TLM: Say “Thanks” To The SSPX

Thanks, SSPX!

And it came to pass we were informed from high places the Tridentine Mass is not in danger during the current Pontificate.

I must say I had to smile.

Firstly, I invite you to consider that in the end no one can speak for the Bishop of Rome, who will do what he thinks best (or worst) irrespective of what Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos has said, or even of what he might have said to others. There will always be a new situation that will allow him to say that new measures are now necessary.

Secondly, the reason adduced for Francis’ forbidding the priest of the FFI to celebrate the Tridentine Mass can be used ad libitum in the future. If six dissidents are reason enough to forbid 400 priests (says Wikipedia) from celebrating the Mass of the Ages, its “divisiveness” (divisiveness that is most certainly there: a good Mass and a bad Mass are opposed here, it is clear emotions will run high) can be used at a pretext at any given time to go back to the Indult regime. If memory serves (but I might be wrong) Francis has already made an “off-the-cuff” remark about the divisiveness of the Tridentine Mass as intended by the Traditionalists.

Thirdly and most importantly, Francis is, in this matter as in many others, not entirely free to do as he pleaseth. The Indult does not exist because JP II was oh so generous, but because the SSPX was stubborn to the point of heroism. If it had not been for the Society, the Tridentine Mass would have been, to all intents and purposes (though not officially, but there would have been no need for that), wiped out completely from Church life. You can think for yourself whether the Pinocchio-slash-Tango Mass Pope would keep such a “Pelagian” exercise alive if he had a real (as in: practically feasible and not dangerous for his popularity) choice.

From what has emerged up to now, it seems clear Francis is a professional of hunting with the hounds and running with the hare. He will be pro-life speaking to pro-lifers, and “not obsessed” when he wants to please the pro-death fraction. He will say that he who is not with Jesus is with the devil when he speaks to clerics, and say that one is fine to deny Jesus and follow his conscience to the atheists; he will allow himself liturgical abuses with photos all over the planet to show he is “modern”, and celebrate ad orientem when he thinks it’s time to give some bird feed to the conservative pigeons.

No. Francis isn’t fine with the Mass of the Ages. If he were free to choose, you’d have Pinocchios everywhere, and the occasional obscene dance on the Sanctuary. Rather, he has apparently decided he does not need to open this front, because the flak would be rather frightful and the SSPX would greatly profit from it.

Let us hope Francis never feels strong enough to do such a thing. Let us keep our criticism vocal, and very explicit. As Jorge Bergoglio is so much in love with Pope Francis and mindful of his popularity (I am told Miley Cyrus does the same, though in a different manner), the best way to avoid things getting worse is to be very vocal and open in our criticism of how bad they already are.

God knows they are already worse than the most pessimistic mind could have thought only nine months ago. Though strangely enough very few seem to realise it.

Mundabor

Francis And The Poor Blogger

“What is a poor Blogger to do”, is the question that I now pose to myself almost every day as Francis' antics multiply, fully uncaring of the scandal they give, or else a more and more disquieting picture of the pre-Francis past of Jorge Bergoglio emerges.

It would be, of course, very wrong and very sinful to address the man in the same way I would with, say, a David Cameron or Enda Kenny. In the case of the Bishop of Rome, we must exercise that restraint that comes not from respecting the man (frankly, I don't. “Unworthy of the habit” is the way I would describe him to a non-Catholic or a Catholic alike), but from loving the office.

Here, though, the problem begins. The enormity of what is happening – an enormity to which many have got accustomed with astonishing speed – cannot in my eyes be expressed with nuanced and in the end ineffective expressions of more or less strong reservation for Francis' actions. In the end, our yes should be yes and our no should be no. The message must come through without any equivocation, and without any hesitation. To simply say that one is “confused” doesn't say much, because put it that way the confusion might not be Francis' fault, not even when such “confusion” is due to obvious heresy. Similarly, when one says that certain expressions could have been avoided, one neglects the enormity of their meaning and denies the enormity of the damage they cause. It is not done with half words.

To this you must add that I cannot change myself in a foreigner by simply writing in a foreign language. We Southern Europeans have rather powerful emotions, or alternatively you northerners and assorted Anglo-Saxons are incapable of any. By us when the blood boils, the tongue will tell. I do not see anything wrong with that, and even if I did I doubt I could do much in the years God has left me.

Unavoidably, the one or other blog post will go against your grain. So be it. This is the blog of a fiery Italian, and if you don't like the way I write there are plenty of Anglo-Saxon bloggers waiting for your click. But if you click here, please make allowances for different cultural climates and dissimilarity of temperament.

Before I write a post, I often ask myself in which case would I be better off if suddenly hit by the already mentioned Boris Bus, or flower vase. I generally end up deciding I would be better off saying it as I see it, rather than playing diplomatician – which I am very bad at, anyway – with events that rival the worst 2,000 years of Church history have to offer in matter of shamelessness and scandal. And I am very sorry, but if you can't see the extent of the devastation and of the open heresy and omnipresent error now embraced as mainstream Catholicism and promoted by the very Pope you are not a part of the solution, but rather – if perhaps unwittingly so – of the problem.

Fair warning must, therefore, be given. Whatever name Francis has deserved for himself and is not – according to my judgment, not yours; see above under “temperament” – grossly insulting of the Papacy, I will use. If he makes a clown of himself, he will be called just that. If he is heretical, he will be called a heretic – and I don't care much if formal or material; this concerns rather his eternal salvation than the scandal objectively given -, and if he behaves like a child, he will be called a child.

It still pains me that I was hoping against hope when others had the gut to see clearly and say it as it is: when Rorate commented Francis' election with the title: “The Horror!” I did not want to believe things were that way, at least not so fast and without abundant evidence. Turns out the title was just right, the evidence is shocking and absolutely overwhelming, and “The Horror” is the title that should go on top of every second blog post about Pope Bergoglio.

The Papacy is not protected, but is rather insulted, if we consider Francis an even halfway acceptable occupant of the Sea of Peter. That Popes can be not only woefully inadequate, but outright heretics we know already from well-documented past history. Unpleasant as it is to have to recognise the pit of heresy and stupidity in which we have fallen, we can't say we do not have the instruments, and therefore the duty, to see and understand what is happening. One day we will be called to state what we have said when we saw the Tango danced on the sanctuary, and why. To have swimmed with the tide will, I am afraid, not be much of an extenuating circumstance. What is happening is far too evident, is a work of demolition carried out with such brutality that the excuse “I had not really understood what Francis wanted to do” will not help much.

One day we will called to say what we have done.

That day, I prefer to be told I was a tad too emotional.

Mundabor