The Telegraph offers this by Gerald Warner (Gerald Warner is an author, broadcaster, columnist and polemical commentator who writes about politics, religion, history, culture and society in general.)
My emphases and comments:
Catholic sex abuse scandal: time to sack trendy bishops and restore the faith
By
Gerald WarnerIt has become fashionable to claim that the sex abuse scandal currently afflicting the Catholic Church is “its biggest crisis since the Reformation”. Oh, really? Tell me about it. The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation. [And we’re off…!]
Abolish clerical celibacy? The last thing a priest abusing altar boys needs or wants is a wife. There is no compulsory celibacy in the Church of England, but that has not prevented vicars and boy scouts furnishing gratifying amounts of copy to the tabloid Sunday papers for the past century. Celibacy goes against the grain of today’s “unrepressed”, “non-judgemental”, let-it-all-hang-out attitude to sex; its continued existence is a reproach to the hedonist Western world; [actually… everything Catholic is that… not just celibacy…] so Rome must be persuaded to abolish it [not "persuaded", but "intimidated", "beaten-down", "badgered"] – likewise its condemnation of divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexuality and all the other fetishes of liberal society. Dream on, secularists.
“Irish abuse victims disappointed by Pope’s letter.” Of course they are. They were disappointed by it before they had read it, before it was even written. [NB:] Any other response would diminish the power they find themselves wielding against the Church.[!] Have they a legitimate grievance? In most cases, yes. They have a ferocious grievance against the “filth” (Benedict XVI’s term, long before he came under public pressure) who defiled them and treated them like animals.
How could clergy transgress so gravely against the doctrines of the Church? What doctrines? These offences took place in the wake of Vatican II, when doctrines were being thrown out like so much lumber. These offenders were the children of Paul VI and “aggiornamento”. Once you have debauched the Mystical Body of Christ, defiling altar boys comes easily.
The “neglected” sacraments and devotional practices that the Pope says could have prevented this did not just wither on the vine: they were actively discouraged by bishops and priests. [This is where I need to intervene. I am sure that some of the more traddy stripe are crowing as they read. I would remind them to supress that reptilian brain-stem a little and recall – before reading the next self-affirming quote – that we are all in this together. When clergy and lay people of the Church fall down, every one suffers. The whole Church needs to help the fallen to rise again. We need to do that by raising the level of holiness, of penance, and worthy worship, just as a rising tide raises every boat. Read on, now, and feel that affirmation…] In the period when this abuse was rampant, there was just one mortal sin in the Catholic Church: daring to celebrate or attend the Latin Tridentine Mass. [And that is pretty close the the truth!] A priest raping altar boys would be moved to another parish; as for a priest who had the temerity to celebrate the Old Mass – his feet would not touch the ground. [They were – and in some places still are – treated in much the same way.]
There was a determined resolve among the bishops to deny any meaningful catechesis to the young. That is the generation, wholly ignorant of the faith, that in Ireland achieved material prosperity in the “Celtic Tiger” economy. Initially it still attended Mass (or what passed for Mass) out of social conformity. Then the sex abuse scandal gave Irish post-Vatican II agnostics the perfect pretext for apostasy: tens of thousands who had never been abused, nor met anybody who had, found an excuse to stay in bed on Sunday mornings.
The abusive priests are not the only hypocrites. [This is so common today…] “I am so shocked by the abuse scandal I am leaving the Church.” Right. So, the fact that some degenerates who should never have been ordained violated young people – in itself a deplorable sin – means that the Son of God did not come down to earth, redeem mankind on the cross and found the Church? This appalling scandal no more compromises the truths of the Faith than the career of Alexander VI or any other corrupt Renaissance Pope. [Tell that to people with increasingly thin critical thinking skills and who are slaves of the mass media.]
Should bishops be forced to resign? Oh yes – approximately 95 per cent of them worldwide. [!] These clowns in their pseudo-ethnic mitres and polyester vestments with faux-naïve Christian symbols, spouting their ecumaniac episcobabble, [whew!] have presided over more than sexual abuse: [here it comes] they have all but extinguished the Catholic faith with their modernist fatuities. [Do I hear an "Amen!"?] They should be retired to monasteries to spend their remaining years considering how to account to their Maker for a failed stewardship that has lost countless millions of souls.
Benedict XVI should take advantage of a popular wave of revulsion against the failed episcopate to sack every 1960s flared-trousered hippy who is obstructing Summorum Pontificum. It is a unique opportunity to cull the hireling shepherds and clear away the dead wood of the Second Vatican Catastrophe. It is time to stop the apologies and reinstate apologetics; to rebuild all that has been destroyed in the past 40 years; to square up to liberals and secularists as so many generations of Catholics did in the past; to proclaim again the immutable truths of the One True Church that, in the glory of the Resurrection, can have no legitimate posture other than triumphalism.
Okay! I am sure you are all ready to suit up and ride into battle now.
And that is a good idea.
But the triumphalism he suggests will be empty unless we all do penance, also for the sins of others.
We must also have a revitalization of Holy Church’s worship. What we have been doing for the last few decades is not working.
Something of my "manifesto" after the Notre Shame Debacle could be relevant here.
I urge all priests and bishops who read this blog with any slight quaver of resonance or benevolence, to consider this with care:
If you sense that something quite serious and important is going on right now, for the love of God rethink your approach to how you foster Holy Church’s proper public worship .
Do all in your power and through your influence to foster a worship of God which conforms not to worldly goals – as praiseworthy as they may be in a world still dominated by its dire prince – but rather to the real point of religion: an encounter with mystery.
Our worship must become more and more focused on the one who is Other. Seek what is truly above in your rites and raise people to encounter mystery.
You will be challenged and reviled, blocked and attacked as you do. You will be worn down and afraid under the weight of resistance.
But I think that to save the world we must save the liturgy.
The Church’s enemies, the Church’s deeply confused, can’t compete with the fullness of Catholic liturgy and sound preaching.
Reforming the liturgy along the lines Pope Benedict has proposed may be the most loving and effective option we have in these ever hotter times.
People will have to keep working very much in the sphere of the secular. Of course! Our inward Catholic Christian identity must find outward expression and bring concrete fruits.
But I think the real work now – where we will make some effective headway – must be done at the level of our public worship.
In the present circumstances, we are not going to argue most people out of danger or error. But together we can draw them in and along and back through worship.
So long as we remain doctrinally faithful and active in works of mercy both spiritual and especially temporal, if we get our public worship together we will have a strong bastion against error.
Holy Catholic worship will be an attractive force for conversion.
We need to foster worship which stuns, which leaves the newcomer, long-time practicing Catholic, above all the fallen-away simply thunder stuck. Worship must at some point leave people speechless in awe. We need language and music and gesture which in its beauty floods the mind with light even while it swells the heart to bursting.
The more people encounter mystery through liturgy, the more hollow will clang the false or incomplete messages of those who have strayed from the good path, either to the left or to the right.
Our goal must be that which is good and beautiful because it is true, that which reflects what is of God, not man’s image merely. Give us mystery, not fabrications smacking of the world, fallen and transitory.
Fathers, and you Reverend Bishops, if anything of alarm has sounded in your hearts and minds of late, rethink your approach to our worship. Examine your approach with an eye on the signs of the times. Take a new approach.
The approach we have had least last few decades isn’t getting it done. Really … it isn’t
Going neither left nor right along the road toward the Lord, even as He comes to us, take the flock now deeper, now higher on that path, but always to encounter the mystery which distinguishes truly Catholic liturgy… and therefore true Catholics.
Lines are being drawn, sides taken, choices made.
More than ever we need what Christ, the true Actor of our liturgy, desires to offer us through Holy Church’s worship.
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Thank you Father, for being the voice of reason. I love how you always put things in the proper perspective.
Mr. Warner offers a hint or two about the current problem. My local parish associate pastor tells, simply but fully, the plain truth about it:
http://fathershelton.blogspot.com/2010/03/acies-allocutio.html
When we start hearing such honesty from some of our bishops, perhaps a solution will be closer at hand.
“Irish abuse victims disappointed by Pope’s letter.” Of course they are. They were disappointed by it before they had read it, before it was even written”
Correct. As I predicted on Damian Thompson’s blog the day before it was released: “the letter will almost certainly be greeted with bitter disappointment by the Irish Times’ rent-a-victims – namely Colm O’Gorman, Andrew Madden, and Marie Collins. The same ’survivors’ keep being interviewed; we never hear from the rest.”
We must always worry about the extent to which self-appointed “spokespersons” are representative of their ‘community’. It is a common tactic of the media to repeatedly interview the same people in order to whip up a consensus. They also tend to give preference to those most ‘extreme’ in their views.
This report in the Guardian is a good example. The journalists asserts that victims were disappointed by the Pope’s letter. He quotes the ‘survivor’ group One in Four (also interviewed on BBC) to back up his assertion. One in Four was founded by Colm O’Gorman; I believe he still effectively runs it. O’Gorman is also leader of Amnesty International Ireland and is a homosexual. He seems to get quoted on almost any development concerning clerical abuse of children.
NOT quoted in most reports were the welcoming of the letter by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), which represents victims in industrial schools. SOCA welcomed the Pope’s letter as “an unambiguous acknowledgement that the Irish Catholic church sinned most grievously against the young over many decades”. SOCA co-ordinator John Kelly said the Letter represented a ‘possible step to closure’ and said “we are heartened by the pontiff’s open acceptance that the abusive behaviour of priests and religious were criminal acts”.
Ok, this is simply awesome stuff. Fr.Z’s point well taken.
I wonder, though, if I should: speak, calmly, but clearly to our new pastor, who loves telling stories during his homilies (85% stories, 15% vague doctrine), who rides rough-shod over the rubrics (“Good morning”, “thank you” at times when only the black should be said, winging an absolution in Confession, etc.). He seems Pro-life, and Pro-Benedict, but it’s all watered down RC. He was ordained in ’70. I sometimes think it would be uncharitable to complain.
Advice?
Father, You get “it”. Keep spreading “it”. We need “it”. I want “it”. Live “it”. You are inspiring. Thank you
Yes, Vatican II was really more catastrophic than the Protestant Reform
because the heretics of VII still are in the Church while those of the Reform left.
Fortunately there is a new generation of new priests who no longer care about the council since this is an hollow word with no meaning in their mind. Unfortunately they are owing obedience to their bishops who are clinging to it desperately while at last some of them are beginning to understand that the spring, the new pentecost of the Church they dreamed as
the fruits of the council never will come from that side.
“The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation. [And we’re off…!]”
This puts this whole mess in perspective. Loss of faith, loss of morals. All kinds of everything.
“Have they a legitimate grievance? In most cases, yes. They have a ferocious grievance against the “filth” (Benedict XVI’s term, long before he came under public pressure) who defiled them and treated them like animals.”
Read the reports of the victims; it’s just absolutely horrendous. How these priests continued to be moved from place to place by bishops and religious superiors aware of their crimes continued this is ghastly.
“Once you have debauched the Mystical Body of Christ, defiling altar boys comes easily.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If you’re “god”…why are you concerned with the moral order?
“The abusive priests are not the only hypocrites.”
And this is the the “rub”…there are all kinds of abuse going on everywhere that is somehow “pushed under the carpet”…within families, within the school systems, in the medical/psychiatric professions…it’s a pandemic today.
“Should bishops be forced to resign? Oh yes – approximately 95 per cent of them worldwide. [!]”
Don’t know about that; but there are many in positions of authority who have much to account for…Jesus, have mercy on us all! Bring us to true repentance and justice for the innocent and vulnerable!
Thank you, Fr. Z. for this post and your commentary. Absolutely on target in all ways.
I returned to the Church in 2000 after about 42 years wandering in the Protestant wilderness. I had no memory of ever having attended a traditional Mass – yet, 2 years later, when I attended my first one, I sat there in tears for most of the Mass, knowing (!) that this was the true Mass.
Annoying questions immediately began popping into my mind: what then was that other thing I’d been attending every week? Why had the Church replaced this one? Why was it relegated to only one, old, out-of-the-way parish in a run-down neighborhood? Why did Archbishop Pilarcyyk and his intelligentsia dismiss it as “mere nostalgia”?
I have pretty fair answers to those questions now. Gerald Warner has even better ones – and if you think he writes compellingly well, you should hear him speak!
I like your take on the restoration of triumphalism, Father Z, but please note that this is how the SSPX views itself: as a lifeboat pulled alongside a sinking Church.
An amusing read! I liked some of his expressions in describing certain modern bishops.
Prov. 11:29.
AMDG,
I just read today that, in 2001, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, issued a letter to all bishops of the church urging them to keep the sexual abuse scandal secret. Most shocking, it threatened the *VICTIMS* of sexual abuse with excommunication. [I think you have been the victim of the abuse called misinformation.]
There have been numerous shocking allegations that have come from the continued sexual abuse crisis in the church. This one, however, seems to be the most repugnant. I cannot imagine how the victims of sexual abuse must have felt to have the Church not only pass off their cries, but to actually find themselves threatened with excommunication.
I do not see how his papacy will survive this stomach-turning revelation. I hope he made an appointment with his confessor soon afterward.
L
Amen, Father.
I take note of many good points that Mr. Warner makes but where the FRACK does he get the authority to take Bishops (his superiors in the Church) to task? I used to be like this when I was with the SSPX, infact the one thing that does annoy me about my current FSSP lot is that they still backbite about Bishops (I was told on the 1st Sunday of lent that all I need to know about Bishop Hollis is that he and Bishop Lang (a little fuzzy but essentially good Bishop) are good mates).
The good padre who ministers to the students at my university dislikes the traditional movement for exactly that reason, along with a gnostic attitude about being TLM Catholics, the fact that some parents there seem intent on making sure that their kids become priests/religious (I thought that that is between each person and God) – which by the way it seems was at least partly responsable for the problem in Ireland (having a preist/religous in the family was seen as a status symbol).
By the way I disagree that the whole thing can be traced back to Vatican 2, if there were problems with the council is was because a problem was already there that would have happened regardless if there had been any council – at worst the council merely gave modernists an opportunitiy.
there I have said my peiece, let all the rad-trads nail me to the tree
Father Z, your posts are usually very good. This is simply a gem.
Henry Edwards, thanks for the link to Fr. Shelton’s blog. Excellent
Now, I really enjoyed that! Both the original article and your comments, Father.
If I may suggest another of Mr. Warner’s articles from today, in the wake of the Obamacare debacle:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100030966/american-conservatives-must-fight-on-implacably-to-repeal-emperor-obamas-healthcare-coup/
We cannot give up the fight on either field of battle.
J.H.: They’ll have to nail an awful many of their compatriots to the tree, methinks…
lhw.: Care to direct us to the source of this allegation? At face value it sounds like media-fabricated levels of spin on something like a pastoral urge that abuse not be a public spectacle. (And yes, I’ve seen the media spin things to the point that they’re fabricating the bulk of it, on matters as grave as salvation or excommunication.) But to accurately assess it, I’d have to have an accurate version of the claim.
lhwhitaker, may I respectfully request a source for your bullshit?
I’m all for sacking bishops, but since the beginning of the priest sex abuse scandals predate Vatican II, the logic is a bit fuzzy.
Jack:
I agree with you: Our current problems can be traced back further than V2. At the beginning of V2 the conditions were ripe for what happened to happen. Regardless whether you trace it to V2 or prior to V2, it’s the same animal: modernism and liberalism.
As far as bishops, there are some bad ones, and I firmly disagree that they are not to be criticized. You will note that Warner doesn’t judge any particular bishop as having committed any particular crime, but simply says (basically) that bishops, being in charge, are to blame for letting things get out of hand, and that a lot of them did it on purpose. I have seen enough evidence of this that I have no trouble believing it. I have personal friends and loved ones who have taken classes to become certified diocesan catechesis, and the classes made a concerted effort to avoid teaching any essential content whatsoever. If the catechists are not being taught any doctrine by the diocese, what makes us think their students are being taught authentic Catholic doctrine and morals? This can’t be laid at anyone’s feet but the bishops’.
And if catechists are not being taught the faith, and therefore are not teaching it, and the same bishops who are responsible for the lack of content in catechism class, are also in charge of training priests… Well, what follows?
Your diocese may be different, and if so you’re blessed. But in many places it’s been an uphill climb for faithful priests and laypersons to even hold the line on orthodoxy, let alone promulgate it among the faithful.
There is no point is mincing one’s words in the Telegraph. Its readers would be very disappointed.
Vatican II and its reforms certainly contributed in very large measure to a liberalism which had thitherto not existed or was churning away underground and then sprang forth once thedoors were unbolted.
Looking at individual causes of scandal is not really enough. I strongly believe that liturgical reform was a huge catalyst in the auto-destruction of the Church. It was largely uncalled for (except by the bakstage cliques) and was unnecessary. Its restauration will not put the genie back into the bottle, but it will help.
Having read in this blog and elsewhere Fr Amorth’s (the Roman exorcist;s) view, I think we are speaking of a real, concerted, satanic attack on the Church over the last 40 years or more. You couldn’t invent the awful things that have come to light. I do not mean to sound alarmist. The Church will (and is) prevail(-ing). But we must face facts and see things for what they are.
Holiness and faithfulness are key. A few Bishops falling on swords would be a useful and honourable: collegiality had largely emasculated them anyway.
Yes, we are all to blame in one way or another. The Church is all the baptised, but the leadership has manifestly failed and needs now to get a grip. Our Chuch depends very much on the quality and holiness of its clergy. That is its thermometer of good health, so a failure of such proportions as thr Irish scandal does maximum harm and loses souls.
It is after all the vast majority of good and holy priests who have allowed us to survive thus far and I grieve to think of the effect on them. They need our prayers and real support, not to allow dispair or the sheer burden of it all to overwhelm them. The Devil cannot be allowed to win and he won’t, but it takes an effort to fight not sitting on the fence in the vague belief that we can stagger on as we are.
http://fathershelton.blogspot.com/2010/03/acies-allocutio.html
Cath: Henry Edwards, thanks for the link to Fr. Shelton’s blog. Excellent
I’m glad you followed the link. For the others, a few extracts:
“In too many countries we have seen the subversion of the Council, whose call for renewal proposed a deeper embrace, not a Satanic reordering, of the Sacred Liturgy, doctrine, morality, evangelization, penance, devotional practices and discipline.
“That lay Catholics in these countries so gullibly accepted instructions from their priests, issued with deceitful and unfounded reference to the holy Council, to banalize the Holy Mass, to lay aside their devotions, to forget their catechisms, …… Who told you to stand and take Holy Communion into your hand and pick up the Savior with your fingers for your mouth? ….. Why don’t Catholics know their parts of the Roman Mass in Latin as the Council instructed? …..
“The clergy responsible for dismantling the faith and tradition of the Western Church are members of the generation whose perversion has poisoned the mission of the Holy Church. ….. What’s needed now, brethren, is a new generation … that will flush away the horrors, deceptions, impiety, irreverence and scandals of the ‘hippie’ catastrophe that has marked the recent decades of the Latin Church, a generation that will discover anew the work of the Holy Ghost in the documents of Vatican II, leaving behind the so called ‘spirit of Vatican II’–the spirit of Satan, and help the Church discover for the first time the wisdom and promise of the holy Council, which is the wisdom and promise of 2000 years of faith, hope and charity.”
Note that Fr. Shelton identifies Vatican II as the solution rather than the problem.
The BBC is apparently going to air a hatchet job against the Holy Father tonight. The corresponding article is here. Be forewarned that it, and the comments afterwards, are quite distasteful.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23369148-pope-led-cover-up-of-child-abuse-by-priests.do
(Although I did chuckle in wonderment at who this “Thomas Ratzinger” is that they were talking about.)
They are desperate. The Holy Father is a rock when it comes to theological truths and moral teaching. They cannot shake him. They cannot get him, as the natural extension of and visible head of the Church, to compromise the Truth, or to bow to public or modern pressures. So they are going after his own morality and ethics, trying to undercut the message by making personal attacks against the messenger. It’s shameful, it’s misleading, and it reeks of a desperate attempt by the devil to damage a man who is trying to and succeeding in doing so much good. We must all stop and pray for Pope Benedict, and continue to keep him in our prayers. Pray that he be strengthened to stay the course and fight the good fight. It does not escape my notice that these attacks are coming so close to our remembrance of the Passion of the Lord.
I can’t remember the exact quote, but hasn’t the Holy Father made the comment to the effect that as long as he’s being criticized and attacked, he knows he’s doing the right thing? I pray that he remembers that.
May the Lord bless and protect our shepherd, Pope Benedict XVI.
I can’t figure out if ihwhitaker is a White House mole or a LCWR mole. Both are working to undermine Benedict XVI
AMEN, AMEN, GERALD WARNER ROCKS!!! He is a must read. “His feet would not touch the floor” This should be forwarded to every bishop in the United States. Diocese of Fresno, CA., take notice.
I must say that, despite the extreme tone, I couldn’t help but agree with a lot of what Mr. Warner had to say.
My favorite lines:
“Should bishops be forced to resign? Oh yes – approximately 95 per cent of them worldwide. These clowns in their pseudo-ethnic mitres and polyester vestments with faux-naïve Christian symbols, spouting their ecumaniac episcobabble, have presided over more than sexual abuse: they have all but extinguished the Catholic faith with their modernist fatuities. They should be retired to monasteries to spend their remaining years considering how to account to their Maker for a failed stewardship that has lost countless millions of souls.”
I have gotten to the point where I am so distrustful of bishops I almost think they need to be interviewed ahead of time before they are asked to accept an appointment. Archbishop Dolan, a man for whom I had very high hopes,, has turned out to be a supreme disappointment when he publicly stated that he would not refuse Holy Communion to politicians who supported abortion and that he was “following the lead” of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. This is perhaps the most dangerous example “ecumaniac episcobabble” I have encountered in a long time.
What an excellent entry here! Clearly the beginnings of the scandals were at least present pre 1962. It seems so unreasonable to accuse the Council itself of error, without dismissing the promises of Christ of an infallible church/magisterium. How could one make such claims without assuming a gnostic superiority?
OK, so I have to strive to become holy and pray more. Thanks, Father Z.
I’ve had Gerald Warner near the top of my must read blogs. We’ll always need an England, if only to have them come up with phrases such as “pseudo-ethnic mitres and polyester vestments with faux-naïve Christian symbols, spouting their ecumaniac episcobabble” to bolster our spirits.
Thank you, Father. Reading this is a breath of fresh air. Thank you, especially for your clarification about triumphalism. Too often people, myself included, forget that Christ was glorified on the Cross, so too the Church.
Personally I do not believe VII was the sole cause of the problem, it is always there, VII just made the excuses easier, when liberalism runs amok this is the result, total self justification. tho quote Rush in his closing monologue
“RUSH: And you’re really distressed because there may not be that there’s a pro-life church, anymore. The left is taking over every institution. They have to be stopped, and it’s about time, maybe… You know, I’m not trying to be Pollyannaish and look at the bright side of this (because I don’t, frankly, see many) but one of them is: Don’t doubt me anymore! It’s out in front of your eyes! Believe what you see, believe what you hear. It is real!
The Catholic Church has a bunch of leftists in it who would just as soon destroy the church and remake it, as the government has liberals in it who want to remake our government and destroy the Constitution. Liberals are liberals. They do not value institutions until they run them and remake them in their own way, and nothing is sacred. Not the Catholic Church, not the Methodist Church. Nothing! Zilch, zero, nada. I shouldn’t have to say this, especially after this weekend. The real challenge — and it’s hard; I know it’s hard — is you can’t believe that we’ve elected people to run this country who don’t like it. Well, we did, but not on purpose. They were fooled, lied to, defrauded, everything else. So it’s out there right in the open for everyone to see and take note of. They don’t deserve to win another election ever. The country cannot withstand them winning another major election. Don’t doubt me.
[I think you have been the victim of the abuse called misinformation.]
Father, term for lhwhitaker’s material is disinformation. Dezinformatsiya as the Directorate of the General Staff for Maskirovka called it.
Father Z, I just had to re-read this article. It’s a corker. When you get a Brit focused on your foibles, they have the innate ability to skewer the subject! Best, Tom
ray, Gerald Warner is Scottish.
ray from mn: Exactly. We’ll always need an England. And may she be restored as “our Lady’s dowry” soon. She was stolen many, many years ago…
VII wasn’t the cause. It was another effect.
Some of my Protestant husband’s biggest complaints about Catholicism center around liturgy – bad music and women serving as lectors and extraordinary ministers and girls as altar servers in particular. I have considered checking out the Latin mass; maybe he would be more open to the Church if he saw a more reverent worship?
Father, your supplication is exquisite. I am speechless. You have so aptly described the mass of my childhood.
“We need to foster worship which stuns, which leaves the newcomer, long-time practicing Catholic, above all the fallen-away simply thunder stuck. Worship must at some point leave people speechless in awe.
We need language and music and gesture which in its beauty floods the mind with light even while it swells the heart to bursting.
The more people encounter mystery through liturgy, the more hollow will clang the false or incomplete messages of those who have strayed from the good path, either to the left or to the right.
Our goal must be that which is good and beautiful because it is true, that which reflects what is of God, not man’s image merely. Give us mystery, not fabrications smacking of the world, fallen and transitory.”
Amen, Amen, Amen!
Father Z and Gerald Warner receive the “St. Thomas Beckett Award for Intestinal Fortitude and Holy-Spirit Inspired Righteous-Anger(And I mean the proper form of Righteousness, Old Testament Type….not the “Self” kind) and Objective Witness To Truth….God Bless You Sirs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-5B54wXgI4
HUZZZAHH! HUZZZAAAHHH! HUZZAAAHHH!
Passages from Isaiah 40:
“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance…..All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity….He bringeth the princes to nothing…. he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity….. Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding….He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength…..Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall…..But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength….they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint….
Amen
Al: And now we sing On Eagles Wings?
The appropriate way to show one’s revulsion for such sins is through fasting, prayer and almsgiving. This must be done privately in order to avoid the sinful pride of the pharisee. Striking out at negligent (or worse) bishops accomplishes nothing, other than to fortify demons who prey on the not-so-faithful. Neglect of prayer and fasting demonstrates lack of faith in divine providence.
Father reminds us that we need to follow through by stepping up our own actions to make up for the wont of Catholic living and dearth of leadership.
We all know the saying: better to curse the darkness, light a match.
Our lanterns are the Light of Christ and will switch on with earnest and honest prayer, fasting, and good works. I’ve stepped up my Lenten self-denial with inspiration from Saint Francis and Saint Thomas Becket.
Since then, I have been met with response from the enemy driving me to consider breaking my disciplines today (God provided the strength I lack).
And I think in that moment of weakness, choosing to make use of grace is what God finds so pleasing. Not choosing the temporary over the eternal. Not doubting even when it feels lonely. And not leaving Christ over of the sins of a few.
This goes for cultural Catholics using the molestation as an excuse to live by the world’s decrees (quite ironic, isn’t it?) – and for us in not losing our resolve when the bishops barely resemble anything Catholic.
I think in the wake of the so-called health care reform, the bishops are to be increasingly challenged by the faithful; not a challenge to their authority, but rather a challenge to actually exercise it for once.
For those who don’t know, I am a recent convert and am increasingly horrified with the cavalier approach of the successors to the Apostles. It is pretty clear that the root of this is what St. Pius X called the synthesis of all heresies. Now, many Shepherds don’t even believe in hell.
Of course they will lead us right off a cliff!
I believe that this latest round of attacks on Pope Benedict is to attempt to remove him from the papacy. I think it would be naive to think that many wicked members of the Church are not a part of this. Pope Benedict is turning things around at the pace he has determined is correct.
And to the world, this is his arch crime.
I do hope that out of this, he will see what the harvest of the past 50 years is and perform just the kind of reform Gerald Warner suggests. Wholesale house cleaning. And if some Bishops and even Cardinals form the new Episcopal Church, that is the fault only of the liars and deceivers who will tolerate anything immaginable.
Anything, except of course the Catholic faith.
Some of my Protestant husband’s biggest complaints about Catholicism center around liturgy – bad music and women serving as lectors and extraordinary ministers and girls as altar servers in particular. I have considered checking out the Latin mass; maybe he would be more open to the Church if he saw a more reverent worship?
Prairie: absolutely, get thee to a Tridentine Mass! I finally went to my first one a week and a half ago, and was immediately hooked. I have been to another since, and plan to go again tomorrow, even though I have to drive an hour to get there. Get a 1962 Missal (Baronius Press has a special Summorum Pontificum edition in print) and read through the Ordinary of the Mass ahead of time, just to get a nodding acquaintance with this Rite. I found prior preparation to be helpful in keeping track of what’s going on.
I personally don’t find the 1962 Rite difficult, though I need practice to get the responses and the standing, sitting and kneeling right. As a matter of fact, one thing this Rite has made clear to me is how much unnecessary bustle we have put into the Mass over the last 40 years, and how much harder we have made it for ourselves than it needs to be.
I re-read Mr. Warner’s article and came back to the comments this morning to continue reading what others have had to say. I agree with those who insist that VII was not that cause of the root cause of the problems that we have seen for the past 40+ years; that problem was and is Modernism in all its varied forms. And, to be fair, I don’t think that Mr. Warner would disagree. The scope of his article is limited by necessity.
This has probably all been said time and again, but is seems to me that Modernism had infected the seminaries and universities long before the 60s. An enormous number of the men who committed these atrocities were formed before the Council. When the time came, they successfully took advantage of euphoria and exaggerated optimism that followed the Second Vatican Council to distort its documents and misapply its directives and boom! “The windows were thrown open.” Wasn’t that the phrase that was tossed around so often back in the day? Some things that had been kept out swept in, and whole lot that had been preserved and cherished was tossed out those open windows.
Yes, the true cause was Modernism.
VATII made the hidden Modernism to blossom and triumph in the Church.
But never forget that the Modernism was condemned since long as a heresy.
An anti-modernist oath was even required from all the clerics by pope Pius X in 1910.
That means that those who introduced the Modernism and made it to overcome the council were all perjurers, and sad to say, including Pope Paul VI who eventually cancelled it.
Bravo. spot on comment by Warner. Although I don’t agree with all of his rant (and what a rant it is),most of it I do. How many of us know people who are ‘trendy atheists’ and say they don’t believe in God and this is their big cop out. How easy it is to be an atheist – you don’t have to believe a thing. BUT, with the believer we have so much to believe in, by faith.
But to say that ‘I will leave the Church’ because of the abuse of minors by priests etc, is just plain intellectual stupidity. As Warner notes, Christ’s divinity, the Resurrection and all we believe is not built on the truth of the abuse scandals. No relation s whatsover.
But what is critical is the faith of the Church, passed down from an imperfect group of Apostles, one of whom doubted the Lord (or maybe more), one denied Him, one betrayed him – serious matters and the Lord CHOSE THEM ALL. The Lord called them by name, selected them and they walked with Him. If he did not know them, who did?
The Lord chooses the weak to confound the strong, but he also asks for repentance and prayer and fasting for our sins. As BXVI said in his Letter last weekend, the Lord’s mercy will forgive those who repent.
The Church is always in a state of permanent repentance – we are sinners seeking the kingdom of God, with our eyes on the Lord. It is only when we take our eyes off the Lord that we fall and sink.
But to leave the Church and give up – no way ever. No cop out. Let the atheists do that as their cop out is the easy way that shows their weak backbones – if they ever truly had one.
Very provocative article indeed. Sometime the truth hurts, though. As some speculate as to how the Catholic Church finds herself in the predicament of today, I would like to ask a question: is there any truth to the testimony of Bella Dodd or has it made its way into the “consiracy theory” category like the landing on the moon being on a Hollywood set? Our Lady of Fatima said “Russia will spread her errors”, did She not? Word on the street is Pope Benedict XVI had two regrets upon ascending the Chair of Peter: the first being the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX and the second being the interpretation of Fatima as released on June 26, 2000. Regarding the former, Pope Benedict suppossedly said “I made a mistake”. Pertaining the latter he said “My hand was forced.” Who knows, maybe this fits into the conspiracy theory category as well, but we all know about the talks aiming at reconciliation between the Holy See and the SSPX and His Holiness will be offering Mass this coming May 13 at Fatima. Hmmm.
“Reforming the liturgy along the lines Pope Benedict has proposed may be the most loving and effective option we have in these ever hotter times.”
Can someone elaborate on this? Father? I know after 46+ comments, no one may see this, but except for the new translation of the GIRM, what other reforms are in the works? Thanks.
Wow-that was quite the rant by Mr. Warner.
And thank you, Fr. Z, for your analysis! As always, you are on the mark!
And that ‘Becket’ excommunication clip on YouTube is getting quite the workout!
ilwhitaker-how dare you say such things about our Holy Father!
Vac II made life so easy for these wolfs in sheeps clothing. In the 1970s I wintness behavior at sporting events (High School) between some clergy and high school boys that shock me at the time I was working for the other high school(Public). I KNOW THIS WOULD HAVE NOT HAPPENED BEFORE VAC II.
That’s quite a spirited column, especially for a secular paper like The Telegraph. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, how long before Mr. Warner appears in The Remnant?
Please don’t take that as a disparaging remark– +Walter(RIP) and Michael Matt have been a source for years for important and reliable information unavailable elsewhere. However, Mr. Warner and The Remnant seem to share the same tone.
In Christ,
BTW, in addition to blogging for the Telegraph, Gerald Warner has a weekly column in the Scotland on Sunday. He is a Scottish historian.
I don’t know about her story specifically, but consider: We do know that the Soviets did their best to infiltrate other influential organizations like the US government and Hollywood, and had a great deal of success even with organizations that have counter-espionage departments to stop that sort of thing. We also know that every time socialists took over in a country, one of their first targets for destruction or suppression was the Church. So it’s unreasonable to think they didn’t try to infiltrate the Church like she suggests.
As for whether they were as successful as she says — it’s not hard to find plenty of flat-out Marxist writings from priests and religious of that generation. Whether those are Marxists who infiltrated the Church with the purpose of destroying it, or consecrated Catholics who later became Marxists on their own or by being recruited, doesn’t really matter much. The result is the same, with their latest triumph being the American Church’s sort-of-tepid opposition-with-caveats to Obamacare.
Father Z
Sing “On Eagles Wings”? Dear Lord I hope not…
*The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation.*
Indeed, whereas Trent, brought-on by the Reformation, bolstered the traditions of the Church from within, at the exact wrong moment (the Woodstock era) the Church decided to call a council, and instead of bolstering the Church, which she desperately needed at that unhinged moment, set about unfurling the moorings in a tempestuous sea: going to no uncertain lengths in praising other faiths, even saying this about the hindus and buddhists:
“Thus, in Hinduism men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible fruitfulness of myths and a searching philosophical inquiry. They seek release from the anguish of our condition through ascetical practices or deep meditation or a loving, trusting flight toward God.” (Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.)
This is why modernism has rent the Church, and she is full indifference, relativism, pantheism, agnosticism, etc. Vatican II was a monumental mistake.
This is so stupid. Grown men taking advantage of little boys is what caused it. Why is that so hard to understand?
I saw a picture of Bishop Williamson of SSPX fame in full regalia including long gloves with a jewel of some sort in a gold setting. I felt revulsed! This Nazi sympathizer, holocaust denier is emblematic of the new ‘tradionalism’.Ratzinger’s BIG mistake to collaborate with these guys. How they love their frocks. Rabbi Jeshu will have none of it.These ‘priests’ are savages pining for the good old days…good old days. I don’t think so. You think you’re going to take 95% of catholics off contraception? Besides the fact that they’re ‘culturally’ catholic. Baptism, confirmation, marriage in the church. That’s it! A form of religion without the power.
*We* are not going to take any one off contraception. They can, one by one, explain it to the Almighty when they stand before him, as they all will. Everyone does sooner or later, you know.
I think, GWK, that you should win some sort of prize for the sheer number of non-sequiturs you’ve strung together there in your comment. It’s quite extraordinary. I haven’t seen anything like it since I taught 7th grade years ago, no offense to the 7th graders of the world.
Anyone trying to foist a child-abusing priest on a self-suspecting woman ought to be whipped to within an inch of his life with a teflon-coated frying pan. What would a child-abusing man want with a full-grown woman, anyway? And what would a woman want with such a loser? Please. What a stupid insinuation.
Self-respecting, sorry. Typo from fatigue. Long day.