Excellent points. Trads too frequently shout “fire” and even though the theatre is half-empty, it does get annoying for those responsible for trucks and ladders.
To continue with bizarre metaphors, much more progress would be made if trads did not compulsively cut off the nose to spite the face.
Ripperger has been a problem in the past. Until the matter becomes clear, should we not give the benefit of the doubt to the Bishop?
Those who don’t first look to their own bishop to explain his reasons are not exactly acting in good faith as Catholics. Thus they come across as ignorant and reactionary whiners and will continue to be ignored. And as long as their attitude is arrogant superiority over all those “moderns” and “N.O.” people, they deserve to be ignored.
I don’t know if Fr. Ripperger has been a “problem” in the past or not. It’s not important to me (though if true, it may be important to the bishop). What I do know is that we have a Society of Apostolic Life of Diocesan Right (SAL) that:
- was established very swiftly (usually it takes closer to decades to be erected as such)
- had very few members (in my bit of reading since my first post, I saw that Bishop Slattery had waited for a third priest before erecting it as a SAL)
- had exorcism and spiritual deliverance as its major apostolic work (while all apostolic works of a SAL of any sort are under oversight of the bishop, this is true in a special way for exorcism)
Perhaps most importantly — THIS IS A RUMOR THAT COMES FROM NEITHER THE DIOCESE NOR THE SOCIETY (The originator of the story has updated, and I will post below)
There is much uncertainty about this, but the three reasons I mention leave plenty of room for legitimate reasons that the bishop asked them to stop that have nothing to do with oppressing traditional Catholics. If there is any truth to the rumor, I would expect that there was some discussion behind the scenes between the bishop and Fr. Ripperger before reaching this point.