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The Church Courtyard => Non-Catholic Discussion Subforum => Topic started by: Xavier on January 16, 2019, 04:03:41 AM

Title: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 16, 2019, 04:03:41 AM
Dear friends, what are some of the top reasons you are Traditional Catholic? Seven of mine:

1. Because of the Kingship of Christ and the obligation of States to be Catholic: As taught in revelation and by traditional staunchly anti-liberal Popes, States, just like individuals, have the obligation to be Catholic, spread the Catholic Faith, proclaim the Kingship of Christ, and co-operate with the Church in the evangelism of the world. This was taught very clearly before the Church was infiltrated and Her leaders bullied into silence or led astray by human respect. As soul and body are united in Man, or Divinity and Humanity are united in Christ, Church and State are to be united in civil society. Their separation is the death of human society, and amounts in practice to a denial of the historical and present reality of the Incarnation and Kingship of Christ exercised through His Church.
2. Because of the Traditional Mass: The TLM is the Mass of the Ages. It is a propitiatory Sacrifice that makes atonement for sin, gives the greatest possible glory to God, and the most relief to Suffering Souls in Purgatory, dying souls etc; it sanctifies the offering Priest, and the assisting Faithful. It unambigously teaches the Priest he is offering a Holy Sacrifice to the Most High God, and is a servant making that Sacrifice to the glory of His Divine Majesty; reiterates thoroughly the doctrines of Transubstantiation and the Real Presence, beyond all possible ambiguity, and can hardly be sincerely offered by someone who does not have the Catholic Faith about what the Mass is.
3. Because liberal ecumenism is bad (and hardly defined and understood differently by everybody) and has terribly harmed the cause of Catholic Evangelism: Liberal ecumenism, and interfaith dialogue, in practice allow it to be understood that there is no need to evangelize or be converted, no need for missions as much as for "dialogue", and choose to make war on God and promise a false "peace" among man through religious indifferentism and allowing "universal salvation" to be taught, as if hell did not exist; rather than that true Peace among men that comes only from giving glory to God and loving our neighbor; and from entering or remaining in the Unity in the Truth of Faith, and in Love, in the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church.
4. Because of EENS and the dogma defined at the Council of Florence (the formula of St. Fulgentius): which, in one sentence, says that all who hope to be saved must have become Catholic before death. This doctrine, for "pastoral reasons" has been allowed to become confused, and is shrouded in very ambigious words, with all possible views being openly taught without censure - including strict EENS, explicit faith in Christ being necessary, implicit being possibly salvific, atheists being saved, to open and outright universalism, to all other such things - till the Faithful hardly know anymore what EENS means or is supposed to mean.
5. Because of Pope St. Pius X and the Oath against Modernism: There is, in the Oath against Modernism, all that is necessary to destroy all errors of all time. Indeed, in the first three sentences, we see the way. All that remains is for Theology to explain them in more detailed terms, as Thomistic Philosophy does, and the way to the refutation of all errors is clear: God's existence is proved against atheists and agnostics by philosophy, natural law, reason, design, science etc. Christ's miracles and prophesies, and fulfilment of prophesies, is shown from a study of history, especially the Old Testament prophesies; the New Testament Gospels and Epistles are shown to be historical biographies and documents that teach and explain what Jesus Christ really did and taught, and how He is the promised Messiah and Saviour of the world; then, from Scripture and Tradition, the obligation of all Christians to become Catholic and return to the Catholic Church is established, from texts of the Apostles and Prophets, and Church Fathers. In this way, all are shown their obligation to become Catholic Christians to be saved. This could be done at a future Ecumenical Council, which must be dogmatic, and use the anathema etc. Ven. Fr. Holzhauser prophesies that such an Ecumenical Council will happen.
6. Because of the demonstrable decline in vocations after Vatican II, even the years immediately following, especially compared to the years immediately preceding: this well documented fact needs no further elaboration. If the pace of growth in vocations to the Priesthood, for e.g., had remained at pre-Vatican II rates, there could be about 1.2 million Priests in the world by now. There are 420,000, about 30,000 less than 50 years ago, while there should be hundreds of thousands more. And therefore world evangelism suffers terribly. Male and Female religious orders also were hit. About 1000 Catholics per Priest is ideal and up to 10,000 people in the world per Priest, whom he must help save, is fine. Every Bishop could preside over about 100 Priests, and there could be 1 Cardinal for every 10 million Catholics, as at present. The Pope, as Chief Shepherd and Supreme Pastor of the whole Church, must feel himself personally responsible for saving the souls, and expiating the daily sins, in co-operation with Christ, of all billion Catholics, including Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and all the billions of people who live in the world. Every Cardinal for at least 10 million Catholics, including Bishops and Priests, and about 100 million people. Bishops, as true Apostles and Shepherds, for guiding their flock and all they can to heaven. And they should feel obliged for their souls in strict justice - not, as the care the Faithful are to have for the souls of their brothers and sisters, only in charity - as they will give an account for it before the Throne of God, as the Lord says to Ezechiel, "I will require his blood at thy hand" (33:8 )
7. Because of the Fifth Marian Dogma, Mary as Mediatrix of all Graces, and the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, which Heaven has asked for: The conservative Fathers at the Council, who were Marian and liturgical "maximalists" (who wished to preserve Tradition as it was, according to the rule of St. Vincent of Lerins, while defining dogmas as the study of Theology advanced, and the time for doctrines implicitly found in revelation to be explicitly defined had come), not ecumenical "minimalists" (putting aside doctrine and dogma to please those who are separated from communion - e.g. to put aside the Papacy to please the Old Catholics and Orthodox, also some Anglicans - indeed the Old Catholics itself first tried this, only resulting in complete absurdity and no unity at all, showing by itself that this kind of liberal ecumenism is not any kind of way toward accomplishing Holy Unia between separated communions and the Catholic Church; then to put aside Mother Mary to please the Protestants, and indeed to put aside Our Lord Jesus Christ to please Muslims and Jews, till little by little nothing is left of our religion, and the road is paved to indifferentism and apostasy) wished to define this dogma, including Archbishop Lefebvre, Cardinal Ottaviani, Cardinal Siri etc. The time had come for it, as also for the Papal and Collegial Consecration of Russia (an ecumenical Council was a good place for it). It would have resulted in the most easy and simplest path toward the Promised Period of Peace, and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Instead, we failed. Next time should be different, and we should choose the way of God rather than the way of men, not being like those who "loved the glory of men more than the glory of God" (Jn 12:43).
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: clau clau on January 16, 2019, 05:10:29 AM
my Mum.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Michael Wilson on January 16, 2019, 08:27:15 AM
Historically, the split between Conservatives and Traditionalists came over the issue of the N.O.M. There was already an earlier fracture in English speaking countries over the introduction of the Canon of the Mass in English with the false translation of "Pro-Multis" into "For all Men"; The Conservatives "caved" (as they would do subsequently do on all the points of contention), while the Traditionalist, "took their business elsewhere", as it where.  The further split came when it became apparent that the documents of Vatican II were not optional but obligatory, with Msgr. Lefebvre and his seminary being persecuted for their refusal of both the N.O. And Vatican II.
The chasm has grown wider over time, as the Conservatives have fought a slow rear guard action, falling back from one point of resistance to another. Those who started out in identical position as the Trads, would go on to hold J.P. II and Benedict XVI as great defenders of the faith.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Gardener on January 16, 2019, 09:01:00 AM
I thought I was Traditional
But then I met a Trad
He said I was conservative
I thought that's not too bad
He said it's all conditional
And said it was too sad
That everyone's "Traditional"
But he's the only Trad
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 11:18:09 AM
Funny, I couldn't have come up with a better synopsis of the problems in traditionalism, why the pre-Vatican II Church collapsed like a house of cards, and why I am now Eastern and not Western Catholic and convinced the only hope for future of the Church is in the East.

The verdict of history is against traditionalism, regardless of what position you may take on Vatican II, sedevacantism, and other related matters, and how inflexibly and boomingly you proclaim traditionalist talking points.  If all this were true, the Church should have been able to triumphantly withstand any and all attacks.  But, it was not even primarily a charge from the outside to blame; the Church was (insofar as it is possible to say so without running afoul of dogma) paralyzed by a virus or a cancer eating it from within.  As former poster Greg never tired of repeating, results matter.  All traditionalism can ever hope to do is get things back into a state of remission.  But the disease will still remain.  The fact of the matter is that the pre-Vatican II Church was seriously, seriously sick and Vatican II itself was just a manifestation of a symptom, not the disease itself as traditionalists continuously (and quite delusionally) continue to pretend; and that much of soi-disant orthodoxy was in fact just tribalism, Catholic-style.

The above is crystal clear; what is not so clear is the exact origin and nature of the virus.  But from where I sit, it seems to be largely due to arrogant triumphalism and authoritarianism - things which are never seen as vices by trads, as far as I can see, but either never identified as such or even portrayed as virtues.  For all the above in the OP is: clericalist, feeding clerical vanity and desire for importance and power; sin-centered, focusing on appeasing an angry God instead of theosis and doing good; intellectually vapid and epistemically closed, not convincing at all to anyone outside the epistemological echo chamber; fostering the most saccharine and syrupy piety, again at the expense of theosis; and finally fostering cheap psychological manipulation at the expense of cultivating real virtue in others.  In short, a caricature of what Christianity is supposed to be all about and a superficial focus on externals.  You'll indignantly and angrily deny all this, I know.  But the fact that you will react with such anger betrays the fact that you fear - at least on some level - that I might be right.  It is the same anger with which atheists react when presented with evidence for intelligent design.

Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Sempronius on January 16, 2019, 01:15:25 PM
What do you mean by "pre Vatican 2 Church"? The whole Catholic Church then?
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Kreuzritter on January 16, 2019, 05:28:17 PM
 :cheesehead: Ah, yes, because Eastern Christianity positively boomed around the time of Vatican II and is making rapid headway through theosis to this day.

Back on planet Earth ...
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Kreuzritter on January 16, 2019, 05:35:52 PM
You heard it here first, people: the Kingship of Christ, the Mass as sacrifice, the Athanasian Creed, and the Mediatrix of All Graces, all

"... clericalist, feeding clerical vanity and desire for importance and power; sin-centered, focusing on appeasing an angry God ... intellectually vapid and epistemically closed ... fostering the most saccharine and syrupy piety ... and finally fostering cheap psychological manipulation ..."

And leave those poor Modernists alone!
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Kreuzritter on January 16, 2019, 05:39:40 PM
Quote from: Sempronius on January 16, 2019, 01:15:25 PM
What do you mean by "pre Vatican 2 Church"? The whole Catholic Church then?

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to believe Pastor Bob touched a curious young Quare in the sacristy one morning.  :cheeseheadbeer: And part of him is still not sure how he feels about that. It would explain a lot, not least of all his taste for drama and hyperbole.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Tales on January 16, 2019, 09:26:39 PM
It's been said before but I suspect that if we were writing a century ago we'd be discussing how Orthodoxy collapsed like a house of cards to atheistic communism.  I'm sure we could round up a list of things, spiritual and cultural, and use the fall as evidence of their failure.  Meanwhile we'd be praising the (seemingly) robust Catholic Church.

Sure, Orthodoxy is not Eastern Catholicism, but there are many overlaps.

Turning to the original question (but not quite fully departing from my previous comment), it can be as simple as looking around and seeing the disaster around us.  As was rightfully noted, results do matter, and Jesus said so in other words as well.  If we're on the wrong path then the correct action to take is to backtrack.  The question is then to backtrack how far?  Some backtrack to Pope Benedict XVI, others to Vatican II, others to Pius X, some back to Vatican I, others reach far back to the Revolt, and a few go back to St. Thomas.  But it does not end there, for you can continue backtracking as problems will always be discovered along the trek back.  Ultimately I suspect you will end up back in the Garden and determine that the path went astray at the fall.  As this is something only Jesus fixes and only on the other side of the veil, there is no way for us here and now to reach perfection.

Thus we are left with a variety of imperfect steps to take.  I do not slight those whom think we merely need Pope Benedict to return, nor do I to those whom think that VII popped out of the blue, and if only not for that, we'd be ok.  These are all steps taken in the right direction, towards what is ultimately a goal we can never here on Earth reach.  Personally I think the hyperfocus on logic following St. Thomas was very disastrous for the Church, but its not as if things were all hunky-dory before then, nor is it the case that logic was not used by early Church Fathers to unravel core mysteries of the Faith. 

Again, its the case that we live in a fallen world, and are going to often be served a big bowl of unpleasantness.  We're getting a triple serving today, but the Church has had disasters of similar magnitude before such as during the Arian heresy.  Eastern Christians had their fill last century and had we been discussing them then, we'd perhaps be like Job's friends explaining to them that they must have done something wrong for such to befall them.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 16, 2019, 09:56:01 PM
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 11:18:09 AM
Funny, I couldn't have come up with a better synopsis of the problems in traditionalism, why the pre-Vatican II Church collapsed like a house of cards, and why I am now Eastern and not Western Catholic and convinced the only hope for future of the Church is in the East.

This whole statement is a paradox.

Your entire legitimization of your own identity as an Eastern Catholic is the fact that you are in communion with the "Sola Cathedra Petri", Rome herself, the preserver of orthodoxy and all that is holy, where Peter's burial and where he himself sanctified it with his own martyrdom, the "preserver of sanctity" when Constantinople was a whirlpool of heresies....

...Yet you firmly believe that Rome has caused her own self-destruction promoting ideas harmful to one's own soul, that the scholasticism from Rome has only led to horrendous consequences for people spiritually, that Vatican I was a result of narcissistic submission to authority, that Rome arrogantly creates more and more outlandish doctrines in order to maintain it's own infrastructure and claims, that Vatican II is the result of Rome's selfishness and powerlust, etc.


I know that many Ukrainians at the time of the Union of Brest never really actually converted to Catholicism theologically (after all, they initially refused any association with the Feastday of Corpus Christi, viewing it as a liturgical abuse at the time, and demanded leniency in how they could view Purgatory), and they like to pretend that they are simply "Orthodox in Communion with Rome" (Which is like saying you are a Roman Catholic in communion with Anglicans), even going to the extent of venerating Saint Mark of Ephesus, Saint Photius, and Saint Seraphim Sarov privately

But by being in communion of Rome, you must submit to the Magisterium of the Church. This includes all the dogmatic, scholastic definitions put forward by Rome - Purgatory, Indulgences, Augustinian Original Sin, yes, even the Immaculate Conception, which says that the Virgin was conceived without Original Sin through the Merits of Jesus Christ, Papal Supremacy, Papal Infallibility, accepting all the Sacramentals and Devotions accepted by the Pope as beneficial to one's soul, accepting all the Saints canonized by the Pope as beneficial to one's soul, etc.

Refusal to do so leads one de facto excommunication by the judgement of Rome herself, in the case of dogma and morality, the latter two disciplines leading one to strict penalties.

Weren't you the one who argued that I should blindly submit to Rome in all instances for epistomelogical certainty? Yet you dare to make such treacherous claims against Rome's dogmatic claims! Talk about the Blind leading the Blind!

Finally, it's absolutely foolish to believe that Vatican II has left the Eastern Catholic Churches untouched.

Ever wonder why the Byzantine Catholics now commemorate, officially and liturgically, non-Catholic Saints in their calendars after Paul VI? Ever wonder why now the Chaldean, Ethiopian, and Maronite Rites now have the Priests face the people? Ever wonder why the Eastern Rites now permit secular music in their liturgy (as shown in all three liturgies below)? Ever wonder why - for a lot of Eastern Catholic Churches - fasting is abolished?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBvItX51n0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoyHkKg9Wj8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydFwfnxhwT4


What about the Charismatic Movement and Liturgical Abuse explicitly endorsed and approved by the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy, and all the fasting abolished?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5WonijOgXc


You claim there is a splinter in your toe, and you bash your toe with a hammer to get rid of the splinter!
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Maximilian on January 16, 2019, 09:57:26 PM
Quote from: Davis Blank - EG on January 16, 2019, 09:26:39 PM

It's been said before but I suspect that if we were writing a century ago we'd be discussing how Orthodoxy collapsed like a house of cards to atheistic communism.  I'm sure we could round up a list of things, spiritual and cultural, and use the fall as evidence of their failure.  Meanwhile we'd be praising the (seemingly) robust Catholic Church.

Yes, it's true that we might very well be saying just those things if we were having this discussion 100 years ago. But we'd be entirely wrong.

Russia might have been the most prominent example, but it was by no means unique. Communist revolutions were happening all across Europe and the world, including many Catholic countries.

100 years ago in 1919 Catholic Hungary was under the rule of the Communist Jew Bela Kun.

All of the most prominent Catholic countries had fallen to anti-Catholic masonic revolutions.

Italy
Spain
France
Mexico
Germany's kulturkampf
etc.

The first domino fell the very week that Vatican I proclaimed papal infallibility. The bishops were forced to flee from Rome only days after the vote as the masonic revolution conquered the Papal States.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 16, 2019, 10:18:32 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on January 16, 2019, 05:28:17 PM
:cheesehead: Ah, yes, because Eastern Christianity positively boomed around the time of Vatican II and is making rapid headway through theosis to this day.

Back on planet Earth ...

The real question is, which Church has survived Communist infiltration and the idea of religious indifferentism?
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Non Nobis on January 16, 2019, 10:24:43 PM
My main reasons for becoming a Traditionalist in the first place (starting at about age 12!) match pretty well with clau clau's and Michael Wilson's:

Quote from: clau clau on January 16, 2019, 05:10:29 AM
my Mum.

For me, it was my Mom and Dad, and especially Mom's brother, a priest.  My uncle never said the Novus Ordo Mass in his life, and wrote the forward to a (then) well known (in the trad world) book about the English translation of the Canon of the  Novus Ordo Mass making it possibly invalid.  He convinced my Mom, and she convinced my Dad, and the rest is history in my family (well not quite all of us...).
       
Quote from: Michael Wilson on January 16, 2019, 08:27:15 AM
Historically, the split between Conservatives and Traditionalists came over the issue of the N.O.M. There was already an earlier fracture in English speaking countries over the introduction of the Canon of the Mass in English with the false translation of "Pro-Multis" into "For all Men"; The Conservatives "caved" (as they would do subsequently do on all the points of contention), while the Traditionalist, "took their business elsewhere", as it where.  The further split came when it became apparent that the documents of Vatican II were not optional but obligatory, with Msgr. Lefebvre and his seminary being persecuted for their refusal of both the N.O. And Vatican II.
The chasm has grown wider over time, as the Conservatives have fought a slow rear guard action, falling back from one point of resistance to another. Those who started out in identical position as the Trads, would go on to hold J.P. II and Benedict XVI as great defenders of the faith.

This matches my "family understanding" of traditionalism (Michael and I do have similar backgrounds).  My father, mother, and uncle have all passed away.  But I think  I was lucky to be exposed to their good reasoning and find it makes good sense, by my own reasoning now.

As to why I continue to be a traditionalist in the face of all that has gone in the Church since I was young:  I think there is too much GOOD still in the Church and in its ENTIRE HISTORY and in the Sacraments, Saints, and Popes who said GREAT things,  etc. to be explained by anything other a path starting with Christ as the founder of the Church.  Why there is evil - why we've wandered off the path and almost made it invisible and misunderstood it over the years is another  HUGE question, but the underlying path is still there.  It's like the "how can there be a God when there's so much evil in the world" question.  I don't know about the overwhelming evil, but it is the GOOD that really needs explanation: the solid core of goodness that requires a God; the solid core of spiritual good in the Church that requires God to have been its founder.

It is basically my reason, my perception of truth, goodness, and beauty, and my "Catholic sense" that makes me see traditionalist practice and beliefs as closer to Christ's path for the Church than any other. I'm not going to try to lay out or defend my reason (etc) here; of course they can be disputed or denied, but they are what I've got now - by God's will or permission.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 16, 2019, 11:10:48 PM
My good friend Quare reminds me of Pope Francis sometimes: "Clericalism"! ;D Actually, what we need are great Saintly Clerics like Pope St. Gregory the Great, who was largely responsible for the evangelism of England, as was St. Augustine of Canterbury and his 40 monks. This Pope was the opposite of whatever is called "clericalism", as all he wished was to live the prayerful, dutiful humble life of a simple monk, and almost against his will had to be forcefully taken to be made Pope. Suprema Lex Salus Animarum, it is rightly said. The Church's mission above all is to save souls. She is the only Ark of Noah. Most happy, then, are all who enter or remain in Her communion forever.

Pope St. Gregory is also the one who gave us the stupendous treasure of Gregorian chant. Even Pope Paul VI, in his more normal moments, seemed to realize the mistake he was making,"We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant. 9. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth." https://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/p6691126.htm

+ABL said in 1966, "What painful lessons in one single year! Yet the Successor of Peter and he alone can save the Church. Let the Holy Father surround himself with strong defenders of the Faith: let him nominate them in the important dioceses. Let him by documents of outstanding importance proclaim the truth, search out error without fear of contradictions, without fear of schisms, without fear of calling in question the pastoral dispositions of the Council. Let the Holy Father deign: to encourage the individual bishops of their respective dioceses to correct faith and morals. It behooves every good pastor to uphold the courageous bishops, to urge them to reform their seminaries and to restore them to the study of St. Thomas; to encourage Superiors General to maintain in novitiates and communities the fundamental principles of all Christian asceticism, and above all, obedience; to encourage the development of Catholic schools, a press informed by sound doctrine, associations of Christian families; and finally, to rebuke the instigators of errors and reduce them to silence. The Wednesday allocutions of the pope cannot replace encyclicals, decrees and letters to the bishops. Doubtless I am reckless in expressing myself in this manner! But it is with ardent love that I compose these lines, love of God's glory, love of Jesus, love of Mary, of the Church, of the Successor of Peter, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ."

And of course, once the floodgates were opened, trying to change everything became normal. As Fr. Wathen used to say, the Liturgy is not any longer seen as a priceless Treasure that Tradition has handed down to be safely guarded and preserved inviolate; but, something that can be spontaneously changed into anything the Priest and people want it to be.

Archbishop Lefebvre always had the heart of a missionary and shepherd for the people he evangelized, first for the people of Africa, whom he loved; then for his own beloved France, and all Europe, which was about to undergo the "free love" revolution and many frightful crises; Archbishop Lefebvre prophetically saw early on that Catholic publications, Catholic schools, Catholic seminaries had fallen to frightfully low standards in such a short time, and were not at all prepared or equipped to deal with what was coming.

I'm not for "doom and gloom", but please note the statistics below carefully; it should indeed, as Kenneth Jones writes, be a spur to action. Michael Davies documents some facts. Thankfully, the vocations crisis is not insoluble, and if proper steps are taken now, the next few decades can be different.

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/statistics.htm

QuoteWhen Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the Catholic Church in America was in the midst of an unprecedented period of growth. Bishops were ordaining record numbers of priests and building scores of seminaries to handle the surge in vocations. Young women by the thousands gave up lives of comfort for the austerity of the convent. These nuns taught millions of students in the huge system of parochial and private schools.

The ranks of Catholics swelled as parents brought in their babies for Baptism and adult converts flocked to the Church. Lines outside the confessionals were long, and by some estimates three quarters of the faithful went to Mass every Sunday. Given this favorable state of affairs, some Catholics  wondered at the time whether an ecumenical council was opportune-----don't rock the boat, they said.

        Even some in the Vatican have recognized it. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: "Certainly the results [of Vatican II] seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI  ...

Priests. After skyrocketing from about 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965, the number of priests in the United States  dropped to 45,000 in 2002. By 2020,3 there will be about 31,000 priests-----and only 15,000 will be under the age of 70. Right now there are more priests aged 80 to 84 than there 1 are aged 30 to 34.

Ordinations. In 1965 there were 1,575 ordinations to the priesthood, in 2002 there were 450, a decline of 350 percent. Taking into account ordinations, deaths and departures, in 1965 there was a net gain of 725 priests. In 1998, there was a net loss of 810.

Priestless parishes. About 1 percent of parishes, 549, were without a resident priest in 1965. In 2002 there were 2,928 priestless parishes, about 15 percent of U.S. parishes. By 2020, a quarter of all parishes, 4,656, will have no priest.

Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700-----a 90 percent decrease. Without any students, seminaries across the country have been sold or shuttered. There were 596 seminaries in 1965, and only 200 in 2002.

Sisters. 180,000 sisters were the backbone of the Catholic education and health systems in 1965. In 2002, there were 75,000 sisters, with an average age of 68. By 2020, the number of sisters will drop to 40,000-----and of these, only 21,000 will be aged 70 or under. In 1965, 104,000 sisters were teaching, while in 2002 there were only 8,200 teachers.

Brothers. The number of professed brothers decreased from about 12,000 in 1965 to 5,700 in 2002, with a further drop to 3,100 projected for 2020.

Religious Orders. The religious orders will soon be virtually non-existent in the United States. For example, in 1965 there were 5,277 Jesuit priests and 3,559 seminarians; in 2000 there were 3,172 priests and 38 seminarians. There were 2,534 OFM Franciscan priests and 2,251 seminarians in 1965; in 2000 there were 1,492 priests and 60 seminarians. There were 2,434 Christian Brothers in 1965 and 912 seminarians; in 2000 there were 959 Brothers and 7 seminarians. There were 1,148 Redemptorist priests in 1965 and 1,128 seminarians; in 2000 there were 349 priests and 24 seminarians. Every major religious order in the United States mirrors these statistics.

High Schools. Between 1965 and 2002 the number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786. At the same time the number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000.

Parochial Grade Schools. There were 10,503 parochial grade schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students went from 4.5 million to 1.9 million.

Sacramental Life. In 1965 there were 1.3 million infant baptisms; in 2002 there were 1 million. (In the same period the number of Catholics in the United States rose from 45 million to 65 million.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms-----converts-----in 2002 there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. In 1965 there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000.

Mass attendance. A 1958 Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1958. A 1994 University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent. A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that 65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25 percent in 2000.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 12:02:32 AM
Except Pope Paul VI, in that context, was explicitly rejecting Gregorian Chant. He believed that greater lay participation was of infinitesimal more importance than Gregorian Chant.

He says this immediately after that quote.

"10. The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic.

11. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech."

For Pope Paul VI, Protestant style participation by the lay people was of way more significant value than liturgical plainchant.

I'm glad he's equivalent to such great teachers like John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximos the Confessor, Athanasius, who all confronted the public and corrected people's sinful ways, with their lives threatened or even taken away. What a great and fantastic role model, beatified by the Traditional Pope himself, Benedict XVI.

After all, it's clearly the case that Rome has the True Faith by her solemn wisdom in canonizing such a flawless leader, leading us towards Heaven.

Suck it in.



Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Miriam_M on January 17, 2019, 12:09:23 AM
I "am" because I was born into it. 
Sealed with it, confirmed within it, educated and formed by it.   
I had crack catechists and formators.

Once you have experienced that, you see modernism clearly for the fraud that it is and was, because you have the certitude of faith and experience that Tradition alone conveys.  Against Tradition, modernism is undeniably illegitimate and surely incompatible.

There's no need to engage in hand-wringing over V2 -- the dominating icon of modernism.  It was somewhere between these two extremes of the spectrum:  a diabolical attempt to destroy the Church, especially by creating disunity and confusion; and on the other side, a worthless, time-wasting experiment by effete men bored with their vocations, frightened of the world, and motivated by human respect.

It's not a matter of "reasoning," i.m.o., but a matter of sight and recognition.

One could "argue" or "reason," but since the true Church was founded by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the more accurately a member of the faithful knows Him as He presented Himself and as the ancient Church taught Him, transcendent and majestic (not in the diluted, populist depiction of the modernists), the clearer one's sight becomes as to which of the two churches is the true one -- ancient Church, or NewChurch.  The distinctions are that simple, and that is a spiritual understanding and experience more than an intellectual one.

"Reasons" imply that something is up for discussion.  And what is up for discussion, exactly?  Because if something is, the person believing that is a modernist.  Tradition is based on absolute precepts passed on reliably by those charged with preserving that tradition, not inventing something different as a replacement.

We are supposed to believe based on faith and obedience to unchanged truth, not based on reasoning.  An explanation for a truth is not the same thing as a reason to believe it.

Any other questions?
:lol:
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 12:30:40 AM
Quote from: Miriam_M

It's not a matter of "reasoning," i.m.o., but a matter of sight and recognition.

One could "argue" or "reason," but since the true Church was founded by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the more accurately a member of the faithful knows Him as He presented Himself and as the ancient Church taught Him, transcendent and majestic (not in the diluted, populist depiction of the modernists), the clearer one's sight becomes as to which of the two churches is the true one -- ancient Church, or NewChurch.  The distinctions are that simple, and that is a spiritual understanding and experience more than an intellectual one.

"Reasons" imply that something is up for discussion.  And what is up for discussion, exactly?  Because if something is, the person believing that is a modernist.  Tradition is based on absolute precepts passed on reliably by those charged with preserving that tradition, not inventing something different as a replacement.

So if you have to completely dismiss reason and only go off sight and sound, and "just knowing", how do you plan to evangelize and not die off as a religion? How do you know the devil isn't deceiving you by tickling your passions and emotional attachments to things less important than Christ Himself - like visuals, sounds, art, etc.?

I hate to break it to you, but the days of Catholic Colonialism and threatening by the sword are over.

You know, Saint Justin Martyr actually had to argue with his Pagan friends about Christianity, and the Apostles went into Jewish and Pagan temples to preach the Gospel. You can't just subjugate populations with ignorance and threaten dissidents with violence.

My grandparents on my dad's side were (May God forgive them for their sins, culpable or not) Evangelical Christians who were given the ideas that Catholics were idolaters, that Catholics were pagans, that there is continuity between the Roman Church and the Roman Empire - pretty much whatever Jack Chick comics would say. No matter what I said, even if I pointed out the contradictions of iconoclasm in Scripture, even if I pointed out that the Greek word for wine which Lot got drunk off of is the same as the wine at Canna, even if I pointed out the fact that incense and prayers of the Saints appear in Revelation, even if I pointed out the paintings in the Catacombs - even the painting of the Virgin Mary and Child in the Catacombs - it was always fingers in the ears and ignoring what I would sat.

They made the exact same argument you did - they were the Church of Christ, and they had the Truth. They died as Sola Scriptura iconoclasts.

Have you ever considered the possibility of denying intellectualism within Christianity and just accepting whatever is given is how Pope Francis hasn't been kicked out and why Paul VI was canonized? And why people are so poorly Catechized to the point that Vatican II was allowed to happen with little outcry?
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Miriam_M on January 17, 2019, 12:44:46 AM
Working, OP.  I interrupted my work to answer, but I cannot continue the discussion and answer your questions this evening.

Later.

Again, I evangelize all the time.  Follow my posting history on SD and you will see evidence of that.  But I don't do it by formal argumentation -- certainly not initially.  That's the way that modernist Catholics "evangelize" evangelical Protestants, with an incredibly poor success rate, but it fools the modernists into thinking they are actually doing something.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 17, 2019, 12:53:42 AM
Agreed, Miriam. For ourselves, we are certain because we know Christ, and we know we experience Him in His Traditional Sacraments.

But for others to come to Tradition, one or more reasons can be helpful. Thus St. Peter says, "But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you."

And as for you, Live, if you're going to troll and swear, I'm not going to engage you in conversation. The canonization thing has been brought up elsewhere and you can discuss it there if you want. Suffice to say the (1) the CE itself says the only thing decided in a canonization is that the person is now in heaven (2) you yourself believe Pope Liberius was a Saint, despite Catholics believing he is the first Pope not to be a Saint, and made some mistakes, unlike his Predecessors and Successors (3) the modern concept of "sainthood" has been changed so much that some believe any one who was finally saved is a saint, or even that every baptized person is a saint; thus, we have an approach that guarantees the security of traditional canonizations, while allowing the possibility that the modern concept of "sanctity" has been so much changed and watered down - beside the changes in the modern process without DA - that modern saints are just ordinary baptized persons, although in heaven.

But, it is not necessary so much as to understand the mystery of these times fully (in fact, Cardinal Manning, says, in the last days "Rome will lose the Faith, will drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to her ancient paganism", the grounds for which is arguably being prepared) for serious Catholics to know that now is the time for Catholic Action. Protestants wrongly thought the Catholic Church was dead after their deformation, but Mother Church rose again, and before they knew it, Our Lady of Guadalupe had evangelized Mexico in North America, and Christ through St. Francis Xavier had evangelized millions of souls in India for the Church. "The evangelism of the nations" says Fr. Butler justly, "is the prerogative of the Catholic Church, in which She has never had any rival". And even today, there has been an increase of vocations in Africa and Asia, to make up partially for the loss in America and Europe. With proper steps taken now, the Catholic Church will rise again. As for the Greek Church, a separated church that needs to rediscover the path back to Catholic communion, is it interested in fulfilling the Great Commission? If so, it must first of all see that lack of Christian unity is the greatest obstacle there is to world evangelism, and quickly return to Catholic unity. And secondly, the Greek Church remains very ethno-centric, little interested in evangelism, does not fulfil the prophesy of Malachi about the universal Church, that both St. Augustine and St. Optatus point out to the donatists, and manifestly is only at most a separated Church, not the universal or Catholic Church.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 01:03:15 AM
I'm trolling? Whose the guy on that other forum that starts threads with "gotcha" Catholic points than refuses to actually discuss any of the content of the responses on that forum?

But I guess you're right, it's kind of pointless to argue. I'll shut up.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 17, 2019, 01:10:33 AM
"Suck it in", "threatening by the sword" is not trolling? The purpose of this thread is reasons in favor of Traditional Catholicism.

This is what the CE says about canonizations, "my own opinion is that nothing else is defined than that the person canonized is in heaven ... There is no question of heroic virtue in this formula; on the other hand, sanctity does not necessarily imply the exercise of heroic virtue, since one who had not hitherto practised heroic virtue would, by the one transient heroic act in which he yielded up his life for Christ, have justly deserved to be considered a saint." Please discuss that on the appropriate thread for that if you want to.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 01:37:57 AM
Quote from: Xavier on January 17, 2019, 01:10:33 AM
"Suck it in", "threatening by the sword" is not trolling? The purpose of this thread is reasons in favor of Traditional Catholicism.

This is what the CE says about canonizations, "my own opinion is that nothing else is defined than that the person canonized is in heaven ... There is no question of heroic virtue in this formula; on the other hand, sanctity does not necessarily imply the exercise of heroic virtue, since one who had not hitherto practised heroic virtue would, by the one transient heroic act in which he yielded up his life for Christ, have justly deserved to be considered a saint." Please discuss that on the appropriate thread for that if you want to.

I'm in the wrong, I apologize
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 01:39:46 AM
It's easy to forget what website I'm on
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Tales on January 17, 2019, 01:42:47 AM
QuoteI'm glad he's equivalent to such great teachers like John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximos the Confessor, Athanasius, who all confronted the public and corrected people's sinful ways, with their lives threatened or even taken away. What a great and fantastic role model, beatified by the Traditional Pope himself, Benedict XVI.

After all, it's clearly the case that Rome has the True Faith by her solemn wisdom in canonizing such a flawless leader, leading us towards Heaven.

That a person is in Heaven does not make him equal to another person in Heaven.

That a person is in Heaven does not mean every aspect of his life is to be followed.  Or should we live as Augustine the youth, Peter the denier of Christ, or the thieving Good Thief?

You are bitterly angry and it shows in nearly every post you make.  You discovered years ago that the Church has warts and are repulsed - but that was to be expected, given that she's loaded with sinners.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 17, 2019, 03:22:49 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on January 17, 2019, 01:37:57 AM
Quote from: Xavier on January 17, 2019, 01:10:33 AM
"Suck it in", "threatening by the sword" is not trolling? The purpose of this thread is reasons in favor of Traditional Catholicism.

This is what the CE says about canonizations, "my own opinion is that nothing else is defined than that the person canonized is in heaven ... There is no question of heroic virtue in this formula; on the other hand, sanctity does not necessarily imply the exercise of heroic virtue, since one who had not hitherto practised heroic virtue would, by the one transient heroic act in which he yielded up his life for Christ, have justly deserved to be considered a saint." Please discuss that on the appropriate thread for that if you want to.

I'm in the wrong, I apologize

No need. But thank you. Your apology shows sincerity and humility. I apologize too for any time I've been uncharitable to you or others.

I really long for the day, TheReturnofLive, when all Western and Eastern Christians, all Catholics and Orthodox, will be re-united in Truth and Love in One Universal Church, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. God grant we both and all of us here live to see such a wonderful event!
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: christulsa on January 18, 2019, 12:25:40 AM
1.  After going regularly, long enough to the TLM to really get why the NO is an illegitimate novelty.

2.  Reading the Great Facade's crystal clear refutation of the sophisms in the anti-Traditionalist book Pope, Council, and the Mass, which I had read first.

3. SSPX articles, but especially Iota Unum, opened up my eyes to the problems of Vatican II, and not just its post-conciliar interpretation.

4. The personal testimony, teaching, and preaching of Archbishop Lefebvre on the Crisis.

5. Also, chasing modest trad girls in skirts all over Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas. ;)
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Quaremerepulisti on January 18, 2019, 09:06:21 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on January 16, 2019, 09:56:01 PM
This whole statement is a paradox.

Lots of things in life are paradoxical.

But neither the invective poured out by you, Kreuzritter, or anyone else will change the fact the Western pre-Vatican II edifice was a house built on sand, leading to its collapse (as clearly shown by Vatican II and its aftermath), and attempts to replicate it (even it goes by the name of "Restoration of Tradition") can only end in the same outcome, making it a total waste of time.

And, I am sorry to say, but like many trads, you are quite a shallow and non-critical thinker (e.g. ideologue), which leads you to make the exact same "gotcha"-type arguments with grandiose rhetoric and triumphalism and personal attacks, ignoring any and all nuance and distinction but replete with straw men and exaggerations; in short, no appreciation for intellectual honesty, which obviously has no place in religious discussions if it could hamper us, the holy ones favored by God, from doing battle with the spawn of Satan.

QuoteYour entire legitimization of your own identity as an Eastern Catholic is the fact that you are in communion with the "Sola Cathedra Petri", Rome herself, the preserver of orthodoxy and all that is holy, where Peter's burial and where he himself sanctified it with his own martyrdom, the "preserver of sanctity" when Constantinople was a whirlpool of heresies....

...Yet you firmly believe that Rome has caused her own self-destruction promoting ideas harmful to one's own soul, that the scholasticism from Rome has only led to horrendous consequences for people spiritually, that Vatican I was a result of narcissistic submission to authority, that Rome arrogantly creates more and more outlandish doctrines in order to maintain it's own infrastructure and claims, that Vatican II is the result of Rome's selfishness and powerlust, etc.

This is not an intellectually honest argument.  It is cheap polemic just a step above Jack Chick.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Frank on January 19, 2019, 03:02:59 PM
My wife.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 21, 2019, 03:03:01 AM
Thanks, Chris and Frank,

I want to clarify one thing that may have been unclear (and my apologies for that), in the OP etc, I am saying there are doctrinal reasons of principle (like the Kingship of Christ), why we are Traditional Catholics. Not just the Beauty and Majesty of Tradition. But I am not saying that our faith is based on any human reasons. Our faith is based on the authority of God revealing, as the Oath against Modernism teaches us. That is why, as the Holy Spirit makes possible for us by His Grace, we believe all that God has revealed.

Quote from: Quarethe Western pre-Vatican II edifice

You seem to be neglecting the statistics cited earlier. Shall we take just Priests and Nuns in the US to begin with?

The number of Priests skyrocketed from 27,000 in 1930 to 58,000 in 1965 - a more than 100% increase in 35 years - as documented earlier. As for Nuns, there were 50,000 Nuns in 1900, which remarkably increased to 180,000 in 1965 - a 260% increase in 65 years - See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sisters_and_nuns_in_the_United_States After that, it declined to about 50,000 again by around 2015. It doesn't take much to see that the 30-40 years after the Council were dreadful for both Nuns and for many religious orders of Monks. Some orders improved, many did not and closed down. Look at Nuns who were Sisters teaching in schools also.

There were some 50,000 odd seminarians as well, which also drastically decreased for many decades, before improving somewhat.

Roughly, without any Council at all, and allowing for other decreases over time, there may well have been over 150,000 Priests, some 400,000 Nuns, and perhaps 100,000 seminarians by now in the US if the Church had just continued as earlier. Are you sure this had nothing to do with Vatican II, the sixties and its aftermath? And if we have to go back to "western whatever", how do you explain 1900 to 1965?

Want another example? A nice Catholic country in Europe, perhaps? Let's take Catholic Ireland. We have statistics for 1958 https://lxoa.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/the-irish-catholic-church-in-1958-a-statistical-overview/

QuoteA. Priests and People in Ireland (Statistics from Irish Catholic Directory).

1. Total Catholic population of all Ireland: 3,257,400.

2. Total number of priests in Ireland (1956): 5,489.

3. Proportion of priests to people: 1 priest for every 593 Catholics ...

3. Departures (for the first time) of Irish priests to territories under Propaganda (Statistics from Pagan Missions):

                                 1935                  1950               1956
Total                          66                      185                   161

4. Total number of ordinations to the priesthood in Ireland during the year 1957 (Statistics from Irish Catholic Directory): 334.

5. Number of seminarians per 100,000 Catholics (Statistics from Herder Korrespondenz, May 1955):

Germany – 14

Holland – 18

Italy – 20

France – 22

U.S.A. – 26

Ireland – 75

Today, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/number-of-new-trainee-priests-at-maynooth-hits-record-low-1.3233625 "Just six men have begun training for the Catholic priesthood at St Patrick's College Maynooth this autumn, believed to be the lowest number since its foundation in 1795."

So, then, to the Church in Catholic Ireland that was simply booming in 1958, why has this happened? It's clear that (as even Pope Benedict XVI admitted) that the Council did not produce the results that were expected. Archbishop Lefebvre prophetically saw in 1966 (without the benefit of hindsight we have in which we can compare like above) that things were going terribly wrong. In particular, these warnings have proved prescient,
Quote from: Archbishop Lefebvre, in 1966The consequences of this have rapidly been drawn and applied in the life of the Church:

Doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations;
Doubts on the necessity for and nature of the "conversion" of every soul involve the disappearance of religious vocations, the destruction of traditional spirituality in the novitiates, and the uselessness of the missions;
Doubts on the lawfulness of authority and the need for obedience, caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience and liberty, are unsettling all societies beginning with the Church—religious societies, dioceses, secular society, the family;

Pride has as its normal consequence the concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh. It is perhaps one of the most appalling signs of our age to see to what moral decadence the majority of Catholic publications have fallen. They speak without any restraint of sexuality, of birth control by every method, of the lawfulness of divorce ... "This was the point at which the Council found itself while preparing, by preliminary commissions, to proclaim the truth in the face of such errors in order to banish them from the midst of the Church for a long time to come. This would have been the end of Protestantism and the beginning of a new and fruitful era for the Church .. Now this preparation was odiously rejected in order to make way for the gravest tragedy the Church has ever suffered."

https://fsspx.news/en/news/exchange-letters-between-cardinal-ottaviani-and-archbishop-lefebvre-1966-38507

As discussed elsewhere, given that there was a Council, this was what should have been done or reiterated, as Archbishop +Lefebvre and other traditional Fathers wanted (1) Canonize the Traditional Latin Mass, without change, as the only Mass of the Latin rite; (2) A dogmatic definition that Mary is Mediatrix of all Graces (3) A dogmatic definition of the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation (not leaving it open like now) (4) A dogmatic condemnation of Communism and anathematization of all its sympathizers (5) A dogmatic condemnation of the so-called "free love" movement that was beginning, as well as abortion, sodomy, contraception and the like; (6) A declaration of the Kingship of Christ and the Queenship of Mary and the obligation of all Catholic states to recognize it in their constitution (7) A Papal and Episcopal consecration of Russia to the Sacred Heart through the Immaculate Heart, as Mary requested, to obtain the defeat of Communism, the return of the Orthodox, and the Triumph of the Church, as She promised. This remains to be done.
Title: Re: Main reasons you are Traditional and not Modern (conservative) Catholics:
Post by: Xavier on January 21, 2019, 03:51:20 AM
Quote from: Quareattempts to replicate it (even it goes by the name of "Restoration of Tradition") can only end in the same outcome, making it a total waste of time.

Restoration of Tradition is precisely what we need. Not only is that what Pope St. Pius X would have approved, but Our Lady uses the precise words "complete restoration" in which She foretells not only the problem (which all Traditionalists identify, though conservative Catholics are still uncertain about it), but also the solution (where I think sometimes even some Traditionalists get held up, usually in "end of the world/chastisement" defeatism, not what Our Lady called for). It is clear from Our Lady's words that these times are evil and to be fought - especially things like the Sacrament of Matrimony being profaned, Masonry being in power and enacting iniquitous laws against it, impurity being universally promoted, beside secularist propaganda being a reason for the loss of vocations etc, and their solution is a Traditional Pope.

https://onepeterfive.com/400-years-ago-our-lady-sent-us-a-message-from-ecuador/

QuoteAs for the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolises the union of Christ with His Church, it will be attacked and deeply profaned. Freemasonry, which will then be in power, will enact iniquitous laws with the aim of doing away with this Sacrament, making it easy for everyone to live in sin and encouraging the procreation of illegitimate children born without the blessing of the Church. The Catholic spirit will rapidly decay; the precious light of Faith will gradually be extinguished until there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs. Added to this will be the effects of secular education, which will be one reason for the death of priestly and religious vocations. The Sacrament of Holy Orders will be ridiculed, oppressed, and despised, for in this Sacrament, the Church of God and even God Himself is scorned and despised since He is represented in His priests. The Devil will try to persecute the ministers of the Lord in every possible way; he will labor with cruel and subtle astuteness to deviate them from the spirit of their vocation and will corrupt many of them. These depraved priests, who will scandalise the Christian people, will make the hatred of bad Catholics and the enemies of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church fall upon all priests.
This apparent triumph of Satan will bring enormous suffering to the good Pastors of the Church, the many good priests, and the Supreme Pastor and Vicar of Christ on earth, who, a prisoner in the Vatican, will shed secret and bitter tears in the presence of his God and Lord, beseeching light, sanctity and perfection for all the clergy of the world, of whom he is King and Father. Further, in these unhappy times, there will be unbridled luxury which will ensnare the rest into sin and conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost. Innocence will almost no longer be found in children, nor modesty in women.

In this supreme moment of need of the Church, the one who should speak will fall silent!"

You will see this from Heaven, my beloved daughter, where you can no long suffer, but your daughters and successors will suffer, those beloved souls already known to you who will placate the Divine Ire. They will have recourse to Me under the invocation of Our Lady of Good Success, whose Statue I ask and command that you have made for the consolation and preservation of my Convent and of the faithful souls of that time, an epoch when there will be a great devotion to Me, for I am Queen of Heaven under many invocations.

This devotion will be the shield between Divine Justice and the prevaricating world to prevent the release of God's formidable punishment that this guilty earth deserves ...

In order to free men from bondage to these heresies, those whom the merciful love of My Most Holy Son will destine for that restoration will need great strength of will, constancy, valor and confidence in God. To test this faith and confidence of the just, there will be occasions in which everything will seem to be lost and paralyzed. This will be, then, the happy beginning of the complete restoration ...

[T]he spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times. Like a filthy ocean, it will inundate the streets, squares and public places with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world ... Many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger.

Pray insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the secrecy of your heart, imploring our Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and by the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His Ministers and quickly bring to an end those ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate that will restore the spirit of Her Priests.