The Neo-Catholic Dead-End

Catholic Family News ^ | October 2002 | Thomas E. Woods

[Polycarp]

I don't know what his replies said, but I can just imagine what you have to say to have your posts in the Religion forum removed by the moderator.

Just FYI, many of his posts that were removed were personal attacks on me. I was being attacked for defending the rights of orthodox Catholics in general, and traditionalists in particulur, to question the fruits of the post-conciliar Church without arbitrarily being branded a schismatic or an integrist or worse.

I guess I make enemies on both sides of this issue.

[St.Chuck]

I honestly don't know, but I never thought the writing style was Likoudis'.

I was hoping you had the inside scoop having been published in The Wanderer. I agree about the different writing style; I am almost certain it is a Matt. Not a Likoudis. I suppose it's not very important....just that Mr. Wood's is argueing with the wrong person, not surprising when one considers the inaccuracies schismatics are noted for.

[ultima ratio]

I follow Archbishop Lefebvre gladly. There was no schismatic act and every day's headline proves the Archbishop more right and the Pope more wrong. It is Rome, remember, who opened the talks with the SSPX. The Society did not come hat in hand. Why should it, it had truth and the whole history of Catholicism on its side. It is Rome who has been in opposition with its own Catholic past--as absurd and impossible as that seems. Yet it is so.

[Polycarp]

Show me something positive, anything, something other than widespread corruption in the episcopacy, teenagers who stand for the Consecration with their hands in their pockets, nuns who are abortion activists.

Most of the positives are coming quietly from the laity, and thus do not garner national headlines in either the Catholic mainstream media nor the secular mainstream media.

The surging tide of Catholic homeschooling would come to mind (since we homeschool this comes to mind, as well as a resurgence in big families who are providentialists, not NFPers.)

There are positive signs, but also many negatives.

This summer I spent much time arguing with patent, sitetest, and CatholicGuy over whether the positives were gaining on the negatives. Personally, I don't see enough positives yet to think there is any wonderful springtime just around the corner.

If there is, there is one of the nastiest winters ever between us and that springtime, and we are still only in early autumn.

[sinkspur]

Sing your siren song to someone else.

You had better hope Williamson gets off his high horse so that some reconciliation can take place under the present Pope.

His successor may leave you in the wilderness.

[Maximilian]

>>This has been a surprisingly disappointing and spiritually empty papacy.

You have to be kidding...

I'm not sure if you're serious IrishLass, but Ultima's comments seem pretty self-evident to me. Look at the OBJECTIVE situation, not the spin put on it by apologists. The facts are that we members of the Church are mostly living spiritually empty lives. Facts show that virtually all Catholics are living in an objective state of mortal sin.

This is the interior reality which you can connect to the exterior reality of closed churches, empty convents, shuttered seminaries. And of course the daily dose of anti-Catholic reporting on the front pages of the newspapers.

Thank God we are now on good terms with the modern world since Vatican II. I can hardly imagine what the Boston Globe would write if we were still antagonistic to the modern lifestyle they espouse.

Even the supporters of the New Mass admit that most services are irreverant banal travesties. But they point to a few good ones here or there. No one goes to confession anymore. Even baptisms and marriages are way down.

And remember that our experience in the US is one of the BEST in the world. Canada is worse, and Europe is much worse than Canada. The Church has collapsed everywhere.

Meanwhile we get "happy talk" from the authorities. A "new springtime" is just around the corner. I'm beginning to think that the new springtime won't arrive any sooner than it did in Narnia where it was "always winter but never Christmas" -- that is, not until the second coming.

[ultima ratio]

I never said TRADS were the only ones who feel disenfranchised. You are jumping the gun. Nor do I buy the idea that anybody who attends an SSPX Mass is schismatic. Some just are sick and tired of empty, desacralized liturgies and worry about their kids growing up Catholic.

[Irisshlass]

The facts are that we members of the Church are mostly living spiritually empty lives. Facts show that virtually all Catholics are living in an objective state of mortal sin.

I'm not..

No one goes to confession anymore

I do..very rare for me to take Holy Communion without confession...

The Church has collapsed everywhere.

I disagree...

[Polycarp]

The Novus Ordo is not Catholic

Many folks cry and wail at being labeled schismatic.

Frankly, I bristle at that label (as well as integrist) being applied far too often in an arbitrary manner. In fact, this was the source of my problems with Steve Hand.

Unfortunately, your statement here is the textbook illustration of schismatic.

The Novus Ordo is valid and licit when said according to the rubrics.

Feel free to discuss the wisdom of the prudential decision to promulgate this mass.

Feel free to discuss what you perceive to be the fruits of the NO.

Feel free to discuss the highjacking of VII and the substitution of its false spirit. Heck, discuss the equivocal language of VII.

But when you state The Novus Ordo is not Catholic expect to be rightfully labeled a SCHISMATIC!

[ultima ratio]

You are talking nonsense. The "whisperings of schismatics" is merely cool reason. There was no schism. You must face the facts: Lefebvre was right, the Pope was wrong--as he has been about a lot of things. There never was any attempt to break with the Church or to deny the papacy. There was a single act of disobedience--which was not schismatic. Not. So you have to place this fact along side everything else: the mess of the prelature, the widespread dissent, the dumbing-down of the liturgy, the scandals--everything. These are not whisperings, these are facts. Meanwhile the traditionalists prosper, their children have the Baltimore Catechism, their teenagers are chaste, their Masses inspire, they read Francis de Sales and de Caussade.
Where am I wrong? I have asked you to show me something, anything, from the Novus Ordo Church which points to something spiritually positive and you come up with remodeled houses. How is this supposed to be convincing?

[Polycarp]

Nor do I buy the idea that anybody who attends an SSPX Mass is schismatic. Some just are sick and tired of empty, desacralized liturgies and worry about their kids growing up Catholic.

With this I agree completely.

But this is a far cry from

The Novus Ordo is not Catholic

Unlike others here, I truly believe one could attend the SSPX mass in times of necessity without personally being schismatic as a layperson. If an SSPX mass were available to me...I'm not sure what I would do. More than likely, if things progressed in my town to where I could not in good conscience attend an (illicit!) NO mass (not an unlikely situation in certain places) I would attend the local (licit!) Byzantine Catholic liturgies. If no licit NO mass were available and no Byzantine mass were available, I would in good conscience attend the (illicit!) SSPX mass.

But once a layperson states The Novus Ordo is not Catholic they have openly declared themselves to be in schism. That is a far cry from simply attending the illicit SSPX chapel in times of necessity.

[ultima ratio]

This is the Pope who kissed the Koran. Will you do that soon?

[BlackElk]

What a remarkable thread. Tom Woods, Tom Drolesky and Chris Ferrara are going so far off the deep end that they are making Sinkspur into considerably more of a Catholic than they are. The secret is now out: The Wanderer is a clandestine vehicle of subversion in the Church, a progressive journalistic footstool and the disobedient and schismatic Lefebvre must have been right all along. Riiiiiiiight!!!!!

The JP II Bashing is getting more than a little tiresome and Woods ought to spare us the routine of what a hero he is to resist JP II and how it is his right and probably his obligation to do so. The Roman Catholic Church has gotten along rather well for nearly twenty centuries before Woods's relatively recent conversion from the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church. It will get along just as nicely if he decides to go into schism along with Ferrara and, less likely, Drolesky. If God wants Woods to run his mouth or to run God's Church, I am sure that He will know how to let Woods know. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting if I were Woods.

The recent efforts of Woods and Ferrara put one in mind of the 1960s dialogues on the political Right which incorporated the notion: Things are terrible and getting worse all the time. There are only a few of us left. Sometimes, it looks like it is now just thee and me. To tell, the truth, I am not always sure about thee.

Well, as sinkspur says: The Wanderer a progressive publication? Puhleeze!

[Polycarp]

I'm beginning to think that the new springtime won't arrive any sooner than it did in Narnia where it was "always winter but never Christmas" -- that is, not until the second coming.

In Narnia, that springtime was an allegory for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, not the second coming.

The analogy doesn't exactly fit.

Be that as it may, I agree with you here deep down in my soul, I usually just don't admit it publicly.

[Land of the Irish]

It would appear that your holy priest is blatantly and unrepentantly giving God grave offence.

What priest are you ranting about?

[Maximilian]

>>But when you state The Novus Ordo is not Catholic expect to be rightfully labeled a SCHISMATIC!

Actually, that's not correct. Perhaps you could call him a heretic. But even at it's worst, it doesn't make him a schismatic.

Adhering to the SSPX might potentially make someone a schismatic. But the Vatican has ruled authoritatively in the Honolulu case that attendance by the faithful at an SSPX chapel does not constitute adherence to a schism.

The only ones ever formally reprimanded were Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated. Even Bishop de Castro Mayer was left out of the statement. So really those are the only ones you can really call schismatic, based on any statements from the competent authorities.

Now you could make the argument that priests of the SSPX are schismatic because they are more clearly adhering to a schism. But the Vatican itself has never made that argument. And the priests of Campos were received back into the Church without lifting any excommunication or decree of schism or such. They just had to sign a letter of adherence to the magisterium, but it made no derogatory reference to any presumed former condition.

Now in the case of laypeople, the Vatican HAS made a declaration that it is NOT schism to attend the SSPX. And it would be even further off base to call someone a schismatic merely for questioning the New Mass.

Could you call him a heretic, on the other hand? First of all, you want to avoid detraction and rash judgement. So you must assume that someone has the best intention. Is it obstinate adherence to a false doctrine to believe that the New Mass is "not Catholic."

Personally, I don't think so. Pope Paul VI's addresses which introduced the Novus Ordo are far from being considered infallible statements. And the promulgation of the New Mass itself is equally questionable.

Here's a question for you: "Does the Holy Spirit protect the ICEL?" If not, then how do we know that the translations we are hearing are accurate? On the contrary, we know for a fact that they are not accurate at all. So if 99% of all Masses in the US are done in English (or another vernacular), and the translations are not protected from error, then when you attend a Mass offered in the vernacular, you have no guarantee that the Mass meets the standards even of the New Mass, nonetheless the Latin Mass.

[Polycarp]

There was no schism. You must face the facts: Lefebvre was right, the Pope was wrong--as he has been about a lot of things. There never was any attempt to break with the Church or to deny the papacy. There was a single act of disobedience--which was not schismatic. Not.

The Church defines the schism, not you. You are incorrect. It was disobedient to elevate 4 bishops, not one, and to refuse Rome the right to decide who would be elevated. No mental or linguistic gymnastics, no appeal to necessity or emergency, can change the fact that the Pope can and does decide who will be a bishop and how many bishops may be consecrated.

To argue otherwise is simply...schismatic.

[BlackElk]

You really believe this stuff, don't you? Have you ever heard of the sin of scandal?

[Maximilian]

>>I do..very rare for me to take Holy Communion without confession...

I applaud you. And I only wish there were more like you. If I start to see people staying in the pews at communion time, then I'll know that maybe the Holy Spirit is working in people's souls again.

[Polycarp]

The recent efforts of Woods and Ferrara put one in mind of the 1960s dialogues on the political Right which incorporated the notion: Things are terrible and getting worse all the time. There are only a few of us left. Sometimes, it looks like it is now just thee and me. To tell, the truth, I am not always sure about thee.

Well said, and I accept these words myself as a needed rebuke to my own lack of trust.