Traditional Catholics and secular culture

[Greg]

Then what is the point of practicing?  Just lapse and leave it to God's judgement.

Practicing Catholics must on aggregate have a significantly higher chance of saving their souls than non-practicing ones or the sacraments, and the grace they impart, would be false and empty.

Logic and reason tells us this for a FACT.

It's no guarantee of Heaven, nothing is, but it is a SIGNIFICANTLY higher chance.  Otherwise we are all wasting our time dragging ourselves to mass.

The same God who tells us to "judge a tree by its fruits" and gives The Commandments to men cannot then turn around and become some wishy-washy liberal, with a mushy mind like you, who judges everyone on some secret "female intuition" basis as though the commandments and fruits no longer matter.

[Tales]

The faith is divinely complex.  That might be why the Church, at least so far as I know (but then again, I am a nobody), has not come out with a "How to" guide on how to be saved.

Heresies have, though.  Sola fide, just put your faith in Jesus once and you are good to go.  Calvinism, you were saved or damned from creation, so just do whatever, cause you can't change a thing.

I do not expect that there will ever be a dogma that one must do as the early Christians did nor believe everything a Church Father pontificated upon.  The faith is not that simple, which is why after 2,000 years Catholics are still puzzling over how to be saved.  Meanwhile the believers in heresy are quite happy with their simplicity - no idea how it turns out for them, just as I have no idea how things are turning out for all us Catholics.

[Jayne]

Then what is the point of practicing?  Just lapse and leave it to God's judgement.

The point of practicing Catholicism is to obey what God has commanded.  We do it because we love God and we have a duty to obey Him.  It is not because we foresee an advantage to ourselves.  We are not looking for the minimum of obedience that we can get away with and still get to heaven.  We want to give God everything we possibly can because we know that is what He deserves from us.

[bigbadtrad]

St. Thomas taught to break from the ancients is to break the unity of the faith.

This is both a refreshing and disturbing question which interests me greatly and I wanted to respond fully and candidly. It challenges one's character and ultimately what you've become and the person you should be. Thank you for posting this. I'll address the theory then living it. Let me start with a story given Fr. Garrigou Lagrange in the Purification of the Soul in the Three Ages of The Interior Life:

"St. Jerome relates in a letter to Eustochium how, at the time when he was beginning to lead the monastic life near Antioch, he was led by a very great grace to the assiduous reading of the Scriptures. The elegance of profane writers still pleased him greatly; by preference he read the works of Cicero, Virgil, and Plautus. Then he received the following grace: during sleep he beheld himself, as it were, transported before the tribunal of God, who asked him severely who he was. "I am a Christian," Jerome replied. "You lie," said the sovereign Judge. "You are a Ciceronian; for where your treasure is, there is your heart also." And the order was given to scourge him. "Upon awakening," writes St. Jerome, "I felt, indeed, that this had been more than a dream, that it was a reality, since I bore on my shoulders the marks of the stripes I had received. Since that time I have read the Sacred Scriptures with greater ardor than I formerly read profane books." This experience explains St. Jerome's statement to Eustochium in another letter: "Let sleep surprise you only reading; fall asleep only on Sacred Scripture."
http://www.christianperfection.info/tta28.php

Let me start by saying he was called Reginald the Rigorist by his contemporaries so nothing new under the sun.


THE THEORY
I'd like to say that most of what I've learned and studied over the years seems foreign to me over time. The content is still there (although decaying through memory lapses) but its more distant.

It is very hard to review things that make you feel like a stranger in a strange land. In one of your threads I was reading PDR's posts (always engaging to peruse) and I see in his thoughts many of my own.

I'm going to use nudity as an example, but any other example could be used that plagues the modern world. This is not a crusade against nudity solely, but to use it more as a concrete example.

Take nudity in art. The early Church went from town to town and destroyed it. They didn't see exceptions in the quality of the art, just the loss of souls. Can a person pose naked and if so was God wrong to make clothes for Adam who was much closer to purity? What exceptions did the early Church fathers give for modesty? None and the concept of art with nudity is foreign to the East entirely and the West almost entirely (with a few regional exceptions) until the 14th century and crescendoing in the 15th which I believe is one of the reasons from Protestantism and the weakness in the clergy to overcome the spiritual battles before their eyes (namely, excusing evil in the name of culture).

If nudity and posing for nudity is fine would you nominate your sister, mother, and by extension Our Heavenly Mother and tell her it's just for the intention of the beauty of art? If one should think of Our Lady with the utmost purity what makes the stranger so much different if they are our sisters in Christ?

Do I honestly believe anyone who would stand before the Mother Of God could even walk her to a museum with quality nudes or would the facade of sophistry peel back the evil act it truly is when confronted with such purity? How would St. John Vianney view such a museum? Before anyone attacks my position, which they are free to, I demand they answer this questions for intellectual honesty's sake.

Let's also use St. Alphonsus in regards to opera. He loved the opera and as an attorney used to attend it frequently. As a priest he went but took off his glasses so as not to see anything and sat afar from the performance and later on stopped going entirely. He understood the act had consequences and acted on them accordingly.

My estrangement comes from history and principle. How can both the principle and history of something be so easy to see but denied by not only the laity but the hierarchy? Probabilism was meant as a means to find a few theologians on a topic that agreed and proceed from there. But what happens when it's clear they are just making up their own theology estranged from from the Fathers and Doctors and eventually become the soup de jour?

It appears the recipe is time + reason = whatever you want eventually

How can you can be fully Christian to reject nudity entirely for the 1st millennia then an uneducated bore with no aesthetic sense in the 2nd going into the 3rd? What about Padre Pio about television?

Another example in one of those threads you posted is a priest's response to nudity and it seemed as if he was a professor because he alludes to teaching or instructing other priests. He said, correctly but incompletely, that an object is known by it's intention thereby excusing nudity in art. That's incorrect.

The first thing that must be noted is the object itself and if it is good, not the intention alone. Intention must be guided by the act's moral uprightness in itself. St. Thomas uses the example of hunting a deer and killing a man. The intention was not murder and therefore it's not murder so he's right on that point. But before we discuss intention we have to discuss the act itself. If the act of nudity or modern entertainment can be good where would you find that in the ancients, how would a St. Theresa of Avila view this, or would St. Jerome watch movies recommended by most with me?

Nudity can be by extension applied to movies, shows, blasphemy, indecency in language. A woman in a bikini using blasphemy is obviously worse than the a museum. The horror of blasphemy is worse than murder and yet who feels it's sting?

Nuance and complexity arguments to me are simply relativistic and morally improbable. If nuance and complexity arguments had any merit they would have history on their side with examples, but they don't. If both doctrine and history are against you then all you have is reason which is hard to ever see how both the ancients and moderns can be reconciled. Scorn and mockery aren't arguments.

THE PRACTICE
Ok so let's be honest with ourselves. Which priest would you speak to today who would agree with you? Which one of your kids will find such a priest? If saints were scorned in their day by their priests and leadership where would you find one today? They are incredibly hard to find and even harder to openly say what they feel for fears of repercussions.

Lest we forget priests scorned the idea of St. John Vianney giving advice to so many because of his lack of nuance and training. In his holy simplicity he saw evil more clearly hence he cried constantly when hearing sin.

Seminaries are not like jobs. You may be fully qualified and work hard, but if they don't like you for any reason you're gone. It's one of the most subjective vocations one can enter into that is highly demanding.

I once asked why priests watched movies at one trad community and my potential superior said to me, "You know I've had this conversation with other seminarians and they're not here anymore" with a grinch-like devilish smile. Sadly, I could give stories like this over and over again but it's not fair to the readers so I won't go further.

When I called one older, elderly priest/professor who clearly believed in the ancients I asked him point blank how anyone can be a priest today. His response was illuminating when he said, "You have to join a monastery". He saw the utter corruption and obviously at his age his powers were diminished but I know for a fact he did much good to the seminarians. In his raw honesty I saw laid bare what I confusedly understood made indelibly clear. Is this realistic for most? Obviously it's not as both the civil laws and ability to make an income are highly impaired and at the end of the day you have to eat or provide or society disappears.

As a father of children I wrestle with this question: if I teach my kids the faith of St. Alphonsus, Peter Damien, Chrysostum, Vianney, what do I give them except frustration, but I believe over a decade of being a father I have found the answer by traveling and seeing so many different scenarios that I delve into last.

Things have eroded so quickly I highly doubt St. Alphonsus without his titles would ever be accepted almost anywhere today to teach moral theology except in a few monasteries. We live in the sound-byte LOL culture where most won't read this either as it's too much work.

I don't care how the poster Jerome sounded to others in other threads, St. John Vianney was hated by his flock and eventually won them over with hard work, penance and prayer. He was initially hated by many. This is the path of the truth teller even amongst supposed people of like mind like St. John of the Cross who was imprisoned by his own.

Sadly, there are no answers from a linear understanding of application. You want one but one doesn't exist unless you were to live near penitential monasteries. The day is gone when sound doctrine is easily accepted, when we are forced to practically ignore our priests and bishops to try to keep our souls or sanity, and when good priests are punished for teaching the truth.

The only answer is our own souls and spiritual life, to muster the courage and conviction to be the best man you can be today; to realize time is short and our souls will be called sooner than we think.

In conclusion I had this same conversation with my wife but in a different way. She asked how we make our kids into saints if things are so corrupt and the lives of the fathers seem so abstract. I mentioned the analogy of Bishop Sheen's "modern hairshirts" where he showed in times past we imposed penances on ourselves in a Catholic ethos to help conform to God's law against internal dangers. In today's time our neighbor is our hairshirt as it's an attack from without that constantly bombards us with attacks stronger than impurity but against our faith.

That maybe our way back to the ancients is not in linear form, but in the spirit of joy, happiness, spending more time as a family, playing games that are wholesome, restore chaperones over dating, and to make life the most fun it can be so they see the love of God through the family. Maybe the discipline imposed on us is to be as joyful as we can in a fallen world and not to let melancholy and despair take over us.

I've seen Catholicism practiced in 12 countries from Eastern, Novus Ordo, and Traditional perspectives. The only thing I've seen as a thread that binds them when I see the children prospering and growing in the faith is love, patience, compassion, modesty, family activities (which I can't stress enough) sobriety, and vigilance against the world into their homes. Maybe it will be through our joy and by extension the analogy of the compassion and mercy of God that gives them the will to fight in a decimated world and to conclude in the words of St. Paul our salvation is founded upon hope. May we be that for others and that might be the greatest interior mortification which exceeds all other penances.

[Greg]

The point of practicing Catholicism is to obey what God has commanded

In that case I don't see how a lapsed Catholic can, on aggregate, beat a practicing Catholic to Heaven.  However lax the practicing Catholic is, he is still "obeying what God has commanded" more than the lapsed Catholic simply by practicing his faith.

So assuming the data demonstrates that rigorists lose more of their children than typical lax-Trads then being a lax-Trad is superior to being a rigorist.

The kind of wackadoodle Jayne logic, (nothing more than purely contrarianism), that would suggest a lapsed Catholic with a deathbed conversion was no worse off than a weak but practicing Catholic is the same sort of moronic liberal stupidity that gives us the canonised saints of John Paul II and Paul VI.

Yes, hypothetically, JP2 could have confessed his many sins and heresies and scandals at the last nano-second.  But there's absolutely no evidence to suggest he did.

If salvation is that random, that much of a lottery why bother?

[nmoerbeek]

St. Thomas taught to break from the ancients is to break the unity of the faith.

This is both a refreshing and disturbing question which interests me greatly and I wanted to respond fully and candidly. It challenges one?s character and ultimately what you?ve become and the person you should be. Thank you for posting this. I?ll address the theory then living it. Let me start with a story given Fr. Garrigou Lagrange in the Purification of the Soul in the Three Ages of The Interior Life:

?St. Jerome relates in a letter to Eustochium how, at the time when he was beginning to lead the monastic life near Antioch, he was led by a very great grace to the assiduous reading of the Scriptures. The elegance of profane writers still pleased him greatly; by preference he read the works of Cicero, Virgil, and Plautus. Then he received the following grace: during sleep he beheld himself, as it were, transported before the tribunal of God, who asked him severely who he was. "I am a Christian," Jerome replied. "You lie," said the sovereign Judge. "You are a Ciceronian; for where your treasure is, there is your heart also." And the order was given to scourge him. "Upon awakening," writes St. Jerome, "I felt, indeed, that this had been more than a dream, that it was a reality, since I bore on my shoulders the marks of the stripes I had received. Since that time I have read the Sacred Scriptures with greater ardor than I formerly read profane books." This experience explains St. Jerome's statement to Eustochium in another letter: "Let sleep surprise you only reading; fall asleep only on Sacred Scripture."
http://www.christianperfection.info/tta28.php

Let me start by saying he was called Reginald the Rigorist by his contemporaries so nothing new under the sun.


THE THEORY
I?d like to say that most of what I?ve learned and studied over the years seems foreign to me over time. The content is still there (although decaying through memory lapses) but its more distant.

It is very hard to review things that make you feel like a stranger in a strange land. In one of your threads I was reading PDR?s posts (always engaging to peruse) and I see in his thoughts many of my own.

I'm going to use nudity as an example, but any other example could be used that plagues the modern world. This is not a crusade against nudity solely, but to use it more as a concrete example.

Take nudity in art. The early Church went from town to town and destroyed it. They didn?t see exceptions in the quality of the art, just the loss of souls. Can a person pose naked and if so was God wrong to make clothes for Adam who was much closer to purity? What exceptions did the early Church fathers give for modesty? None and the concept of art with nudity is foreign to the East entirely and the West almost entirely (with a few regional exceptions) until the 14th century and crescendoing in the 15th which I believe is one of the reasons from Protestantism and the weakness in the clergy to overcome the spiritual battles before their eyes (namely, excusing evil in the name of culture).

If nudity and posing for nudity is fine would you nominate your sister, mother, and by extension Our Heavenly Mother and tell her it?s just for the intention of the beauty of art? If one should think of Our Lady with the utmost purity what makes the stranger so much different if they are our sisters in Christ?

Do I honestly believe anyone who would stand before the Mother Of God could even walk her to a museum with quality nudes or would the facade of sophistry peel back the evil act it truly is when confronted with such purity? How would St. John Vianney view such a museum? Before anyone attacks my position, which they are free to, I demand they answer this questions for intellectual honesty?s sake.

Let?s also use St. Alphonsus in regards to opera. He loved the opera and as an attorney used to attend it frequently. As a priest he went but took off his glasses so as not to see anything and sat afar from the performance and later on stopped going entirely. He understood the act had consequences and acted on them accordingly.

My estrangement comes from history and principle. How can both the principle and history of something be so easy to see but denied by not only the laity but the hierarchy? Probabilism was meant as a means to find a few theologians on a topic that agreed and proceed from there. But what happens when it?s clear they are just making up their own theology estranged from from the Fathers and Doctors and eventually become the soup de jour?

It appears the recipe is time + reason = whatever you want eventually

How can you can be fully Christian to reject nudity entirely for the 1st millennia then an uneducated bore with no aesthetic sense in the 2nd going into the 3rd? What about Padre Pio about television?

Another example in one of those threads you posted is a priest?s response to nudity and it seemed as if he was a professor because he alludes to teaching or instructing other priests. He said, correctly but incompletely, that an object is known by it?s intention thereby excusing nudity in art. That?s incorrect.

The first thing that must be noted is the object itself and if it is good, not the intention alone. Intention must be guided by the act?s moral uprightness in itself. St. Thomas uses the example of hunting a deer and killing a man. The intention was not murder and therefore it?s not murder so he?s right on that point. But before we discuss intention we have to discuss the act itself. If the act of nudity or modern entertainment can be good where would you find that in the ancients, how would a St. Theresa of Avila view this, or would St. Jerome watch movies recommended by most with me?

Nudity can be by extension applied to movies, shows, blasphemy, indecency in language. A woman in a bikini using blasphemy is obviously worse than the a museum. The horror of blasphemy is worse than murder and yet who feels it?s sting?

Nuance and complexity arguments to me are simply relativistic and morally improbable. If nuance and complexity arguments had any merit they would have history on their side with examples, but they don?t. If both doctrine and history are against you then all you have is reason which is hard to ever see how both the ancients and moderns can be reconciled. Scorn and mockery aren?t arguments.

THE PRACTICE
Ok so let?s be honest with ourselves. Which priest would you speak to today who would agree with you? Which one of your kids will find such a priest? If saints were scorned in their day by their priests and leadership where would you find one today? They are incredibly hard to find and even harder to openly say what they feel for fears of repercussions.

Lest we forget priests scorned the idea of St. John Vianney giving advice to so many because of his lack of nuance and training. In his holy simplicity he saw evil more clearly hence he cried constantly when hearing sin.

Seminaries are not like jobs. You may be fully qualified and work hard, but if they don?t like you for any reason you?re gone. It?s one of the most subjective vocations one can enter into that is highly demanding.

I once asked why priests watched movies at one trad community and my potential superior said to me, ?You know I?ve had this conversation with other seminarians and they?re not here anymore? with a grinch-like devilish smile. Sadly, I could give stories like this over and over again but it?s not fair to the readers so I won?t go further.

When I called one older, elderly priest/professor who clearly believed in the ancients I asked him point blank how anyone can be a priest today. His response was illuminating when he said, ?You have to join a monastery?. He saw the utter corruption and obviously at his age his powers were diminished but I know for a fact he did much good to the seminarians. In his raw honesty I saw laid bare what I confusedly understood made indelibly clear. Is this realistic for most? Obviously it?s not as both the civil laws and ability to make an income are highly impaired and at the end of the day you have to eat or provide or society disappears.

As a father of children I wrestle with this question: if I teach my kids the faith of St. Alphonsus, Peter Damien, Chrysostum, Vianney, what do I give them except frustration, but I believe over a decade of being a father I have found the answer by traveling and seeing so many different scenarios that I delve into last.

Things have eroded so quickly I highly doubt St. Alphonsus without his titles would ever be accepted almost anywhere today to teach moral theology except in a few monasteries. We live in the sound-byte LOL culture where most won?t read this either as it?s too much work.

I don?t care how the poster Jerome sounded to others in other threads, St. John Vianney was hated by his flock and eventually won them over with hard work, penance and prayer. He was initially hated by many. This is the path of the truth teller even amongst supposed people of like mind like St. John of the Cross who was imprisoned by his own.

Sadly, there are no answers from a linear understanding of application. You want one but one doesn?t exist unless you were to live near penitential monasteries. The day is gone when sound doctrine is easily accepted, when we are forced to practically ignore our priests and bishops to try to keep our souls or sanity, and when good priests are punished for teaching the truth.

The only answer is our own souls and spiritual life, to muster the courage and conviction to be the best man you can be today; to realize time is short and our souls will be called sooner than we think.

In conclusion I had this same conversation with my wife but in a different way. She asked how we make our kids into saints if things are so corrupt and the lives of the fathers seem so abstract. I mentioned the analogy of Bishop Sheen?s ?modern hairshirts? where he showed in times past we imposed penances on ourselves in a Catholic ethos to help conform to God?s law against internal dangers. In today?s time our neighbor is our hairshirt as it?s an attack from without that constantly bombards us with attacks stronger than impurity but against our faith.

That maybe our way back to the ancients is not in linear form, but in the spirit of joy, happiness, spending more time as a family, playing games that are wholesome, restore chaperones over dating, and to make life the most fun it can be so they see the love of God through the family. Maybe the discipline imposed on us is to be as joyful as we can in a fallen world and not to let melancholy and despair take over us.

I?ve seen Catholicism practiced in 12 countries from Eastern, Novus Ordo, and Traditional perspectives. The only thing I?ve seen as a thread that binds them when I see the children prospering and growing in the faith is love, patience, compassion, modesty, family activities (which I can't stress enough) sobriety, and vigilance against the world into their homes. Maybe it will be through our joy and by extension the analogy of the compassion and mercy of God that gives them the will to fight in a decimated world and to conclude in the words of St. Paul our salvation is founded upon hope. May we be that for others and that might be the greatest interior mortification which exceeds all other penances.

I agree with most of what is written hear.  However, to discard historical context, complexity, nuance, and such like is wrong.  If it is not wrong then how could St. Thomas disagree with St. Augustine on certain points. Or to have disagreements on matters of faith like what Choir of Angels does St. Gabriel belong to (I have been reading a commentary on scripture recently and was shocked at the level of disagreement on that)  If we discard them wholesale then how do we explain the development of sacramental confession from a a very rare event with long canonical penances, to an event now which can even be done daily.  What happens when the Saints are in conflict, like St. Bernard's sharp criticisms of Cluny?

It is easy to be frustrated on a topic like nudity in art, and conclude that we are just wrong and the ancients are right.  However, when we see that there was  Nudity in art going back to the 3rd century in the Catacombs of Rome we know that it is not historically true that all Christians everywhere destroyed nude art when they saw it. The painter Rubens also was a very devout Catholic and he did paint nudes.  I don't really see a need to take a side in the issue.  I forgot what Father it was but one Father said young monks where forbidden from reading certain sections of Scripture due to the concern that it could inflame their passions.  I am not saying that is wrong, I just don't think that you and I need to figure out who is right. 

The ancients also had in some regions prohibitions on not wanting mensutrating women to go to Church a practice that was widespread, and even maintained a certain dominance in many regions for a long time. 

I am not trying to make the point of those who are inclined to follow pleasure at the expense of the Gospel by pointing out these things, but if one looks at pentientals written on the question of whether it is a sin to play chess from the Medieval period reveals that we do need to understand why different authors said different things at different times.  At one time chess was condemned as sinful because of the violent quarrels, drunkeness and gambling involved in it, later it became viewed as even a good virtuous thing to do.   This is why it is important to consider that those Saints (one of which when he found out one of his penitents had a chess board he forced him to burn it and drink water with its ashes in it) in another place you have St. Ganadio (I hope I spelled that right) recommended the practice in monasteries as an aid to prayer and concentration.

I don't see a solution other than acknowledging our blindness, humbling ourselves and constant repentance.  Nudity in art is not necessary for salvation but I am not prepared to say that others have forfeited it because they painted it.  And we have to have an explanation of why we have such tensions to those outside our faith or those who are struggling with it.  I don't want to see people conclude that our Church is apostate and has been so for a long time because we allow women to wear make up, or that some of our Churchs have nudes in them.

[Arvinger]

The dancing, hard drinking, sinning Trads deliver the goods more often.

Results matter.

If "results matter," then traditional Catholicism itself is a failure, as it was taken down from within by modernist theologians, rainbow sash priests, and middle-aged nuns doing interpretive dance.  It has to answer for what Abp. Lefebvre called the "mass apostasy" of the hierarchy.  That's fairly small potatoes compared to "Jansenist" parents having a few kids lapse.  Parents are not said to be infallible.  Traditional Catholicism must have a fatal flaw, because it eventually lost out, too, just like so-called "Jansenism" did.  I mean, at this point, Francis is the pope.

I'm fine with the Catholic faith being little more than an intellectual assent to a creed (if that's indeed what it is), with some requisite stances on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality kept up, and from there you can dance, drink hard, and sin like a pagan.  That's fine, but that isn't what Early Christianity was.  The gospels say that a person's righteousness has to exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees—which is to say, that you have to do better than the people who justify their laxity with their parsing, exemptions, and legalisms.  Don't get me wrong, though, Early Christianity eventually lost in the "results matter" department itself.  That religion is dead, long having been overtaken by the spirit of the Pharisees.  The spirit of Early Christianity has only been revived in small pockets: in the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Russian Old Believers, and certain substrata of traditional Catholicism.  You can tell them by their women in headgear, with signs of early aging and UV damage.

The Russian Old Believers won't let a non Russian Old Believer in their house during times of the year, and you always have to eat on separate plates than what the rest of the Family uses.  You cannot even own a belt in the Amish community. Rumspringa is in no way a Christian idea let alone an early christian one. Amish and Mennoties do not believe in having consecrated Churchs, nor do they practice infant baptism.


I feel like you are relying on most peoples ignorance of these things to make a point that is not true.

Nmoerbeek, I think you missed Pon de Replay's point here. I don't think he was saying that Amish, Mennonites, etc. are somehow an accurate representation of what the Early Church was like - sure, they differ with orthodox Catholicism on many points of doctrine and practice. What Pon de Replay was saying, I think, is that these communities preserve a spirit of genuine separation from the world and rejection of all worldliness, something which was characteristic for the Early Church, and which is almost completely lost in the Catholic Church today, even among most of Traditionalists (it is sufficient to look at threads which I linked to in my OP to find abundant evidence for that).

[Jayne]

If salvation is that random, that much of a lottery why bother?

You are starting with the wrong assumptions. You write as if the only reason to be Catholic were for obtaining the reward of Heaven.  You ask "why bother?" and "what's the point?" if you cannot see an advantage to yourself to being Catholic. 

It is not about seeking a reward, it is about pleasing God.  The question to ask is not "what is the minimum necessary for salvation?" but "what will please the One who created, redeemed and sanctifies me?"  Why bother trying to please Him?  Because that is what is due to Him by His nature.

[Jayne]

Is it wrong to choose in this thread to make a Dos Equis joke about Greg being the most interesting man in the Trad Community?

[Innocent Smith]

I'm going to keep this real simple in order to avoid putting my foot directly in my mouth. Germs can be dangerous, but many have such an aversion to them that they fail to allow their immune systems to work. If you go out of your way to avoid all contact with immodesty you also tend to fall into the trap of conceding a certain power to lord over you.

That's all. You are all intelligent people and can surely fill in the rest. But one last thing, even immodest movies tend to have some kind of moral lesson attached to them. They didn't call that very immodest movie Fatal Attraction for nothing. Look at horror movies of the late '70s and early '80s. Those who engaged in the forbidden fruit of premarital sex also always get slaughtered with an axe or knife immediately following the act.

[bigbadtrad]

I agree with most of what is written hear.  However, to discard historical context, complexity, nuance, and such like is wrong.  If it is not wrong then how could St. Thomas disagree with St. Augustine on certain points. Or to have disagreements on matters of faith..."

Yes, faith, not morals in which we are all in agreement that was universally taught and lived correct?

Questions of faith can be easily developed through the kernel of praxis, and other saints who have more of a developed sense of the divine. I'm not advocating apokostatasis because enough Fathers taught it so. Theology can be quite nuanced as to particulars which can mean a great deal and do not violate the laws of nature. But this is a distraction from the argument which is a pretext for your next argument which was woven a bit disingenuously to be upfront with you as you conflated several topics to make a pretext for the next.

In regards to morals you have clear text and practice. Unless man has changed the moral law cannot change. We aren't discussing finer soteriological points but aspects of lust, avarice, etc..

Again, not to beat the path of nudity, you have to point to particular individuals, but not the culture because both culture and history are against you. This is the antithesis of common sense in these debates which I find to be unfair. Sure one could point to a guy committing adultery too who was pious and maybe Amoris Laetitia could be the end result where God wills the adultery 1700 years later. Like I said moral theology has become time + reason = anything

Particulars don't make general laws or culture, that's faulty logic. 1 woman who is a saint committed accidental suicide to avoid being raped, certainly I'm not advocating suicide either are you? That's why I only want to discuss the general praxis, not particulars which is usually 1 "gotcha" moment after another.

Also, you did the "all" trick which is also a bit unfair as well. Certainly I would exclude 90 yr old women. I never said all Christians ripped down nudes, but many men did and many did not survive antiquity and to avoid the clear case of this happening throughout the Roman empire is to avoid history.

I think in order not to have this to go from menstruating women (which had nothing to do with the moral law, but temple purity) the same standard should be set:

-Would you recommend Our Lady to be used as an example and ask her to be a model for the artist in a nude? If not her how about your mother?  Would you show your friends afterwards?
-Would you take Our Lady to see such art?
-What would the saints we revere think of it? Can you think of any father or doctor of the Church in particular? 

The rest of it is merely a distraction of particulars I wish to stray from because it's sleight of hand distractions.

[nmoerbeek]

The dancing, hard drinking, sinning Trads deliver the goods more often.

Results matter.

If "results matter," then traditional Catholicism itself is a failure, as it was taken down from within by modernist theologians, rainbow sash priests, and middle-aged nuns doing interpretive dance.  It has to answer for what Abp. Lefebvre called the "mass apostasy" of the hierarchy.  That's fairly small potatoes compared to "Jansenist" parents having a few kids lapse.  Parents are not said to be infallible.  Traditional Catholicism must have a fatal flaw, because it eventually lost out, too, just like so-called "Jansenism" did.  I mean, at this point, Francis is the pope.

I'm fine with the Catholic faith being little more than an intellectual assent to a creed (if that's indeed what it is), with some requisite stances on abortion, contraception, and homosexuality kept up, and from there you can dance, drink hard, and sin like a pagan.  That's fine, but that isn't what Early Christianity was.  The gospels say that a person's righteousness has to exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees—which is to say, that you have to do better than the people who justify their laxity with their parsing, exemptions, and legalisms.  Don't get me wrong, though, Early Christianity eventually lost in the "results matter" department itself.  That religion is dead, long having been overtaken by the spirit of the Pharisees.  The spirit of Early Christianity has only been revived in small pockets: in the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Russian Old Believers, and certain substrata of traditional Catholicism.  You can tell them by their women in headgear, with signs of early aging and UV damage.

The Russian Old Believers won't let a non Russian Old Believer in their house during times of the year, and you always have to eat on separate plates than what the rest of the Family uses.  You cannot even own a belt in the Amish community. Rumspringa is in no way a Christian idea let alone an early christian one. Amish and Mennoties do not believe in having consecrated Churchs, nor do they practice infant baptism.


I feel like you are relying on most peoples ignorance of these things to make a point that is not true.

Nmoerbeek, I think you missed Pon de Replay's point here. I don't think he was saying that Amish, Mennonites, etc. are somehow an accurate representation of what the Early Church was like - sure, they differ with orthodox Catholicism on many points of doctrine and practice. What Pon de Replay was saying, I think, is that these communities preserve a spirit of genuine separation from the world and rejection of all worldliness, something which was characteristic for the Early Church, and which is almost completely lost in the Catholic Church today, even among most of Traditionalists (it is sufficient to look at threads which I linked to in my OP to find abundant evidence for that).

Please then do explain  in the Apostolic Age or in the Early Church how these communities specifically mirror the rejection of worldliness of  those early Christians?  I am somewhat familiar with the the writings and history of that Age and don't see it myself.   

[Greg]

Jayne,

It is in a human's nature to be self-interested.

I'm honest enough to admit that I have/adopt/accept moral values for my own benefit and the benefit of the society around me which in turn benefits me.  If God is not there to benefit me, then I have no motivation to love God.  It's a two way street.

That's why I wouldn't become a Muslim.  Because their society is phucked up.  Far more than ours.

Any god who does not allow drinking and bacon is an idiot.  I'd never love such a god because bacon is tasty and boozing is nice.

Greg

[Greg]

As a father of children I wrestle with this question: if I teach my kids the faith of St. Alphonsus, Peter Damien, Chrysostum, Vianney, what do I give them except frustration, but I believe over a decade of being a father I have found the answer by traveling and seeing so many different scenarios that I delve into last.

That's why I look at results.  What works, on average, and what does not work.  If the rigorists who tell their children they are only one mortal sin away from Hell are producing solid, mentally stable offspring 30-40 years later then imitate that.  If they are producing sons who cannot hold down a job and daughters so dour and dull that no Catholic man wants to marry them, or marries them because he is like them, but cannot afford a large Catholic family because he cannot operate in the real world, then what is the point?

If you don't foresee sustainable growth in a business you don't start it.

Things have eroded so quickly I highly doubt St. Alphonsus without his titles would ever be accepted almost anywhere today to teach moral theology except in a few monasteries. We live in the sound-byte LOL culture where most won't read this either as it's too much work.

I question the stories about the lives of these saints myself.  History is written by the winners and humans are storytellers and myth-makers and have been since the dawn of time.  We live in a era of fake news now and we know that every camp of Tradom spins the truth to support their view of the world.  Father Pfeiffer is "a brave and bold Holy man" if you like him and a disobedient, proud loony with some very dodgy friends like Pablo, if you don't.

Same for Bishop Williamson.  A great orator, but highly flawed in other ways.  You can easily imagine the details of his life being selectively edited to make him into a right-wing saint if the cultural wind blows in that direction.  Protecting known pedophile priests (twice) gets buried.

"The Nine" were once traitors and outcasts from the SSPX.  40 years on their position is more accepted though they have achieved very little other than basic survival.

Even Pope Michael isn't the complete laughing stock he used to be in light of Pope Francis.

My opinion is that these saints lives stories are embellished by the writers of them and those who approve publish and promote their writings at the time.  Since we cannot trust the canonization process itself, then who is to say that every utterance was even made, let alone in the correct context.  Just as the SSPX and the Resistance both claim that "Marcel Lefebvre would side with them today" were he alive.  They cannot both be right.

Once you accept that the main ship has sunk and you are in the lifeboat boat rowing your own family towards the horizon then the best thing to do is ignore everyone else's mindless ramblings and row the way you want to row at the speed you want to row.  Ignore the priests and pundits and Cassandras.  They haven't got a phucking clue.  Behind closed doors their lives are probably more phucked up than yours.

So just keep rowing, be friendly to the people and priests calmly rowing in your direction and keep your chin up.  Best case you make it to safety.  Financially support the handful of priests you see eye to eye with.  My goal is simply to help my children make good marriage choices and then let them row in whatever direction their see fit.

The thing that will MOST influence your children and their moral choices is whether they like you.  My Dad has the advantage that I actually like and admire him.  So 90% of what he does I copy.  If I thought my Father was a miserable Jansenistic tosser, with no sense of humor or fun, I'd just ignore the old fart.

[Mono no aware]

The religion is not dead, it is the same in fact as what the early Fathers believed.  What detail is it that is a stumbling block?    Do you think St. Paul had to tell Christians not to go to orgies because they were all living like Hermits?  Do you think that he had to instruct them to shun people because they were wearing jewelry? (the time he did dealt with a case of open incest) Do you think their where controversies because Christians weren't committing all manner of sins?

St. Paul was dealing with the very first generation of Christians, and seeing as he was the "Apostle to the Gentiles," it was within his purview to condemn their pagan customs and debaucheries.  I don't think anyone has ever claimed that the early Christians were perfect or pure or entirely without sin; obviously they struggled with backsliding into their old secular ways—or, with the subsequent generations, finding the allure of the secular world sufficiently tempting.  That's why the Early Church Fathers were addressing all these things in the first place: they were delineating the ways in which a Christian properly holds his or her self apart from the world.  They were speaking to both inspire and to instruct.  It was a confusing time; Christianity was splintered into many different sects: Judaizers, Gnostics, Ebionites, Arians, what have you.  What every Catholic or Orthodox Christian presumably accepts, however, is that the Early Church Fathers recognized by the Church, taken as a whole, are the testimony of the early traditions and disciplines.  There are internal disagreements among them (anyone who insists that the Fathers be in accord on every last jot or tittle is going to have to conclude that the Church defected in the first century).  But collectively they do have a healthy unity, and they are unified across many questions in being not lax on how much worldliness was appropriate for a Christian.

I don't think they would like the descriptor erring on the side of caution, but rather preferring nothing to the Love of Jesus Christ.  There is a big difference though between St. Jerome mocking women who where makeup in a letter to a widow or a virgin and you drawing the conclusion that the Church must then have become Apostate because St. Albert examined the question in detail and concluded that women could wear makeup to please their husbands.

nmoerbeek, I may have unintentionally caused some confusion for you.  When I said, "if Jerome is right, then the Church has defected," I was referring to a former user on Suscipe Domine, not St. Jerome.  When it comes to something like make-up, it's unclear whether the Church Fathers who spoke against it would have believed that the Church would be apostate if she did not agree with them (they probably would not have).  But if St. Albert contradicted St. Clement, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, and Tertullian on make-up, then that just goes to show that the disciplines had become ripe for relaxing a thousand years later.  I don't think the Church necessarily defected in that instance.  And I will certainly concede that the Church is more or less united through history in terms of doctrine.  But in terms of both doctine and practice, the Early Church has to be considered something of a dead religion.  The only people who have recovered the early praxis are disparate sects who consider each other heretics: from Russian Old Believers to Mennonites to traditional Catholics.  Anathema sit.