Persecution by Rome of the Bp. of Fréjus-Toulon – UPDATED

I firmly believe that their overreach will overtake them.

Hitherto, Bp. Rey of Fréjus-Toulon in France has been open to accepting traditionally-minded seminarians and religious. Vocations in that diocese were up, unlike the rest of France.

Hence, Rome is now hammering him. Again, they would rather see a smoking crater, than a parish or diocese with happy, committed Catholics who believe the perennial teachings and desire traditional worship. If people aren’t moving toward the sinkhole with their gay flags and population control brainwashing through openness to contraception and climate change “measures”, they won’t rest in the crushing.

From RorateNB: This has had updates over there!

As reported on Gloria-TV, [a source which, over time, I have come to check less and less] Bishop Rey of Frejus-Toulon, who has been placed under curatorship, told a priests’ meeting of further restrictions imposed on him by the Congregation for Bishops following the ban on ordinations scheduled for July.

? All orders and communities in the diocese must undergo a visitation by Vatican commissioners;

? Bishop Rey can no longer admit new communities to the diocese;

? All priests serving in the diocese are required to concelebrate at Chrism Masses and “if necessary” to officiate as presiders at Novus Ordo Eucharistic celebrations;

? The approval of the Council of Priests is required for the admission of new priests to the diocese.

These orders, whose legal admissibility would have to be examined by jurists, are in any case consistently in line with Traditionis Traditores [aka Taurina cacata] and show in an exemplary manner the means by which Rome wants to destroy the traditional liturgy after all, which has proven to be so extremely vital. While the heretics of the Synodal Way and of pseudo-marriage for same-sex couples can continue their work of destruction with the very highest wink, the adherents of the Church of two millennia are marginalized and ever more brutally forced out of the Church. In the new church of the spirit of the age, nothing shall ever again remind us of the past Church of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, the enterprise will fail. The question is how long it will take for this insight to take hold in Rome as well. The second question is how the congregations and communities that want to preserve fidelity to the traditional doctrine and liturgy can best succeed in resisting the pressure exerted on them from all sides by the traitors to the faith.

Michael Charlier
September 22, 2022


UPDATE (September 24):

I was contacted by Fr. Carlos Hamel, who works in the chancery of the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, and wished to offer some clarifications. I am happy to publish them here for the record.

“I just wanted to clarify a couple of points of the information you published in Rorate Caeli regarding our diocese. I am of course aware that you published something another person has written. If I am not mistaken, this meeting with priests became known because the diocese itself published the news:
“These measures are not sanctions ‘imposed’ by the Congregation of Bishops, but decisions made by the bishop, and transmitted to the Congregation (cf. diocesan website: l’évêque a exposé les décisions transmises à la Congrégation des évêques).
“There is no visitation scheduled for communities in the diocese. What the bishop wants is a report on the situation of each community (‘état des lieux’). There are no Vatican commissioners visiting communities. Of course, there can be visitations commissioned by the bishop (or the Holy See) in the future, as has been the case in the recent past. I know that the diocesan website speaks about visiteurs, which is of course a source of confusion.
“While it is true that all priests serving in the diocese are expected to concelebrate at the Chrism mass and to say the Ordinary Form when needed, this has been the official policy of the diocese since at least 2020 (and informally since before that). As you can see, the information published by the diocese doesn’t mention this point, as it was not an issue during the meeting. It is important to note that there are no (ex) Ecclesia Dei communities in the diocese.

“Of course, nothing prevents the Holy See from taking action regarding any of the aforementioned points, but I just wanted to clarify the situation as it is today.”

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Be The Maquis, Liberals, Pò sì jiù, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Traditionis custodes and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

29 Comments

  1. WVC says:

    So long as good bishops resist one-at-a-time and all alone – they will get hammered. The turning point will come when the good bishops (and, within diocese, the good priests) start banding together, supporting each other, and standing against the tyrannical overreach TOGETHER.

    God help us, I pray they are communicating and networking behind closed doors. If they haven’t started, what on earth could they be waiting for?

    And this includes good priests who are within the chanceries. If they’re not doing what they can to absolutely sabotage efforts to persecute good Catholics and sound liturgy, then why on earth not? There are ways to be both subtle and effective.

  2. redneckpride4ever says:

    We really need to stop identifying ourselves as “Traditional” Catholics and use the far more appropriate term “orthodox” Catholics. It correctly shows and describes our positions are right out the gate.

  3. TonyO says:

    As bad as this is (and it is), I am actually more concerned about how the Vatican got rid of the Bishop Daniel Fernandez Torres of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. In his case, they (apparently) just plain removed him, and didn’t (a) give him a chance to discuss what it is they were finding wanting, nor (b) give him actual basis for the removal. The Vatican also had taken the positively weird step of asking him to submit his resignation, and saying that a refusal to do so would be taken as evidence of disobedience, a step which positively reeks of the Soviet-style persecution in which the wife of the executed man is billed for the bullet that killed him. It was a pretty direct abuse of raw power, and must have sent a very chilling message to bishops around the world.

    The action against the bishop of Fréjus-Toulon is another in the same line: no explicit accusation of any offenses against canon law or any other law of the Church, just (effectively) trial by innuendo and a gradual tightening of the noose. They don’t operate by law because they don’t believe in law (as is clear from the fact that, when they had popes like JPII and Benedict, they flouted the law left and right.)

  4. Chrisc says:

    This is also the bishop who suspended Dom Alcuin Reid for being illicitly ordained. It was intimated the bishop put off ordaining Reid because the diocesan seminary was under the merciful gaze of a visitator, and so the diocese did not need any more ‘trouble’. However, Reid went ahead and was ordained because his community had for years been approved to have a priest, only to have the bishop demure each time.

    The bishop tried to be prudent with Reid so as to not further annoy Rome. The suspension of Reid and suppression of the monastery was clearly aimed at mollifying the Vatican upset that such traditionalism exists. That judgment by the bishop seems to be a miscalculation. But, perhaps it saved the bishop’s job. [You seem to be drawing conclusions from rather little evidence.]

    Prudence is always challenging, especially viewed from afar. However, at a certain point one must realize you cannot dialogue with bad-faith actors; you cannot negotiate with terrorists. Maybe we will soon have bishops who act boldly, and are exiled, or who declare their see to be impeded. It may be the only way forward.

  5. excalibur says:

    They turned the Church into a Tower of Babel when they made the Mass everywhere in the vernacular. Prior to that, wherever one traveled in the world, it was the same language.

  6. JustaSinner says:

    Well, I guess it’s up to the laity to lead the counter attack; the clergy isn’t up to it. (Aside from you and a scant few others, Fr. Z…) Time for a ‘walking together’ of like minded devote Catholics to band together in Rome and do another Pope tossing into the river Tiber. Have to add some Cardinals and Bishops, too. Just a thought. But I’m a radical. That’s been proven.

  7. James C says:

    But the Belgian bishops approving a church blessing service for homosexual couplings is just fine with Rome.

    This is where we are now.

  8. Lurker 59 says:

    @WVC

    Not just the good bishops but also the worldly ones who like their fiefdoms and who understand that what is going on is a threat to their own power. You used to be able to get right, left, orthodox, heterodox, God-fearing, worldings, to band together over anything that struck at episcopal rights and privileges. After all, THAT IS the impetus for VII — it is both completion and pushing back of VI.

    You can read VII as the only document worth reading and from that alone conclude that what is going on is garbage.

  9. Not says:

    Interesting the parallel from those in authority in the Church and those in authority in the US. They both demand absolute obedience, they both offer no explanation when they punish you. Neither cares what your defense is.

  10. Liz says:

    I added him to my prayers for priests. The list is so long. It breaks my heart to see how they suffer.

  11. j stark says:

    The problem isnt just Rome but also Traditonalists. Rome is responding to a volitile and, at times, politically aligned Trad movement. Individuals like Taylor Marshall have not helped the cause; nor has a Trad movement that is stuck with a 19th century French aristocratic view of the world or a 1950s view, especially regarding the role of women. and a black and white view of morality [?] not rooted in the Magisterium but a poor catechesis . The Church has constantly adjusted to the times it exists in [?] but the Trad movemement seems to have become stuck in an idealized view of the past that did not really exist; let us remember the Church of the 60s was led by the prelates of the 50s; who in turn were influenced by a movement dating back 100s of years. There is no perfect time of the Church. At some point, a balance needs to be found between the Novus Ordo (more modern)and Traditonal Church; one is progressing to much towards liberalism; the other is stuck in a manufactured past [?]that no longer exists and will not return; both situations lead to absolutism and eventually destruction. I attend the Traditional Rite as do my family. I love the Ancient Liturgy; but I cannot stand the false notions permeating out of the community. Why cannot I just have the Latin Mass with normal folk who dont act sanctimonious. [Here we go with the ad hominem part.] We have seen it all; but the blow hards in the Trad movement can lack charity; the ones who morally thump their chest and make it know how virtuous they are; yet, in reality; when the door closes to their homes; who knows what deep rooted sins exist. Pope Francis has made some good points about the Trad movement; maybe the movement should listen and adjust accoridngly. The Trad movement need not harp [“the movement” need not harp?] on about a past that has gone but rather embrace charitable endeavours. At some point, the Modern Mass and the Ancient Mass will both organically come together and a new Missal will be formed. [Perhaps.]

    [“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”]

  12. Notsoserious09 says:

    I recall the German prelates on the tarmac “welcoming” Benedict by refusing to shake his hand—the video is enormously painful to watch. They may as well spit in his face. Of course we are all watching as the European prelates literally spit in the direction of God with their current demonic assaults on the Faith. All of their vows are broken, all of their loyalties destroyed, and all of their obedience is shattered. They do all of it in rebellion and none of them are punished. They are not punished because they don’t accept authority and the Pope is really powerless (BXVI’s view). Conversely, the tiny fragment of the Church still obeying the highest law of the Church, the salvation of souls, meekly submits to the supposed authority of men of dubious sexuality who cannot obey the clearest canons of their own laws such as 915 etc. For the most part we judge the actions of the obedient remnant as morally superior. Why? They are obeying the orders of their religious leaders in violations of our Lord’s command to save souls. I’m more inclined these days to view the actions of our remnant as weak and cowardly. I don’t think that is a new phenomenon as nearly all of the Bishops and Priests in the UK submitted to their new ‘pope’ Henry VIII. Perhaps they thought they could wait things out and it was best to lay low until things blew over. “Best to stay and look after the flock” they thought. Henry is back but his name today is Jorge.

  13. j stark says:

    Fr

    a black and white view of morality [?] – The human exprience is unique; life is harsh at times, and sometimes there is grey for the individual involved. I have had many people say x is a sin but when you delve into it then you find that actually it is not always straightforward or simple. Surely we should meet people as they are not as we want them to be. Sometimes a person sees something as being a sin but in reality it is an area open for interpretation. One might argue Archbishop Lefebvre sinned but I think that is a grey area. Things are not always black and white. The Church somtimes always grey. [I think you are too far out over your skis here. There are some things are are objectively sinful. There are circumstances that mitigate the guilt of the sin, but the act remains a sin.]

    “The Church has constantly adjusted to the times it exists in [?]” = each century has its own unique challenges; the Church adjusts accordingly to those challenges; [The Church “adjusts” SOME things.] the Church of the 5th century looks different to the Church of the 12 century and the 19th century. Moreover, as the understanding of man has adjusted; the Church has equally adjusted its lanaguage. It doesnt mean the Truth should be watered down but merely expressed in a manner that is recognizable. [Change words and you are more than likely going to change the meaning. That’s because words mean things and not always the same things.]

    Traditional Church in a manufactured past [?] = For example, take the view that women should be home raising the children and not working; this is not the experience of most people in history. [?!?] The upper classes could certainly afford a nanny but they didnt raise the children directly in the 19th century. The working class have worked in the fields and factories, in the market places, as servants, and maids etc. There is an ideology linked to the modern Trad movement that bases itself on a past that never really existed. [You see the “modern Trad movement” as a monolith. No.]

    “Why cannot I just have the Latin Mass with normal folk who dont act sanctimonious. [Here we go with the ad hominem part.]” Not an attack; we have friends in the Trad movement (we are in the Latin Mass); but we have also seen many people who literally act morally superior and possess a dangerous judgementalism; and maintain a stern posture. I just like to maybe have a drink, talk about movies, play a game of chess, play some music, and just be free to speak and maybe at times use vulgar language (in context), in other words, I want to be human with other humans. [Try hanging out with people at a parish with the Novus Ordo that is used… creatively. Wanna see sanctimonious?]

    “The Trad movement need not harp [“the movement” need not harp?]” = correction, some in the Trad movement

    [“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”] – very true. but that passgae it can be viewed in many ways depending on the perspective of the person reading it. I am the other men (as most of us are), struggling in life; but I do not present an outward picture of being virtuous as I prefer to be real and human. I just want the Mass without the added political fluff; I think one can exist without the other. [But you are the one who is stressing the “human” dimension of the Church. Welcome to the “human” dimension of the Church.]

  14. j stark says:

    Hi Fr, quick question. If the Church sought harmony in the Mass and how it expressed itself; what do you think could be adjusted in the Ancient Rite and the language of Traditionalists? Would we look again at the Missal of 65? Could parts of the mass be in the Vernacular as they were in some places in the 50s? Could the readings be in the Vernacular but leave the Canon or at least the consecration in Latin? Could we introduce more of a dialogue into the Mass with the parts where the congregation join the priests being in the Verncular? Could we look at adjusting the cycle of readings to being like the Novus Ordo? Could we increase the amount of Saints? Could we allow “bidding prayers”? What would a change look like if somehow the Ancient and Modern were to be brought together.

    [A lot of questions, each one a potential post. Quickly, I don’t think the 65 Missal is the answer, though it is closer to what the Council Fathers approved in reality than is the Novus Ordo. Vernacular: the best approach is to have the readings in Latin at the altar and then read in the vernacular, either at the same time or after. That’s because the readings are also sacrificial in nature. Hence, at the altar in a sacral language. The Lectionary is not automatically assumed to have been improved by adding more readings. In fact, the expansion of the Lectionary has fostered a view that readings are primarily didactic. While there is a didactic dimension the main point is that the readings, too, are part of the sacrifice.]

  15. j stark says:

    [I think you are too far out over your skis here. There are some things are are objectively sinful. There are circumstances that mitigate the guilt of the sin, but the act remains a sin.] – absolutely, Yes, some things are objectively sinful; somethings are not (my point is that I have heard people say x is a sin whenit is not). Do you think the act of consecration by Bishop lefebvre was objectively sinful? [I can say that it was objectively against canon law. However, while some things prescribed by canon law are prescribed because they are sins, for example, abortion. Other things are prescribed because of order or governance, for example, consecration of bishops. The history of how bishops were selected and consecrated is complex.]

    [Try hanging out with people at a parish with the Novus Ordo that is used… creatively. Wanna see sanctimonious?] – I have, and liberals can be far worse; hiding in the name of charity while being unchairtable. The Church is pretty broken at the moment across the board.

    The human dimension in the Church is depressing at the moment; I think we all feel it; we all see it; there is an emptiness, a lack of the spiritual; it is all politics. We pray God sends more great Saints to lead us out of this mess; this spiritual desert.

    “this is not the experience of most people in history. [?!?] ” – most people in history have been poor and illterate; the kids went out early to work, life spans were limited; women worked in numerous positions. There wasnt homeschooling or the mom staying home raising the kids. Everyone pretty much worked long hours to maintain the family. The 19th century bourgois view of women (who used nannies) is not indicative of the past nor should women be looked down upon because they want to work. [It seems to me absurd to suggest that women being at home with the children wasn’t the norm.
    It was. It was mainly by necessity that women also worked outside the home. Until modern times.]

    The Church doesnt adjust its teachings [Although today some are trying to do exactly that.] but rather its political instiution adjusts or how to reflect the Truth in a difficuly environment. The 1940s Church in Germany and Italy, or the 19th century Church in France, had to be careful in how it presented itself in order to survive while still maintaining the Truth. Words are important but if the message isnt being conveyed then surely it has to find a different way of saying it while maintaining the Truth

  16. Lurker 59 says:

    @Notsoserious09

    It strikes me that people confuse cravenness for meekness and that people don’t have obedience to Christ and the Faith as the first obedience. It also seems to me that orthodox Catholics in positions of authority are so afraid of schism that they don’t act and that heterodox Catholics in positions of authority use this fear to manipulate the orthodox. You see the same in US politics.

    @j stark

    In general ??? but “Why cannot I just have the Latin Mass with normal folk who dont act sanctimonious” Because people are sinners in need of salvation. Though give me the sanctimonious of traditionalists any day over the sanctimonious of the heterodox.

    @excalibur

    Your allegory is more appropriate than what you said. The Tower is man’s effort to take by force heaven — the anthropocentric elements of the NO allows its modular nature to be constructed in such a way that it presents a theology of salvation by man’s efforts rather than by the Sacrifice of the Altar.

    @redneckpride4ever

    Concure. Personally, I don’t take the “traditionalist” label because I am not a Neo-Thomist and I don’t want to pass myself off as one because that is unfair to actual Thomists. Also using the term “orthodox” pricks the conscience of the hetrodox.

  17. Not says:

    We have been in the “Trad Movement” as it is now called for over 40 years. We were raised in the days when there was no Novus Ordo. After VaticanII we had to learn to travel long distances for a Latin Mass. Now, thank God we have 5 Latin Masses from 30 minutes to an hour and a half away. 3 are diocese supported. None of us are perfect and thank God again that we have frequent confession. After Mass we have coffee and donuts and treats for the little ones and great discussions. Always there are Priests or Brothers who join into the conversations. We have Nuns whom we greatly respect. Over the years someone may disrespect these Great Brides of Christ. Us men are there to tell them in charity, that we wouldn’t want to stand before God after disrespecting one of his brides. I have said, If you disrespected my bride, my wife, I would punch your lights out. Honorable men will after time apologize to the Good Sisters.
    So, are we perfect? No. Do we have Priest to council us? Yes. Have most of us sacrificed for our wives to run the home and raise the children during the day? Yes.
    We are seniors citizens now and it has been 18 years since we have had a child at home. My wife to this day takes care of the home and me. I have a very large family and the vast majority maintain the “old ways”. For us they are the Catholic way.

  18. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    To paraphrase Charles Coulombe: Nostalgia is a desire, not for the past itself as it was, but as it ought to have been. We desire those things which were good, even excellent, about former times, not those things which were bad. This is because those good things remind us of heaven, the greatest longing we have of all.

    One might even say, that universal nostalgia for the Garden of Eden, sonehow indelibly stamped upon our memory from the beginning of our soul’s existence. When I recall the forties and fifties, I remember my grandfather recovering from shellshock after serving in the British Navy, and working hard to support his family. Suits, hats and jazz music inevitably summon these memories back to fresh light, and I’m reminded of the man I need to be. When I recall the French aristocracy, I’m flooded with images of grace, decorum and noblesse oblige, and I’m reminded that these are important things, important things lost to us in the 20th century. All things that must be recovered. To paraphrase another Charles, my Sovereign: this nostalgia is not a desire to return to some past state, but to carry these good things with us into the future.

  19. j stark says:

    @Lurker59

    “Though give me the sanctimonious of traditionalists any day over the sanctimonious of the heterodox.” – both are dangerous and lead to ruin; how many people have been put off returning to the Ancient Mass because of an encounter with a Mad or Sad Trad.

    [It seems to me absurd to suggest that women being at home with the children wasn’t the norm” – when? Children entered the workplace at young ages and were illterate, women and men were illterate, everyone worked. Women worked the fields with their husbands and kids, they sold at the market places, they were servants and maids, they spun wool, brewed beer, collected fireword, fed animals, were spinners, jewerlers, parcement makers. Some cultures had women as leaders, some cultures had women as warriors. I know we like to view things through them prism of the west; but things are not always clear cut.

    Children were not really in the home with the mother, the arsitocrats used wet nurses and nannies; working class children left home early to go to work. In many instances, children were a commodity for the family. The role of women in the workplace is not black or white; many worked outside the home; some stayed home but worked. But this is an era long gone and is history; women now work; women are elected as political leaders; women are taking more prominent roles. Those trads who want to have the wife stay home raising the children are not doing the movement any favors; nor is it reflective of Catholic thinking (which has adjusted as has the understanding of the human person)

  20. j stark says:

    @TheCavalierHatherly

    There is a danger though that to live with a desire for nostalgia results in absolutizing a thing that never really existed; a mythic past that sounds great but never was. Every generation looks to the past and says how wonderful it was; but if we had a time machine and went to live in that past; we would probably desire to be back to the future or yearn for another nostalgic past. A former Society Priest, now a Maronite, once warned me there is no shangri-la; there is just what is in front of us.

    Did the French Aristocracy really have grace, decorum, noblesses oblige? What is written is not likely reality of the everyday? I suspect if we had the chance to spend time with the 19th century French aristocarcy that we would become quickly disillusioned. The past we want was never real; we create an idealized past to escape the present.

  21. Kathleen10 says:

    Tony O, thank you for mentioning Bishop Torres. I remain horrified that not enough Catholics are horrified, by his “Roman treatment”. It’s reminiscent of Francis venerating the demon idol Pachamama in the Vatican garden in 2019, weeks before Covid began (just a coincidence, surely). It makes one wonder how Catholics can just go on and pretend such a thing didn’t happen. It can’t be possible our pope worshiped a false idol over the bones of St. Peter, but he did. It can’t be possible our pope just unceremoniously kicked out a bishop for no reason other than political, but he did. These horrors are committed routinely now. Hardly anybody turns a hair. But between these things and what these evil men are doing pretty much every day now, how can we have any more feeling for these men than we do with the pods that are busy wrecking our nations day and night. Monsters, and the church they create is the zombie church.
    WVC, I’m with you. There comes a time when fight hard is what’s left. I have never seen Braveheart, but it has to be that the time clearly comes, and if all you can do is cooperate, be docile, submissive, in the face of the destruction of lives, vocations, the church, the faith, the flock, then God has allowed weak, milquetoast men of all kinds to infest the church to the rafters, and the end can’t come soon enough. If that’s the case call it, and we can all sleep in on Sunday, let the heretics get up and go off to their weird hootenannys.
    j stark: You sound extremely young, and I’m too life tired to take it all on, but when people say things like “the Trad movemement seems to have become stuck in an idealized view of the past that did not really exist”, this means they were not old enough to actually live in the past they are referring to. Let me tell you, I did, lots of people here surely did, and it was so far superior to the times we are living through, I cannot express it strongly enough. It was not a bit better, it was FAR better. I could give you a million examples but, you won’t believe me. Your teacher or professor told you it was not, and that is probably locked into your head like cement.

  22. maternalView says:

    Those trads with the mother staying home have answered the question for their family on how to best raise their children and teach them the faith. A mom working away from the home has her time and attention divided. These trads have concluded that less time with mom is not in the best interest of their children. Whether moms have worked outside the home historically doesn’t mean that’s best for the family. I don’t understand how that family decision reflects anything on the “movement”.

  23. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    @j stark

    “There is a danger though that to live with a desire for nostalgia results in absolutizing a thing that never really existed; a mythic past that sounds great but never was.”

    Which contradicts what I wrote.

    Are there people who think otherwise, who think we could merely return to the past and all would be perfect? Surely. There are people who think a great number of erroneous things. Abusus non tollit usum, however. We still have the right and duty to admire our forebearers and imitate their excellences.

    It is this “absolutizing,” you speak of has killed poetry and art and many other fine things. It is primarily born of modernity, in the womb of Martin Luther’s deeply unhealthy skull. Traditionalists can fall for it, but it is not of the essence of the thing.

    The difficulty, if not perhaps paradox, is dealt with quite nicely by another great man (not a Charles), Dr. Samuel Johnson. This time a quotation, not a paraphrase:
    “What is new is opposed, because most are unwilling to be taught; and what is known is rejected, because it is not sufficiently considered, that men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

  24. The Masked Chicken says:

    Dear J Stark,

    There is a risk of mixing issues, here. The Church has, always, had to deal with issues of human advancement, historically. To maintain that most Traditionalists are not aware of this is to make a caricature of Traditionalists. The principle issue with most Traditionalists is that the steady March of the Church into history has taken a left turn. Traditionalists do not want to go back to an era where antibiotics did not exist. To suggest such a thing is silly. They want to go back to a period where truth was not relativized. There is a stark contrast between the moral theology of the 1950’s and the 1970’s. Did truth change? Are we living in an era of deeper truth? Truth cannot contradict truth. Truth is truth. Our understanding may become broader, with more human experience, but it can, also, become narrower. Newtonian physics is not wrong; it is simply not as refined as General Relativity – Newton did not have access to tensor mechanics. General Relativity does not contradict Newtonian physics, but it does clarify and consider some hard cases.

    Even Pope Benedict noticed the changing landscape of theology in the late 1950’s and how it penetrated the seminaries in the 1960’s. Many of these theological innovations were disputable and before Vatican II, they were, but something happened in the early 1960’s and logic was overthrown by a specious psychology and anthropology. This was lead by La Nouvelle Theologie and the New Theologians. Can something labeled as Modernist heresy in 1950, suddenly become orthodoxy ten years later? That has never happened in the history of the Church and, yet, this new theology contaminated Vatican II and influenced the development of the Novus Ordo Mass. The Mass has restorationist tendencies (as is characteristic of the Resourcement movement of the era) built into it. The defects of La Nouvelle Theologie are baked into the N.O. Mass. Trads simply want the Mass to be historically consistent and the last time that occurred was in 1962. This is not a cultural issue; it is an issue of consistency. Have you read the documents of Vatican II related to the Mass? Show me how the N. O. Mass reflects the Council Father’s wishes and you might have a point. Otherwise, it is not wrong to ask that the Church follow its own guidelines.

    The Chicken

  25. TonyO says:

    maternalView makes excellent points.

    Speaking of the “historical facts”, there is of course SOME degree of variation across times and cultures, but it is still largely the case that for most cultures for most of history, moms spent more time at home with the children than working fathers did. Sometimes those very mothers were ALSO working, but (again, largely) the nature of the work allowed them to be in the home more of the time: taking in laundry, or sewing, for example. This was essential in the years they had a nursing child, because the child (especially a young infant) needs to nurse often. And so if they had a child every 2 to 3 years, (unless the child died) they had to spend a lot of time near the child. (Working in the kitchen garden, while it could be backbreaking work, was still right near the home.)

    And it is true that children became workers at very young ages: on a farm, they were given child-sized chores to do even at age 5. But this happened in the home, under the supervision of the parents, who (mostly) had the child’s best interest at heart and didn’t intend child-production in excess of the child’s own best interest. When we turned into an industrialized society, the attempt was to carry over child-labor into factories and mines, to severe damage to our society – not least because the factory and mine owners did not have the children’s best interests at heart. As a society, we rebelled against that THAT particular evolution of social practices, by outlawing child labor in the factories. (We did not outlaw child labor at home.) But this took several decades after the implementation of factories and industrialization. So once we returned to the sensible state of having the children under the supervision of their parents, and not expecting them to feed the family with their labor, but have not given up industrial society, we cannot pretend that “child labor was the historical norm” without heavily qualifying it.

    Similarly: in earlier cultures, very few could afford enough education to read. In our modern culture, everyone NEEDS to be able to read even to live at a minimal level of functioning. Thus all must receive education, and thus the time and resources must be allocated to educating children. It is no longer legitimate to argue what is reasonable today on what was reasonable in the year 1400. But given that education IS available to (and received by) nearly all, today, it is perfectly reasonable to base child-rearing on that assumption. So, for example, a mom staying at home to raise and educate her children at home is more possible now than it was 70 years ago.

    But it is, rather obviously, silly to the point of being quite nonsensical to attack those families who chose to have mom stay at home and educate the kids, on the basis of “seeking a past that never actually existed.” What poppycock! Homeschooling never existed like it does now, and seeking that just isn’t seeking the past. Mom’s working FROM HOME while they stay with their kids is happening in vast numbers – as we found it is possible with COVID – and while they might be doing work that is different from their great, great-grandmothers who worked from home, they are putting in the love and care of raising their children, as did their great, great-grandmothers.

    The REAL behavior of the typical family that attends the TLM is less monolithic than, perhaps, it was in 1950, and it is usually VERY different in detail while carrying out the same orthodox perspectives on what is important in life. That’s not nostalgia.

    (Nota bene: it is possible that j stark has been influenced by ONE SECTOR of TLM people, and (perhaps) mostly those of an older generation who were, in part, motivated by nostalgia AS WELL as by love of orthodox truth. But by now that’s only a small portion of the TLM community(s), and anyone who looks at it with fresh eyes will see that it runs the gamut, and includes not a few people who don’t go there to rehash old wounds or to lay guilt trips on others, but are young people who simply love it. I know young people in my own family who are among that slice: they don’t have the old hang-up arguments about “which one is better” or anything like that, they just love the old mass, and are content with that.)

  26. Not says:

    So many great comments.
    J Stark, your attack seams to be on the people who attend the TLM and their families. You don’t question the Traditional Latin Mass. Instead your attack is on generations of us, none of us perfect, all of us flawed, all of us trying desperately to live our lives in God’s grace. Don’t know who put the bee in your bonnet or stepped on your toes. It is obvious you have condemned us all.

  27. Lurker 59 says:

    @j stark

    “both are dangerous and lead to ruin; how many people have been put off returning to the Ancient Mass because of an encounter with a Mad or Sad Trad.”

    Not really. If you notice, there are not equivalent pejoratives to “mad/sad trad”. Generally speaking, the sanctimonious heterodox person is trying to take something away or prevent from obtaining, while the sanctimonious traditionalist is trying to give something. In the Parable of the Pharasee, the heterodox person is not present — they are the foolish commentator who things both are wrong because both are engaging in religious worship when they should be engaging is social justice.


    In terms of your social commentary: It seems that you share a confusion with modernists. Traditionalists are not trying to get back to the ’50s social norms because, at least as far as the US goes, the social norms of the ’50s are predicated upon the Protestant idea of individualism and the individual being the building block of society. That is not Catholic. Already by the ’50s you are bringing to see a post modernism with Protestant social norms becoming infected by the acceptance and prevalence of contraception increasing prevalence of no fault divorce and a further loss of the centraility of the family and a breakdown of the purpose and function of gender within human society and its function for the Kingdom. Catholic culture was always counter cultural in the US and by the ’50s there was a substantial divergance between Catholic, Protestant, and the normative Post-Protestant social culture (in Protestant Land, this divergence would lead to the 4th Great Awakening in the 60s). Traditionalists are not trying to get that social state back, but to restore Catholic social norms, which are not, nor have they ever been, equivalent to any period of social norms in the US.

  28. gdweber says:

    The Rorate story has been updated with clarifications.

  29. redneckpride4ever says:

    @j stark

    ” a black and white view of morality”

    Way to destroy your entire entry almost at the start.

Comments are closed.