Fr R on intellectual pride

[awkwardcustomer]

Point #3:  I think the point of his mentioning SV'ism was not a blanket condemnation of the position itself, or all those who hold it, but rather the claim of superior knowledge (i.e., certainty) of the illegitimacy of particular popes and the supposedly illegitimate position of sedeplenists.  Although I doubt that he meant that all people who consider SV'ism as a viable option are in fact intellectually prideful, I do think he meant to apply the charge to those who accuse other Catholics of "not using their intellects,"  "not applying logic,"  "being willfully blind," etc.  I do not think it is in itself prideful to wonder why one's own position (whatever the opinion on The Seat) is not more universally accepted.  I do think it is prideful to assume that people who are not "certain" or unquestioning about The Seat are refusing to use their intellects (an act of will), mentally deficient (an insult), etc. 

Trads on this forum and elsewhere regularly accuse individuals - priests, bishops and laity - of not being Catholic, of being heretical, or Protestant, or schismatic, or whatever.  Most Trads seem remarkably adept at spotting such individuals and calling them out. 

Yet when it comes to Frances, it's the Catholics calling him out for his heresies who are condemned. 

That's quite a double standard.  People who work to such double standards tend to be very irritating, and that might explain the accusations that you object to.

[John Lamb]

The people deserved it, they got their evil clerics as St. John said, but the light of restoration was a great leader through grace. Grace and holiness cannot be a movement from the bottom up. There is no such thing as lay restoration of the faith. At best the laity can preserve the faith in the face of evil as in the time of the Arians, and the Japanese. Nevertheless, even during Arianism many lost their faith. St. Athanasius's famous sermon "they have the churches we have the faith" is a call to greatness in a feeling of despair.

"There is no such thing as lay restoration of the faith."

I have to agree with this, but it deserves some qualification. It's very true that priests are absolutely necessary for the maintenance and propagation of the Catholic faith. This is not so much due to the holiness of individual priests or even the priesthood itself, but the simple fact that they have been endowed with divine authority to preach the faith, and this divine authority to preach is so necessary for the success of the preacher that without it he doesn't even deserve to be called a preacher. You could have a layman extremely well-read in the scriptures, fathers, and scholastics, but send him out into the world and tell him to preach like an apostle and he will never succeed in bearing real fruit – this is the problem with Protestant pseudo-preachers and all their pseudo-apostolic shouting. Nothing happens in this universe without divine approval or permission, and for something good to happen it must be done in obedience to divine authority and spiritual hierarchy. In order to preach the faith you must be sent, i.e. by divine appointment. It has nothing to do with human skill.

That said, we need to remember one all-important thing: priests don't fall out of heaven, they come from families, i.e. from laymen. This is what Pope Pius X's mother said when he showed her his episcopal ring: she pointed to her wedding ring and said, "If I didn't have this ring, you wouldn't have that ring." So yes, laymen are necessary for the restoration of the Church, not in as direct a manner as priests and religious, but indirectly because it is in the "domestic church" (the family home) that ecclesiastics are born and bred.

So yes, the Church as a whole cannot be restored without the hierarchy (especially in its upper echelons) first being restored. But the pre-condition of this is the restoring of spiritual integrity to the Christian household, within which the majority of the members of the restored hierarchy will grow up.

[John Lamb]

St. John Eudes is teaching us (1) if people live badly, we risk being given bad Shepherds. But on the contrary (2) if we do penance and return to God with our whole hearts, He will without doubt give us good Shepherds. This is plain from the passage of Scripture he cites and how the Saint continues.

It is quite striking to me how, quite often, popular piety, even when allegedly attested to by writings of Saints, involves a complete abandonment of logic.

What in the world is the function of good Shepherds, if not to lead people to God?  But here, we have the existence of good Shepherds being dependent on the people already having returned to God, making their existence superfluous.

Good point, but we can distinguish: (1) an initial conversion, (2) a full restoration.

An initial conversion or about-face in the Church can only come from having men of high merit in positions of authority. This is the case in the Counter-Reformation period where we had men like St. Pius V, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Philip Neri in that crucial starting stage.

But a full restoration of the Church to a state of health where the hierarchy is not only pulled up and dragged by a few eminent saints, but is flourishing as a whole: comes with the restoration of the Christian household and a devout lay population.

[Miriam_M]

Trads on this forum and elsewhere regularly accuse individuals - priests, bishops and laity - of not being Catholic, of being heretical, or Protestant, or schismatic, or whatever.  Most Trads seem remarkably adept at spotting such individuals and calling them out. 

Yet when it comes to Frances, it's the Catholics calling him out for his heresies who are condemned. 

That's quite a double standard.  People who work to such double standards tend to be very irritating, and that might explain the accusations that you object to.

I haven't condemned you.  Have others on SD "condemned" you?

Heresy is a mortal sin.  All mortal sins require not just grave matter [in the case of heresy, of denying the truths of the Catholic faith]; they require knowledge and consent.  The question is, does Novus Ordo Priest Father X, or does Pope Francis, realize that what he is communicating is unquestionably heresy?  Obviously, this relates to the knowledge portion.  I don't know how aware you are of the abysmal seminary training that men of Francis' age received.  As a relevant aside, a priest from a particular active congregation that is present in my town recently retired.  (Thanks be to God; he is no longer mouthing his "heresies" -- labeled very loosely by me -- for impressionable college students to hear and implant in their souls.)  His retirement was partly catalyzed, by the way, by his own unorthodox statements, which came to the attention of the local bishop by concerned laity, who reported him over a period of several years.

In any case, this priest, about the same age as Francis I, is fixated on only one period of the Church -- the unstable, unorthodox, experimental period of 1962 to about 1980 -- not that the period following that hasn't also been controversial, but the point is that the priest in question was only capable of referring to the Council time period in all of his homilies and in his stated world view.  During his homilies he would constantly quote the Council documents, and nothing else (except also secular literature, which he was fond of quoting).  Never once did he refer to Tradition or the traditional saints. 

The other aspect of this priest was also his spirit of rebellion and independence, as evidenced in his homilies.  This is the defining aspect of the Council and the period surrounding it, including in the secular world: the rejection of authority, the rejection of being subjugated to both human and divine authority, the refusal to recognize the established Church within the context of Tradition as the abiding authority.

Is this man "a heretic," or is he and was he (sadly, for his soul) very badly formed?  We can say something objective about the latter; we cannot make a judgment about the former because that requires knowledge known to God.  It would require our knowing that he was aware that the Council, if it did reverse doctrine, was a false council and had no binding effect on Catholics -- but that he was willing to join in a heretical movement nevertheless.

From everything I witnessed of this man, for 6 years, he falsely believed -- like thousands of priests of his generation -- that V2 authentically reversed de fide dogma and authentically invented new de fide dogma.

[needed the modification above]

[Quaremerepulisti]

So yes, the Church as a whole cannot be restored without the hierarchy (especially in its upper echelons) first being restored. But the pre-condition of this is the restoring of spiritual integrity to the Christian household, within which the majority of the members of the restored hierarchy will grow up.

Well, then you got a problem.  You can't restore the faith (which includes its presence in families) without priests, who have divine authority to preach it.  But you can't get those priests without Christian families.

Maybe there's a problem with your top-down clericalist model, and there is more of a bottom-up aspect than you realize.

[Sempronius]

So yes, the Church as a whole cannot be restored without the hierarchy (especially in its upper echelons) first being restored. But the pre-condition of this is the restoring of spiritual integrity to the Christian household, within which the majority of the members of the restored hierarchy will grow up.

Well, then you got a problem.  You can't restore the faith (which includes its presence in families) without priests, who have divine authority to preach it.  But you can't get those priests without Christian families.

Maybe there's a problem with your top-down clericalist model, and there is more of a bottom-up aspect than you realize.

I'll go with Saint Augustine on this one: If all of us catholics would stay celibate because of our love to God then Jesus would be come back much sooner. The Church isn't dependent on large families. (Maybe a bit controversial so I'm open for other ideas)

[Miriam_M]

I'll go with Saint Augustine on this one: If all of us catholics would stay celibate because of our love to God then Jesus would be come back much sooner. The Church isn't dependent on large families. (Maybe a bit controversial so I'm open for other ideas)

Three separate concepts:  celibacy, chastity, continence.   Which is it that you are recommending, or you think that St. Augustine recommended?  By the way, I'll answer the question:  He recommended chastity -- the universal commandment.

So perhaps it would be better framed as four concepts:  celibacy particular to the priesthood, chastity binding universally on all, chastity particular to the vowed state, and continence.

He did not recommend universal celibacy because that would imply universal vocations for all men.  Ditto for vowed chastity:  that would require universal vocations for everyone.  Together, they would put population at negative growth, certainly within a generation.

(1) The context of chastity is state in life.  That means that chaste married couples will be conceiving and giving birth.

(2) The Church has never declared that the entire human race has vocations to priesthood or religious life.  The call is for the few, not the many.  Find where St. Augustine, on his own, recommended the entire human race to the priesthood and/or religious life.  If he contradicted the Church, he is not to be followed.

[Sempronius]

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1309.htm


10. But I am aware of some that murmur: What, say they, if all men should abstain from all sexual intercourse, whence will the human race exist? Would that all would this, only in charity out of a pure heart, and good conscience, and faith unfeigned; much more speedily would the City of God be filled, and the end of the world hastened. For what else does the Apostle, as is manifest, exhort to, when he says, speaking on this head, I would that all were as myself; or in that passage, But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remains that both they who have wives, be as though not having: and they who weep, as though not weeping: and they who rejoice, as though not rejoicing: and they who buy, as though not buying: and they who use this world as though they use it not. For the form of this world passes by. I would have you without care. Then he adds, Whoever is without a wife thinks of the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord: but whoever is joined in marriage, thinks of the things of the world, how to please his wife: and a woman that is unmarried and a virgin is different: she that is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, to be holy both in body and spirit: but she that is married, is anxious about the things of the world, how to please her husband. Whence it seems to me, that at this time, those only, who contain not, ought to marry, according to that sentence of the same Apostle, But if they contain not, let them be married: for it is better to be married than to burn."


I hope I'm not pitting Saint Augustine against the Church, I'm sure if one would read the whole work one would find him congruent with other saints

[King Wenceslas]

Trads on this forum and elsewhere regularly accuse individuals - priests, bishops and laity - of not being Catholic, of being heretical, or Protestant, or schismatic, or whatever.  Most Trads seem remarkably adept at spotting such individuals and calling them out. 

Yet when it comes to Frances, it's the Catholics calling him out for his heresies who are condemned. 

That's quite a double standard.  People who work to such double standards tend to be very irritating, and that might explain the accusations that you object to.

I haven't condemned you.  Have others on SD "condemned" you?

Heresy is a mortal sin.  All mortal sins require not just grave matter [in the case of heresy, of denying the truths of the Catholic faith]; they require knowledge and consent.  The question is, does Novus Ordo Priest Father X, or does Pope Francis, realize that what he is communicating is unquestionably heresy?  Obviously, this relates to the knowledge portion.  I don't know how aware you are of the abysmal seminary training that men of Francis' age received.  As a relevant aside, a priest from a particular active congregation that is present in my town recently retired.  (Thanks be to God; he is no longer mouthing his "heresies" -- labeled very loosely by me -- for impressionable college students to hear and implant in their souls.)  His retirement was partly catalyzed, by the way, by his own unorthodox statements, which came to the attention of the local bishop by concerned laity, who reported him over a period of several years.

In any case, this priest, about the same age as Francis I, is fixated on only one period of the Church -- the unstable, unorthodox, experimental period of 1962 to about 1980 -- not that the period following that hasn't also been controversial, but the point is that the priest in question was only capable of referring to the Council time period in all of his homilies and in his stated world view.  During his homilies he would constantly quote the Council documents, and nothing else (except also secular literature, which he was fond of quoting).  Never once did he refer to Tradition or the traditional saints. 

The other aspect of this priest was also his spirit of rebellion and independence, as evidenced in his homilies.  This is the defining aspect of the Council and the period surrounding it, including in the secular world: the rejection of authority, the rejection of being subjugated to both human and divine authority, the refusal to recognize the established Church within the context of Tradition as the abiding authority.

Is this man "a heretic," or is he and was he (sadly, for his soul) very badly formed?  We can say something objective about the latter; we cannot make a judgment about the former because that requires knowledge known to God.  It would require our knowing that he was aware that the Council, if it did reverse doctrine, was a false council and had no binding effect on Catholics -- but that he was willing to join in a heretical movement nevertheless.

From everything I witnessed of this man, for 6 years, he falsely believed -- like thousands of priests of his generation -- that V2 authentically reversed de fide dogma and authentically invented new de fide dogma.

[needed the modification above]

So all the bad priests and bishops who were badly formed get a pass and heaven.

So Jane X comes into the confessional and she is in for a talk about contraception and her problems with her husband in this area.

Monsignor D keeps repeated over and over don't break up the family.

Jane X goes away and practices contraception to keep the family together which pleases her husband to no end.

Poor Monsignor he was poorly formed and was overwhelmed by VII. He gets a great big PASS by God.

Where does this end? Where? No body is accountable, that is where.

Your whole analysis of the past 50 years is full of holes, big ones.

[awkwardcustomer]

The question is, does Novus Ordo Priest Father X, or does Pope Francis, realize that what he is communicating is unquestionably heresy? 

I find it incredible that anyone could, in all seriousness, ask this.

It puts a new slant on the old question - Is the Pope Catholic?

Because now you're suggesting that the new answer is - He doesn't know.

[Maximilian]

Because now you're suggesting that the new answer is - He doesn't know.

That's Bishop Williamson's position, sometimes referred to as "Mentevacantism."

[awkwardcustomer]

Because now you're suggesting that the new answer is - He doesn't know.

That's Bishop Williamson's position, sometimes referred to as "Mentevacantism."

Ah, I didn't make the connection.  Is that what 'Mentevacantism is?  Francis doesn't realise he isn't Catholic because he wasn't taught the Catholic Faith in seminary?

And in the fifty or so decades since seminary, he hasn't bothered to find out? 

That's some argument.

[Xavier]

Archbishop Lefebvre's refutation of the absurdity of decades-long (even 30 years, let alone 60 year) sedevacantism is as valid now as ever, "The visibility of the Church is too necessary to Her existence for it to be possible that God would allow that visibility to disappear for decades. The reasoning of those who deny that we have a Pope puts the Church in an inextricable situation. Who will tell us who the future Pope is to be? How, as there are no Cardinals, is he to be chosen? This spirit is a schismatical one for at least the majority of those who attach themselves to certainly schismatical sects like Palmar de Troya, the Eglise Latine de Toulouse, and others.

Our Fraternity absolutely refuses to enter into such reasonings. We wish to remain attached to Rome and to the Successor of Peter, while refusing his Liberalism through fidelity to his predecessors. We are not afraid to speak to him, respectfully but firmly, as did St. Paul with St. Peter. And so, far from refusing to pray for the Pope, we redouble our prayers and supplications that the Holy Ghost will grant him light and strength in his affirmations and defense of the Faith.

Thus, I have never refused to go to Rome at his request or that of his representatives. The Truth must be affirmed at Rome above all other places. It is of God, and He will assure its ultimate triumph." https://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/Apologia/Vol_two/Chapter_40.htm

Our Lady said very truly to a mystic, "And respect for a Priest is always a sign of a Christian education. Woe to those Priests who lose their apostolic ardour! Also Jesus said that. But woe also to those who think that they are right in despising them! Because they consecrate and hand out the True Bread that descends from Heaven. And that contact makes them holy, just like a sacred chalice, even if they are not totally holy. They will answer to God for it. You must consider them as such and not worry about anything else. You must not be more strict than your Lord Jesus, Who, at their command, leaves Heaven and descends to be raised by their hands.

You must learn from Him. And if they are blind, if they are deaf, if their souls are paralyzed and their thoughts are unsound, if they are lepers full of faults in strong contrast with their mission, if they are like corpses in sepulchers, then call Jesus that He may heal them and revive them. Call Him with your prayers, and your suffering, o victim souls. To save a soul is to predestine one's own soul to Heaven. But to save the soul of a Priest is to save a large number of souls, because every holy Priest is a net that drags souls to God. And to save a Priest, that is to sanctify: re-sanctify, is to create this mystical net ... a light to be added to your eternal crown. Go in peace."

Jesus and Mary, not once but a 1000 times, not through 1 mystic, but through several dozen, have been imploring (literally pleading) for something like a worldwide confraternity of victim souls praying and sacrificing for the Hierarchy, the Priesthood and those in Religious Life even from the Laity, because that is one of the greatest needs of our times. But few bother to listen to their pleas and we prefer to do it our own way. When all Catholics, Clerical and Lay alike, start listening to Jesus and Mary, our situation will begin to change.

[Sempronius]

Because now you're suggesting that the new answer is - He doesn't know.

That's Bishop Williamson's position, sometimes referred to as "Mentevacantism."

Ah, I didn't make the connection.  Is that what 'Mentevacantism is?  Francis doesn't realise he isn't Catholic because he wasn't taught the Catholic Faith in seminary?

And in the fifty or so decades since seminary, he hasn't bothered to find out? 

That's some argument.

I'm drawn to that view (first time I read that word). Many priests and bishops dont have the psychological resources to cope with the sexual revolution of our society. Its normal now for women to indulge in their fantasies and it puts a man out of his normal state of mind (especially in his youth if he most acutely feels that he is not the object of their desires.) Vatican 2 gives them some breathing space.

[awkwardcustomer]

Jesus and Mary, not once but a 1000 times, not through 1 mystic, but through several dozen, have been imploring (literally pleading) for something like a worldwide confraternity of victim souls praying and sacrificing for the Hierarchy, the Priesthood and those in Religious Life even from the Laity, because that is one of the greatest needs of our times. But few bother to listen to their pleas and we prefer to do it our own way. When all Catholics, Clerical and Lay alike, start listening to Jesus and Mary, our situation will begin to change.

Do any of these 'mystics' who claim to speak for 'Jesus and Mary' ever suggest that the laity actually DOES SOMETHING.

Apart from quietly suffering in the corner, that is. 

Take no action against the blasphemies and insults against Christ and Our Lady that take place every day in a typical NO church?  Do nothing?  Just suffer?

While the horror show continues?