Posted on 07/14/2014 11:38:21 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
Fr. Dwight Longenecker, posting on his“Standing on my Head” blog (appropriately named given the frequency with which pontifications seem to flow so freely from his other end), recently suggested that traditionalists (aka Catholics) are “getting old.” Obviously, he’s never been to a “traditionalist” gathering to witness the overwhelming presence of young, often quite large, families.
“Not only are they dying out,” he wrote, “but their ideas are dying out.”
It isn’t immediately clear what “ideas” he has in mind, but presumably he is speaking of such notions as the Social Kingship of Christ as taught with such stunning clarity by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, the reality of Christian unity as taught by this same Roman Pontiff in Mortalium Animos, and last but not least, the Mass of all Ages, the devotees of which he has castigated as unstable for daring to drive considerable distances to assist at such a liturgy.
Fr. Longenecker went on to opine:
Fifty years after the revolution of the Second Vatican Council we are moving on from the tensions it created. Those tensions existed because Catholics kept comparing the pre-Vatican II church to the post-Vatican II church. The ones who did this most were the folks who went through the Vatican II revolution … Everything was viewed through that lens. Well, at least we agree on one thing; the Second Vatican Council was a revolution.
Where I and every other reasonably well-formed Catholic parts company with Fr. Longenecker is his preposterous assertion that those who cannot help but draw comparisons between Catholic life before Vatican II and the bitter realities of the present crisis are necessarily “the folks who went through the Vatican II revolution,” and they are the reason tensions exist over the Council.
Does Fr. Longenecker believe that to be Catholic, no matter one’s age or personal experience, is to view everything through the lens of all that preceded us?
Does he hold the firm conviction that ours is the Faith that comes to us from the Apostles; not just the faith of the most recent “pastoral exercise” or the currently reigning pope?
Does he fully embrace the reality that this faith is immutable; may never be believed to be different, and may never be understood in any other way?
Apparently not, which actually makes perfect sense if you stop to consider his background:
Brought up as an Evangelical. Dwight Longenecker graduated from fundamentalist Bob Jones University. While there he became an Anglican and after graduation went to Oxford to train as an Anglican priest. After serving for ten years as an Anglican priest he converted to the Catholic faith with his wife and family. Eventually he returned to the United States to be ordained as a Catholic priest under the special provision from Rome for married former Anglican clergy. (Amazon.com bio) Is it just me or does there seem to be something missing from this curriculum vitae; namely, any kind of training in Catholic theology and protestant deprogramming?
In any case, I suspect, and Fr. Longenecker himself may very well admit, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell he would have swum the Tiber if awaiting him on the other shore was the “pre-Vatican II church” circa all the way back to 1958.
This raises yet another question: Did Fr. Longenecker convert to the Catholic faith whole and entire, or did he convert to some protestantized (read: distorted) conception of the same?
Clearly, it is the latter. Remember what he said:
Fifty years after the revolution of the Second Vatican Council we are moving on from the tensions it created. You see, only the protestant mind can conceive of a “revolution” in the Church in such terms; as if the revolution isn’t a problem in and of itself, but only the tensions created by the recalcitrant few who just can’t seem to let go.
Indeed, it may well be that the vast majority of converts over the last fifty years, priest or otherwise, more properly converted to a protestantized conception of “Church” and not necessarily to the Faith in its fullness.
It’s not necessarily their fault.
Think about it: One who embraces with gusto every word that has come forth from the mouths of the last five popes would have at least one foot in Protestantism. Obviously, Fr. Longenecker does, and this even as he stands on his head.
But I know, you're not interested in what the popes and the Church said prior to 1960, right?
I noticed that most if not all of the Novus Ordo posters attacking my stance here had nothing or little to say about such contradictions in this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3179363/posts
But I get it. It's hard to defend that.
Good luck with your New Catholic project. See? Two can play that uncharitable game.
Don't forget most of the VII Catholics right here on FR.
Yes but it's a game that should never be played, everyone loses. I know I'm probably the last person who should be saying that but there it is.
I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone else here but the last thing Catholics should be doing is pushing each other away, or writing each other out of the Church.
I sympathize with both sides of this argument. On the one hand where else can we go and on the other something is rotten in Rome.
You’re right. I don’t want to be uncharitable. Generally speaking I think I try to remain charitable in my posts despite my unpopular position.
Dwight Longenecker is a self-hating Southerner who believes in evolution.
Thank you for that testimony based in reality. I think it’s worth 10 blog posts about him (or anyone). At least.
I don’t know him at all, and if all I had to go on were accounts like the OP I might be inclined to regard him with contempt. It’s all too easy to get into theoretical debates about what people think someone said rather than what was actually said and done.
I’m reminded of this thread I just read before this one. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3180381/posts
We all need to be careful to not take anyone’s word or conclusion about another at face value, if it’s not based on experience. In any setting. Actual experience trumps theory every time.
Except there is no hermeneutic of continuity.
“Except there is no hermeneutic of continuity.”
Which makes my point. You and the “spirit of VIIers” are basically in the same objective place regarding the council.
And you both repudiate the teaching of Benedict XVI.
sitetest
We recognize that VII contradicts Traditional Catholic teaching regarding religious liberty and ecumenism.
If Benedict XVI is stating that it does not contradict then I absolutely repudiate his “teachings”. I’ll stick with the Traditional Catholic Faith, TYVM.
We all have a lot to learn about the Catholic Church, and unfortunately, most have to learn it on their own. The bishops and the priests of the modern Church only teach about the “mercy of God” and your obligation to help redistribute wealth like the governments.
BTW, when I (and other traditional Catholics) say “Vatican II”, it is used as a metaphor for all that has been spawned from that fateful Council, which of course includes the “spirit” of the Council. For example, the word “collegiality” is never mentioned in the 16 Council documents; yet, it is the collegiality of the episcopal conferences that is the heart and soul of how the Church is now being torn asunder from within, as the priest and bishops throughout the world are all doing their own thing—and the pope all but ignores most of it.
Your observations about the “Catholic ghetto” are interesting, although I confess that Is not my recollection. I was an Altar Boy in the early 1940’s and was fortunate enough to have parents with a strong faith. I never remembering any Catholic looking on wishfully at any Protestant. If anything, I believe we probably felt compassion for them because of the fact that they were outside the Church. The terms “cafeteria Catholic”, “practicing Catholic” and others, are all post VII phrases that began after 1960. Before then it was Catholic, lapsed-Catholic and non-Catholic.
But today there is much division. On this site and others, genuinely decent Catholics are trading barbs over the details of the faith and what it means to be a true Catholic. I’m certainly as guilty as the next, but it’s all a Satanic distraction. If we want a Catholic Church that speaks with one voice and upholds the dogmas of the Church, then we have to demand that our priests and bishops learn what the Church taught before the Council and follow it. One would have to be blind not to see that it is the forces that have always been historic enemies of the Church that are now cheering on the new modern Church.
That's the basic point to keep in mind, IMHO, whether it's talking about the divisions in the Church or the plague of tens of thousands of "churches" that replaced what was once a handful of Protestant denominations all of which at least still taught some of the fundamentals of the Faith whereas now it's all Self and Self Alone sprinkled with whatever colorful treats pleases the crowd and with the cherry of cheap grace on top. They could even take Bonhoffer seriously and get off that bandwagon.
Regards
Father Longenecker is a great priest. You hate him because he used to be a protestant.
Niiiiice.
Where exactly has he stated that no contradictions exist?
"The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest." ~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, July 13, 1988, Santiago, Chile
"In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided any extraordinary statements of dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility, but it still provided its teaching with the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium which must be accepted with docility according to the mind of the Council concerning the nature and aims of each document." ~ Pope Paul VI, General Audience, 12 January 1966
Since the Council was pastoral, it reasonable to interpret the documents through a hermeneutic of continuity where continuity exists, while disregarding those points which depart from Tradition (and whose rotten fruits are becoming clearer over time).
Agree.
Not. I wish he would tone down the polemics.
Taking the long view is the essence of traditionalism.
Exactly.
You have misunderstood my statement. I am not anathematizing a sinceely-held belief that the Church has been infiltrated by modernist heresy. I've seen it, and been fighting it, for most of my adult life.
What makes a person "anti-Catholic" is the position taken by the sedevacantist, that the last Ecumenical Council and the last 5 or 6 Popes are not Catholic (to use a phrase from this thread, "Not converted to Catholicism")-- together with the self-exiling statement that the sede and the Pope are not in the same Church.
That is quite apart from the struggle against the modernist heresy within the Church.
Sedevacantism is apostasy. That's not an insult, just an objective category description.
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