gpmj12
Active member
Mike Lewis, Where Peter Is, commentates on this state of affairs and the culpability of those who are shamelessly encouraging the next generation of Catholics to regard the papacy as nothing more authoritative than any other Joe blow with an opinion.
It’s unclear who these trolls are (Bitter teenagers? Loners in their mothers’ basements? Russian spies? The same person with 10,000 Twitter accounts?), but it’s not hard to find similar attitudes and opinions from people who use their real names, both online and in person. The repetitiveness and uniformity of their views (and inability to defend them coherently or rationally) suggest that these ideas are not their own. It means they have fallen prey to Catholic leaders and voices in Catholic media that openly promote falsehoods and antipathy for pope and council, cause division in the Church, and undermine the Catholic faith.
I don’t think most of the people who have succumbed to this reactionary or traditionalist ideology are fully culpable. The anti-papal narrative has proven very compelling for many well-meaning Catholics, and the sources that they have been told are reliable and orthodox have led them astray. In other words, they have been deceived and are thus invincibly ignorant. Those who have led them astray, however, bear great responsibility for what they have done. As scripture says, “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6).
In his 2017 open letter to the dubia cardinals, Stephen Walford wrote,
Countless Catholic priests, pundits, personalities, and scholars have followed Burke and Brandmüller down into the valley of resistance to the pope and the living Magisterium, employing different tricks and tactics to coax legions of well-meaning Catholics to adopt an ideology that can only lead to schism or despair. And many of them should know better.
The traditionalist speaker and author Peter Kwasniewski is one such example. On May 21, he posted an announcement on his Facebook page, stating that he had decided to withdraw from the controversial “Hope is Fuel” online event. Kwasniewski was a late addition to the slate of speakers, joining May 17, nearly a week after participants began backing out in response to host Patrick Coffin’s sedevacantist views and upon learning that the virulently antisemitic author E. Michael Jones had been added to the roster.
Some of the dropouts gave public statements explaining the reasons for their withdrawal, including Fr. Robert Spitzer of the Magis Institute (citing Coffin’s sedevacantism), Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute (citing Jones’s antisemitism), and author Lisa Duffy (citing both). These, of course, were the two primary concerns raised by Dawn Eden Goldstein and others who spoke out publicly against the conference.
Kwasniewski’s announcement, however, was different. Mark Shea provided a commentary on the entire post, but my attention was drawn to a few particularly troubling statements. Kwasniewski’s post began on a curious note. He admitted that he “agreed to join after the initial outburst of the hysterical progressive Catholics on Twitter,” adding, “about whose opinions I know little and care less, except perhaps as evidence of distressing sociological phenomena.”
Kwasniewski’s admission that he neither knows nor cares about the arguments of Catholics with whom he disagrees (most of whom could only be described as “progressive” in a world where Lefebvrism is seen as “moderate”) may explain why he consistently fails to accurately describe the views of the Catholics he attacks in his speeches and articles. Rather than responding to the arguments of those who disagree with his views on Catholicism, Kwasniewski creates strawmen and rails against concoctions like “hyperpapalism,” which he says “transmogrifies the Pope into a ‘combination Delphic oracle, globetrotting superstar, dynamo of doctrinal development, and standard meter bar of orthodoxy.’”
Going by that definition, I don’t think I know any hyperpapalists, but they sound awfully confused. Catholics do not believe that the pope personally receives divine revelation or inspiration. He’s not an oracle. Rather, the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ brought God’s divine revelation to completion, and that the Gospel was taught in its fullness by the preaching of the Apostles and the writing of “those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing” (Dei Verbum* [DV] 7). This is why we often say things like “public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle.” The Church also teaches that “in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, ‘handing over’ to them ‘the authority to teach in their own place’” (DV 8).*
To be clear, the Church teaches that the pope and the bishops in communion with him are the authentic interpreters of the Apostolic Faith. The Church does not teach that Peter Kwasniewski is the authentic interpreter of the Apostolic Faith. But for some reason he regularly pits his traditionalist positions against the official teachings of the pope and bishops. And for all of his championing of “tradition,” he has never been able to make a serious case that his positions (which fluctuate with some regularity and are not shared by most Catholics) or his condemnations of papal teachings can be reconciled with Catholic tradition.
Continue here…
Most Catholics on social media, sooner or later, encounter the hordes of anonymous traditionalist trolls that haunt online spaces — mysterious characters swooping in without notice to accuse priests, bishops, and homeschooling moms of heresy, apostasy, immodesty, and worse. Operating under Latin pseudonyms, with Thomas Aquinas and Pius V avatars, these keyboard warriors are quick with well-rehearsed talking points about “Pachamama” and “Bugnini” and the “Bogus Ordo.” They balance their sparse understanding of history and theology with an otherworldly quickness in hurling homophobic insults at total strangers and consigning the pope (and most everyone else) to hell.
It’s unclear who these trolls are (Bitter teenagers? Loners in their mothers’ basements? Russian spies? The same person with 10,000 Twitter accounts?), but it’s not hard to find similar attitudes and opinions from people who use their real names, both online and in person. The repetitiveness and uniformity of their views (and inability to defend them coherently or rationally) suggest that these ideas are not their own. It means they have fallen prey to Catholic leaders and voices in Catholic media that openly promote falsehoods and antipathy for pope and council, cause division in the Church, and undermine the Catholic faith.
I don’t think most of the people who have succumbed to this reactionary or traditionalist ideology are fully culpable. The anti-papal narrative has proven very compelling for many well-meaning Catholics, and the sources that they have been told are reliable and orthodox have led them astray. In other words, they have been deceived and are thus invincibly ignorant. Those who have led them astray, however, bear great responsibility for what they have done. As scripture says, “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Mt 18:6).
In his 2017 open letter to the dubia cardinals, Stephen Walford wrote,
Sadly, the two surviving dubia cardinals, Burke and Brandmüller, continued on this path, undeterred. Meanwhile, the hostility towards the pope has become more open, more intransigent, and more extreme. I remember at the time I asked Stephen if the word “satanic” wasn’t a bit much, but six years later I am beginning to think it was an understatement.
Countless Catholic priests, pundits, personalities, and scholars have followed Burke and Brandmüller down into the valley of resistance to the pope and the living Magisterium, employing different tricks and tactics to coax legions of well-meaning Catholics to adopt an ideology that can only lead to schism or despair. And many of them should know better.
The traditionalist speaker and author Peter Kwasniewski is one such example. On May 21, he posted an announcement on his Facebook page, stating that he had decided to withdraw from the controversial “Hope is Fuel” online event. Kwasniewski was a late addition to the slate of speakers, joining May 17, nearly a week after participants began backing out in response to host Patrick Coffin’s sedevacantist views and upon learning that the virulently antisemitic author E. Michael Jones had been added to the roster.
Some of the dropouts gave public statements explaining the reasons for their withdrawal, including Fr. Robert Spitzer of the Magis Institute (citing Coffin’s sedevacantism), Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute (citing Jones’s antisemitism), and author Lisa Duffy (citing both). These, of course, were the two primary concerns raised by Dawn Eden Goldstein and others who spoke out publicly against the conference.
Kwasniewski’s announcement, however, was different. Mark Shea provided a commentary on the entire post, but my attention was drawn to a few particularly troubling statements. Kwasniewski’s post began on a curious note. He admitted that he “agreed to join after the initial outburst of the hysterical progressive Catholics on Twitter,” adding, “about whose opinions I know little and care less, except perhaps as evidence of distressing sociological phenomena.”
Kwasniewski’s admission that he neither knows nor cares about the arguments of Catholics with whom he disagrees (most of whom could only be described as “progressive” in a world where Lefebvrism is seen as “moderate”) may explain why he consistently fails to accurately describe the views of the Catholics he attacks in his speeches and articles. Rather than responding to the arguments of those who disagree with his views on Catholicism, Kwasniewski creates strawmen and rails against concoctions like “hyperpapalism,” which he says “transmogrifies the Pope into a ‘combination Delphic oracle, globetrotting superstar, dynamo of doctrinal development, and standard meter bar of orthodoxy.’”
Going by that definition, I don’t think I know any hyperpapalists, but they sound awfully confused. Catholics do not believe that the pope personally receives divine revelation or inspiration. He’s not an oracle. Rather, the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ brought God’s divine revelation to completion, and that the Gospel was taught in its fullness by the preaching of the Apostles and the writing of “those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing” (Dei Verbum* [DV] 7). This is why we often say things like “public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle.” The Church also teaches that “in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, ‘handing over’ to them ‘the authority to teach in their own place’” (DV 8).*
To be clear, the Church teaches that the pope and the bishops in communion with him are the authentic interpreters of the Apostolic Faith. The Church does not teach that Peter Kwasniewski is the authentic interpreter of the Apostolic Faith. But for some reason he regularly pits his traditionalist positions against the official teachings of the pope and bishops. And for all of his championing of “tradition,” he has never been able to make a serious case that his positions (which fluctuate with some regularity and are not shared by most Catholics) or his condemnations of papal teachings can be reconciled with Catholic tradition.
Continue here…
Last edited: