At the end of my last article, The Recent Battle of the SSPX, I asked a question that pertains to the traditionalist movement at-large: Why do modernist heresiarchs publicly honor Anglicans, homosexuals, satanic American rock stars, abortion-promoters, Buddhist monks, Muslims, Jews, liberal Catholics, prisoners and even animals before they will publicly honor traditional Catholics?
That this is bigger than the SSPX vs. the Vatican. If you are a Catholic who attends the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) you have probably heard something like this from a mainstream Catholic: “Do you reject Vatican II? While there’s nothing schismatic about attending the TLM, there might be a schismatic spirit to it.”
These self-righteous lines of passive-aggression usually come from mainstream Catholics who have read one-book on recent Church history. Times hominem unius libri.
Sometimes, your salvation might even get challenged by people who claim you reject modern Popes, even if you don’t! But this is ironic since Vatican II insisted the Eastern Orthodox (formerly called schismatics) and Protestants (formerly called heretics) are indeed already saved without any need to come into the Catholic Church (just read the documents if you don’t believe me!) How then can anyone charge a traditionalist with “schism”?
Once again, this is bigger than the SSPX. We could also ask this question: How can threats of “schism” come from a allegedly-Christian entity that just blessed Muslims approaching Ramadan with no call for them to accept Jesus Christ to begin the pathway to salvation?
Or: How can your local chancery refuse to “accompany” all of you lost traditionalists if they really believe you are all “crypto-schismatics” in danger of losing our salvation? Yet, they’ll happily pray with Lutherans in their own communities? Remind me again: Whose salvation is in danger?
Answer: They really don’t believe any of us are heretical or schismatic. They’re just weaponizing language to scare us into not leaving a cult-like grip held on the quivering psyche of the few Catholics still paying attention. The bad guys know their time is fast-approaching.
Now we can switch from psychology to theology: The fact is that “liberal Catholics” don’t believe anyone in the world in currently in danger of hell. Why? Because the heresy of religious indifferentism has turned their minds into oatmeal which has collapsed into narcissism. If it’s not about God anymore, then it’s now about man. That’s the very definition of the heresy of modernism.
Deep down inside, even liberals know true Catholicism can’t change. So, they aren’t comfortable with traditionalists because they know we believe that.
If you think that sounds like self-aggrandizement just because I’m a rad-trad, ask yourself: Why are trads the only people whom modernists currently shame in public? Not Hindus. Not Jews. Not Buddhists. Not Goths. Not atheists. Not homosexuals. Not Methodists. Not Muslims. Yep, only Catholics who really believe in the perennial teachings and liturgy of the Church are threatened by the modernists in control as being “outside Rome.” You have to admit this pattern is either uncharitable or unreasonable, even if you’re not a traditionalist.
Of course, we traditionalists are only 1% of the baptized Catholics of the world. But the leftists currently in charge of the buildings should not have to beat us up if they really think we are “schismatic.”
Rather, even schismatics and heretics were welcomed in parishes for the last several decades by that 1994 Marty Haugen song All Are Welcome In This Place. Yes, the libs would sing that to me, too, if they truly loved me. But they don’t. It’s only Apostolic Catholics who are found to be unwelcome in their fake “synodal church.”
To prove this, I should show up on the doorstep of all the rectories of priests and bishops who say “Nix is out of control” and wail and cry and beg on their doorstep with all my might: Whyyyy won’t you accompany meeeeee in dialogue!?
Could the answer come from the Bible? The Old Testament’s Wisdom chapter 2 is usually applied to Christ by the Church Fathers, but it can be applied to any saint. In fact, it can be applied to any real Catholic who is shamed by fake Catholics:
The RSVCE (translated from the Greek to English) reads: The very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean.—Wis 2:14-16a RSVCE.
Notice, the shunned person has not said anything specific to raise the ire of his colleagues. Merely the sight of him living his life differently from them is a conviction to their conscience.
Or the same verses in DRB (translated from the Greek to Latin to English) reads: He is grievous unto us, even to behold, for his life is not like other men’s, and his ways are very different. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness.—Wis 2:15-16a DRB.
So there you have it. We trads are very far from perfect, but the reason Buddhists are welcome in public religious events by most the bishops of the West but rad-trads aren’t is because bishops know they’re supposed to be like us. We trads don’t call modernist clergy “triflers,” but apparently they feel that way around us. Our way of life convicts their deepest consciences. Buddhists do not.
If you have another answer to the above inconsistencies (theological or psychological) please write me an email and I’ll charitably entertain it. But spare me the old “trads are self-righteous” business after this many years of trads being called horrible names and rarely saying anything back. Bishops and priests always talk behind my back, but none of them will actually accompany me to see the true light of ecumenism.
So, until then, I’ll hold to this theory: The very sight of a real-Catholic always becomes a burden to a fake-Catholic because the latter could easily grumble to himself about the former: He is grievous unto us… His manner of life is unlike that of others and he avoids our ways as unclean. It’s really that simple.
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