Don’t try this at home.
I used to work two full time jobs. One of them was an hour away. I was determined, after many years of experience, that I would not let my work obligations get in the way of daily Mass. (Daily Masses would have more young people if they said them when they weren’t at work or in school.)
Well, I hated my first job. It was government make-work and bickering. I had to travel to an ugly, busy part of town. I tried finding a Mass somewhere on the way because they only have one daily Mass in my hometown, and it’s too late in the morning. I had to drive several miles out of my way to sit in a cramped florescent chapel. It had unsettling priests too.
Then I found St. xxxxx. It was five minutes from the office, and they had a noon Mass! I worked five years at that job, and went out to lunch exactly once, it didn’t make me unpopular. I used to get lots of prayer requests on the way out. I used to get a lot of Catholic questions directed my way too.
This parish had signs requesting quiet, pictures of how not to dress and altar rails. The pastor said Mass facing the tabernacle. He sung most of the prayers, many of them in Latin. What a blessing! His associate was also the head of the local TLM Mass group closer to my home. The parish was full of very faithful, humble people, many from the local university.
In the past year St. xxxxx picked up a new young priest. His homilies were quite painful: loud, long and brutish. His message, from what I could tell, was about love, love, and feminism. I knew why he was there. It was now FrancisEra.
This week we’ve learned the Pastor of St. xxxxx is being ‘retired’ and removed. The younger vicar, who also says the Ancient Mass nearby, is being sent somewhere unknown. The faithful group they’ve served doesn’t know what to do. (There are really two communities involved.)
Asked by parishioners for a meeting, the bishop has scheduled something eight months out. The transfers, however are immediate. I don’t know how unusual this is. I don’t know if it was precipitated by some complaint, if there’s some pretext. I’m sure it doesn’t matter.
I have wracked my brain about how I can help personally. Sometimes when you have trouble deciding what to do, it’s because you have too many good options. This isn’t one of those times. This is FrancisChurch.
Catholic teachers can’t teach the Faith. Gay sex must be promoted. Faithless anti-Catholic people must be employed, must be admitted. Morals codes are crushed. The Ancient Mass, or even a holy modern Mass are both suppressed, illegal. The priests are all Protestants. Do you ever see a nun anywhere? Perhaps they hide in plain sight.
We must be honest with ourselves and ask, “Where is our Church?”
The reason we must ask is because we have to stop pretending it’s where it is not. People yell, ‘Schism, schism!’ I’m not calling for some break. I’m just trying to find the Church to which I should adhere. I think the Church is a real thing. As a real thing, shouldn’t it have characteristics? I think it does have characteristics; I just don’t see them anywhere.
When it’s doing Satan’s dance, will you still call it Catholic? Will you dance? Where does this end?
Here’s the thought experiment I’ve been doing: when Martin Luther made changes to the Faith and the Mass, at some point it stopped being Catholic and became Protestant, right? So at what point did that happen? At what point did his faithful Catholic parishioners unknowingly stop receiving valid Sacraments and begin attending a heretical ceremony?
Was it when he himself stopped intending the words of consecration? Was it when he started using the vernacular against Church rules, or turned the altar around? Was it not until he was excommunicated?
And most important of all: how were the laypeople in the pews to know? If they obediently followed the guidance of their pastor (and they could hardly get online and see what the Vatican had to say about it), wouldn’t they have accepted that all the changes Luther introduced were correct? If some of them sensed that things weren’t right and objected, were they accused of being schismatics and told to stop being so rigid and obsessed with theology?
We have already been like ‘the frog in the pot’ of water being ever so slowly heated. The pot has been heating up now for some 50 odd years. Soon it will get to the boiling point. Some of us, thank the Lord, are beginning to feel the heat.
With such a busy schedule, including all the time finetuning your blog, how do you find time to serve the poor?
Or pretend to be humble?
Dear SB,
Your post with its title, “U.S. TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES BEING CRUSHED IN FRANCISCHURCH” got top billing at Pewsitter, but on reading your story I see that it is about ONE TLM community.
My daughter is a contemplative nun in a community where they sing the office in Latin, and have the TLM as often as possible, so I am very sympathetic with TLM communities and the values they represent. That is why I am curious about why you are doing what you can to see TLM communities suppressed? This seems very mixed up.
If the Church were a democracy, then your and Pewsitter and Rorate Coeli’s efforts to affect opinion within the Church negatively against the current administration might make some sense. Then when election time came around we could vote in a more traditional pope and all would be well.
The Church, however, is a kingdom. It is governed by a hierarchy of bishops in the name of the LORD. There is no indication in Scripture or Tradition, the Lives of the Saints or near saints, that He is moved by currents of opinion within HIS Church. There are things that move him. however. Radical obedience, humility, assiduous prayer, faith, hope and charity bring down blessings from Heaven. Radical disobedience, pride, complaints, uncharitable talk, detraction-especially against the hierarchy- bring down His discipline. In the past, I have been on the wrong side of this and know very well what I am talking about. “Touch not my anointed and to my prophets do no harm” is engraved on my mind, and this refers not only to physical abuse, but to the undermining and the challenging of authority as well.
Does it not say in Scripture, “Test all things and hold fast to hat which is good”? Did it ever occur to you that you and your community are being put to the test by Our LORD? In fact, if you but saw this, He is giving you a tremendous opportunity to bring blessings down on your head. How to conduct yourselves? Obey the bishop and take not only his commands but his indications as if they were from the hand of God. No, the bishop is not God, but if you will obey him and offer him the deference and respect that his office demands and his commands as if they were from God, you will see extraordinary blessings. This is exactly the way Padre Pio conducted himself in the face of papal suppression, and the same has been the lot and the conduct of many other saints as well down the ages. it is a cross, but in the cross is our victory. The same cannot be said of propaganda.
However, if you want to make yourself the focal point of rebellion and discontent, speak disrespectfully of “FrancisChurch” etc then do not look for blessings.
But apart from all that, and just speaking very humanly, if you were a bishop and had responsibility for the unity of your church and the unity of your church with the Church of Rome and then, like every other interested Catholic surfed the blogs from time to time to see what is happening in the Church, what would your impression be of the traditionalists, hmmm? As sympathetic as I am with the TLM communities and their values, if I were a bishop, frankly I would be very concerned and apprehensive about the schismatic rhetoric pouring out of the traditionalists blogs. So yes, I would say you (pl) are in effect doing your absolute utmost to have the TLM suppressed. We are getting to the point where the unity of the Church may well cry out for its suppression, where it would be imprudent for the pope or bishops not to suppress it..
What then is the way to see the TLM communities flourish? First of all, in the name of Heaven, stop complaining. It is absolutely obnoxious in the ears of God. There is NO blessing in it, quite the opposite. it is the very reason why the seraph serpents were sent among the Israelites in the desert. Complaining against God-given leadership is the reason the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan.
As counter-intuitive as it might seem, blessing lies in exactly the opposite direction, in praising God FOR these hard-to-take decisions, in quiet deference to your priests and bishops, in quietly fasting and making sacrifices for them that He will open their eyes to the wonders of the TLM. He is the King. He can do this. He cannot not only make your bishop receptive to the TLM, He can make him apostolic in its spread, or rather He through your bishop can do all this, just as He through your bishop can put you to the test.
The blogsphere and sympathetic auditors of your complaints cannot do any of this.
The Kingdon must be justly ruled, and a faithful community that loves the TLM deserves a priest who can serve that community.
I don’t attend the TLM myself, I must say that the “liberals” I know have compassions for everyone but their fellow CTholics. It has scandalized me the last few years, as I grew up in a liberal home in a rural area and didn’t know the TLM still existed until my 30’s.
“…We are getting to the point where the unity of the Church may well cry out for its suppression, where it would be imprudent for the pope or bishops not to suppress it…”
Do you mean a “lawful” suppression this time? Or another snow job that will leave thriving communities bereft of that which actually feeds the soul and builds the Faith. The “Catholic” Faith?
It wasn’t just complaining that swallowed up Dathan, but the worship of the golden calf. In this instance, it seems the manufactured “unity” without unity in a rite that takes funky shapes from diocese to diocese and most assuredly doesn’t represent a unity with the mass that was handed down for generations within the Catholic Church.
But indeed, this is a time of testing from the Lord. We do, however, get the leadership we deserve. So prayers for priests are critical at this juncture.
This reminds me of the Washington GOP that has done everything it can to disconnect from its conservative base, and then preaches party unity uber alles … You can betray your flocks just so long before they turn into sheep dogs, and begin biting back.
Obedience to the Faith comes before obedience to any person. That should be obvious.
If Francis ordered you to marry a gay, would you obey? Of course not. So you are merely using absolutes (“radical obedience”) incorrectly.
Oh well said, will you say the same thing to the parish were the priest is sent next. When he chucks out the polyester vestments, puts the “community table” in the trash. When eighty year olds who’ve been reading at mass are told to stay in their seats….and buy a new Tridentine missal….
Because it is what Jesus is asking of them……???
I’d bet the farm that is not what you would support.
Without a doubt, we are in a difficult time of history. It’s not an easy thing to do, but many people are migrating to centers of orthodoxy, tradition and spirituality. Traditionalists are thriving in Post Falls, Idaho. Orthodox Novus Ordo conservatives are thriving in Front Royal, Virginia and other hot spots around the country,
Orthodox Novus Ordo conservatives??
Just what the heck is that? You can get as orthodox and conservative in a novus ordo as you want and quo primum iis still quite clear.
Orthodox Novus Ordo conservatives are folks who aren’t ready to go fully TLM but can’t tolerate the excesses that happen in many parishes. St. Catherine of Siena in , St. John the Evangelist are two examples int the Arlington Diocese.
SB, you are asking the right questions.
I am linking you a letter of a priest who has asked the same questions, and has found some answers:
http://www.cmri.org/02-oswalt-letter-to-rockford-diocese.shtml
There is also a series of audio broadcasts by the same priest, same here:
http://www.restorationradionetwork.org/category/escape-from-the-novus-ordo/
Good luck, and don’t fear to face the truth, however inconvenient it might be.
Radical obedience, humility, assiduous prayer, faith, hope and charity bring down blessings from Heaven. Radical disobedience, pride, complaints, uncharitable talk, detraction-especially against the hierarchy- bring down His discipline. In the past, I have been on the wrong side of this and know very well what I am talking about. “Touch not my anointed and to my prophets do no harm” is engraved on my mind, and this refers not only to physical abuse, but to the undermining and the challenging of authority as well.
How did the clergy and the Faithful adhere to this “radical obedience” under the pontificates of Pope Formosus and his successors, about the next seven or so, several of whom contradicted each other as to whether Pope Formosus was a valid pope, some proclaiming him to be an invalid pope and proceeding to annul all his ordinations, episcopal consecrations, et cetera, and then other popes coming along and annulling all the acts of those popes who did so?
Radical obedience should be ordered to doctrine [the Magisterium of the Church] and ideally [but not always necessarily] to the person of the Pope.
The Pope Formosus case and the three or four popes that followed after him was a political controversy in that one European monarch preferred one pope over another while another noble house preferred another pope, and another kingdom wanting yet a different pope, and so on and so forth. But as far as the Church teachings were concerned, there were no changes and so there had been no doctrinal problems.
At any rate, all the popes involved did have their chances to reign, one by one. There were no antipopes. At NO time during the Pope Formosus, etc. controversy were there two or three claimants to the Throne of Peter
Sure, they fought each other, so that one pope would render one of his predecessors’ election invalid, etc., and previous bishops’ ordinations and papal blessings were revoked, then reestablished, revoked and reestablished again and again, but in the end, they all sorted out quite nicely.
The important thing was that there were no changes in doctrine in those days. People may have shifted loyalty from one pope to the next and from there to the next, etc, but they remained radically obedient to the teachings of the Church that did not change and which none of the fighting popes dared to change.
The point is that it is ridiculous to obey one pope who states, incorrectly, that Pope Formosus was never pope and that the priests and bishops he consecrated are invalid, and their sacraments are invalid, and then turn around, in subsequent pontificates, and adhere to the opposite belief merely because a pope states it.
And many Catholics did not remain “radically obedient” to the popes who said Pope Formosus was not a pope. In fact, they ignored them, just as you do today.
Do you follow the teachings of the popes that stated that Pope Formosus was not a pope, or do you follow the popes who state he was a pope? Which ones would you be “radically obedient” to?
As I said, there were no changes in De Fide doctrine, so it didn’t matter which pope reigned at one time or another. God was still God – One in Three Persons; The Ten Commandments stayed; Holy Church was founded by Our Lord; the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Mother’s perpetual virginity, all the angels and saints were intercessors; Heaven, Hell and Purgatory were real, etc.
Whether a reigning pope was valid or not, or if the See was vacant or not, the people continued to render radical obedience to revealed truth Magisterium.
The problem was in the perceived validity or invalidity of the elections of one pope after another and the next pope’s affirming the validity of a previous pope, etc., etc. But they all reigned one after another, visibly and in a single file. There were no antipopes to challenge them.
So one pope’s ordained bishops were rendered invalid by the next and all that those bishops blessed were also invalidated. But the next pope affirmed them and reinstated the previous bishops and their blessings. That was the problem – not the faith itself, but how it was administered.
I supposed that in many cases the principle of “Ecclesia Supplet” applied in more ways than one. And that helped.
On the other hand, the TLM Community that has met in my parish church for 20+ years will have their own facility when that parish completes it’s new campus. The bishop is giving it to them.
If the new priest’s homilies are only centered on love, why not respectfully write to him? Complaining simply because the sermons aren’t to your liking isn’t really helpful to anyone. Perhaps you may be able to help this new priest before moving to a new parish
Sadly the “love’ sermons are probably bereft of the true meaning of love. Love is not an emotion or a “go along to get along” that is the world’s definition. I think this lost priest follows the world’s way of “love” rather than the true way. Love is a willing of the good of others. It is not an emotion at all. Love protects and doesn’t go along with evil doing. It is selfless and other centered and rejoices in the GOOD. It is found in the human WILL, not the emotions. Yet our perverted world considers sodomy “love” which is the farthest thing from it. So the new priest is infecting (from the comment of the author I presume) the truth and destroying souls. Not a good thing. God bless~
Pingback: Where Does It End? | Mundabor's Blog
This is a time of unprecedented evil in the Church. The Pope is constantly attacking the Faith and God’s moral law. It is he who is not in communion with the Deposit of Faith. The Great Apostasy clearly started at the top levels of the Church, and now there is a tiny remnant who uphold the unchanging Faith, while the man in the Office of St Peter constantly opposes it, and those who keep the True Faith, all the while not being opposed by those who have a duty t do so.
Pingback: The lack of God leads to a lack of boundaries. | Dark Brightness
I have read a couple of articles this last year about people who had to do serious travel to get to appropriate Liturgies. what I mean by that is traveling 1 and 1/2 hours one way. Another couple traveled 1 hour one way. I hope this can be somewhat encouraging anyway to someone who might have to go to some serious lengths for Mass. Or, perhaps, try to go to a more local Eastern Catholic Liturgy (they are under the Holy Father by the way and so are truly legitimate as well as being very prayer filled and beautiful). Just a thought anyway.