Longenecker: Why Do These Faithful Christians Look So Damn Gloomy When We Vent Our Hate At Them?

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Brimming with non-traditional happiness and joy

Brimming with non-traditional happiness and joy.

Even with the best intentions, you can’t dip your toe in the liberal cesspool.  They’ll just use you to attack your compatriots in the battle for everything that’s true and good.  Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s unearthed an old article by Steve Skojec lamenting traditionalist ‘joylessness.’

An article by Steve Skojec has surfaced on social media in which he argues that traditionalist Catholics need to be happy, joyful folks so that everyone realizes what a great treasure they have in the Tridentine Mass.

He criticizes traditionalist Catholics of an extreme sort, explaining what it was like when he started to attend the Latin Mass

Did Skojec imagine he’d become a vehicle someday to blast conservative Catholics and the people at The Remnant when he wrote this piece almost six years ago?  Who could have predicted FrancisChurch?  Still, there’s no point in making Fr. Longenecker pleasantly surprised, even if it’s via the hands some mole who’s dug up ancient dirt.

I was surprised to read Steve’s article since whenever I had come across his writings I thought he was firmly among “the angry traddies” and his writings seemed to typify the dour and judgmental atmosphere he was criticizing in his article.

Then I checked the post and realized the article was written over five years ago. Maybe Steve’s attitude went South after Pope Francis’ election…

To be honest I haven’t read enough of Steve’s stuff to know if my impression of him being an “angry traddy” is fair. So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he’s the happy traddy that he hopes traditionalists will be.

“Happy traddy?”  Is that a goal or something?  Is this a daycare center?

It just gets uglier from there.

So why does there still have to be the sour, negativity, suspicion and persecution complex among some who call themselves traditionalist? Furthermore, why do some go on to pick up not just traditionalist Catholic worship, but also get infected with all that scary right wing, racist, conspiracy theory anti-Semitic stuff? The more radical ones play the victim saying they are a persecuted minority, but they sure don’t mind loading their weapons and taking pot shots at everyone with whom they disagree.

In my opinion it doesn’t have anything to do with liturgy or even with the Catholic faith. I think it just comes down to personality types. Some people tend to see their world and themselves in a certain way. The world is going to hell in a hand basket and we few, we faithful few will be “the Remnant” who survive the coming conflict and rise above it. In the meantime, everyone else out there are the enemy and they’re out to get us.

I’m exaggerating to make my point, but if my hunch is right, then that sort of person is likely to be drawn to a conservative form of religion, and if they’re Catholic it will be traditionalism. If I’m right, then they are unlikely to be the happiest of people to deal with. They’re likely to be a little bit suspicious of others and tend toward argumentation and anger.

Not like Fr. Longenecker.  There’s no anger in that guy!  It’s all sweetness and light I’m sure, brother in Christ.

Gee, these faithful conservative Catholics are a bunch of miserable jerks! Hey, can you find an agency to help resettle some more Muslim ‘refugees’ in my neighborhood?  I’m having a New Year’s party and I’m feeling the FrancisEffect!

Did you know Patheos has a voodoo channel?

 

 

When Will Those Latin Mass Catholics Evangelize, I’m Talkin’ Evangelize?

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Msgr. Pope, and the now mainline National Catholic Register, jumped the shark with last week’s attack on the Ancient Mass.  Isn’t it too soon to pretend that the new FrancisChurch of Mercy is ‘revitalizing’ the faith and making it ‘vibrant’?  Unless they were paid for it, few people have been silly enough to sashay through these stupid doors they’re flinging open everywhere.  So, cue the Register: time to attack the pitiful ‘closed-in’ group of pharisees they occasionally permit to commute to a faithful Mass.

It’s not that the ancient Mass is bad, it’s just that the people are so lazy about evangelizing!  When are they going to do that FrancisJazz?  Do they even have MercyDoors?

It’s really so sad and discouraging to see these brilliant men, who’ve given their lives to Christ, play the miserable fall guy in this NuChurch of ugly.

Evangelization matters. Effectively handing on the faith to the next generation matters. Attending Mass regularly and supporting the work of the Church matters. Vocations matter. Sacrificially offering our time, talent, and treasure matters. These truths matter throughout the Church and in every different setting.

You know what else matters? Faith.  Faith matters.  The only thing driving the FrancisChurch hierarchy is money –  government money, powerful money, UN money, but not faith.  The kind of ‘evangelizing’ that Monsignor is talking about requires well-placed speakers, television screens, professional groomers, and loud empty-headed sentimental preening.  You have to pay for that kind of thing (nobody is going to cough up their contributions) and they have plenty of money for that.  They have plenty of destroyer money.

The point of FrancisChurch is to crush Catholicism and turn it into some government department of ‘love’.  Why did Cardinal Dolan decide to sell-off half the churches in Manhattan before Francis even got his mercy going?  Because he, and Mayor de Blasio, and Obama are implementing the plan.  Not to sound conspiratorial, but all things happen according to a plan, and people who rule over you have one.  It’s not about dying parishes and lazy Catholics.  It’s about no Catholics and no parishes.

Those mostly elderly, who are stalwart enough to continue to attend the Paul VI Mass despite the fact it was designed to repulse Catholics, need to be handled.  Now is the time.  They can’t go to Mass if there are no churches.

Why are there no priests in FrancisChurch?  Because they don’t want any, and can you imagine giving your lives and obedience to men like these bishops and their boys?  Honestly?

One of our parishes generously offers a Solemn High Mass once a month on Sunday afternoon, a Mass that I myself have celebrated for over 25 years. But we have gone from seeing the church almost full, to two-thirds full, to now only about one-third full.

Explanations abound among the traditional Catholics I speak to about the lack of growth in attendance at the Traditional Latin Mass. Some say that it is because more options are now available. But one of the promises was that if parishes would just offer the Traditional Latin Mass each parish would be filled again. Others say there are parking issues, or that the Mass times are not convenient, or that the Masses are too far away. But these things were all true 20 years ago when the Solemn Mass was thriving.

Every other Sunday my family drives thirty miles to the Latin Mass at 2pm.  I hate going to Church at 2pm on Sunday.  Everyone does.  But I have no choice.  My local pastor says almost all the weekend Masses and he’s a twisted ball of liberal self-loathing.  His Mass is nothing like Catholic.  It’s just third-rate entertainment with an evil message.  I HAVE to drive to the Latin Mass, but I don’t WANT to.

Holy Mass is not supposed to be something you want to do.  It’s something you must do for the love of God and the good of your soul.  If they don’t offer it anywhere, and tell people to go for Heaven’s sake, of course it won’t grow.

Everyone at the Latin Mass I attend is in the same boat.  Our problem is that we’re Catholic.  It’s a beautiful Mass.  It’s like Heaven not Hell, and from what I see attendance is growing and growing, but not for long I’m sure.  As the FrancisChurch noose tightens, men like Msgr. Pope, who seem to have spent years repelling faithful Mass-goers, will rise to the occasion and swing a hammer at them yet again.

If only all the Latin Mass churches could just conveniently burn down like they do in Blase Cupich’s Chicago!

 

 

How Ironic. I’m Being Evicted And It’s the Year Of Mercy!

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Despite the fact that almost no actual Catholics have ventured to Rome to float through the MercyDoor, there is some FrancisMercy-related news in the secular Italian media.  In the off-year Holy Jubilee, for some reason Roman loafers think it’s time to occupy other people’s homes for free.

Rome (AFP) – Italian police clashed with squatters in central Rome Tuesday during a housing rights demonstration, with protesters saying evictions should be put on hold during Pope Francis’s “Year of Mercy”.

Uniformed and plain-clothes officers scuffled with members of RAM, the acronym of the Metropolitan Housing Resistance group which organised the protest, and its spokesman said nine people had been detained.

Demonstrators held a sit-in atop scaffolding on a building opposite Rome’s prefecture and hung banners reading “Stop evictions” and “We are not terrorists”.

At least they’re not terrorists. Do you think some of them might be Muslim ‘refugees’?  It doesn’t matter.  Whoever they are, they have a perfect understanding of FrancisMercy, much clearer than the most sophisticated faux-Catholic FrancisApologist.  Whether it’s earthly goods or God’s pardon, FrancisMercy just means expecting to be given something for which you have no right.

In the street below, some 100 Italians and foreigners called for Rome to address a growing housing crisis.

“Every day there are between 30 and 50 families in Rome put out on the street,” said Omero Lauri, 51, RAM spokesman.

“The situation has got much worse recently with the excuse of terrorism,” he said, with fears of jihadist violence since the Paris attacks last year leading to heightened concerns over undocumented people living off the radar.

But Alejandro Moncada from Equador, 35, said security issues were just an excuse to intensify evictions.

“The irony is that it is the pope’s Year of Mercy,” he said, in reference to a special Jubilee year called by Francis from December 8, during which pilgrims are urged to dedicate more time to merciful acts and helping the disadvantaged.

“This year should be about helping the weak, not treating us like terrorists,” said the father-of-one, who has been in Italy for 12 years along with his wife and parents, but struggles to find work as a cleaner.

Is every bum in Europe now being confused with a terrorist?  If you get evicted for mooching off your landlord is that counter-terrorism?  Does being generally useless and broke mean you’re weak? Is this ‘cleaner’ who’s been unemployed for ten years someone else’s fault?

Catholic religious adherence and worship are acts of justice to God, who is both merciful and just.  As leader of the Catholic faith, the Pope is supposed to teach us how to treat God and each other with justice and love.  What are we supposed to do and why?  What is the pathway to follow Christ?  Instead, the FrancisEffect encourages bums to make unjust demands on others and think it’s moral.  They learn to flout, hurt, and ignore God, then presume he’s  ready to welcome them into Heaven with open arms.

Property and Catholic doctrine are twin enemies of the current man in white.