Bishop Barron at it again

[ralfy]

An 1850s Catholicism is doable with an 1850s economy.

[Mr. Mysterious]

Here's a pretty decent rebuttal to Bishop Barron.

https://sthughofcluny.org/2021/03/dear-bishop-barron.html

[ralfy]

The catch is that American Catholicism, or even traditionalism within that, does not likely represent World Catholicism. The latter may be seen in light of the ff.

1. not traditionalism through the EF and wearing veils, but through traditional views that may be seen as conservative in developed economies;

2. evangelical Catholicism as much of that World Catholicism lacks priests, nuns, Church workers, Churches, chapels, Catholic schools, Bibles, and more, with large numbers of members of the laity poor who can barely understand what's written in the Bible or the Mass, let alone the EF and Latin;

3. poverty that causes so much suffering and despair that Catholicism, if not religion in general, becomes one of the few sources of not only hope but even comfort; and

4. a growing number of Catholics coming from poorer regions of the world and who may soon become the majority.

Interestingly enough, that's what Bishop Barron and other "children" of the "aftermath of the Second Vatican Council" encountered: a world where former colonies and countries abused by military powers gained independence, and with incredibly diverse practices. In one documentary about the Second Vatican Council, several North American and European Cardinals expressed that, as they met their counterparts from Asia, Africa, South America, and even the Middle East for the first time. It was as if for the first time in their lives they realized that there was a Catholic Church outside the confines of what they experienced.

And it grew for the next few decades ironically because of the OF, the Bible in the vernacular, Catholic social teaching, and other means.

[Xavier]

Ralfy, any thoughts on the below:

Half the people in the western world support sodomites marrying each other.

Well, MaximGun, I was speaking specially in the context of dialogue with conservative Catholics, such as with Bp. Barron. The article posted by Mr. Mysterious by Fr. Richard is one example of that. In my dialogue with mainstream Priests, I've found it beneficial to focus on Church documents like Summorum Pontificum or some things Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II have said, or some of the good fruits of the TLM, how the young in particular love Tradition etc. Those can be effective points in helping convince Priests to offer the TLM.

What you mention is something else entirely, and it's not very easy to know what to do. If you're asking me, I would say, I would never permit any person to blaspheme, or promote public sinful behavior, in my house. I don't know what others would do and it's a personal decision. One should be careful not to fall into sin or indifference with fornication, sodomy, adultery etc. If one is very strong in the Faith, and sure of not being corrupted, one can approach such persons - not necessarily invite them to one's home - and try to discuss with them, especially if they are Christians, their own faith experience, what they think the Bible or Church teaches, and so on. And it would be good if they would convert and return to holiness. Our Lord did that, but that was because He was perfect and incorruptible, and no one could cause Him to turn from His Perfect Holiness. Hence, He won over St. Mary Magdalene, Zaccheus etc to holiness from their sin. But it depends on the person, I would think. Be careful not to encourage their behavior but try to lead them to Christ.

[MaximGun]

Ralfy, any thoughts on the below:

Half the people in the western world support sodomites marrying each other.

Well, MaximGun, I was speaking specially in the context of dialogue with conservative Catholics, such as with Bp. Barron.

They are the worse of all.  That is why God vomits the lukewarm from His mouth.

The worst thing you can do as a firm hard-line Traditionalist is to pretend that clowns like Barron have legitimacy.  Invite a wolf in sheep's clothing into your life and wait to see what happens.

Barron is a modernist pretending to be a "conservative".

[Xavier]

Whatever happened to Mat 28:20, and Mat 24:14, Maxim? We are to help our Bishops do their task. Abp. +Sheen said the laity would help save the Church by doing precisely this.

"“Who’s going to save our Church? It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it is not the religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that the priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and the religious act like religious.”

https://www.churchpop.com/2019/09/07/who-will-save-our-future-church-abp-fulton-sheen-nails-it-with-this-one-powerful-quote/

"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Mat 28:20)

"And this Gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come." (Mat 24:14) The Mission of the Church can and must always go on till the end. +ABL also always insisted on it. We are to help everyone we can come to Christ and His Church, or if they already have, experience the Treasure of Tradition.

[Miriam_M]

Whatever happened to Mat 28:20, and Mat 24:14, Maxim? We are to help our Bishops do their task. Abp. +Sheen said the laity would help save the Church by doing precisely this.

"“Who’s going to save our Church? It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it is not the religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that the priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and the religious act like religious.”

And here I thought it was the job of their superiors to make sure that religious act like religious.  Silly me.

[Mr. Mysterious]

Interestingly enough, that's what Bishop Barron and other "children" of the "aftermath of the Second Vatican Council" encountered: a world where former colonies and countries abused by military powers gained independence, and with incredibly diverse practices. In one documentary about the Second Vatican Council, several North American and European Cardinals expressed that, as they met their counterparts from Asia, Africa, South America, and even the Middle East for the first time. It was as if for the first time in their lives they realized that there was a Catholic Church outside the confines of what they experienced.

Don't forget that in just a few short decades air travel made this much more possible. Except for priests, missionaries etc. those North American and European Cardinals were probably assigned to certain areas and rarely if ever had contact with Catholics from the Second and Third Worlds. A similar case from the previous century was Bishop John Ireland and his ignorance of the practices of Eastern Catholics that ended in tragic results.

And it grew for the next few decades ironically because of the OF, the Bible in the vernacular, Catholic social teaching, and other means.

Don't look to the Second and Third World as either exemplary or to get the Church out of the current crisis. The Church has been devastated in Latin America and the Church in Asia and Africa is teeming with their own problems.

[MaximGun]

With what authority Xavier?  With what force?

Take a Catholic country like Ireland where 66% of people vote for abortion in a referendum.

Do you really think there is a strong Catholic minority who could force Ireland's apostate bishops to be bishops even if they could mobilise to do so.

None of these apostates what a strong Catholic church defending moral values.  They are simply scratching around trying to stay relevant and liked in a world where almost nobody give a rats about what they think.

May God destroy them all.  I'm done with them.

[Prayerful]

With what authority Xavier?  With what force?

Take a Catholic country like Ireland where 66% of people vote for abortion in a referendum.

Do you really think there is a strong Catholic minority who could force Ireland's apostate bishops to be bishops even if they could mobilise to do so.

None of these apostates what a strong Catholic church defending moral values.  They are simply scratching around trying to stay relevant and liked in a world where almost nobody give a rats about what they think.

May God destroy them all.  I'm done with them.

The Irish vote was a plain fraud. It differed even from dubious polls designed to nudge people towards backing it. A big problem was the pro-life side was led by lukewarm insiders seeking social clout.

[ralfy]

Ralfy, any thoughts on the below:

What's the global data?

[ralfy]

Whatever happened to Mat 28:20, and Mat 24:14, Maxim? We are to help our Bishops do their task. Abp. +Sheen said the laity would help save the Church by doing precisely this.

"“Who’s going to save our Church? It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it is not the religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that the priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and the religious act like religious.”

https://www.churchpop.com/2019/09/07/who-will-save-our-future-church-abp-fulton-sheen-nails-it-with-this-one-powerful-quote/

"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Mat 28:20)

"And this Gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come." (Mat 24:14) The Mission of the Church can and must always go on till the end. +ABL also always insisted on it. We are to help everyone we can come to Christ and His Church, or if they already have, experience the Treasure of Tradition.

Also, events from the NT where Jesus joins various undesirables, from harlots to tax collectors to lepers, where He frequently talks about the poor and, of all people, Samaritans.

In the end, together with the image of Tradition, with Latin and the richness of the EF, lies what might be the majority of Catholics: poor, from different cultures and with very old traditions, and beyond even the hope of acting religious, are trying to stay alive.

[Miriam_M]

Also, events from the NT where Jesus joins various undesirables, from harlots to tax collectors to lepers, where He frequently talks about the poor and, of all people, Samaritans.

In the end, together with the image of Tradition, with Latin and the richness of the EF, lies what might be the majority of Catholics: poor, from different cultures and with very old traditions, and beyond even the hope of acting religious, are trying to stay alive.

Just for your information, you continue to repeat on many threads this partisan and inaccurate picture of "poor Catholics from different cultures and with very old traditions."  By this you mean tradition with a small "t," such as cultural customs which may or may not accord with even the most liberal and unorthodox NT interpretation of the social gospel, by the way. Local "traditions," no matter how "old," do not equate with the moral law and certainly do not supersede them.

Jesus Christ preached a universal message that was binding on all followers everywhere.  There was not a different code of morality assigned to the poor versus what was assigned to the rich, except that for the rich, more was expected -- which is a very different thing from saying or implying that less was expected of poor people. Rich or poor, the Commandments were and are absolute, and not just the bare minimum of the Commandments, as could not be more clear in Matthew Chapter 5 and the totality of morality which those laws contain within them.

"Trying to stay alive" can just as easily apply to the First World, given unrestrained capitalism in the First World and the difficulty of survival therein; yet Europe, the U.S., and Canada don't have a special moral law just for us.

I mention all this because for decades now there has been an enormous problem with abortion in Latin America.  Some time in the last 10 years I wrote up my research about this and reported it on CAF.  "Trying to stay alive" is not an excuse to break the Fifth Commandment or the Seventh Commandment, yet both are enormous problems in that region, with stealing, abortion, and murder occurring in epidemic proportions in Latin America with their rationale of "trying to stay alive."

The Sacred Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church far transcends your belittling of veil-wearers and attending a particular Mass rite. It includes the absolutes of the moral Tradition and the explication of Traditional doctrine.

[Miriam_M]

Backed to the linked article in the OP:

The writers of Crisis Magazine once again miss the point, although invariably they mean well. They speak, to paraphrase, of Barron's dated ignorance, even though he and bishops like him do not lack for current information. Instead, stereotyping trads as mainly or only "negative" and "angry" serves the polemical purposes of men like Barron. The bishop, just like the pope, knows well what motivates and keeps most trads -- as opposed to those "on the fringes."  But the truth is inconvenient.

Also, it's really important to understand that to those raised in the N.O., everything definitive is interpreted as "harsh," and everything that is not relative is received as "angry."  Deep in their hearts, PF and Bishop Barron know very well that the N.O. is a soft religion that preaches and permits softness and subjectivism. Those attached to it are mostly not even aware of that spiritually useless softness that permeates their Mass, their catechesis, and their learned spirituality.

For PF, he likes that softness and underlines it publicly almost every week of his pontificate. (Remember?  The Commandments are supposedly "too harsh" or too challenging for a Catholic to follow, and thereby must be adjusted.)  For Barron, he's just in massive denial that his milquetoast version of Catholicism is attractive to evangelize. No, I do not evangelize his religion; I evangelize mine.  When I invite newcomers to Mass, they never ask to attend the N.O.M.  They first of all assume, even before I mention it, that they're getting treated to a TLM.  They've heard of the latter, by the way, and not the former, despite our tiny existence in the Church.  So, ahem, someone, Bishop -- and apparently it's not you-- is in fact evangelizing through publicity or in some other way, and we're apparently doing it with much greater success than you are.  Hmmm.

[ralfy]

Just for your information, you continue to repeat on many threads this partisan and inaccurate picture of "poor Catholics from different cultures and with very old traditions."  By this you mean tradition with a small "t," such as cultural customs which may or may not accord with even the most liberal and unorthodox NT interpretation of the social gospel, by the way. Local "traditions," no matter how "old," do not equate with the moral law and certainly do not supersede them.

That's why the Church accepts some of those old traditions and rejects others.

Jesus Christ preached a universal message that was binding on all followers everywhere.  There was not a different code of morality assigned to the poor versus what was assigned to the rich, except that for the rich, more was expected -- which is a very different thing from saying or implying that less was expected of poor people. Rich or poor, the Commandments were and are absolute, and not just the bare minimum of the Commandments, as could not be more clear in Matthew Chapter 5 and the totality of morality which those laws contain within them.

That's not what I meant. Rather, the Church faces much more concerns than form or following the Sacred Tradition. In order to understand that, you need to remember that Jesus stated that there are two Great Commandments. The first is to follow the Commandments. Do you know what the second one is?

"Trying to stay alive" can just as easily apply to the First World, given unrestrained capitalism in the First World and the difficulty of survival therein; yet Europe, the U.S., and Canada don't have a special moral law just for us.

Trying to connect poverty with a "special moral law" makes no sense to me because that's not what I was trying to do.

I mention all this because for decades now there has been an enormous problem with abortion in Latin America.  Some time in the last 10 years I wrote up my research about this and reported it on CAF.  "Trying to stay alive" is not an excuse to break the Fifth Commandment or the Seventh Commandment, yet both are enormous problems in that region, with stealing, abortion, and murder occurring in epidemic proportions in Latin America with their rationale of "trying to stay alive."

The Sacred Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church far transcends your belittling of veil-wearers and attending a particular Mass rite. It includes the absolutes of the moral Tradition and the explication of Traditional doctrine.

Go back to events in the NT where Jesus talks about Caesar, to the rich man, about prostitutes and tax collectors, to the adulteress who was about to be stoned, and more. You may couple that with using the whip in His Father's house, about the poor man and scraps from a rich man's table, and story of the poor woman seated behind, about Pharisees and their outfits, and more, and you will realize that part of that Sacred Tradition is not just righteous anger and absolute morality but also compassion, forgiveness, acknowledging that one is also a sinner, incredible sacrifice, understanding, empathy, sympathy, and all taking place among the meek and the poor, using parables and folk tales that the former would have been able to recognize quickly but bewildered by the provocation that they allow, and often in circumstances where Catholics lack not only food and medical help but even Churches, priests, and Bibles.

In short, the Church that you think is defined by the "absolutes of moral [and Sacred, right?] Tradition (yes, capitalized)" and the "explication" of such involves much, much more than that.