WOW. I am a bit at a loss for words, after reading this. It is dead on. I would only quibble with one small part, but even in that he has a point that ought to be considered.
There are so many things I would like to quote. Allow me to be a little self-referential. He describes almost exactly what I experienced in a US seminary:
…
Nope. I am going to have you go there and read it.
Bring your favorite quotes back here. (Try not to cut and paste the whole thing.)
Here’s one:
What they want is precisely to reignite the fires of that revolution and to reopen the debates over women’s ordination, contraception, intercommunion with Protestants, communion for the divorced and remarried, the legitimation of homosexual sex, cohabitation, and a greenlighting of the whole LGBTQ+IA++ world of sexual acronyms. And if you doubt this just look at Jimmy Martin’s dance card in Rome or the list of issues that the Germans, Belgians, Dutch, Australians, and Irish bishops have put forward. Cardinal Tobin just released the results of Newark’s “listening” sessions and, as I have written elsewhere, it seems as if the Holy Spirit thinks just like the ladies on The View. This is not new. We have seen it before. This is not our first ecclesial rodeo and we did not just fall off the ecclesial turnip truck yesterday. But we are being played for fools as if we do not see what is plainly in view and the sooner we start speaking frankly about all of this the better.
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The nugget at the bottom of the pan…
“But the Catholic theological guild of the post-conciliar era was too stupid to see that this is the eventual outcome of Liberalism. As a cannibalistic and parasitical entity from its birth it could only eventuate in its own nihilistic self-immolation. And when I say that these Catholic thinkers were stupid I mean “stupid” as in stupid. They were intellectually deficient and obtuse on a global scale. Just educated enough to sound like Heidegger, Kant, and Hegel, but not nearly smart enough to understand them, they proceeded to redefine Catholicism in a manner that can only be described as a different religion altogether, but still using the same symbols and terms, and through it all too ignorant to understand that this is what they were doing.”
One of the strong reasons (among many, it turned out) for my conversion to Catholicism was its relentless and essential tie to objective reality.
This gives me a pretty useful test for any modernist assertion: “Sure, yeah, but is what you are saying coherent with objective reality?” Turns out, a lot of the time, the answer can be reduced to a simple snort of derision; an out of hand dismissal of the whole body of work due to a clear, obvious and fundamental flaw at the heart of the work.
This author seems to have hit on just that point, though teasing it out of the text requires you to have an educational background that is no longer common.
That’s the dirty secret of most Gnostics; their assertions are rooted in “because I say so, and how DARE you question what I say?!”
I shouldn’t be amazed by this but I am. These issues have been discussed over and over and over again and shut down again and again and again.
Are we at the point where a Pope has to Declare, Pronounce and Define that these issues are null and void?
I forwarded a link to this article a few days ago.
I don’t know if it was my email that prompted you, but I knew that it was something that resonated with your thoughts on the Synod.
Larry Chapp truly nailed it.
[With some flaws and holes.]
“ The synodal way looks for all intents and purposes like a set of a priori theological conclusions in search of a legitimating process.”
“ the fig leaf of juridical respectability covering their apostate loins.”
To me the entire endeavor of reformation (revolution) within the Church has always sought to have the veneer of legitimacy. Without it how can they keep the donations flowing from the laity? Vatican II was the first fig leaf, as a certain bishop always refers to the Conciliar Church. Unfortunately, that leaf is not big enough to legitimize the next moves to be made. The synodal way is that leaf big enough to hide under, they hope. They know most of the Catholic laity in the West are happily mired in sexual and reproductive sin so those poor souls might applaud the changes as progress or not put up much of a struggle. As has so oft been referenced…
The apostasy did indeed begin at the top.
But the Church triumphant is on top of them and that heavenly authority will prevail.
The author is right, of course . . . the ’70s liberals that dominated the Church back then only went into temporary eclipse during the JPII/BXVI pontificates – the Bergoglian coup is their resurgence, and under him they are steadily taking over all the leadership positions in the Church.
I see no human agency that’s capable of stopping the takeover – the matter is in God’s hands.
I remember saying to my daughter a few years ago that I thought all that 70s stuff had disappeared.
Nope.
This explains why.
It’s all so tiresome. But we do need to call them out.
“Yes, it’s rigid as you call it and I LIKE IT THAT WAY. The end.”
I’m tired of being on the defensive and so I won’t be any more.
Favorite line:
So why did they not just do that in the first place? Because they really thought that the faux democracy of the synodal way would produce the desired results which would give them the pretext to do what they were going to do anyway, but now with the fig leaf of juridical respectability covering their apostate loins.
I thought it was wonderful but someone trod into the weeds re LC’s acknowledgement that ‘church teaching has changed’, he would say in the sense ‘developed’; I forget what the issue cited was. Which ‘development’ is after all a term of art and not a simplistic black-and-white thing so I can understand questions. I hope that the Pope appoints him prefect of the Dicastery for Explaining Contemporary Ecclesiastical Reality to Prelates.
He nailed it. The ‘synod’ pushers aren’t even trying to hide their agenda. Not even a little. They’ve become emboldened. But I truly believe their arrogance will be their downfall.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“[W]hen I say that these Catholic thinkers were stupid I mean “stupid” as in stupid. They were intellectually deficient and obtuse on a global scale. Just educated enough to sound like Heidegger, Kant, and Hegel, but not nearly smart enough to understand them, they proceeded to redefine Catholicism in a manner that can only be described as a different religion altogether, but still using the same symbols and terms, and through it all too ignorant to understand that this is what they were doing.
Yes, yes, some of it was deliberate and calculated. But I lived through this period. I knew these people. And most of them were well-meaning, but stupid, rather than Catholic versions of Dr. Evil in his underground volcanic lair plotting the destruction of the world.
They simply had grown tired of the effort required to maintain the cognitive dissonance between Tridentine Catholicism and modernity in some kind of tolerable psychological modus vivendi, and had thrown in the towel and joined the modern world as Stockholm syndrome participants.
“The Germans were fond of making sweeping generalizations about “modern man” along the lines of what it is that “modern man” can “no longer accept or believe”. In reality, all they were describing was the bourgeois Angst of highbrow culture in places like Cologne and Munich and confusing that with every culture on the planet. Which is a move you can make only if you are assuming that your own culture is somehow paradigmatic in a “cutting-edge” and normative kind of way for all others.
…
And once again, what is old is new again, and as it was in 1975 so it is again in 2022. Like that ugly paisley fat neck tie that has hung in your closet for decades without use but which is now in vogue again, the Germans have paused from their secular preoccupations long enough to put that Church tax to good use and to rouse the 2% of Catholics who still attend Mass there to denounce that Church in the name of the Church in the hopes of getting people back to Church.
Mr. Chapp is a ressourcement theologian who operates a Catholic Worker farm and attends an Anglican Ordinariate parish. So this article can’t be put off as some sort of “rad trad” diatribe. He is telling it as he sees it, with clarity and directness.
While he’s bang on about many things, it’s a little distressing to see someone like this be so dismissive of the liturgy. He seems to have a serious animosity towards the Traditional Latin Mass and those who support it. While I don’t mean to knock Africans and South Americans who are faithful and who go to the Novus Ordo, in the Anglo world it’s the Latin Mass where one finds faithful families with lots of children. How can someone like this think this is backwards or tin-foil-hat type of stuff?
As a lay member I find it disheartening that the good and righteous clergy are not turning the ecclesiastical tables and tossing out clearly homosexual and other malformed priests.
It seems there won’t be anyone with the faith of St. Nicholas and step us to slap todays Arian.
…. So we are left to fast and pray and suffer. I look forward to the persecution that will come to the truly faithful.
There is much talk in my circles about this future and they say we’ll have to go to back to the catacombs to worship.
My reaction is I say no to that. I believe it’s our role to be the persecuted and we should not cower underground. Let them drag me away from the altar rail a king to relieve my Lord. Let them see us praise and profess one God and the Holy Trinity. Put the truth right in their face.
“There was a strange and ironic ecclesiolatry going on as well since all of the emphasis was upon the Church as the generator of truth, and in this case, new truths, and not on the Church as the preserver of truths that had been gifted to her by God in Revelation.“
I would like to add that the author does not really understand the transformative power of the traditional Latin Mass. They could not do what they want to do with that Mass in place. A priest who celebrates the TLM with devotion is transformed by it and so are his parishioners. I have seen it with my own eyes.
[Yes. This is the “knock on” effect that I keep talking about. I wonder if Chapp has seen any of that.]
Father, I just read the whole piece. Wonderfully written and so much of it is true. The following from Mr. Chapp definitely resonated:
“Never mind that the listening is being done using thoroughly unscientific polling methods, and never mind that only about 1% of Catholics worldwide have participated in the process (if even that many), and never mind that the vast, vast, vast majority of Catholics have no idea that there even is an upcoming “big meeting on meetings” and do not give a rat’s petard one way or the other, there is a message to get out and that message is that the Holy Spirit is now speaking through the questionnaires sent out by faceless diocesan apparatchiks and which were curated by the same.”
But Father, as I finished reading the whole piece… I just feel defeated. I don’t want to despair. But if it’s all happening again from the 1970’s, and seminaries are going to swing back to purging orthodox priests, and younger, orthodox theologians will be shut out again from any place of prominence, what can my voice accomplish? Mr. Chapp paints a bleak picture.
I’m a millennial husband and father. I have several sons. My oldest isn’t even 10. “Why should I encourage them to be priests?”, I find myself asking. If the 1970s are really coming back, and so many of my older relatives either left the Church or straight up apostatized during that time, how will the same not happen to my sons? Again, this piece is necessary and written very well, but it’s so bleak and I find myself worrying.
Inbetween reading this piece and writing this comment, I prayed Compline. I found comfort in the following from Psalm 4:
“In peace shall I sleep, Lord, in peace shall I rest: firm in the hope you have given me.”
I need to trust in our Lord even more. He is my only hope. I pray the Lord gives me restful sleep tonight, but I worry so much for my sons. I worry about the countless souls that are being led astray by the people Mr. Chapp describes. What do my wife and I do, Father? Knowing everything as it’s laid out in this piece from Mr. Chapp, what do we do? Please pray for me and my family.
[Do not despair. These are not the 70-80s. Just as conservatives in the USA had a rather limited reach with the great Wm. F. Buckley… then came RUSH and talk radio. Then came the INTERNET. These are not the 70-80s. We have plenty of force multipliers now and the “lived experience” of years of Summorum Pontificum.]
“And the few bishops that are resistant tend to be easily dismissible traditionalist blunt instruments like Bishop Strickland and Athanasius Schneider whose answer to the crisis seems to be little more than a call to return to the very Tridentine form of the Church that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Author in the comments:
“I stand by my characterizations. You are free not to read my posts in the future. Nor do I write with an eye toward my “credibility”. I write what I think is true. I will let others decide on my credibility.
Strickland in particular is problematic. The kind of restorationist, Tridentine Catholicism that he and Schneider and bishops like them promote is a complete dead end.
Have a nice day.”
[Firstly, I am not sure who those other bishops are. Also, I am not convinced that he knows what Schneider and other “restorationists” want. He makes a characterization of “Tridentine Catholicism”, but for the most part those who desire the Vetus Ordo don’t want to exclude everything to do with Vatican II. Hence, that’s a straw man. Chapp seems to be wrong about this, but perhaps he will evolve once he thinks a little more about what, precisely, is to be done and by whom, given his diagnosis.]
If we could only get Chapp onboard the internet and into great Catholic theologians like Rush and Wm F Buckley…
Since Chapp has seemingly rejected the resurgence of the Vetus Ordo and the corresponding growth of traditional parishes as a solution to this crisis, I’m not sure what he sees as a way out of this mess.
I follow Dr. Chapp on social media. While he is critical of the attitudes and outlooks of some within the Traditionalist Movement (and let’s face it, there are some things we can work on), he also is extremely critical of Traditionis Custodes, and believes that Traditionalists have a legitimate voice in the Church. I particularly enjoy the discussions he has with Peter Kwasniewski, all done politely and charitably.
From the Office of Readings Oct 8 – Second Reading – a homily from St. Leo the Great seems appropriate to our current situation.
There is something else about the life of the shepherds, dearest brothers, which discourages me greatly. But lest what I claim should seem unjust to anyone, I accuse myself of the very same thing, although I fall into it unwillingly—compelled by the urgency of these barbarous times. I speak of our absorption in external affairs; we accept the duties of office, but by our actions we show that we are attentive to other things. We abandon the ministry of preaching and, in my opinion, are called bishops to our detriment, for we retain the honorable office but fail to practice the virtues proper to it. Those who have been entrusted to us abandon God, and we are silent. They fall into sin, and we do not extend a hand of rebuke.
But how can we who neglect ourselves be able to correct someone else? We are wrapped up in worldly concerns, and the more we devote ourselves to external things, the more insensitive we become in spirit.
“Catholic genital Gnostics”! Priceless.
Franscisco12: ‘I’m a millennial husband and father. I have several sons. My oldest isn’t even 10. “Why should I encourage them to be priests?”’
Because we are the Church Militant, and do not flee before the enemy.
“Poperah Winfrey Catholicism”
It’s “Damn, we’re in a tight spot.” One of my favorite lines from a film I consider excellent for so many reasons. I’m surprised someone as accurate as Dr. Chapp (never heard of him previous to this, but he’s obviously a smart guy) would get this wrong.
Dr. Chapp shuts the door, locks it, then blows it all up. I was not in seminary, but every word he wrote had me reading with growing enthusiasm, because his Truth Bombs are just so incredibly accurate, any Catholic with discernment should know it is a superb analysis of who, why, and what we have been witnessing lo these many years. He nails it. Fr. Z sees he nails it, and both of these men lived it. I’ll take their word for it because it comports 100% with the malignancy that has obviously taken over the church and from which we now all suffer. We could all write this summary, if we had the creative vocabulary this gentleman has. We know this is dead on accurate.
I’d have to post the whole darn thing to cite my favorite points. But the stand outs in terms of just bringing it to them is “genital gnosticism”, an ugly term but somehow a thing of beauty because these men are vulgar and ugly and clearly non-believers in anything but themselves and their (or someone else’s) nether regions. There is their god and that being the case why are we surprised at our ugly new church filled with ugly new apostastes and ugly new liturgy. This is what men who worship genitals would come up with, isn’t it?
“Easily dismissable traditionalists Bishop Strickland and Athanasius Schneider…”, this part was the one place he lost me. I’ll give him this, could they do more, you bet, and they should. It’s on them that they don’t, but in a world of hatchets, a butter knife starts looking like your friend.
It would require a forensic sociologist to explain why people need to distance themselves from the imperfect, but good, rather than appear to embrace them. They distance themselves from them, one suspects, because in their heart of hearts they ascribe to a side they’d rather keep hidden, so this they must do lest they be lumped in with “those people”, as he puts it, the ones full of “lunacy”. When I hear someone do this, such as Trump-hater-weenies, I believe I’m hearing a person who is worried about their own membership in a particular club and is clarifying their loyalties. I don’t know, it’s all very weird and confusing. I’m not a psychologist. What a shame Dr. Chapp went that easy route, especially in light of his barn-burner here, but so many do the same. He made sure to clarify his side by defining those bishops, who I would identify as at least friendly to traditionalists and western culture as “tinfoil hat wingnuts”. Here Dr. Chapp tells you something about himself. We are in a battle for survival, and Dr. Chapp tells us our few tepid friends are every bit as bad as the destroyers and madmen. That’s profoundly wrong.
This is a shame, because his take-down analysis is just epic, and worthy of being kept in an archive so future generations of archeologists can understand exactly why Catholicism stopped being practiced and eventually disappeared.
I am a pastor who was notified in recent weeks by two families in the parish that they leaving the Latin Church for Orthodoxy
One family has been received into Western Rite Orthodoxy (the TLM in English) and the other into the Orthodox Church in America.
In speaking with them I pointed out that the Catholic Churches provide for these needs (albeit the TLM is in Latin, but there is the Ordinariate).
They responded by telling me they knew where they stood and where the Church stood in Orthodoxy. The were not leaving for beautiful Liturgies or church buildings but for the expressions of the Faith. The various statements by the pope and his minions, the sloppy and often silly way the NO is offered and poor catechesis pushed them “over”.
They see the only difference between the Orthodox and Rome is the developed authority of the bishop of Rome and the way the Latin Church developed, especially since VII. For them, the Filioque, VC1 and the recent Marian dogmas are not about the Faith but papal authority to change an Ecumenical Creed and force theological opinions as deviations of the Catholic Churches.
Francis was their tipping point. In him, they saw papal authority used and abused.
We will miss them and pray for them.
We need an Athanasius to start slapping heretics.
Judging from the comments on Dr. Chapp, his “tinfoil hat wingnuts” comment makes more sense. He doesn’t like political conservatives, probably the American type most of all. That barb was meant for them as well. He’s a complicated character then, why isn’t he rejoicing. There is no happy middle anymore. Pick your side man.
Considering the insults this referenced article doled out to the honorable bishops who defend the sanctity of the holy mass, and the direct hit to the TLM- I am confused as to its promotion.
Other then getting people riled up with its odd and graphic and strange word choices-this Chap lends himself to his own “wing nut “ description.
He says that seminarians have been leaning right but now will swing back left. [How he knows that is a mystery to me.] To which I will answer, what seminarians? No need to hide your alphabetic status in seminary anymore. [I’m not so sure about that!] Go be that way in everyone’s face everywhere. [Ummm… I don’t think so.] There may be fewer right leaning seminarians, but that’s because there aren’t any seminarians. [TRUE! At least for dioceses. There won’t be any lack for the FSSP, SSPX etc.]
It’s a great piece, with fantastic metaphors and wonderfully insightful connections all over the place.
In addition to the unneeded barbs he throws at Trads, the one place where he needs to beef up his understanding of what is going on is here:
Their chosen method for advancing this revolution is the so-called synodal way. But from where I sit the whole fetid enterprise reeks of a fimiculous rot filled with cynical doublespeak. The synodal way looks for all intents and purposes like a set of a priori theological conclusions in search of a legitimating process. Their interest does not reside in a true reform of the juridical structures of the Church and a de-emphasis on the hyper papalism of the past 200 years. If I thought that is what they were after I would support them. But that is not what they are truly after. If they had respect for their own rhetoric concerning a more synodal Church then they would respect the synodal process, which they do not…
Furthermore, if Pope Francis is desirous of a more synodal Church then why does his papacy rule through the autocratic method of motu proprio diktats from on high so frequently?
So close, but he doesn’t quite get it. Or at least, doesn’t quite state it explicitly, even though he points toward it. Yes, it is true that the synodal way was meant to arrive at a pre-determined endpoint, and the process dreamed up was loosey-goosey precisely so they could CLAIM “the people want X” instead of Y, with (of course) Y being real, actual Catholicism.
But underneath THAT intention was the more important one: not only does “the synodal process” have a pre-determined goal (and it isn’t listening to the HOLY Spirit), the process was meant to place power directly into the Vatican’s hands. Maybe the national synods will announce individual goals, like “blessing” on homosexuals, but THE Synod will have only and exactly the outcome that is dictated by the pope and his thugs of the Vatican bureaucracies. The pope will announce what is the end-result, and the pope will direct the actions to be taken as a result of THE Synod. And those diktats will centralize even MORE of the power into the Vatican than there was before.
In my estimation: in this way, when some (probably future) figure from Rome announces what is (in effect) the “transformation” of the Catholic Church into the shape of a World Religious Conference’s totalitarian vision of a single world religion of unity (read: suppression, control, materialism, and liberal sexual ethics) they will be able to make it stick. They think. They have counted out God’s action, because they don’t listen to Him.
But the real goal is control, and behind that is never anything more or less than mere absolute will to power. These nihilists are smart enough to work behind the overt language of “reform”, and to get all the stupid liberalistas working on their behalf, but in the end the stupid liberalistas will end up with nothing they wanted, since there’s no “there” there to the “process” they all talk about. The only “peace” they will get is the peace of a grave in a communistic religious dictatorship.
With many here I agree that Chapp is absolutely on target when he is attacking the progressives or whatever one wants to call them, but he is also shooting himself in the foot in the sense that his attempt to find a way between “Tridentine” Catholicism and the woke insanity will not work. Say what you want about the promoters of woke insanity, but they are logically consistent: they have their principles and they work out the consequences of their principles to their inexorable conclusions. You can have Schneider or Hollerich; tertium non datur.
The author makes some valid points, but he seems to paint traditional Catholics with a broad brush. He lauds the New Mass, but doesn’t attend it.
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What WVC wrote.
Though as to the question “How can someone like this think this is backwards or tin-foil-hat type of stuff?”… well, maybe because of the bishop he does not name. Archbishop Viganò really has gone on a tinfoil-hat type of path. Alas.
Auxbishop Schneider, whom he does name, however, has not. (About Bishop Strickland I know too little.)