Posted on 11/04/2023 11:30:23 AM PDT by ebb tide
While confessing that young people today do enjoy attending the Latin Mass, Pierre condescendingly asked, “is the liturgy [only] something you like? Is it a refuge? Is the church a refuge? If you look at it as a refuge, you isolate yourselves.”
“The church is missionary,” he said. “It’s not a reserve of people who feel well together.” It is “not the church that will protect me. It’s not the habit.”
Pierre’s remarks come one week after Francis himself made disparaging remarks about traditional-minded priests. Speaking to hundreds of attendees at the Synod on Synodality in Rome on October 25, Francis lamented how “young priests” are going into shops in Rome and “trying on cassocks and hats, or albs and lace robes.
“Clericalism,” he said, “is a scourge.”
In 2019, Francis likewise accused young men who wear traditional priestly attire of harboring “moral problems” and “imbalances.”
Fr. Dave Nix, who lives in the United States, provided LifeSiteNews with the following statement.
“It’s dishonest to pit the missionary spirit against the cassock. Even the modern day, baby-boomer Jesuit in his Hawaiian shirt will admit the greatest missionary saints of his congregation all wore the cassock: St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver, St. Isaac Jogues and St. John Brebeuf.”
“You have to remember the old lefty clergy in the Church are truly activists who try to close down the contemplative orders,” he continued. “But they don’t know what to do with the greatest missionaries of their own congregations who had the richest contemplative lives possible.”
To Nix’s point, one of the hallmarks of Francis’ reign has been his relentless attacks on both men and women religious communities. Carmelites in Texas and Pennsylvania as well as a Benedictine order in Pienza, Italy are just a few women contemplative orders that have won his ire. The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate were also infamously targeted by the Vatican several years ago
Pierre also discussed the drop off of vocations in the United States. While failing to place the blame for the decline, even partially, on the modernist reforms of Vatican II, or Francis’ attacks on traditional orders, Pierre simply stated that the Church today faces “new questions.”
“The transmission of the faith in the United States worked through a kind of coherence between the organization of the church and the society… But the sisters have disappeared. You once had vocations and seminaries in 200 places, but the seminaries are now empty. So the church faces new questions and challenges today,” he said.
An anonymous priest of the Society of St. Pius X told LifeSite that Pierre’s remarks exhibit an off-the-charts level of cognitive dissonance.
“Mainstream seminaries are closing because they are wishy-washy. There is no doctoral punch. It’s ‘Mickey Mouse’ Catholicism. The modern church and updated liturgy effectively castrates men. Rome today encourages endless ‘dialogue’ instead of winning souls to Catholicism.”
“Archbishop Lefebvre went to Africa as a missionary and offered the Latin Mass, and everyone started converting,” he further stated. “It’s the Novus Ordo Church that isn’t missionary. It wants to sing kumbaya with heretics.”
“As far as the cassock goes,” he continued, “it is a walking sermon. As a young man raised without direction in the Novus Ordo, it was Catholic tradition that gave me the certitude to sacrifice my life to preach the Gospel to others. The SSPX has grown to over 700 priests since Archbishop Lefebvre founded it. Its seminaries are flourishing. Young men want to join the fight for Christ the King. Tradition is the future.”
Pierre, who is French, succeeded Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as the Pope’s ambassador to the United States in April 2016.
Ping
I believe it was the Iroquois who were impressed with thr “black robes”, who were not only distinguished by their clothing, but also by not taking wives, showing sacrifice to be aboe to be closer to God.
With all due respect your Eminence, you’re wrong.
Liberalism is a scourge.
I have read the same thing.
We are in a war of attrition: N.O. churches have declining attendance and N.O. seminaries are empty.
OTOH, TLM Masses are full, with many, many young families, and trad. seminaries are filled, most with waiting lists for admission.
Bergoglio and his prelates will be concelebrating Masses in churches with empty pews.
Time, my friends, it’s just a matter of time.
Maybe someday the Cardinal along with the Pope, will convert to Catholicism.
Uniforms matter. People respect the airline pilot in a suit. It is not the critical part of his or her job, but it sets a tone of seriousness. Clerical garb can be approached similarly. It’s in the service of the solemnity of worship and dignity of the vocation. I should hope there are few who are trying to make a fashion statement, but many who want to convey a commitment to being in this world but not of it.
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