Posted on 12/27/2019 4:31:57 PM PST by ebb tide
ROME (ChurchMilitant) - The rise of Catholic traditionalism in Latin America, rooted in the Latin Mass, is rapidly reversing the long march of progressivism and Protestantism.
"We see that traditionally oriented churches and seminaries are increasingly full, especially with young people, while those of progressive orientation, increasingly empty," Juan Migel Montes, director of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), Rome, told Church Militant.
"Catholic traditionalism is back in fashion," an upbeat Montes said. "This explains the defeat the Left is suffering in ballot boxes everywhere as the social, political and cultural realities linked to a traditional idea of Catholicism are multiplying everywhere."
"In Rome, as in the main South American dioceses of Rio, São Paolo, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima and Santiago, Masses in the Vetus Ordo [Old Rite] are mushrooming," he said. "They are teeming with boys and girls and young families. They do not come across to me as sour people or, according to a certain caricature." Montes was alluding to Pope Francis' Christmas address to the Curia, in which many believed he decried traditionalist Catholics as "rigid" and "unbalanced."
Traditionally oriented churches are increasingly full, especially with young people, while those of progressive orientation are increasingly empty.Tweet
"On the contrary, I see them as very enthusiastic and very eager to expand their range of influence among their peers. In fact, I continually see new faces in religious ceremonies. This motivates me to hope well for the future," Montes added.
The Rome bureau chief of TFP, an organization founded by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in Brazil in 1960, attributed the leftists' political defeats and some resulting violence and unlawfulness — as has occurred in Venezuela — to the "undoubted growth of traditionalist Catholicism in South America, especially among young people."
A Tridentine rite parish in Belem, Brazil
In a frontpage article with the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, Montes elaborated on the spurt in the Catholic traditionalist movement:
Right-leaning blogs are multiplying, animated by young and very young people, with millions of followers. New political and cultural groups of conservative orientation are arising. Online conferences of traditionalist orientation are gaining notoriety. Stores of modest clothing are spreading, in open contrast to today's immoral or extravagant fashions. After decades of virtual cultural monopoly of the Left, more and more books are being published and more and more conferences in the center-right area are being held. Sometimes the phenomenon can even be dazzling. For example, polls show 37% of Brazilians in favor of the restoration of the Brazilian monarchy.
Church Militant asked if the Amazon Synod might actually provoke an even greater growth of traditional Catholicism. Montes said that, ironically, the advance of progressivism in the Church — as seen in the so-called "Indian theology" that bears a marxist footprint and undergirded veneration of Pachamama idols — is serving to open the eyes of many people to the depth of the crisis in the Church.
Montes, in fact, attributes the ascendancy of Protestantism to a long history of "preaching from the pulpits, with different accents, of liberation theology. The re-emergence of traditionalism among the faithful," he said, is likely the "result of the 'unintended consequences of intentional actions,' which ordinary people mock with the expression 'the devil makes pots but not lids.'"
Montes also noted that in one of Pope Benedict XVI's trips to Brazil, the pontiff explicitly identified the sociological turn of preaching in the Catholic Church — specifically liberation theology — as the reason why countless Catholics defected to neo-Protestantism. Montes quoted TIME magazine: "The Catholic Church has made the option for the poor, and the poor have made the option for the evangelicals and the pentecostals."
This phenomenon does not occur in traditionalist Catholic circles, where evangelization adheres to the precept of Our Lord to "seek first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be granted unto you," Montes explained. Despite having differing "liturgical sensitivity," he said numerous groups within the Church today "move decisively toward the search for tradition" in every field of life:
Procession with the Blessed Sacrament
[In] the life of piety they practice traditional devotions, especially the Marian one, and are not afraid of introducing themselves for what they are, conservative Catholics, even in the way they dress. In politics, they are increasingly demanding from candidates ... the non-negotiable principles preached by Benedict XVI, that is, the defense of life from conception to natural death, the family founded on the union of two people of different sex and the inviolable right of parents to choose education for their children.
Faithful Catholics can correct the drift occurring within the Church, Montes emphasized, through "forms of devotion, prayer and Catholic witness, in harmony with the traditional Magisterium of the Church — forms that were gradually abandoned and sometimes explicitly denied."
In September, Bp. José Luis Azcona, bishop emeritus of the Marajó Prelature in the Amazon area of Belém do Pará, Brazil, sounded the alarm: "The Amazon, at least the Brazilian part of it, is no longer Catholic," because it has a Pentecostal majority that, in some regions, "reaches 80%."
"Under the pretext of 'intercultural dialogue,' Catholic missionaries no longer evangelize or baptize," he lamented. "However, evangelicals do evangelize and work very hard indeed. While Catholic missionaries talk to Indians about 'deforestation,' 'climate change' and 'integral ecology,' Protestant pastors visit their communities with Bible in hand."
Gabriel Klautau Miléo, creator of the Salve Roma website, confirms the recoveries made by Catholic traditionalism. On Twitter, he posts pictures of Latin Mass churches filled with young people.
"All the photos ... were taken in Belém do Pará, one of the main urban centers of the Amazon region," he writes. "Several friends of mine and their families have returned to Catholicism by [re-]discovering the traditional rite of the Church."
"This is what the Amazon really needs," he notes. "We already have the apostolate of the Tridentine Mass in the two main urban centers of the Brazilian Amazon [Belém and Manaus] and in a city in the interior of the state of Pará [Santarém]."
Archbishop Alberto Taveira Correa, who heads the archdiocese of Belém do Pará, confirms that in his 10 years as archbishop, he can testify to the "growth in vocations" in his own diocese and others.
The Amazon, at least the Brazilian part of it, is no longer Catholic because it has a Pentecostal majority that, in some regions, reaches 80%. Tweet
Brazil's traditionalist Catholic Instituto Bom Pastor (Good Shepherd Institute) is also reporting a boom in vocations, as its "members want to exercise the priesthood in the doctrinal and liturgical Tradition of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, faithful to the infallible Magisterium of the Church with the exclusive use of the Gregorian liturgy in the worthy celebration of the Holy Mysteries."
Montes agrees it is impossible to predict the immediate future. "However, the rise of a mighty movement in traditional Catholic public opinion allows us to have many hopes," he affirms. "These hopes are also based on the promises of Our Lady who, in Fatima, proclaimed the triumph of her Immaculate Heart, after a period of tribulation."
I wouldn’t use Pentecostal Churches as a good example of what the Gospel really is. They are heavily works based - like the Roman Catholic Church is, and membership is key to “enter the pearly gates” based on my conversations with folks who belong to that sect.
The “gospel” according to the Catholic Church is hardly Scriptural as most other former Catholics will attest. They denounce John 6:29, Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9-10 as necessary enough for salvation. Furthermore, Romans 10:13 hits the bullseye on who will and won’t be saved.
I never learned, heard, or was told any of the above scriptures by Priests, Deacons, or Nuns when discussing Salvation.
Drift from the Holy Word of God and you’ll get all sorts of answers, especially the “tradition” writings they love to discuss. Might as well accept the Koran if you’re going to accept that garbage!
ROFL!!!
I NEVER heard The Gospel in protestantism. Ever. Just disjointed bits and pieces of it. A partial truth is worse than an outright lie.
You can ping your posse if you like, but their witness is as corrupt as any protestant’s witness.
Hate to disappoint you.
Okay, tell me what the Gospel is, if you know it so well.
Logical fallacy. Expected.
Yep. So true.
Getting some popcorn ready.
If that is what they mean by booming, then yes, I'd agree the occult is booming in Latin America.
1 Cor 15:1-4
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Gal 3:1-3
Galatians 2:16 is very important in this thread
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but BY the faith OF Christ, even we have believed IN Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith OF Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Those two words “OF” and “IN” are two of the most important words in this Scripture.
The faith OF Christ. Notice it does not say faith IN CHRIST. We can have faith IN CHRIST because He had faith that He would die for our sins and that God would find PERFECT sacrifice in His payment for our sins. And could justly raise Christ from the dead because the entire debt had been paid by Christ at Calvary.
And this is where the Gospel that saves takes us. To the moment of having faith IN Christ because of the faith OF Christ to lay down his life for us.
The Sermon on the Mount is NOT the Gospel that saves. Following the Law is NOT the Gospel that saves. The Beatitudes is NOT the Gospel that saves. The GOSPEL of the Kingdom, given to the 12, is NOT the Gospel that saves in this dispensation of the GRACE of God.
The GOSPEL that saves is to be found in Paul’s epistles. “For by grace are ye saved by faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.”
I REALLY hate what the RCC has done / is doing to thwart God’s plan for mankind.
Please read my post 30. I would have pinged you but I didn’t see your posts to me until after I posted that
Same here.
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
Gal 2:15,16
What version did you use for your quote?
I’m just curious.
“I never heard the Gospel in Catholicism - not once. Not ever.”
Why would you? If they understood/believed the Gospel, they wouldn’t be Catholics. “Gospel” isn’t a Catholic tenet.
KJV. It is the only Bible I use.
King James is not in scripture; neither is Martin Luther.
Nor is POPE. Or SINLESS MARY. Or RESURRECTED MARY. Or a SAINT’S PRAYER LINE IN HEAVEN.
What’s your point? Beside SEEMING to show ignorance again?
Ebb! So forgetful!!
Just yesterday, I showed you where to find Martin Luther and John 316.
Luther is not in John 3:16.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.