15 July 2014
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25 comments:
Like you, Wynne is a pervert.
Dear Heresy Hunter: Your collage poignantly illustrates one side of what happens when the Church is in a weakened state. She attracts parasites. They smell the wound in the Bride of Christ. Then, like cockroaches, they creep out of dark corners to take advantage. Their motives are to make money, show off and feel good about themselves. They care nothing for the Church. They are opportunists who see in the staggering, gasping, faltering exterior Body of Christ (caused by the disorientation of the hierarchy) a chance for centre stage. There is an urgency to their grab for attention because they know there is always a "danger" that the Church will revive and they will be booted out. They are drunk with vainglory, and perfectly obscene in their willingness to use the battered condition of the Church for self-promotion. Fortunately there is another side of what happens when the Church is in a weakened state. She also attracts saints. They are characterized primarily by their willingness to suffer. But that is a comment for another time.
Hello there, marylise:
To be sure, "opportunists" is the operative word.
To supplement your comment, here is one I came across from a columnist at The Remnant:
"When I use the term Neo-Catholic in this article, I am referring to
those Catholic media entities that make money off of maintaining the
tragic status quo in the Church. They do this by selectively choosing
not to cover news that contradicts their agenda or by filtering all
Catholic news through a re-interpretive lens that protects their own
interests. These media entities will go to any lengths to deny there is
currently a crisis in the Church or else they will downplay its
severity. I am also referring to Catholic media outlets that presume to
condemn all public criticism of the pope or Vatican II".
Aw. Come on. You're tarring a lot of good people with the same brush. As for editorial choices, I often ask myself if I really want to freak out my readers especially as it wouldn't be me soothing them when they lay awake worrying. Meanwhile I know for a fact Ignatius Press allows hard questions to be asked. So does the UK's Catholic Herald, incidentally. As for the money, such as it is, G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc wrote for their keep.
I think you will find some loyal opposition to some of Pope Francis' more surprising decisions if you look. And I also think the key word here is loyalty. The knowledgeable Catholic--and how many Catholics know their own bishop's name--is beset with conflicting loyalties. And, finally, I see that all the media organisations in your collage are American. Well, American Catholicism has its problems, of course, especially from a outside perspective. However, you must agree that the First Things POV is a world away from, say, that of The Prairie Messenger.
Incidentally, I saw two UK detective shows last night and both depicted the seal of the confessional as obstructions of justice and Catholics as hypocrites and/or judgemental freaks. That's the climate we're all working in--the malicious ignorance of pop culture, 24/7. Teenagers are as effectively brainwashed by MTV and its ilk as German teens were once brainwashed by stirring speeches and parades.
"Come on"?... It's called looking at the big picture - in time and space, and then summarizing it graphically.
In time, because Neo-Catholicism is a recent phenomenon, just a few decades old, and its adherents have that telltale liberalized characteristic which superelevates and obsesses on the Church and popes since only 1962. In space - yes, American, because Neo-Catholicism is most especially an American creation.
Tell me something, Scotland: How, as a claimed Traditional Catholic, do you reconcile your constant defence or justification of those who are working to undermine the Church, be it knowingly or unknowingly? Why, when it comes to intra-Catholic debate, do you find it so difficult to call a spade a spade? Is this something to which you struggle? Is it done to protect the feelings of your friends, Modernist or neo-Catholic? What is more important: truth or the emotional sensitivities of your colleagues? Truth or worry over offending others? For a Traditional Catholic (just a Catholic, that is), the answers to these questions are obvious. As Catholics, we do not conform to the ephemerally reigning sensibilities and ideas of people (including people inside the Church), nor do we remain silent when we witness the harm done to the souls of others by them. Rather, we conform to Christ and what His Church has always taught.
Search your heart, probe the depths, my good lady, because every time you come to these com boxes I notice a repeating pattern of defending the indefensible, and this not so much based not on what the Magisterium teaches.
Generally I pop by to defend my friends and allies, including your good self, as you may recall. Some intemperate young man said no one of import reads your blog, which I thought rather silly, as legions of grandees read it to see if you mention them by name. So I said so. I don't generally defend people's theology or editorial choices. I just point out some of them don't deserve to be called names or wished ill by Grumpy Cat. (Where's Scampers?)
My feeling is that no one is perfect, and the barque of St Peter is always going to have a port and a starboard, a bow and a stern. You may think one of my colleagues on the port side beyond the pale, but he's the only Westerner I know to have personally gone to Syria to get the stories of the Middle Eastern Christians, falling ill near the end of his trip if I recall correctly. This was rather more impressive than traddie me and conservative colleagues going to post-commie Poland where we are made much of and eat incredibly well. Yes, real catechism is paramount, but the suffering and martyrdom of our Middle Eastern brethren cannot go unnoticed. Without boots on the ground reporting, we'd be stuck with popularity contests and theological squabbles that merely distress and scandalize John & Mary Catholic .
It would be lovely if everyone had a great pre-WW2 grip of the Faith that won over Dorothy Day, Edith Stein, G.K.Chesterton and countless others. It would be fantastic. And the more my colleagues mention these great ones, the more likely the Catholics they influence are going to read them and ask the hard questions, e.g. why isn't Mass the way all the saints and\or apologists describe it?
You may recall in my novel a rather trenchant critique or two of the contemporary Church. Well, Ignatius Press published it, and good for them. I snarled at the Winnipeg Statement in the CR, and the CR published that, too. Meanwhile, it takes time to turn a big boat around, and I don't think we should throw 75% of us overboard while we do it.
One last point: many of the outlets in your collage give space to academic theologians loathed by their soi-disant Catholic colleagues. I am not sure you appreciate how awful it is within American (and British) theology departments for anyone who does not hate Benedict XVI with a burning passion. Such media outlets thus help a hermeneutic of continuity view, if not my preferred restorationist view, to survive in an outrageously hostile climate.
A striking example of opportunism in our day was that of John Corapi -- aided and abetted by EWTN, until his behaviour became so gross that his own order had to declare him "unfit for ministry." Some people find it hard to believe that EWTN knew nothing about this man's true character until his transgressions became public. EWTN would have been dealing with him on a regular basis for years. On stage he knew how to talk the talk, appealing to the desperation of traditional Catholics by appearing to be orthodox. (He made mistakes, but many of us have learned, alas, not to be fussy.) But if EWTN knew what he was really like, and promoted him all the same, it suggests that EWTN considered a good show -- filling up air time -- more important than the truth and eternal salvation.
"Confusing the Faithful" is a terrible thing to do, and if I were to tell them the Mass they attend daily or weekly just squeaks over the line between valid and invalid, as many Trads hold, the Faithful would darn well be confused, and possibly disheartened."
As someone who has been following this blog and many others for the past few years, I have to say there is no "single" blog out there that will confuse the Faithful anymore than they likely were prior to reading them. I know it was mass confusion that led me to read blogs in the first place years ago, and it has been quite a journey for me personally. All perspectives were taken in. The "liberals" say one thing and the "trads" say something else. Why isn't a Catholic just a Catholic? Where does the truth lie? Why should I care? The official media outlets appear to have their own agendas, in my opinion, so I don't read/watch them so much anymore. I did regularly at first. I read everything I could to try to understand why all the confusion! As a cradle Catholic who 10 years ago didn't know a person could still attend Mass in Latin, living in a place where the word Latin is considered a "four letter" word, I have travelled a long road that has led me to realize that there truly is something drastically wrong with things these days. My own mother informed me not that long ago that "they got rid of Latin dear. It's no longer the Church I grew up in". My 75 yr old mother does not know what a blog is, by the way. She was just stating the facts as she knows them. My 91 year old aunt (RIP), who was a nun in a not so orthodox anymore order, told me shortly before she passed away to "stick to the old books dear, the new ones are not so trustworthy". The more I opened up and tried to read blogs such as this one with an open mind as opposed to immediately seeing an attack, the more I realized that this blog and many others like it are just expressing, in the writer's own way, the truth about these days in which we live and how things
have (d)evolved to such a state. It took some time, and alot of reading, prayer, searching and personal growth. In my humble opinion, it all depends on just how mature people are in the Faith and their knowledge of history as to whether a blog such as this one is helpful to them, but it would be a travesty in my opinion, for the writer to stop writing because he may confuse someone, or because someone may not appreciate the writing style or point being made. Pablum is not for everyone.
Total confusion these days may arise just listening to Fr. Lombardi try to explain the latest "interview". At least here, everything is referenced to the max and there's no doubting that what was written was written in light of the truth, humility and in good faith. It's a journey, and eventually, if one stays on the road and doesn't give up seeking the truth, one will likely come to greatly appreciate the efforts by such writers as TH2. At some point, eyes are opened for those who honestly wish to see.
Thus ends my hopefully not too incoherent ramblings.
Thank you for all your efforts TH2, and thank you also for your work Dorothy. It's all appreciated by those who need it most for whatever part of the road they are travelling at the time.
..."but are turned off by rage". That should be righteous anger "Rage", of course, to many, implies irrationalism, uncontrollable, rigid, mean, cruel, uncaring, unqualified, etc. and thus persons classified
as such can be easily scored off as nothing. Discerning Catholics see beyond the "angry Trad" trope (see thoughtful comments below by "Anonymous in NS").
..."he's the only Westerner I know to have personally gone to Syria to get the stories of the Middle Eastern Christians, falling ill near the end of his trip". Is that supposed to evoke sympathy in me? You should know by now that I don't fall for that kind of stuff. Is that to make up for his Modernist-grovelling reporting, for all the vilifications, betrayals, innuendos and distortions against orthodox Catholics done over years? With, for example, blatant heresy like this:
"It's no accident that the first half of Brokeback Mountain is filled with lush Christian imagery which recalls Jesus the good shepherd... When the gay cowboy lovers first discover a way to be authentic with each other - truthful about their basic sexual attractions and the source of their happiness in each other - they achieve a resemblance to truth itself"
Come on, it's all there in black and white.
I'm not interested in compromise and concessions with enemies of the Church. I'm not interested in grey-shading and borderline dwelling. These have been the banes of the Post-Conciliar era in the last five decades, forming the dominant method of approach. And what has been the result? - "A Devastated Vineyard", "A Desolate City". It's
undeniable. The time for allotting percentages and balancing of probabilities is over, unjustifiable. The harvest is now overgrown with weeds, which must be expunged and thrown into the fire.
Thusly, this blog is going to stick with the Saints:
St. Augustine : It is better that the truth be known than that scandal be covered up.
St. Thomas Aquinas: If the faith is in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public.
Bl. Pope Pius IX: Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church.
St. Pope Felix III: Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.
Have you heard any news about him lately? Seems to have disappeared into oblivion.
Thank you kindly for your detailed, incisive commentary and for visiting the blog. I see that you are someone who get's it. And, your comments were not "incoherent". Not at all. In fact, perfectly clear - quite the rarity these days.
I'm not defending the indefensible. There are atrocious ideas and atrocious prelates, and the atrocious ideas must not be allowed to go unchallenged, and neither should the atrocious prelates--but I do not mean "prelates" as some sort of amorphous group or "atrocious" as a simple smile at some smirking politician. I mean prelates like the jaw-droppingly scandalous Bishop Leahy, whose lawyer offered in his defense for possessing child porn that he had been in a homosexual relationship for years.
Because bishops have taken the places of the apostles, I think it does indeed befit the flock to cry to the heavens when bishops behave badly, either through the open scandal of their personal lives or through cowardice before the wolves and treason of the faith.
However, in the above collage, you are making the best the enemy of the good, as it were. And by attacking Catholic writers and publishers ad hominem, and letting your fan's remark that they are cockroaches pass unchallenged, you are losing sight of the real problem: not people, but HERESIES and SINS. I am sorry that my friend went to what is essentially a pornographic film, and I don't like what he said about it, but because I know him personally, I know that he is not the enemy of the Church. Possibly the Blueberry Muffin is; I wouldn't know. The violent men terrorizing, raping and killing the Christians of Iraq certainly are the enemies of the Church; no matter what the B.M. ponders aloud, I don't think we can class her with them.
I've said it before--it's a bad idea to napalm a village when your own forces are still in it. Ignatius Press--which I single out for it's the only name I'm really familiar with and indeed associated with--publishes hundreds of titles of great help to Catholics. "First Things" may be less helpful for non-Americans, and one might certainly argue that it falls into Americanism, but it has been a comfort for those who feel marginalized by writers and readers of "America."
I am a firm believer in the marketplace of ideas, but I also believe in a certain kind of chivalry. That chivalry includes attacking ideas and sins, not people (unless calling bishops to account for their scandals, e.g. losing the kitty on racehorses, destroying a cathedral, flaunting a lover, abusing a child), and also considering the effect one has on people. The young man who wrote so intemperately in the combox here was not ordained to the deaconate after all. Is he all right? The poor Brazilian chap with the green beard who probably dresses in that eccentric way because he thinks it is attractive or fun or some shallow comfort like that: is telling him he's a pervert likely to bring him to Christ?
You will write what you like, of course, and I will protest when I think you have wronged someone I know, and so it will go. Meanwhile churches are smouldering in Mosul, so let's call a truce and do something for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. Any ideas?
Don't think I would want TH2 to be shut down, even if such a thing were possible. I read his blog after all, and quite publicly admit to doing so. It's that I think his blog would be better if he stuck to attacking concrete ideas and sinful tendencies, not people. In this situation, I am asking that he reconsider blackening the efforts of scores of other Catholic writers to present the faith. We do not all have the same audiences, and some audiences do need "milk" rather than "meat" right now. If there's a place for TH2, there is a place for Jennifer Fullwiler, et alia. My principal concern with the above list of brand-names is that American Catholicism (left, right or trad) might utterly dominate the English-speaking Churches. This would not be good.
You know, I'm not sure, but that looks like an ad hominem attack.
To the contrary, it's a warning. Because that's how you are coming across in my opinion - assuming too much goodness in those who who you think are allies, but are enemies in secret, giving them way too much benefit of the doubt, trusting them when deserve no such trust as evidenced by the words they write. My concern is that one day, unexpectedly, you will find yourself to be stabbed in the back, and I pray to God that that not happen.
As a very recent example, to demonstrate, recall the vicious attack by two Patheos writers against the journalist at LifeSite News. That was just wicked.
TH2, the picture of Chamberlain is quite apt, especially in light of a certain large group of once true Traditionals and now seekers of reconciliation with apostate Rome:yes, the SSPX. The infection of heresy and apostasy has thus spread from the conciliar church (a parasite on the One Holy and Apostolic Church that is the Catholic Church in Her doctrinal purity and integrity) into those who have sought to maintain the True Faith.
So there has been indeed more than one Night of the Long Knives. AS for the conciliar church, and its bastard Lutheran Mess of Mass, it must be recognized that is not Catholic in the true and substantial meaning of the term. I will note also that any group or order calling itself Traditional that has allied itself with apostate Rome is no better. The FSSP, ICK and other Indult related communities are perfidious traitors to the Faith. Alas no one said it was was going to be easy to keep the Faith.
Most sources agree that John Corapi has disappeared after a brief & embarrassing flirtation with a new persona he called The Black Sheep Dog (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Corapi). A strong Catholic investigative journalist could do something worthwhile by analyzing his story. It is an example of what happens when bishops are too busy with bottled water, immigration reform & "religious liberty" to bother with the eternal salvation of souls. Their worldly preoccupations create a void and this void is an invitation to con artists. There are so many questions. One is why wasn't John Corapi disciplined sooner when it still might have been possible to salvage his vocation? Why did the appropriate authorities wait until he was allegedly up to his eyeballs in cocaine, money & prostitutes?
Why? You answered it. Bishops are not carrying out their apostolic mandate of SAVING SOULS, instead having opted for Marxist-styled social justice operations instead. The roads of Hell are paved with the skulls of bishops, one saint wrote. If nothing else, the highway interstates of Tartarus must be an awesome diabolically charged drive! :@)
Oh, in that case, thank you for your prayers and good wishes.
It was indeed shameful.
I wonder who died and made you head of the CDF, o thou fan of Bishop Williamson. The Society of Pius V called; they want their schismatism back.
Dear THH2: I agree heartily with this post. Being a bit of a homebody, I'd like to read something wholesome and worthwhile, and so much of what is available today is from the above 'manufacturers'. In between your posts, I might just pick up a "Letters of St. Vincent de Sales'. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you and God Bless you for your Blog.
Hello Lola,
My suggestions for such "worthwhile" writings would be St. Augustine's Confessions, St. Louis de Monfort's Secret of the Rosary and those (chronicled) of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich.
St. John Chyrsostom said that. He also said some rather nasty things about Jews...
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