Posted on 06/10/2025 10:26:36 AM PDT by ebb tide
Although we pray that the tide will turn with Pope Leo XIV, one of the most astoundingly bizarre realities in the world today is that Traditional Catholics are persecuted by the putative leaders of the Catholic Church. The crime committed by Traditional Catholics is that we seek to adhere to what the Catholic Church has taught for two-thousand years. Although relatively few clerics actively carry out the persecution against these “backward” Catholics, millions of Catholics watch the spectacle with tacit approval. As we can see from the three examples below, the failure to decry the preposterous injustice committed against Traditional Catholics suggests a thorough lack of common sense, or worse, among so many who consider themselves exemplary Catholics.
Unity in Diversity. Those persecuting Traditional Catholics often cite the need for unity as the justification for seeking to silence those who adhere to what the Church has always taught. This would be far more persuasive were it not for the obvious fact that these persecutors do all they can to foster diversity of belief and practice among those whom they do not persecute. To get a sense of this phenomenon, we can look at three passages from the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality’s October 2024 session:
Any reasonable person — Catholic or otherwise — reading this would naturally conclude that the desired diversity would encompass those who truly sought to believe and practice the same religion that was followed by St. Pius X, St. Therese, St. Pius V, and St. Thomas Aquinas. But they would be mistaken — everyone is welcome in the diverse Synodal Church except for those who truly seek to follow what the Church has always taught.
Allowing Catholics to attend the Traditional Latin Mass, they say, compromises the liturgical unity. This is self-evidently preposterous because the Novus Ordo Mass is itself a radical sign of disunity, with the manner of celebration differing from parish to parish within even the same cities, without even considering the fact that it is in different languages around the world.
The Mass. The most common and effective punishment for many Traditional Catholics is to impair their ability to attend the Traditional Latin Mass. This, again, is generally justified in terms of promoting unity: allowing Catholics to attend the Traditional Latin Mass, they say, compromises the liturgical unity. This is self-evidently preposterous because the Novus Ordo Mass is itself a radical sign of disunity, with the manner of celebration differing from parish to parish within even the same cities, without even considering the fact that it is in different languages around the world.
Conversely, Traditional Catholics witness the ultimate sign of liturgical unity when they attend the Traditional Latin Mass in foreign countries — other than the sermon, it is substantially identical to the Mass they would attend in their home parish. Not only that, Traditional Catholics are unified with their ancestors in their worship according to the Traditional Latin Mass. And so it is almost impossible to imagine that serious people could actually believe that banning the Traditional Latin Mass promotes any sort of unity.
The Bishop of Charlotte, North Carolina, Michael Martin, added another dimension of absurdity recently when he condemned Traditional Catholics because they cannot really “participate” if they attend the Traditional Latin Mass:
“Latin is used from place to place for various and different motivations. However, the faithful's full, conscious, and active participation is hindered wherever Latin is employed. Most of our faithful do not understand and will never comprehend the Latin language, especially those on the periphery. It is fallacious to think that if we employ Latin more frequently, the faithful will get used to it and finally understand it. Our ancestors ‘heard' the Mass in Latin every Sunday but never understood it.”
The translation: these poor fools who think they can best worship God by attending the Traditional Latin Mass need to be deprived of the primary means by which they participate in the life of the Church because some of their ancestors may not have understood the Mass. When these opponents of the Traditional Latin Mass make such statements it is difficult to imagine that they are not being malicious. How, in other words, can we imagine that they are actually so confused?
It is one of the most truly remarkable absurdities in the history of Christianity that those who support Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom deny the religious freedom of those who seek to follow what Pius IX taught on the subject.
Religious Liberty. As we know, one of the most touted innovations of Vatican II, was to overturn what the pre-Vatican II popes taught about religious liberty. To see this, we can simply consider the following contradictory statements:
It is one of the most truly remarkable absurdities in the history of Christianity that those who support Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom deny the religious freedom of those who seek to follow what Pius IX taught on the subject. By their words and deeds, they tell us that you can believe anything in the world other than what all the Catholic saints believed prior to Vatican II.
All of this is like a Monty Python skit except that it is only humorous to the enemies of God and His Catholic Church. God has permitted the crisis in the Church to reach this point to which those who persecute Traditional Catholics are unmistakably wrong. We can pray for these enemies of the unadulterated Faith, but it is foolish to imagine that God calls us to compromise the religion He gave us to placate those who have completely abandoned reason. Never before has it been more clear that God asks us to endure any persecution from Rome rather than sacrifice one iota of the Faith. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
Ping
You are erroneous. It is the root of all Christianity.
Let’s hope this new Pope can draw the Church awat from the error of heretics to the true Way.
Careful. This is a Catholic Caucus thread. It is not permissible in Catholic Caucus threads for non-Catholics to debate the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The “enemies” the article is talking about are inside the Catholic Church, not outside it. That’s why the article is marked as a Caucus.
Just citing from the article to prove my point ...
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