Tradidi Quod Et Accepi: Some Simple Reflections On Bad Clergymen And Evil Times.

One of the advantages of not writing professionally is that I do not have endless hours to write about how this or that member of the  clergy displeased me. Granted, I have been displeased less than others; still…

I see the matter as very simple. The Church is the Bride of Christ, given to us by the Latter to help us in our way towards, hopefully, salvation. If a priest or a bishop, or twenty o them, tried to abuse me in various ways, I love to think that I would not react very kindly to their behaviour; still, I hope that, even after clergyman number twenty tries to abuse me, I would not doubt the sanctity and the truth of the Church.

You see: you can call me a dreamer, or a romantic; but to me, the Church is represented by those thousands of canonised saints – pre- Francis, obviously – and by the countless souls now in heaven or purgatory,  not by Francis and the many evil religious currently walking around.

People should never allow anyone to lessen their faith in the Church, because the Church has not been given to us by people.

So, where does this leave me when not even the Our Father is safe from clerical attack?  Where it always left everyone who, before me, was confronted with heresy.

Tradidi quod et accepi.

There is, in our little mission, not much more than working on the salvation of ourselves and our beloved one, and defending the truth that we have received.

This truth is as solid as granite. The Traditional Latin Mass is, likely, more solid than Granite. I do not doubt the TLM because the officiating priest is bad. I can and will doubt the bad priest, not the Church inside which it operates.

I am a simple man, mind, and I do not mind a bit of quite banal, but consequential, analysis of what is happening: the Church is getting mad, and this is the challenge of my lifetime. Others had other challenges, from war to pestilence,  but I have this one.

It has not been given to me to live in a time of sanity. I have to live, and die, in a time in which people think that a man can be a woman, and dogmas are bad for the Church.

I still prefer this to pestilence, though, so I count my blessings and soldier on, no matter what priests, bishops or Popes do.

One day, if all goes well, I will be admitted to join the saints.

That day, all this madness will be utterly irrelevant.