A couple weeks back Hell’s Bible (aka NYT) published an airy yet vicious attack piece about Catholics who attended the Traditional Latin Mass. Apparently, if you go to the Vetus Ordo, you might be a white right-wing extremist of some kind, never mind your melanin ratio or eye-shape.
The Federalist reacted to the NYT piece. It brought something up that I think is at the core of the fear and hatred of the TLM, or rather, the people who want it. They fear and hate the people.
Graham [the NYT writer] mischievously claims that it’s a “brand of new hard-right rhetoric … in some Catholic communities online” that’s drawing many Catholics to the Latin Mass. She even drops some names, including popular Catholic podcaster, author, and theologian Taylor Marshall as well as Church Militant, which Graham breezily brushes off as a “hard-right multimedia site that rails against [a] homosexuality, [b] pandemic restrictions and [irrelevant] Pope Francis.”
Most of those who are actively trying to crush out the Vetus Ordo, or rather the people who want it, trot out their theological Gnosticism about how antithetical it is to the “spirit” of the Council, which isn’t precisely spelled out from the texts of the Council but rather from the Council documents tone.
That’s B as in B, S as in S, of course. But I suspect that 99% of the hostiles are really a) psychosexually confused and are acting on that confusion and/or b) hold a utopian globalist, one world agenda that involves climate change and population control, which is why they were and probably still are tyrannical about the “jab” and masks.
Hence, all the cant about the “spirit” of the Council aside, the TLM, and people who want it, triggers them into spittle-flecked nutties.
It seems to me that Traditionis custodes could have been more about those issues than – really – about the new Pentecost springtime which will burst upon us when at long last the Council is realized. Unless, of course, the springtime is really about population control for the sake of saving the Earth from human parasites and reducing every sexual act to something sterile and, ultimately, hostile.
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I read the NYT piece when it came out. I read some of the comments by grateful TLMers and sarcastic anti TLMers. I looked at the admittedly lovely photos puzzled. Then I realized the photo shoot probably was staged. Looking at it that way I felt the whole piece was manufactured and ignored it.
Why don’t they leave the Church and go away. These (anti-)Catholics would hardly be missed! Except the dark one; it would miss their mischief and dastardly deeds…
For crying out loud people, if there is a good piece on the TLM (the New York Times article was front page, above the fold, in print) then go with it! How many people saw and read that piece — and loved it? I know I did. Millions of readers were presented with a positive major media article on the TLM, complete with beautiful photos. Stop it with the conspiracy theories.
[The photos were indeed attractive. You are taking the Oscar Wilde approach, I see. That’s one way to see it!]
The NYT never rights an article unless told to for political reasons.
Did this come right from Francis or one of his underlings?
Disclaimer – Have not read the NYT article in question, and have read the rebuttal.
At least in my opinion, one tremendous issue for trads (and any group, regardless of their politics, interests or goals) is for toxic, loud-mouth, opionated fools (colluqially known as “rad” or “toxic” trads) to be placed on a pedestal and worshipped as though they were a golden calf. Outsiders who stumble upon this type of content online may well take it to be representative of the majority, when it is not. It seems quite plausible this is the basis of the NYT article.
My impression of traditional Catholicism has not been helped by what appears on certain forums catering for trads. Although my initial conversion was spurred on by sites like CatholicAnswers.
I am also rather cautious about “celebrities” in Catholicism, be they Bishops, Priests or otherwise – of whatever political or liturgical persuasion. It seems there are those who perhaps started with good intentions on an issue they were versed in, who subsequently diversified into areas where their knowledge was lacking, in an attempt to stay “relevant” (or maybe because they needed to sell more books and DVDs).
If those of particular notoriety could be starved of money, and attention and fizzle away, we might stand a chance against quashing the sorts of gross misrepresentations of Catholicism that exist.
Within our Church communities, we might also like to invite friends, include them in social activities, so they can get to know real trads (and hopefully) learn that not all trads are raging lunatics.
Another case of Lilliput’s finest men of science “discovering” that the tail wags the dog.
My new old copy of a much beloved (by me) Father Schall book arrived today, and from beyond the grave he has kindly reminded me to read St. Augustine’s “Confessions” again:
“Quis mihi dabit, ut venias in cor meum, et inebries illud, ut obliviscar mala mea, et unum bonum meum amplectar te?…Dic animae meae: Salus tua ego sum. Sic dic, ut audiam. Ecce aures cordis mei ante te Domine: aperi eas, et dic animae meae, Salus tua ego sum. Noli abscondere a me faciem tuam: moriar, ne moriar, ut eam videam.”
That is why we go to the Vetus Ordo. The politics happens later.
Last I checked, “conservative Novus ordo” Catholics felt the same on the “issues” the New York Slime had with “TLM” Catholics.
It reminds me of when Francis first got in and leftist Sen. Patrick Leahy from the People’s Republic of Vermont began praising him and started “recollecting” about the days of Irish Need Not Apply.
Fast forward years later to Vigano calling out sexual abuse and the New York Slime has a headline saying Francis “takes the high road”. I would bet my Honda Pilot that would not have been the headline had JPII or BXVI been in the papal office.
The media treat the Church like the federal government. If you’re orthodox you’re a Nazi. If you’re a liberal Episcopalian at heart you’re amazing.
Anyone with a 2-digit IQ can see through such askew, foolhardy propaganda.
I remind you readers of Fr. Z’s blog that the bitter, raging battles between TLM-loving Catholics and Spirit-of-Vatican II Catholics, carried out in the open, in the MSM and social media, does not happen in many other countries. I travel a lot and have been to the TLM in Asia and Europe. The TLM is being slowly choked off in those places, too, but you don’t have these crazy types buzzing around, getting a lot of attention: toxic trads, PF fanatics, conspiracy theorists, etc. You do not see this level of hatred and insanity. I think it has to do with social media. The craziest people get the most likes and shares.
I think what is at the heart of the hatred for traditional Catholicism is that it sees us as sinners in need of redemption and that redemption involves change. The world, whether it is the secular world outside of the Church, or many in the Church who are part of the “Church of Nice” as Michael Voris would say, do not want redemption but want affirmation, that they are just fine the way they are, maybe a little enhancement around the edges but basically OK. Instead traditional Catholicism says “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me”.
jonPatrick.
It’s not a matter of looking on Latin oriented Catholics as sinners. Rather, they are considered to be unenlightened.
@robtbrown yes, my comment was poorly worded. It is Traditional Catholics that see themselves as sinners in need of redemption.
I read the NYT piece on the TLM. Normally, the NYT does deserve the title of Hell’s Bible. [Ummm… ] The non Christian outsider-looking-in perspective is clear in this piece. My main reaction about the *rising right wing trend in American Christianity* prompted me to think: Faithful Catholics thinking against liberal and woke ideology? Imagine. Catholics actually being faithful to Church teaching. Gives me hope for the future of the Church.