Dumbing Down The Priesthood… And Everything Else.

That worthy man of God, the Traditional Catholic Priest, has a very interesting post outlining the long path to the priesthood used for many, many centuries before the usual “reforms” of V II. Father points out that the system is still in place, intact, not only by the SSPX, but also by traditionalist orders in what the Vatican calls “full communion with Rome”.

We see here at work something that is one of the very marks of V II: the dumbing down of pretty much everything.

The Church founded by Our Lord on Peter obviously developed Her own customs, procedures and ordnances in time, no doubt with the assistance of the Holy Ghost. This development was not a betrayal of the original “simplicity”, but rather the unavoidable consequence of the growing ability to better reflect in exterior acts, procedures, clothes & Co. the reality of the Church, and make Her work more efficient and more easily recognisable.

The “second Christians” (I call in this way, and forgive the joke, those who came after the extremely famed “first Christians”) weren't less Christian, or more interested in ceremony than their predecessors; nor were they lovers of useless pomp, procedural complications, or expensive vestments. They were, very simply, aware that things could be done better, and this is what they set up to do.

The entire process ended up in an edifice that made the Church not only better suited to pursue Her mission, but highly recognisable in all Her dealings.

Enter V II, and the desire – naive, or evil – to simplify everything. The dismantling of all those “complicated” parts of Church life – from the ecclesiastical career, to the Liturgy, to the dress code, to the devotional life to mention only some – have now been put in pace and “tested” for several decades. Result?

1. A massive crisis of vocation. If the priest is one of us, there's no reason why anyone among us should become a priest.

2. A tragic decline in mass attendance due, in part, to a dumbed-down, second-class liturgy.

3. Priests (or nuns!) who are often not even recognisable as such on the street, which again goes hand in hand with many of them barely recognising themselves as priests as opposed to, say, social workers. Again, this results in decline of attendance.

4. Massive loss of faith as the obvious result of people not even being taught to pray because hey, it's so arid and structured.

What do we learn from all this? Dumb down the way you do things, and you'll become dumb yourself. Priests who lose sight of their role become dumb priests. A liturgy that tries to be “easy” and “accessible” becomes a dumb liturgy. The “simplification” of the way the personnel looks leads to them becoming both invisible and ashamed of being seen for what they are. The encouragement to “spontaneous” prayer becomes the loss of the habit of praying.

V II has dumbed down not only the priesthood, but everything else. As a result not only the priestly vocations, but everything else suffered.

In time, more and more within the Church will discover this simple facts of life. Not, however, before the impious generation who brought us this mess, and possibly the one after, are six feet under. It is necessary that the punishment for our stupidity be paid according to the Lord's will before sanity goes back again.

We, dutiful sons of the Church, see and denounce the dumbing down. We are a minority now, but we are the spearhead. In time, our descendants will put a remedy to this.

 

No Prayers, No Confession, No Belief In Their Chosen Path: Meet The German Priesthood.

A report – translated by Rorate here – about the way German priests (and deacons) see themselves and live their faith makes for shocking reading. Yours truly finds that this merits a little rant.

I thought every priest was supposed to recite the prayers of the Breviary every day, in all their parts. Turns out many of these unworthy men cannot even manage to pray every day; a feat of which children of only one or two generations ago would have been ashamed at the age of six; no, make it five.

Almost as shocking – but then, necessarily flowing from the above – is that many go to confession once a year or less; and I wonder how they can have have zeal for their work as confessors, if they themselves think it too much to do more than the bare minimum themselves. This, apart from the fact that I thought the factual expectations on a priest were more like once a month, or more often. My bad, of course.

I am tempted now to go to confession next time I am in Germany, and ask the priest when it was the last time he went to confession himself. Should be fun.

It goes on. Priests who do not believe in priest celibacy (about half!), or suffer “loneliness” (perhaps they thought a mistress would be found?), or have various problems of “immaturity” with their sexuality; which, whatever that means, isn't good in a priest, at all.

This is a huge scandal, as it shows to what extent a big part of the German clergy – at the roots, not only at Kasper level – has become the world. Not only these people have lost any pretence that they are the enemy of the world; they actually complain that they cannot be enough like it.

I pity and despise them, because a priest who has chosen the habit and finds himself whining about his “loneliness” whilst he does not even have the time or the guts to be with Christ in the confessional, and in prayer, and in the life of sacrifice he is supposed to live is one who has betrayed the flag a long, long time ago, and is now unable to even remember how it looked like.

May the Lord have mercy of these poor bastards, living a huge lie as they enjoy their financial comfort and can afford the luxury of whining about their “loneliness” (a luxury I have never found in good priests). They have made their bed.

I have never seen a good priest that looked lonely in the least. Their vocations and their love of the Lord fills their life; they are surrounded by the esteem and love of many parishioners of all ages; they have a busy life because they don't skimp their duty concerning prayer or sacramental life; and their spiritual dimension fills and completes their earthly life to the point that they must, in most cases, find the idea of “loneliness” not only absurd, but a luxury for priests with too much time, and too little faith.

I pity and despise these German caricatures of priests. A man is supposed to make his choices like a man, and live with them as a man should. They have chosen to be priests. No one promised them a harem.

Wimps. Cowards. Sissy boys. Complaining – probably with grey hair – about their “loneliness” instead of being ashamed of a life of betrayal and scrounging at the cost of the Church, a life of betrayal of some of the most fundamental duties of a priest, to the point of not praying! Is it a surprise these people do not care for the Sacraments?

How do these people find the face to appear in front of their parishioners? I tell you how: by becoming their allies in the desire to make the Church wordly and sold to the world, so that their betrayal may not be noticed as they march toward a comfortable retirement. A retirement in which, no doubt, they will whine about their – comfortable – loneliness.

A priest made his choice, and made this choice in a definitive way. He chose to die to the world, to be Christ's soldier, to live and die in His shadow. That he now should not even find the time to pray, complain about his own – comfortable – life, and not even find the time to go to confession is despicable beyond words.

And they ruin others as they ruin themselves.

They ruin others as they ruin themselves.

M