Traditionalists, Tradition, And Private Judgement

Since the end of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent promulgation by Pope Paul VI of the new rite of the Mass, there has been a growing division among those Catholics generally known as "orthodox" or "traditionalist."

The Wanderer itself suffered from the divisions and upheavals following the council.

In 1967 editor Walter Matt left the newspaper over a dispute about the meaning of Vatican II. He saw it not so much as a reform and a renewal of the Church but as a revolution that threatened to undermine the Church herself (in that same year, Walter Matt founded The Remnant). His brother, Alphonse J. Matt, Sr. (the present writer's father), took over the reins at The Wanderer and reminded its readers that the real intent of the council was a renewed evangelization of the world for Christ and a personal renewal of every individual Catholic.

For The Wanderer , the council was not a rejection or an abandonment of Tradition, but a development of that Tradition, safeguarded for 2,000 years by the Holy Spirit, to better enable the Church to bring the Gospel to all men.

Those "traditionalists" who view the council as a break with Tradition — who blame the council's teaching itself, not the subversion of, and departure from that teaching, by modernists and progressivists — are becoming increasingly hostile to the See of Peter and its present occupant.

The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with the Holy See in 1988 over the issue of appointing bishop successors from his Society of St. Pius X, tends to be the hero of these traditionalist Catholics.

This past April, an angry, aggressive statement authored by Atila Sinke Guimarães, a former member of the Brazil-based TFP (Tradition, Family, Property), titled We Resist You to the Face was published in The Remnant, Catholic Family News, and other traditionalist organs.

The statement was signed by Mr. Guimarães and Marian Horvat, both members of Tradition in Action, Inc., Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant, and John Vennari, editor of Catholic Family News.

We Resist You . . . is described by its signatories as "A Public Statement of Catholic Resistance" (in which) "Lay Catholic journalists respectfully suspend obedience to the Pope and remain inside Holy Mother Church."

" We Resist You to the Face analyzes the consequences of the adaptation of the Church to the modern world, and the consequences of ecumenism, as applied since the Council — including by the present Pontiff. The authors declare themselves in a state of resistance 'relative to the teachings of Vatican Council II, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, and to your teachings [of John Paul II] that are objectively opposed to the prior ordinary and extraordinary Papal Magisterium'."

One can conclude after a careful reading of We Resist You . . . that its authors and supporters are on a schismatic trajectory that can only have tragic consequences.

We have asked Stephen Hand, no stranger to traditionalists, to examine We Resist You . . ., its premises and conclusions in order to provide some guidance and counsel to those traditionalist Catholics who are troubled and confused by current developments within the Church and the kinds of analysis of such by the likes of We Resist You. . . .

The result of his effort is: "Traditionalists," Tradition, and Private Judgment. Two important addenda are included: Pope Paul II's Credo of the People of God and Cardinal Ratzinger's remarks in 1988 to the bishops of Chile regarding the Lefebvre schism.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln has graciously provided a preface to the work.

We recommend this commentary to every Catholic who seeks a better understanding of the controversies which continue to spread fear, doubt, and confusion within the Church. It will prove to be an effective instrument to strengthen one's faith.

Stephen Hand has done a distinct service by his fine monograph pointing out by means of careful research as well as by personal and anecdotal experience the reality of removing a cinder in one's eye when such is there, but keeping the eye intact and not removing the eye out of exasperation, because of the annoyance and sometimes serious pain the cinder can cause.

It has been an axiom for many years in historical theology that what oftentimes begins or is declared to be a "return to tradition," in other words, a reaction, ends as being an innovation, that is, a schism or a heresy. There are people who suffer from intense headaches, and find themselves utterly incapable of mastering the horrible pain that they frequently endure. In moments of frustration, such people will sometimes say, "I wish I could cut off my head to cure my headache." But they, and all who are rational and reflective in their presence, would always realize that the so-called cure would be far worse than the continuous enduring of even the most tragic pain. It takes a faith-filled and prayer-filled discerning Catholic life to distinguish liturgical abuses, doctrinal and moral aberrations, and grave disciplinary infractions occurring in the lives and practices of people within the Church, from the Church herself, which despite being composed of sinful members, remains the spotless Spouse and Bride of Christ, not a Church of Cathers or Albigensians, but a Church of those who carry within themselves the sad effects of original sin while at the same time bearing the grace of God, which is to say, the seeds of eternal happiness. St. Thomas Aquinas calls pride the queen and mother of all vices, and oftentimes those who perhaps rightly perceive grave faults and defects in people in the Church, even sometimes in people with positions of clerical authority, forget their own creatureliness and sinfulness, and the ability they themselves have to fall into serious error.

At the time of the Jansenist crisis, for instance, the archbishop of Paris, speaking of the Jansenist nuns at Port-Royal, said they were as pure as angels but as proud as devils. Down through the centuries there have been countless sects, denominations, cults, and churches which have broken off from the Catholic Church under the pretense of being "holier than thou." We are witnessing the same occurrence in our time. Ironically, these groups are most often unknowing and indeliberate allies of the bitterest enemies of Christ and His Church, in effect, denying the abiding Presence of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church and the promises that Christ bestowed on His Mystical Body from its inception.

In his masterful work, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, John Henry Newman points out how in the course of the Church's history she occasionally appears to fall into a deliquium, from which, under God's grace, she emerges victorious and stronger than ever. Many of those who defy the Church and even leave the Church in the name of "tradition," thus contradicting the very word by which they choose to define themselves, are ignorant in their despair regarding the Church's future or the realities of the Church's history through 2,000 years. This work of Stephen Hand undoubtedly will assist those who are loyal to Christ and to His Church, and to His Vicar on earth, the Bishop of Rome, to labor zealously within the boundaries of the Church herself for her growth in holiness, and willingly, even joyfully, do all possible to eliminate doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and disciplinary aberrations, but, at the same time, conceding nothing to those who wish not to remove a cinder from the eye, but to remove the eye itself and perhaps replace its empty socket with cinders and decayed matters.

The Venerable Servant of God, Abbot Joseph Columba Marmion, who is scheduled to be beatified on September 3, 2000, once reminded his readers that "God resists the proud," and he added: "Is it not terrible to be alienated from God? But how much more terrible it must be to be 'resisted' by God Himself."

May his rhetorical question echo in the minds and hearts of those who make use of this fine work of Stephen Hand.

The most wonderful thing about being Catholic is that the Church's saving Tradition is a "given," something which we can only receive from the hands of Christ's ministers, who extend in time through the apostolic succession all the way back to the empty Tomb, and who first heard the stunning words:

The Church is not some esoteric gnosis which men must try to discern, decipher, and then keep jealously under a bushel. Rather, she is, following the Incarnation itself, astonishingly visible, a "light to the world" and the "salt of the earth," the continuation through time of Him who was "made flesh and dwelt among us."

From that moment when earth's history was split into a "before" and an "after," no one has had to look or wait for another Messiah, another teaching or "Way." For He is "with us," "always," (Isaiah 9:6; Matt. 28:20) and is the God who comes, the God who seeks us out, and who offers forgiveness and reconciliation to a world which will never again have to grope to find Him. He is there, in His Church, where, until the very end of the world are heard the simple words of consecration which are the substance of the Mass. St. Paul tells us what that substance is:

Should she deem it necessary or good, the Church could reduce her liturgy to these words and acts, the "substance" around which all the ritual "accidents," which change through time, adhere. For only she is given to participate in and dispense the divine authority — the great and undemocratic "whatsoever" (Matt. 16:20) — until the Bridegroom returns to receive His Bride at the end of time. It is left for us to only "Hear the Church" which changes only in her "accidents" through the ebbs and flows of time, the "substance" perduring to the consummation.

'And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it - that is, not until the days of Vatican Council II

Bishop Thomas Morris - "I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine because a statement of doctrine has to be very carefully formulated and I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and liable to be reformed." (Catholic World News, January 22, 1997).

St Pius X in his first Encyclical which served also as the blueprint of his pontificate:

"He who considers these things is entitled to fear that such a perversion of minds might represent the beginning of those evils foretold for the end of time, forming as it were, their stepping stone on to the earth, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, might already be coming amongst us. For religion is being attacked with the greatest boldness and vigour, the dogmas of the Faith are being battered, and no effort is spared to tear asunder man's link with the divine. Moreover – and this is what the same Apostle tells us is typical of Antichrist – man in his unspeakable temerity is usurping the place of the Creator, and placing himself above all that bears the name of God. Powerless to extinguish within himself entirely the concept of God, he yet shakes off the yoke of His majesty and dedicates to himself a temple in the form of the visible world, where he receives the homage of his own kind...

"That is why all our efforts must be directed towards bringing mankind back under the rule of Christ. To achieve the result of Our hopes, it is vital to spare no efforts in uprooting entirely this monstrous iniquity peculiar to the times we live in, which leads man to set himself up in place of God." (E Supremi Apostolatus, 4 October 1903)

Pope Paul VI - a blasphemous parody of the HYMN TO CHRIST THE KING OF THE AGES (Angelus, 7 February 1971):

"Honour to Man!

Honour to his thought; honour to his scientific knowledge;

Honour to his technical skill; honour to his work;

Honour to human endurance;

Honour to that combination of scientific activity and organisation by which man, unlike the other animals, can invest his spirit and his manual dexterity with instruments of conquest;

HONOUR TO MAN, KING OF THE EARTH, AND TODAY PRINCE OF THE HEAVENS! Honour to our living being, in which is reflected the image of God and which, in its triumph over matter, obeys the biblical command: increase and rule."

It was on a similar occasion that Pope Paul VI said:

"Man is both giant and divine, in his origin and his destiny. Honour, therefore, to man, honour to his dignity, to his spirit, to his life." (13 July 1969)

THE CORRECT NOTION OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUCCESSOR OF SAINT PETER

Six years later, our Father returned to this capital question, “concerning the Pope”, this time considering it from a theoretical point of view, in keeping with the most exact Catholic doctrine. «Oportet hæreses esse», said Saint Paul: heresies are necessary to try the Church. «The one which is agitating us today will undoubtedly have the providential consequence of once again teaching Catholics the correct notion of the divine authority of the Vicar of Christ and of the Episcopal Body in all its fullness but also in its true nature and its precise definition. The Pope holds the place of God, a stupefying thought, but he is not a god.» (CRC, November 1970, Concerning the Pope)

And for support our Father calls on Father Feuillet, «one of the most illustrious exegetes of what I like to call our French School of exegesis», in an article entitled: “The prerogatives of Peter and his successors according to the Gospels”. It is of a wonderful clarity:

«What makes the text of Matthew 16.13-23 [“You are Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church…”] particularly valuable, is that it consists of two violently antithetical scenes: Simon Peter the Rock of the Church (13-20) and Simon Peter becoming a rock of scandal, that is to say an obstacle on the path that leads to God (21-23).» Shaken by the announcement his Master had just made concerning His approaching Passion, the apostle Peter stood in the way: «Heaven preserve you, Lord! This must not happen to you!» He drew upon himself this sharp reply: «Get behind me, Satan!»

«This passage puts paid to the common error that confuses infallibility with impeccability. Peter, inasmuch as he is enlightened by the Father and professes his faith in Christ the Son of God, is the Rock upon which Christ wished to build His Church. But the same Peter, once divine assistance is taken out of the equation, is no more than a poor man like the rest; far from being a Rock, he can even be a stumbling block and entertain satanic thoughts: “Get behind me, Satan. You are a scandal to me (that is to say a snare and an obstacle), because the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s.”» In other words, just because he has received the name “Peter” (or is the successor of Peter), this does not mean that his thoughts, his words, his acts are inspired by God. They can come from man and therefore be subject to Satan’s control. All that matters is in whom he will place his trust and his faith: in God or in Man?

As for the indefectibility promised him by Our Lord: «But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and once your have recovered, you in your turn must strengthen your brothers» (Lk 22.32), it is affirmed, explains our Father, «as a continual but conditional and limited miracle of grace prevailing over human weakness. The successor of Peter is not assured of always walking straight “according to the truth of the Gospel”. Should he become an object of scandal, the very existence of the Church may be put in jeopardy, or at least the unity of the faith and the salvation of souls».

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.