The Hermeneutic Of Catholicism.

Fine Italian chocolate since 1826.

 

I fear that the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ has become the preferred tool of well-meaning eggheads and not so well-meaning heretics, while the rest of us puzzle over what the Church truly teaches these days.

What we need today is clear and unambiguous teaching at all levels of the hierarchy that does not rely on hermeneutics, but rather relies on clarity, and shuns ambiguity. We need clarity with clearly demonstrated continuity in all communications.

Thus Pat Archbold in one of his very good reflections, in which he complains that good, solid, Catholic texts – like all the encyclicals before the dratted Council – do not need any “hermeneutic”, whilst the “hermeneutic” has now in some quarters become an excuse to deny the reality of texts that have little of Catholic in them. I fully agree, though perhaps I use the word in a different context. 

I have always been a supporter of the hermeneutic of continuity, in the sense that I consider that every official text of the Church must be taken – whenever possible; Francis is a completely new ballgame – in a sense that is in harmony with what the Church believes.

So, the encyclicals of the darn V II can, largely, be read in an orthodox way; and in what they say that is in line with what has been previously taught, they are certainly fine. If Luther says “two and two is four” this is not less fine because Luther said it. Here, Luther has been truthful. No, really. 

This is, I think, the reason why not even the SSPX rejects the VII documents in toto, and why the Great Man himself signed – to my knowledge – all of them, which – to my knowledge – other refused to do. A bad document explaining the Truth in a bad way is still valid in the truth it teaches, because those truths cannot be invalidated just because wrapped in a mediocre or misleading document. Similarly, if a papal encyclical has some good things mixed with stupid or ambiguous or vaguely heretical or openly wrong statements, we might have to ask for the re-writing of the encyclical, but we will have to recognise the truth contained in its truthful parts in the meantime. We as Catholics cannot but read in a Catholic way, provided there is something Catholic to be read. 

If Francis were to write an encyclical in which the Trinity is correctly explained, and Muslims are said to believe in the same God as Christians, the second statement should be rejected as heretical, and the part concerning the Trinity should be accepted as truthful. To do anything else means to make truth dependent on who writes about it. 

oh, well…

 I have proposed some time ago a “hermeneutic of embarrassment”, consisting in taking everything that is valid in the V II encyclicals whilst acknowledging the crap job made by the Council Fathers in mixing the good with the stupid, the comfortable, the bad and the plain evil. I have also proposed, concerning the mentality of V II, a hermeneutic of extermination,  which I think is what the times are demanding from us. But in all this, I see no necessity to interpret the V II texts we have in any other way than reading them in a Catholic way, accepting whatever Catholicism they have in them and rejecting whatever is, in the actual words or in their erroneous hermeneutic, heterodox. 

Still, I think Mr Archbold makes a very valid point: the “hermeneutic of orthodoxy” has now gone so far that even openly heretical statements are twisted in the most astonishing way to try to give them an orthodox meaning. But you see, this is not an exercise in hermeneutic anymore, but in blindness and Pollyann-ism. 

There is no way “who am I to judge” can be interpreted as being anything else than secular crap. There is no way “there is no God!” can be interpreted anything else than a blasphemy. There is no way stating that the Blessed Virgin could have said “Lies!” at the foot of the Cross does not show that the one who makes such a statement does not understands jack of Catholicism, much less has any true devotion for the Blessed Virgin. There is no way stating that Christ misled the apostles can be interpreted in any other way than an offence to Christ. There is no way committing a grave liturgical abuse can be explained away as being anything else than a liturgical abuse. There is no way calling a proddie “brother bishop” can be understood in any way other than nonsense born of drunkenness, sheer stupidity or blank denial of Catholicism. Everyone of you has, I am sure, other examples.

In all these cases, there is simply no object for any hermeneutic. Words have meaning. Un-Catholic or anti-Catholic words just have a meaning deprived of, or contrary to, Catholicism.  You just can’t interpret shit into chocolate. 

The hermeneutic of embarrassment concerning the documents of V II, and the hermeneutic of extermination concerning the entire “ideology” of V II, must not lead us to close our eyes in front of the fact that heresy is heresy, nonsense is nonsense, and Francis is the enemy number one of Catholicism. These are facts that go beyond any effort of twisting the meaning of what is said. Meaning which, in the case of Francis, is perfectly clear before one begins the twisting. 

But by all means: in all we can, let us continue to extract whatever is good from Vatican documents, lest a narrative should emerge according to which what was good before is not good anymore now. So if anyone were to ask me “do you accept or reject the V II documents?” I would answer that I accept everything that must be accepted, and reject everything that must be rejected. How do I know which is which? By comparing with what has been stated in the past. It truly isn’t difficult. Truth has a way of letting alarm bells go off when someone is departing from it. In the case of Francis, the noise is deafening every time he opens that stupid, lewd old mouth of his. 

The Modernist mixes truth and error, and I will not reject the truth because it is mixed with error. But I certainly have the right – and, I think, the duty – to ask that those documents which either mix truth with error, or truth with ambiguity, be replaced by documents reflecting truth without ambiguity.

Not going to happen during this papacy, of course. The “hermeneutic of populism and socialism” is Francis’ preferred way of interpretation of pretty much everything. 

 

Mundabor 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let The World Take Care Of Its Own

Fire them.

 

Very interesting article on The Catholic Thing, revolving about two main issues:

1) the cost of the formation and upkeep of Catholic personnel, with or without holy orders.

2) the fact that some of these people, like the “sister” whose Creed begins and ends with the words “I do not believe in doctrine, I believe in love”, abuse the system and scrounge an entire life at the expense of those who, actually, believe in doctrine, not in what she (erroneously) calls “love”.  

I invite you to read the article. 

I personally would suggest the following: 

a) to Fr Pokorsky, I would suggest a bigger assertiveness in proclaiming Catholic doctrine. “Sister” and her ilk should, if you ask me, have the ground taken from under their feet with an uncompromising, very vocal, very assertive stance on Catholic doctrine. In my experience (and I have an awful lot of these experiences) when truth is said whole, loud, and without regard for sensitivities the subversive either shut up directly (most of them) because they see that it’s not the right weather for their silliness, or they are smashed against the wall of their own faithlessness, thus losing credibility among honest Catholics. I do not know whether Father gave “sister” a good dressing down in front of the others and prefers not to mention it in his post, but I surely hope he did. 

We are Catholics. We are counter cultural. We seek conflict, because this is what Jesus did. 

b) In general, I can’t avoid thinking “sister” should be deprived of her (not donned) habit and smashed on the street irrespective of age, health condition, and any cat involved.

Let the world care for their own. If Sister has no loyalty to Christ, she should not live at the expense of Christians. No one dies of cold and hunger in the modern United States. The Taxpayer takes care of it. Or the Catholic organisations which give shelter and food to the very poor, to which “sister” would be most heartily invited, and you’re welcome.

The taxpayer is largely secular, and therefore it is the largely secular taxpayer that – the modern social security system being what it is; I am not advocating it, merely registering its existence – should bear the cost of keeping these useless people alive. No one has a right to become, or remain, a religious sister. Particularly a “sister” whose faith is not Christianity, but her own view of “love”, and who openly rejects Christian doctrine. 

—–

The queue to the soup kitchen is there, ma’am. 

You see: I believe in both doctrine, and fairness. 

Mundabor

Revolution In Instalments

Mundabor's Blog

Stellar blog post from Father Ray Blake concerning the way our very image of God – with the obvious consequences in practically every aspect of life – was subtly but substantially subverted by Bugnini and his band of liturgical terrorists.

The blog post appears to have been removed, or I cannot find it anymore. Perhaps it will reappear. The main message of the post was that the careful selection of the readings in the New Missal gave a different image of Christ: not King anymore, but Buddy Boy. The blog post was truly good.

EDIT: It is here, a blog post of 2013!

I would like to add some additional considerations that might be of some use.

1.

We see once again Satan’s gradual approach to war at work. Bugnini expunges the Rex Tremendae Majestatis from the experience of the common pewsitter, and substitutes it with a harmless kindergarten…

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Sister Brimstone

Mundabor's Blog

Sister’s article evoked a certain imagery

The more I stumble upon Tablet articles, the more I wonder what on earth lets these people think they are Catholics.

Courtesy of the Pewsitter– a Catholic news aggregator run by people actually caring for orthodoxy, and infinitely better than the well-intentioned but irredeemably tame, diabetes-inducing and at times outright Pollyann-ish service of the New Advent – I have now been informed of this latest piece of utter nonsense, in which a woman who was apparently once made a religious sister fully espouses Jimmy Carter’s position in preference to the obviously backward one of… probably the most subversive Pope in history.

To read the article is an unreal experience. I wonder how many Presbyterians would ask that the Only Church “ordains” women – as if such a thing were possible at all -. But no, not only this one here might even…

View original post 341 more words

Unfortunate Families

Glimpses of sanity in the Archdioceses of Detroit, and at the same time a sign that a Pope can’t change the way the Church thinks overnight. 

One of the many faggots (real, or honorary) within the Church, wolves in wolves’ clothes, has an “advocacy” group called “New Ways” which, under pretence of “supporting” perverts, actually encourages them in their perversion. I did not like the tone of the article one bit, therefore no link. 

ArchbishopVigneron reacted with a sort of: “new ways? No way!”, and prohibited the faggots (real, or honorary) from meeting in one of his parishes. 

The dialectic is interesting: the leader of “New Ways” says there should be “outreach” to “gay Catholics”, as Francis says. The Archbishop doesn’t care a straw, whatever Francis may say. 

Ironically, “New Ways” wanted to give its support to a local group, apparently called “Fortunate Families”. Whilst I am not interested in gathering more information about this kind of people, it seems rather clear to me these people consider themselves “fortunate” in having a fag or dyke among them. What was always considered a shame for the entire family involved – besides being a tragedy for the soul – is now something, apparently, celebrated.

Boy, they should move along and enter the Presbyterian so-called “church” down the road. 

What do we take home from this? That Francis’ evil propaganda will be exploited by all those who want to poison the church with Satan’s ways, but it will not be easy, because there are an awful lot of bishops around, and an awful lot of them will keep being Catholic (in the very imperfect, compromise-prone, weak V II-catholic way; but still, Catholic) whatever Pope Pothead says. 

Mundabor