Posted on 01/02/2018 10:11:40 AM PST by ebb tide
https://youtu.be/u4ZgVRJ-H8U
I like Chris Ferrara, I’ve met him and heard him speak - and frankly, I’m surprised that his article would have this tone.
My feeling is: stop calling names and “defining” Catholics, just welcome anybody who has finally woken up and had to admit that Francis is (not unintentionally) destroying the Catholic Church, and go on from there.
Personally, I don’t like the term “Traditionalist,” precisely because it has now become a church-politics definition. Also, in practice it means a tiny group of often hostile bow-tie wearing men and their hijab-wearing women who regard US Catholicism in 1952 as the apex of the Church. It wasn’t; I lived through it, and the Church would never have collapsed so quickly with VII if it hadn’t already been seriously undermined by the “Greatest Generation” (not Boomers, btw - we were the victims; even the 1968 riots were led by people about 15-20 years older).
I’d like to just go back to using the term Catholic. Let others scream their insults at Catholics who are orthodox - and even the “Neocons” that Ferrara mentions actually are orthodox, if somewhat timid about it - but we shouldn’t define ourselves right out of the box as a splinter group. Unfortunately, the person who cannot claim the title of Catholic happens to be the Pope. And that’s the problem.
We need to unite and get him out of there, and I think Lawler has finally been forced to admit this.
[applause]
I'm surprised Ferrara’s tone isn't more sarcastic, given how snidely many Catholics write and speak — I'm not implying you are among them — about Ferrara and others like him. I have attended only one Latin Mass in my life, so I would be classified a Traditionalist by no one; and I agree with you 100% about wanting all of us orthodox believers to be called simply “Catholics”. However, what Pope Francis is doing to the Church appalls me and the inability and unwillingness of most bishops to stop him from wrecking the Church astound me. I cannot help but wonder if Ferrara and his Traditionalist friends have indeed been right all along: something went terribly wrong with Vatican II and the Church is now breaking down on account of it.
Again, I agree that we orthodox believers should unite and all call ourselves simply “Catholic”. However, Ferrara does have a point: some Catholics are spending a great deal of energy to make sure no one gives Ferrara and Company credit for having suspected at the outset what has turned out to be the truth about Pope Francis: he doesn't seem to believe in Catholicism or to love the Church or to like Catholics very much.
Women did not wear hijabs. Or shorts or flip flops for that matter. They wore either hats (which every woman wore in those days) or pinned a hankie or “mantilla” on her head if visiting a church on a whim. It was simply out of respect for God and his son. I wish more people today, men and women, dressed appropriately in church. Like African Americans do!
I find the above statement quite offensive and false.
Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed to hear it coming from you.
Look up "hijab" befoe you attack your fellow Catholics.
Name-calling, of any sort and in either direction, is not helpful. "Hijab-wearing" is not helpful. "Neo-Catholic" is not helpful. "Raddie Traddie" is not helpful.
There are people in positions of great power who are undermining the Church from within. That is a fact. There are Catholics who recognize that and oppose them, some who do not yet recognize that but who might join the opposition if educated, and there are people who clearly play for the other team.
The Remnant (I don't even like the name; there's a cult group near where I live that has the same name; the name is a sign of incredible arrogance IMO) has engaged in name-calling and other juvenile behavior for years. It's counterproductive, divisive, and plays right into the devil's hands.
The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults
As far as the statement that some Catholic women wear hijabs, it is far more than name-calling; it's false witness.
What Does Remnant Theology Have to Teach us About the Church Today? by Msgr Charles Pope
No, I’ve been to too many “traditionalist” churches where the most important thing is that the women wear a veil or a headscarf, and ladies in the narthex will hustle forward with some rag for a woman to drape over her head if she comes in without one.
And the men seem to spend most of their time writing blogs and being marginally employed (because of course they’re anti-capitalist distributionists) while the women are out there dealing with the six or seven children. Not a good image, but way too common.
And there shouldn’t be such a thing as a “traditionalist” anyway. We’re all Catholics and we’ve got to get back to thinking of ourselves that way. Right now, this bizarre cult of the small, select group is simply giving the field to Bergoglio and his completely non-Catholic followers.
There’s a big difference between a hijab and a mantilla; but I see you refuse to apologize for the false witnnesss.
And the first two paragraphs in your post are nothing but attacks against your fellow Catholics.
Try practicing what you preach, for once.
Then you may want to edit your homepage where you describe as a "conservative Catholic"; not just "Catholic".
Hijabs, rags, veils and headscarfs?
Big differences.
I am also disappointed by some of livius’ comments (and let’s not leave out campion’s applause)
Seriously, you need to find a different church if the most important thing to the pastor and churchgoers is a veil. I belong to St. Agnes one of the most traditionalist of churches - Father Rutler was once a priest here. I’ve never seen anything like you are posting.
On Sunday, I sit in the back of the church. I come casually dressed.
I loved St Agnes and used to go there all the time - both when I was in college and a waitress at the Schraffts across the street and later as an adult devoted to the Old Rite (but not to the nuttiness that seems to accompany it in many places).
I live in Florida now, not because I’m retired, but because I live with my sister and she needed to get out of her high-stress job and go someplace completely different, and we picked this because I’m a Spanish translator and Florida has a big Spanish history.
I get Fr. Rutler’s bulletin from St Michael’s and I love it.
Interestingly enough, I’ve met Old Rite (SSPX) priests and laity in France and Spain, and none of them have the obsession with fictional dress codes and bizarre economic systems that seem to be common in smaller Old Rite churches here.
I’d like to take people to see the Old Mass, but it is usually badly done and they’re afraid to go because they think people are going to criticize them for not dressing correctly or for having made some mistake in when to stand up or sit down.
I think this may be because a lot of people in my area are converts and never knew the Church when it was really the Church. So they’re very insecure and so are the priests, many of whom are also converts.
BTW, nothing wrong with converts! But I think unless you knew the Church as it used to be when it was a hodgepodge but a faithful hodgepodge, you may have a somewhat off base idea of it.
I remember one time being at Midnight Mass and seeing people around me who I knew were professors at Columbia (I grew up on the UWS), Puerto Ricans from the 6-story walk-ups on Amsterdam, a wide variety of French and non-English speakers, the Irish supers ... and a row of cops in the back who had gotten out of their squad cars to run in for enough of Midnight Mass for it to “count.”
That’s what I want to see come back. Not a tiny community of the perfect, but just - well, Catholics.
I think the only one who is opposed to that, alas, is the current occupant of the See of Peter. And that’s the big problem.
Oh wow. Your most recent post made me realize that I had mistaken you for another poster....Legatus. I wonder whatever happened to him. I see he hasn’t posted since October 2016.
I have no idea what happened to him. One of the sad things is that people disappear, for one reason or another, and you never know the end of the story. We should have a Freeper memorial wall!
Oh for Pete’s sake, they don’t think of themselves as Catholics - that’s too déclassé- they think of themselves as “traditionalists.” And that’s what’s got to change.
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