I thought that ‘traditional Catholics’ were not including Church Tradition as included as a reason for their title as TC (abbrev.
)
"Why do we need the labels anyway? Isn’t just ‘Catholic’ enough?"…But we live in a time when Charles Curran, Hans Küng, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry all call themselves “Catholic” and no bishop in the Church says otherwise. So we take to calling ourselves “orthodox Catholics” or “faithful Catholics”…to distinguish ourselves from self-styled Catholics who have yet to be informed that they are no Catholics at all.’'
Who is to say that these people are completely evil? I am not arguing politics here, I am saying that you don’t know if any of the above do not fall on the ground in tears at night, begging God for mercy - who is casting stones of speculation and judgement? As I read somewhere: conspiracy is exactly that and only that until proven otherwise. Maybe TCs should trust their Bishops
and holy superiors?
‘…but this bare fact does not place their every word and action beyond all analysis and evaluation. Still less does it guarantee that the course set by their words and actions has had the desired effect of renewing and invigorating the Church.’'
Renewal takes time. The introduction of *Dei Verbum *for example, is for me the Holy Grail of the Church in modern times, and truly a labour of love. If people absorbed these treasures with trust then the rewards of such toil would reach all in ways as yet unseen.
As for this quote:
‘We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship like you once worshipped.
If you believe you were wrong then, what makes you believe you are right now.
If you were right then, we are right now.’
And who exactly is ‘you’? A bit presumptuous?! I rewrite:
‘We are what we would like to believe you were.
We believe that you once believed something different to what you once did.
We worship better than you because we believe you worshipped differently to now.
We think you believe you were wrong then and you believe you are right now.
Redundant!’
’We live in a time of crisis (and rebuilding) in the Catholic Church. I think every orthodox Catholic can agree on that.’
If our Pope F is seen as rebuilding then what can TCs be seen as - the one’s causing crisis? Every century has crisis: welcome to Christianity!
**
'And here, although there is plenty of infighting within the movement, traditionalists firm up into a more unified front.’**
How about forgetting united fronts – worrying term - and unite ‘in solidarity’ as Christians?
‘What I think all traditionalists can agree upon is that behind the crisis stands in large part a de facto—and sometimes de jure—abandonment of numerous liturgical and disciplinary traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, traditions that had held her in good stead for centuries, if not millennia.’
I grew up with the new Mass and there used to be bums on seats. I like the Old Mass since having been to a few, too. This doesn’t excuse joining a United Front. There are formal procedures for complaints. St. Ignatious of Loyola when asked if the world was about to end said that he’d carry on sweeping the floor in the last few moments. This is the point: utter trust and humility.
‘…primary difference…attitude toward change. If one does any significant reading in the Church Fathers, Doctors, and Popes one consistently finds a truly conservative attitude. That is, one sees that the attitude of orthodox Catholics through the centuries has been to cling tenaciously to that which has been handed on, both in belief and observance. Change itself is looked upon with suspicion and change for the sake of change or even to “get with the times” is unthinkable. Now here I can sense anti-traditionalist apologists ready to pounce…’
The Saints preached piety and obedience, as
priority. The word ‘Truth’ is more apt than ‘conservative’. It seems to me that change in the world is being confused with growth in the Church. Anti-traditionalist apologists? You mean
anti-‘traditional Catholics’ apologists!..Because anti-
R.C Church apologists and ‘traditional Catholics’ feed off each other and one is an excuse to fuel the other’s motivations. The Church does not bend to either extreme.
‘[Pope St. Stephen] laid down this rule: “Let there be no innovation—nothing but what has been handed down.” Scripture and tradition have been handed down for us to learn from.’…‘For that holy and prudent man well knew that true piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children;…’
Jesus said that unless we trust like children we won’t enter the Kingdom of God.
’This is from Pope Benedict XV, addressing the modernist threat of his day:
‘Those who are infected by that [modernist] spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety…’
Again, the word in question being ‘modernist’. I don’t think Pope B meant his words in the way TCs are interpreting. The Church has not become progressive in essence, in the Bible sense of the word. Whereas, the modernist danger is progressive in the Bible sense and leans towards apostasy and can be linked to a relativist take. These are not fruits of the Church but consequences of rebellion. The fruits are a Church growing in its understanding as has been happening thanks to a long succession of saintly Popes, from late 1800’s onwards, and, as I mentioned in another post, are responding to a world where the realisation of God’s healing mercy to all, is deepening.
). The words ‘…but traditionalists’ are not in context in this argument due to Pius X being the wrong century!
