and Traditional school of thought that they disregard the actual tenants of the Faith. They become so attracted to the attributes that they sometimes ignore the actual substance.

For example?

 

[PrayForMe]

For example?

There are those in the Traditionalist movement who criticize anyone and anything that they don’t consider “Traditional” enough. They can also become so attached to the Latin Mass that they would stay home on Sundays before they would go to what they consider an “inferior Novus Ordo Mass”.

By the way, I do not intend to make a generalization here. I am not saying all or even most Traditionalists or Latin Mass goers are like that. I am saying that some CAN be.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I think it has been this way since the beginning of the Church.

 

[stpurl]

Also the problem is that people do not recognize that any individual Catholic can do the very same things that you attribute to ‘traditionalist movement’.

IOW, it is not a ‘traditionalist movement’ that causes problems, but individuals WITHIN the movement who go to extremes. Believe me there are plenty of individuals (some here) who are so attracted to, as an example, “Mass in my own language’ that they ignore what Mass is all about. And boy do they challenge people. “How CAN you want Mass in Latin, you elitist? How come you don’t want people to understand?” (Get the idea?). And the dismissive attitude. . . Yet these people are not ‘traditionalists’ at all.

The real problem is individuals who mistakenly take some aspect of their faith and make that into something ‘over’ God. And the proportion of ‘just plain Catholic’ people who have elevated what they consider to be “just plain necessary” is far higher than traditionalists who ‘appear’ to make, say, “Latin Mass’ into ‘the real necessity in life’.

 

[stpurl]

And some people who attend the OF are so fixated on “mass in my language’ that they are not only dismissive of the Latin Mass but utterly contemptuous of it and those who attend it. Even a former poster here, a European priest, was so disgusted by what he called the “Vetus Ordo” he said Pope Benedict should never have issued the Moto Proprio and that Latin Mass should not exist.

 

[PrayForMe]

IOW, it is not a ‘traditionalist movement’ that causes problems, but individuals WITHIN the movement who go to extremes. Believe me there are plenty of individuals (some here) who are so attracted to, as an example, “Mass in my own language’ that they ignore what Mass is all about. And boy do they challenge people. “How CAN you want Mass in Latin, you elitist? How come you don’t want people to understand?” (Get the idea?). And the dismissive attitude. . . Yet these people are not ‘traditionalists’ at all.

I don’t disagree. Anyone can exhibit tendencies unbecoming of a Christian. My point, though, is that certain circles within the Traditional movement can sometimes be more prone to the previously mentioned faults because of their insubordination and lack of structured guidance.

 

[stpurl]

Get thee behind me Satan LOL

 

[stpurl]

Insubordination?

And this does not exist in those who attend the OF? Really?