When The Pope's Friends Walk Away

TCRnews.com ^ | 7-25-2002 | Stephen Hand

[Notwithstanding]

A number of disturbing reports are heard lately that some of the Holy Father's former friends are in danger of collapsing in the storms; collapsing into the chaos of selective obedience, into the dangers of private judgment's non sequiturs. Michael Rose is trucking with pope-bashers and marketing his books through them, Robert Sungenis is rashly attacking the Pope on Assisi, Patrick Madrid is selling his books at a notorious pope-trashing website and giving "exclusive" excerpts to that site which also peddles the works of the worst schismatics who publicly call for an official "suspension of obedience" to the "Popes of Vatican II," and who gleefully and absurdly predict that JPII will be deposed for heresies. A group called "Roman Catholic Faithful" is openly publishing the works of these men too. Gerry Matatics, of course, has long shown aggressive solidarity with all these.

At first one hopes there is a misunderstanding. Maybe it's just the fact that a certain small percentage of converts or reverts will inevitably go off the rails for a time; maybe they have not fully overcome their fundamentalist spirit and suspicions toward "Rome," or their instinctive splitting into "remnants," and their personalistic "evangelism" wherein if they feel they are "called" to go on the circuit preaching tour, then they infer they must be "sent" by God, though this is contrary to all Catholic teaching, obedience and humility.

Maybe, though---which God forbid---it is a less innocent motive: simply the desire for money. What many, if not most, of these have in common is something to sell. Books, tapes, magazines, whatever...And maybe they haven't considered how immoral it is from a Catholic point of view to put marketing and personal security above the Truth. Michael Davies has long allowed the most virulent Pope-attackers to publish and sell his books and has led the way in all this. Cottage industries need "markets". Ask Fr. Gruner.

Better to sell no books, or just one book, with the Pope, than a million apart from him. Better to have Our Lord's warning about millstones around ones neck and judgment than to scandalize Christ's innocent ones by leading them into wolves dens to sell ones books or magazines.

Whatever the case, some of these cannot easily plead ignorance, even if others are merely confused. Most know what is what where websites and infamous Integrists are concerned. The goal of the older, more cynical Integrists has long been to pretend that conservatives and integrists are doing the same thing, which is absurd.

It only takes a little poison...

Whatever the case, it appears that some are showing signs of whithering on the Vine. They seem to be moving from complete loyalty to the Holy Father and the teaching Church to a place of shadows where fidelity mixes with persecution.

Invariably, when one points this out and shouts a warning, the more experienced and cynical in the ways of schism and anti-papal doctrinal collapse encourage their neophytes to respond with absurd charges of ultramontanism or to cynically shout down, ad hominem, the ones who try to warn them, as if no dogmatic certainties were at stake: "Who made YOU the measure of the Catholic Faith! Canon law allows criticism!"

Yes, but not this kind of criticism which moves qualitatively from inner personal concern or "dissent" to outright public attack, which even has the temerity to charge the Popes with heresies or rupture with Tradition which is the second prong of revelation itself.

The Holy Father and living magisterium, the teaching Church, is the measure of the Faith, not Catholic persons or groups.

We are living in sad times. When, earlier, I saw my old friends moving toward the cliffs of schism, well beyond constructive criticism, when they refused to hear the warnings, I knew it was time to bail. One's soul was at stake. I saw the logical trajectory of private judgment toward which Integrist presuppositions were leading .

The Holy Father is being persecuted from all sides today in something like apocalyptic storms. And now, some of his former friends are showing signs of deserting that cross and blaming him for the consequences of not heeding his own teachings-----and they do not see how ironic and absurd and tragic that is.

Real traditionalists---such as we are proud to be--- have their wheels on the dogmatic rails. Ask any Neo-modernist and he'll tell you where TCR is on the theological spectrum and they will not hesitate to say we are traditionalists, but with our wheels on the tracks, with Peter, who, together with his bishops, alone has the right to mediate, interpret, and develop Catholic Tradition.

Sometimes a warning must be sounded.

[Catholicguy]

I guess St. Athanasius is not really a Saint because he was excommunicated

I know you folks think Lefebvre is a Saint. Name for me one Saint, Athanasius isn't one, who died unreconciled to the Church?

[Catholicguy]

Check the Holy See website. I have posted it to you at least twice previously

[ultima ratio]

Trent merely codified the previous fifteen hundred years. The so-called Tridentine Mass, for example, is really the Mass handed down from Apostolic times. This is at the heart of the clash with modernists who believe the Catholic Faith began with Vatican II. What Hand and others who support him want is for thinking Catholics to simply shut up and ignore truly scandalous papal acts such as kissing the Koran and pouring out libations in the Togo Forest, not to mention numerous statements and documents contradicting centuries of Catholic teaching. But the Catholic faith doesn't do away with the law of non-contradiction. Either the Church before Vatican II was wrong for two millenia, or the present Vatican II crowd has got it wrong. And judging from their miserable record for the past thirty-five years, my guess is it's the latter.

One final point. Hand throws the word "schism" around a lot lately. So do many others who use this charge as a means to dampen enthusiasm for the Traditionalist movement. EWTN has recently joined the bandwagon. But it is exceedingly doubtful that Archbishop Lefebvre was anything less than a saintly man who placed the Faith before even his obedience to the Pope. Canon Law explicitly provides that no penalty accrues if one disobeys the pope out of a state of necessity. Not only this, but even if such a state did not in fact actually exist, no penalty accrues if an individual in good conscience simply believes a state of necessity existed. No one can doubt that the Archbishop believed the Church was indeed in crisis and that a state of necessity existed. Nor can anyone who is honest fault him for believing this.

[Catholicguy]

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20011025_chiesa-caldea-assira_en.html

[Catholicguy]

I have posted this twice before to narses. Perhaps he will bookmark it and not continue to mischaracterise it again

[Catholicguy]

By the way, as the wall Street Journal (who LOVES John paul II) reported at the time "it effectively concedes the theological debate to Luther"

The SSPX now cites the WSJ as a souce of Theological expertise?

[Catholicguy]

Stephan Hand is at war with the traditionalists in the Church. He represents a middle group between traditionalism and liberalism. (He would call himself a conservative, though it would be a misnomer

Really? So, when one sees his website reads TRCnews the "T" stands for "conservative" not "traditional?"

[Catholicguy]

I look forward to the time when you ask someone to "withdraw" their attacks against The Magisterium. I can send you a list of names.

Point them out to me on freerepublic.com.

O.k. Bud, ultima ratio, shall I go on..they are all about you on many threads

[ultima ratio]

You raise an interesting point. Has anyone noticed how in the Novus Ordo rite, just at the moment when the words of consecration have been spoken, the liturgy deliberately deflects our attention from the Real Presence with the banal: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." Will. Not that he is actually present. In the ancient Mass of the Apostles--which liberals have incorrectly dubbed the Tridentine Mass--everything is done to alert the faithful to His actual presence on the altar. Bells are rung. People fall to their knees. A hush descends.

[ultima ratio]

Avery Dulles concedes the point. BTW, Hand charges traditionalists with heresy. Can anyone name a single heretical view held by SSPX?

[ultima ratio]

When he started his website the divisions among Catholics were less clear and so was terminology. Anyone who attends the Novus Ordo Mass--as Hand does--is not a traditionalist.

[Catholicguy]

You raise an interesting point. Has anyone noticed how in the Novus Ordo rite, just at the moment when the words of consecration have been spoken, the liturgy deliberately deflects our attention from the Real Presence with the banal: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." Will. Not that he is actually present. In the ancient Mass of the Apostles--which liberals have incorrectly dubbed the Tridentine Mass--everything is done to alert the faithful to His actual presence on the altar. Bells are rung. People fall to their knees. A hush descends.

Were you to read some history of the Liturgy of the Mass you would learn there was a long time when after the Consecration, announcements were read BEFORE Communion. Put that in your schismatic pipe....

[Catholicguy]

Anyone who attends the Novus Ordo Mass--as Hand does--is not a traditionalist.

ALL Catholic are traditionalists but it is The Magisterium, not Matt, Vennari, Gruener, McLucas or others which decides what is and isn't Tradition. Far too many on the schismatic mistake accidents for substance

[Catholicguy]

..on the schismatic right..

[Polycarp]

What in the hell do you hope to accomplish with such internicine battles?

I did not start these internecine battles. I simply got caught in the middle of one because a friend of mine is an "enemy" of the Pope, according to Hand, and as such, I have been arbitrarily branded by Hand as an extreme trad and integrist, a charge that is ludicrous on its face. Nonetheless, I will remove you, independantmind, from my ping list. I apologize, my other computer crashed, and I was using a different ping list that you happened to be on.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the trads and their nasty bitter feuds, and I'm sick and tired of Hand branding innocent people as trads or integrists or extremists who are nothing of the sort.

The materials on TCRNews.com may well be orthodox to the Nth degree. I always found them so.

But the nasty and arrogant and patronizing judging of mens' souls and mens' motives must stop.

This article branded Rose, Sungenis, and Madrid as men, once friends of JPII, who have walked away from the Pope. This is total BS. I don't care how "orthodox" he may appear, Hand is as out of control as those he criticizes.

And with that, I'll not say anything more on the subject.

I apologize for extending these feuds on this thread and this forum, and drawing others into this mire.

[RobbyS]

Trent did a lot more than "codify" the past.

[Catholicguy]

Unreconciled in what way? Are you implying that only those who die in good standing with the current pontiff go to Heaven? God determines who goes to Heaven not the Pope.

How do you understand "unreconciled?"

When Jesus gave Peter the Keys and told him "What you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven what you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven," do you think Jesus had in mind that anyone who labelled themselves "traditionalist" would be exempted from this declaration?