[sitetest]

Dear ultima ratio,

"In fact, it is Sitetest who rejects the Catholic faith by rejecting its Tradition."

I don't reject Catholic Tradition.

I do reject the belief that I am competent to interpret Catholic Tradition.

I do reject the belief that any interpretion that I may make of Tradition, or that any interpretation of Tradition made by anyone else, ought to be held in higher esteem than the living teaching of the pope.


sitetest

[ultima ratio]

Your response proves my point. You have surrendered your conscience--the ability to think and weigh the facts objectively--in exchange for slavishly accepting what you are told, DESPITE THE EVIDENCE. It takes no pope to tell us that the old Mass, evolved over more than a millenium, is traditional, whereas the Bugnini Mass, fabricated by a committee thirty years ago, is not. It takes no pope to tell us that praying with animists is not traditional. There is a history behind us going back two thousand years. There are the other popes and councils. There are encyclicals. There are saints and doctors of the Church. There is the living witness of people over sixty. All will tell you what is traditionally Catholic and what is not. NOVELTY is not Catholic. It has no established legitimacy. You want TO BE TOLD what is traditional, you don't want to accept the evidence of the past, of councils and popes and documents galore and the evidence of two thousand years. Instead you opt for the questionable novelties of this papacy--which you treat with all the credence you ascribe to divine revelation. Yet a pope has no protection from error when he issues novel statements and posits novel actions. Vatican I itself has told us this. These are not ideas I myself make up--they are what the faith itself has unfolded throughout the ages.