It’s not your mother’s Catholic Church

Catholic Chronicle ^ | July 4, 2003 | PAT TODAK

[ultima ratio]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What loopholes? How could I possible know if Sandyeggo's a true Catholic or not?

[St.Chuck]

What loopholes?

Well, I doubt you you would see the humor in it, but you make a practice of jumping through loopholes, not hoops. Like the "state of necessity loophole"....ah, ah, ah.... no need for a dissertation on canon law here.....I was just sharing a source of amusement with Sandyeggo....yes...at your expense....sorry about that....well not really.

[sinkspur]

It is to deny the Real Presence--which is clearly sacrilegious in intent and just as clearly Protestant. This is the underlying dispute. Don't think the Novus Ordo bishops don't realize this. Of course they realize it--but they want it both ways, they want to PRETEND there is no change in doctrine, while they ACT as though there is. This would also explain their banning of the tabernacle from its place of centrality in a Novus Ordo church.

I'm sick and tired of this! You continue to assert that those who follow the Novus Ordo don't believe in the Real Presence. That's what you assert at every opportunity, that because there's a debate over kneeling versus standing, that because tabernacles might be in a side chapel, that because you throw dust in the air about "for many" versus "for all," that the Novus Ordo attendees don't believe in the Real Presence.

At the heart of your attacks--and, yes, that is what they are, attacks--is an attempt to demonize those of us who attend the Novus Ordo Mass, and I'm getting damned fed up with it. Most rational Novus Ordo posters ignore you, since your rantings are like a broken record.

At bottom, you're just a demagogue who seeks to delegitimize the Faith of millions of faithful Catholics. Faithful Catholic bishops and priests included.

It's not working. No matter how much you repeat your mantra of "The-Novus-Ordo-denies-the-Real-Presence," your wishful thinking does not make it so.

I can see why JPII is so frustrated with you people. I've bent over backwards in the last month to try to be civil to you, to concede a generous application of the Tridentine Mass, to propose a Tridentine Rite, to even praise the Holy Father for saying that SSPX Masses fulfill the Sunday obligation and that Catholics don't sin in attending them.

And what has been the result?

The continued insults against the Novus Ordo, the continued desire to suppress the Novus Ordo, and the continued questioning of the Faith of those who follow the directives of the Holy Father.

Demagogue. That's what you are, and will remain, as long as you continue to maintain this "we've-got-Jesus-and-you-don't" posture.

Accommodation is not in your vocabulary. Compromise is not in your bones. Basic respect for the heartfelt beliefs of others is not in your heart.

Building up the Body of Christ is not your mission.

I can think of only one other entity in the universe for whom destroying God's people, rhetorically or otherwise, is the prime objective.

I've grown to like your tenacity, but I've had it with your questioning my, and other faithful Catholics on this forum's, beliefs in the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and I'm not going to stand for it any longer.

I don't question the Tridentine Mass, in any way shape or form. If you can't advance your ideas in any other way than to tear down the Novus Ordo, you ought to have a long, hard talk with yourself.

The Catholic side of the religion forum is turning into a war zone, and you have done nothing to figure out a way to come to a truce.

In fact, we've lost a lot of good Catholics from FR because they got tired of the demagoguery of the Ultra-Trads.

Well, I'm not going anywhere. You're going to stop questioning the Real Presence of Christ in the Novus Ordo Mass. Period.

[sinkspur]

"the Catholic side of the religion forum is turning into a war zone"-----
Yes, that is true. And it has just about canceled me out.

Here ya go, UR. Another scalp in your trad belt.

A good person who is sick and tired of the Traditionalist abuse.

[ultima ratio]

"By this statement one could only infer that you are saying that if one has not retreated as you have that he could not be a true Catholic. You know what I was going after, and chose to talk in circles. But I'll take an 'I don't know' as a better answer than a 'No.'"

You infer incorrectly--and are acting pretty pharisaically as well. By my referring as I do to retreating to "a remnant of true Catholics practicing the true faith", I in no way indicate there might not be true Catholics obliged not to practice the true faith. Many good Catholics--some in my own family--attend Novus Ordo reluctantly. In other words they are being forced by church authorities to NOT practice the authentic Catholic faith. Your reasoning is faulty.

[ultima ratio]

You claim, "It was not about me personally." But you set up the question in this way: "Do you consider someone such as myself who does not attend a traditional Mass SSPX or otherwise, a true Catholic?"

Sounds pretty personal to me.

[St.Chuck]

I can sure relate to your frustration. Sometimes I'm angered....sometimes amused. This evening they are comical.

[Desdemona]

Give it up. You accusing anyone of being a pharisee is pretty funny.

Aesthetically and reverently, you have some good points. After that, you go off the deep end. There is no reason to call anybody's faith and authentic Catholicity into question. That's not for anyone else to judge.

Good night.

[ultima ratio]

"A good person who is sick and tired of the Traditionalist abuse."

The war zone was created by the Novus Ordo crowd that wants everybody to salute their revolution--not by me. It is they who are the agents of change, not myself.

If my arguments are powerful--and they are--you should know they are not mine. All I do is repeat what knowledgeable traditionalists have been saying. The truth is unassailable--and so you and others leave the field of argument defeated. What argument is possible. Things are what they are.

[ultima ratio]

Wait a minute. Who's faith have I ever questioned? I did just the opposite. Give me a break. If you refuse to be fair-minded and make such a false accusation, then argue it out, don't slam me and run away. I NEVER JUDGED ANYBODY'S FAITH. The phariseeism was in trying to pin me down with a yes-or-no answer--like the Gospel account of the woman taken in adultery. I was not calling Sandyeggo pharisaical personally. You people are getting pretty hysterical.

[St.Chuck]

In other words they are being forced by church authorities to NOT practice the authentic Catholic faith.

Yeah, those rotten church authorities, keeping folk from knowing, loving, and serving God.

[sinkspur]

You will soon have your wish, UR.

You and your trad buds can talk to each other in peace.

The rest of us will pass over your posts and threads like the plague.

Just watch what is happening. It's what you want, isn't it? No opposition?

Soon, it will be yours.

[ultima ratio]

Your reasoning however is still faulty. I referred only to retreating to a remnant of true Catholics--I made no inference about others. You choose to place a pejorative interpretation on my remark--but that is not necessarily the correct one.

[ultima ratio]

This is getting pretty silly. You wanted to know if I thought somebody like you was a true Catholic--yet this is not supposed to be personal? How the heck would I know what somebody like yourself is in terms of being a true or false Catholic? Do you think I'd be so foolish as to pass judgment on anybody in that way? (I suppose you do. You have yet to give me any benefit of any doubt--your hostility as been pretty obdurate from day one.)