tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post116505800188968677..comments2023-08-05T17:29:04.803+01:00Comments on The Undercroft: Unam SanctamAnagnostishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03706938507885553293noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165771003951144712006-12-10T17:16:00.000+00:002006-12-10T17:16:00.000+00:00I think it interesting that although in theory the...I think it interesting that although in theory the SSPX are the most ultramontane and anti-Orthodox, their approach towards integration with Rome shows similarities with that of the Eastern Patriarchs for example in their encyclical letter of 1848 in response to Rome. <BR/><BR/>When the Pope contradicts Tradition, what then? While indult trads want to "be with the Pope" and work within current ecclesial structures as long as Tradition is reasonably tolerated, the SSPX does not want to "be an exotic animal in a syncretistic zoo". Integration can only occur when Rome abandons its modernist orientation and returns to her Tradition. Then the crisis will be over and the Pope may assert his jurisdiction over their works. <BR/><BR/>Thus, in contrast to the überultramontanism of the neoultramontanists, for whom the Pope determines what is orthodox and what is tradition, the tradultramontanists make obedience to the Pope contingent upon his orthodoxy and orthopraxy, which are measured by the yardstick of the living Tradition. While in neoultramontanism the Pope is an absolute monarch who is above Tradition, in tradultramontanism he is a constitutional monarch who is under Tradition. By thus asserting the supremacy of Tradition over hierarchy, the SSPX in my view is making a healthy contribution and a move in the right direction.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165700057429428562006-12-09T21:34:00.000+00:002006-12-09T21:34:00.000+00:00This post is amazing. I have learned much. I know...This post is amazing. I have learned much. I know little about Catholicism , even though I was baptized and received communion in the Catholic church as a child. As a adult, when I tried to begin being a Christian, I went to a large Catholic church where I lived. It felt totally dead to me, and it was probably traditional. Then I went to an Orthodox church (Antiochian, converts mostlt). No comparison. I became Orthodox. Of course I based my decision on more than this. <BR/><BR/>When I hear the defense of new Catholic doctrine, it just seems dead to me. All the time we hear 'the gates of Hell will not prevail against it,' etc. I don't hear Orthodox saying that, perhaps because Orthodox don't see that threat every day.<BR/><BR/>For one's own salvation, it has to come down to these kinds of arguments, i.e. that Orthodoxy has remained relatively unchanged in liturgy while adding converts in the West during the 20th century, and the Vatican is constantly issuing encyclicals and having innovative councils, creating new masses and orders in an attempt to save itself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165629182694805102006-12-09T01:53:00.000+00:002006-12-09T01:53:00.000+00:00I couldn’t disagree more with Pontificator’s comme...I couldn’t disagree more with Pontificator’s comments. There is truly nothing new in the world. Pontificator amply testifies to the dialectical process that is fresh with new interpretations of itself. The excuse that “this is certainly no longer the case” gets boring after a while and makes obvious the fact that Rome lacks tradition in the fullest sense of the word. Custom perhaps would be a term more appropriate I suppose.<BR/>The Orthodox have been afflicted less for all kinds of reasons. Some of historical “chance” and others of a more endemic nature. It is quite funny to speak of something like a process that lead to the creation of an Orthodoxy centered on the liturgy. When did this happen? Apart from the vacuity of such a claim (Orthodoxy was centered on the Liturgy before Mohammed could wipe his own arse and Lenin stole his first piece of property.), I am quite happy to be part of something centered on the liturgy. Lex orandi. By contrast, what is Catholicism centered on? Non-liturgy? Too true.<BR/><BR/>Apart from the esteemed Pontificator’s rhetoric concerning the temperature of teaching, I am not clear on why the fixing of teaching, otherwise known as tradition, would be a problem. I suppose he imagines that doctrine was doing its appropriate thing in the East, making ever new conceptual discoveries, amplication and clarification, via that good ole hellenistic dialectic and then a massive temperature drop left Orthodoxy in the freezer with the usual rhetorical denigrations of being “static” “turgid” and “stagnant.” Such are the things myths are made of. The teaching of Palamas is not a “development” anymore than Maximus’ teaching concerning the energies was. It was essential (PUN!) to his defense of dyothelitism.<BR/><BR/>Those people who thought that doctrine could be “developed” through hellenistic dialectic were such persons as Origen, Arius, Nestorius, et al. If anything, it is Rome that has elevated to dogma a particular theological view, and one that is the result of a development, testifying to its un-Catholicity. The theology of Vat 1 simply isn’t found in the Apostolic deposit of all or any other See founded by the Apostles and hence it is not “according to the Whole."<BR/><BR/>Ever forward, Pontificator confuses unity with simplicity. Unity with a single head hardly constitutes anything amounting to the apostolic deposit according to the whole. If it were any other sect, Al would clearly see it as a Gnostic invention. And it is quite easy to see how Rome keeps unity with the Irish, Italians, et al. They are either the later creations of itself or were subjugated to it over time. Of course Rome has for some time been more like an adherent of Catholischism since it has spawned more schisms with no amendment in sight after 500 years. Of course this is what the Gnostic dialectic does-reason never stops making ever new discoveries and hence new sects are born. Rome keeps some, but looses others. She is the ever pregnant wife in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life-Oops! There’s another one!<BR/><BR/>It is quite true that there is much formalism in Greece or Russia for all kinds of historical reasons. Fair enough. But does anyone wonder if Orthodoxy will survive in Greece? How many Catholic Churches in the US have had to be sold in the last 5 years?Acolyte4236https://www.blogger.com/profile/06247421363309732839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165622260234774902006-12-08T23:57:00.000+00:002006-12-08T23:57:00.000+00:00It is also interesting that traditional Catholics ...<I>It is also interesting that traditional Catholics like the SSPX have been able to preserve Tradition by walling themselves off from Rome, by denying the Pope jurisdiction over their parishes. Unwittingly, but in practice, they have adopted an Orthodox ecclesiology.</I><BR/><BR/>I am fairly familiar with current Orthodox ecclesiological thought. I know next to nothing about SSPX or other traditionalist Catholic ecclesiological thought, though I have met some SSPX and other trads over the years, and I always assumed that they were a sort of ecclesiology in crisis and therefore lacked a developed ecclesiology. Could someone here point me in the direction of trad ecclesiological thought? Who does one read to get a grasp on such a thing?Ochlophobist https://www.blogger.com/profile/13751003558600087713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165618459226396172006-12-08T22:54:00.000+00:002006-12-08T22:54:00.000+00:00Daniel,"What is imperative is that all those invol...Daniel,<BR/><BR/><I>"What is imperative is that all those involved recognize the irregularity of the situation, and do not become satisfied with that irregularity."</I><BR/><BR/>I don't know if the "mess" found within Orthodoxy at least can really claim to be "irregular." Looking prior to the "great schism", and even prior to the Muhammedan menace, I'm hard pressed to see a time when things were not a mess. If anything, the whole "the good times" ideal is a myth of western Christians, and not at all born out by the Orthodox experience (and I think if one is a student of history, it isn't born out by the history of the post-schism west either.)<BR/><BR/>I hate to say it, but there has <B>never</B> been a time when there weren't heretics running around (both within and outside of the visible confines of the Church), schisms both big and small, or otherwise Orthodox Bishops stepping on each others toes by trying to lay their grubby paws on each others jurisdictions. Again, I don't want to be the one raining on any parades, but I think what some are describing as "regularity" has scarcely manifested itself in the life of the Church Militant.<BR/><BR/>Tim RiveraAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165533027978114342006-12-07T23:10:00.000+00:002006-12-07T23:10:00.000+00:00An embarrassment of riches on this thread. I am a...An embarrassment of riches on this thread. I am amazed that such a slight, rather querulous original posting should have provoked such a wealth of insight from all sorts of different points of view. <BR/><BR/>My sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed. It has been a real education.Anagnostishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03706938507885553293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165510008562112932006-12-07T16:46:00.000+00:002006-12-07T16:46:00.000+00:00The way forward."Apostolic" Canon 34: "It is fitt...The way forward.<BR/><BR/>"Apostolic" Canon 34: <BR/>"It is fitting that the bishops of each ethnos should know who is first among them, that they should acknowledge him as head and not undertake anything beyond the confindes of their own sees without having consulted him. But the one who is first, for his part, ust not do anything without consulting them. Thus a communion of thought will reign, and God will be glorified in the Lord through the Holy Spirit."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165499577450299442006-12-07T13:52:00.000+00:002006-12-07T13:52:00.000+00:00Here is a continuo-hermeneutic reading of papal in...Here is a continuo-hermeneutic reading of papal infallibility. The Pope, as successor of Peter, is the Primate of the Universal Church, which means that he chairs the universal synod of bishops. Chair is "cathedra" in latin. The Cathedral, the church of his chair, is "Sobor" in russian, a word that connotes both catholicity and synodality. When the Pope speaks infallibly ex cathedra, it means that he, in his capacity as Primate, from his primatal chair gives voice to the decisions that has been reached in unison by the Universal Church. The different ways described in councils by which the Church makes infallible decisions thus essentially means the same thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165489368276777242006-12-07T11:02:00.000+00:002006-12-07T11:02:00.000+00:00Indeed, a balanced historical account should inclu...Indeed, a balanced historical account should include the merits of the centralised papacy, such as its standing up to secular rulers. The WWII could also be mentioned, where the Catholic Church was able to save perhaps 800 000 Jews, something that would probably not have been possible without the centralised monolithic structure of the church of the time. <BR/><BR/>Nevertheless, the data of the last 50 years in my view points in a direction where an EO ecclesiology is basically the healthy one for the future. Two moves could be beneficial. <BR/><BR/>1. A move towards a culture where the rule of Faith is associated with Holy Tradition rather than with Magisterium, and where it is incumbent upon every faithful, and not just a select group of hierarchs, to uphold it. <BR/><BR/>2. A redefinition of the Petrine ministry in terms of a chairman rather than a monarch. This would mean backtracking on previous prerogatives regarding jurisdiction and infallibility, which could have detrimental repercussions. But on the other hand, perhaps one could have great hope that the hermeneutists of continuity will be able to use their skills to convince everyone that this is what the Church has always taught.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165446525742266062006-12-06T23:08:00.000+00:002006-12-06T23:08:00.000+00:00Daniel,None taken. I wonder if the better questio...Daniel,<BR/><BR/>None taken. I wonder if the better question is, "what was the role of the papacy in the Great Church?" Olivier Clement's short book, "Thou art Peter" is decent and fair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165439163706122962006-12-06T21:06:00.000+00:002006-12-06T21:06:00.000+00:00Sorry to comment excessively... I just wanted to c...Sorry to comment excessively... I just wanted to clarify that my remark about "Caesaropapism without Caesar" was not in any way intended as an insult to Orthodoxy - rather, it's what I think western Christendom might have become without the Papacy, in the particular historical circumstances under which it developed in the 2nd millennium.<BR/><BR/>I am not satisfied with the current results of the Roman Church's decisions about the role of the papal office (obviously), but I recognize that they were made in response to something. It didn't happen in a vaccuum.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165427463624628832006-12-06T17:51:00.000+00:002006-12-06T17:51:00.000+00:00Anon:I was thinking more along the lines of What ...Anon:<BR/><BR/>I was thinking more along the lines of <I>What about Kingly coronation? Knighthood? etc</I>. Early Catholicism had some big problems as a result of granting sacred privileges to secular powers (often of dubious legitimacy), and a clarification that such ceremonies carry no sacramental power is pretty important. <BR/><BR/>And the story of second-millennium Catholicism is mostly that of the Church gaining those privileges back, or failing to do so (in Reformation England, for example, or contemporary China). <BR/><BR/>Now in the process, a lot of bad ideas took hold in the Catholic consciousness. The Pope took on secular duties not proper to his office. And the theology formulated as the old untramontanism was falsely applied in the new ultramontanism, at the expense of sacred tradition. But on the whole, I'm very much glad that the Roman Catholic Church asserted its independence in these matters. I prefer Papism with a valid Peter to Caesaropapism without a valid Caesar.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165423919371242042006-12-06T16:51:00.000+00:002006-12-06T16:51:00.000+00:00Anon (and any and all other non-Catholic or non-Or...Anon (and any and all other non-Catholic or non-Orthodox Christians):<BR/><BR/>My hyperbolic polemic was meant for insiders who are trying to come to grips with the problems that afflict *both* communions. I happen to think this stock-taking is necessary to avoid many of the modern reductions. I may well be wrong. Anyway, this string happens to be aimed at RC. Please read the comments above with great caution.<BR/><BR/>Daniel,<BR/><BR/>I don't see the need for "seven" sacraments. That seems to be part and parcel of the modernistic reduction. What about funeral-burial (now cremations)? Monk tonsure? The blessing of the waters at theophany? Icons? Viaticum? Home blessings? Parish councils? Ecumenical conferences? Etc. The Church appears to have a sacramental hierarchy with three "major" sacraments--orders, baptism-christmation, and eucharist--and many many "minor" ones that ought to fully encompass all aspects of a truly Christian life infusing it with God's very saving presence. <BR/><BR/>Nevertheless, I hear you about the real problems of medievalism. You are clearly better informed than I. I hope you were not offended by my hyperbolic screed. I was hoping to provoke you to continue your apologia, which was successful. Your comments have enabled me to see the situation with both greater clarity and greater charity. Thanks.<BR/><BR/>We are all struggling with the unbelievable thinness of culture out here on the spatio-temporal frontier of hypermodernity. It is becoming pretty difficult to see tradition anywhere. I suppose we should be thankful for whatever crumbs that are left.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165419307611870622006-12-06T15:35:00.000+00:002006-12-06T15:35:00.000+00:00That isn't to say that I thinkl Papal supremacy as...That isn't to say that I thinkl Papal supremacy as currently exercised and understoon in the Roman catholic Church is a good thing - I don't. It's just that history isn't science, and the hasty judgment on the papacy and its role in Catholic history is usually informed by a very selective view of events. <BR/><BR/>A constructive reform of Roman Catholicism needs to presume that it is worth saving, and the words spoken by an incarnate God are enough to convince me of that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165417449563880512006-12-06T15:04:00.000+00:002006-12-06T15:04:00.000+00:001) I am as vocal a critic of the Counter-Reformati...1) I am as vocal a critic of the Counter-Reformation as any Catholic on the internet, but that is because its flaws are still very much with us. Pre-Tridentine Catholicism, the very sort of Latin Orthodoxy I desire, had serious flaws (as does Eastern Orthodoxy), when considered as an historical reality rather than as a lofty ideal. <BR/><BR/>The biggest compliment that I can pay Trent and its aftermath is that we no longer need to discuss the worst aspects peculiar to earlier expressions of Roman Catholicism, because they no longer exist. The counter-Reformation was very effective in that regard, and I think that any restoration of a Latin Orthodoxy would need to be one that has learned certain lessons from the experience. We might remmeber that in the Middle Ages, there was general confusion about things as basic as the number of sacraments.<BR/><BR/>2) While it is undeniable that most of the currently existing liturgical problems in the Roman Church happened on Papal initiative, it is a hasty generalization to say that the papal office has had an overall negative effect on the Roman Church. Urban VIII's Hymnal, Pius X's Psalter, and Paul VI's Mass are not the only, or even the characteristic, products of the papal office in the second millennium. It might be remembered that the old ultramontanism, unlike the new, was not about securing the rights of the papacy over tradition, but about securing the rights of the papacy over secular rulers. Independence from Caesar in ecclesiastical governance is the great triumph of Catholicism over that time. And in that regard, I find it agreeable - who wants bishops appointed by the French Republic? <BR/><BR/>I suppose that what I am trying to say is that even those (like myself) who pay most attention to worship should realize that the state of the Roman Church, and of all Churches, is formed by a lot of external factors - politics, war, revolution, plague, invasion, technology - that simply are not things that its hierarchy initiates. In other words, one cannot treat the schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy as a controlled experiment on papal supremacy. Because it is not. So many other factors affected the results that it is impossible to say whether Orthodoxy would have been better or worse with a supreme Pope, or whether Catholicism would have been better or worse without one. It is a matter of speculation, and ultimately faith.<BR/><BR/>What we know for certain is that Christ promised that Hell would not prevail against the Church of Peter (whatever that means), and that he prays for us all to be one (whatever that means).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165369732069215832006-12-06T01:48:00.000+00:002006-12-06T01:48:00.000+00:00This is a sobering article. I know next to nothin...This is a sobering article. I know next to nothing of theology, but I have been attending Catholic and Orthodox services. I am searching. This article descibes something I've experienced. Othodoxy just seems alive. It's a living Tradition. I don't want to offend, but the Catholic Church does not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165352458789040142006-12-05T21:00:00.000+00:002006-12-05T21:00:00.000+00:00With the introduction of the Protestant mass, I fe...With the introduction of the Protestant mass, I fear that "traditional Catholicism" has mostly dried up. Who needs to render due worship and praise with beauty according to tradition if we have the natural law, policy wonkism, and televised mass? <BR/><BR/>Salvation is disciplined participation in right sacramental worship. Loving God is the first command. And, this is necessarily worship that comes down "from above" and is not the product of the fallen imaginations of pagan theurgists who worship "the Creator," protestant deformers, or liturgical renewal committees.<BR/><BR/>Plus, "traditional Catholicism" is so deeply scarred in so many ways by its tangle with the counter-Deformation that it is "traditional" in only the historicist meaning of that term, IMHO. And, even if it isn't, it feels like "continuing Anglicanism" which, I'm sorry, I have little sympathy for. I understand it. I feel for it. But I do not see it as a true way to go. Now, if "traditional Catholics" and "continuing Anglicans" and "high-church Lutherans" were willing to enter into communion with the One Holy Catholic and Apostlic Church with a traditional western rite that would be a very different question.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for helping move me closer to a decision. I need to re-enter communion again soon. Just wish we all communed together.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165345600264293922006-12-05T19:06:00.000+00:002006-12-05T19:06:00.000+00:00I agree with some of the comments here. A problem ...I agree with some of the comments here. A problem is that for over a millenium, Catholics and Orthodox have unsuccessfully tried to settle the dispute over the papacy with apriori arguments. However, for settling disputes the Lord proposed empiricism: "by the fruits...". <BR/><BR/>It is in my view painfully obvious that the modernism afflicting and destroying the Catholic Church has been engineered by the popes. It was the Pope who called the VII council. It was the Pope who intervened during it in favour of the progressives and who let them carry the day. It was papal fiat that imposed the Novus Ordo on the faithful, despite it being rejected by two thirds of the synod. Thus, with synodality there would have been no New Mass. <BR/><BR/>It is interesting to compare this with the modernist innovations that the patriarch Metaxas tried to impose on the Orthodox in the 1920s. But he was only able to produce limited damage (more or less limited to the introduction of the new calendar, which is followed by a minority of the Orthodox). Thus, the 20th century has given us a "controlled experiment" by which the respective ecclesiologies of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches can be compared. It turns out that the decentralised synodality of the Orthodox is much more resilient, much more able to resist modernist innovations and preserve Holy Tradition, than is the unrestricted monarchism of the Catholic Church. <BR/><BR/>It is also interesting that traditional Catholics like the SSPX have been able to preserve Tradition by walling themselves off from Rome, by denying the Pope jurisdiction over their parishes. Unwittingly, but in practice, they have adopted an Orthodox ecclesiology. <BR/><BR/>The prospects for a future reconsiliation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches therefore need not look bleak. With the arrival of new popes who are brought up on the Novus Ordo, ungrounded in the old faith, the corrosive fruits of papal supremacy will become ever more apparent for traditional Catholics, and they will ever more embrace an Orthodox ecclesiology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165339981222441342006-12-05T17:33:00.000+00:002006-12-05T17:33:00.000+00:00Daniel,I guess I am losing hope in RC. I'm wary o...Daniel,<BR/><BR/>I guess I am losing hope in RC. I'm wary of being part of the thorougly modern divorce culture in doing so, but I can't seem to see any other way. <BR/><BR/>I tried Tridentine-rite Catholicism, but I found it just as problematic as the novus ordo, only for different reasons. It struck me as the expression of a failure to appreciate the doctrinal and soteriological necessity of divine immanence to true Christian expression. <BR/><BR/>By *divine* immanence I do not mean the thoroughly modern, humanist immanentization project, which is how the half-hour, sentimentalizing praise and worship, ad populum, chicken soup for the soul, "here comes everybody" tromping through the sancturary in flip flops and belly rings, novus ordo can often come off. No encouter with the holy here. (Who invented those damned wire-less mics anyway!) However, the Tridentine rite felt like the flip side of this, as if God was so holy as to be entirely unapproachable. <BR/><BR/>Alternatively, the Orthodox divine liturgy felt Christologically balanced. It radically affirmed God's unapproachable holiness, "One is holy, One is Lord" and "Holy things are for the Holy." But, it also paradoxically affirmed God's saving presence, "Christ is in our midst. He is and he ever shall be." And it was chanted and in English! <BR/><BR/>I think the DL gets the Christian soteriological paradox right, which makes me suspicious that our tradition has been disordered for much longer than we care to admit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165332158374441252006-12-05T15:22:00.000+00:002006-12-05T15:22:00.000+00:00Anon:First, I don't fault any Roman Catholic for t...Anon:<BR/><BR/>First, I don't fault any Roman Catholic for the decisions he makes when he is denied the right to worship in a traditional matter.<BR/><BR/>But my last point was that, if a Catholic <I>can</I> attend a Traditional Mass, he can live a pretty satisfactory "Latin Orthodox" sort of life. Because aside from the liturgy, many of the flaws of <I>lived</I> Roman Catholicism are ones that can be fixed without papal or episcopal intervention. The Pope and the Bishops don't tell you what books to read, what devotions to maintain, what saints to venerate, what art to like, what attitude to have. <BR/><BR/>The Ultramontanist-Counterreformational tenndencies of Traditional Catholicism are more often encountered in periodicals and on websites than in pulpit oratory, at least in my experience. Those are pretty easy to ignore.<BR/><BR/>I think that if one values the occidental expression of Christianity, he should devote his efforts to constructive measures - reading the Church Fathers and discussing their teaching, studying and making efforts to revive the lost iconography of the western Church (as an artist, this is my pet project, although still in its infancy), venerating the old forgotten saints, etc.<BR/><BR/>As for the question <I>Who is schismatic?</I>, I think that is another one of the wrong questions, one that reduces the problem to <I>choosing the least defective side</I>. Because everyone is schismatic - either from Peter, or from History. The duty is for an apostolic Christian of a particular heritage to do what he can to correct the flaws of his Church.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165304245805018522006-12-05T07:37:00.000+00:002006-12-05T07:37:00.000+00:00Sorry, I guess I mean to say that as one of those ...Sorry, I guess I mean to say that as one of those Catholics who grew frustrated with neoCath "evangelical" ultramontanism (terrible music), and tradCath counterreformational-victorian ultramontanism (great music), and tradCath adhoc uber-rationalism (indifferent to music), and looked eastward, I just don't see the deviations I think I ought to see from a Church that was split from "the successor to Peter" for more than a thousand years and through Islamic and Communistic torture. I also don't see how their liturgy won't carry them through hyper-modernity. I have to ask myself, exactly who is the schismatic?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165303245809310232006-12-05T07:20:00.000+00:002006-12-05T07:20:00.000+00:00Daniel,This is exactly my experience. But what no...Daniel,<BR/><BR/>This is exactly my experience. But what now?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165244398737643002006-12-04T14:59:00.000+00:002006-12-04T14:59:00.000+00:00Perfect, Daniel.I'd like to print out this post an...Perfect, Daniel.<BR/><BR/>I'd like to print out this post and frame it (I'd consult you about the font, first)<BR/><BR/>BenAnagnostishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03706938507885553293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165242295449683452006-12-04T14:24:00.000+00:002006-12-04T14:24:00.000+00:00I see the problem as this: there are two types of...I see the problem as this: there are two types of obedience that are imperative on Christians, and they are supposed to work in accord: Obedience to the Church Triumphant, through a willful traditionalism that upholds our inheritance from the saints in our liturgy, devotion, iconography, etc. And obedience to the Church Militant, through a deference to the divinely instituted hierarchy and its proper head in the successor of Peter.<BR/><BR/>These two forces are supposed to work in accord. A Christian should be able to uphold sacred tradition through obedience to the historical ecclesiastical structures associated with it. But obviously, the reality is that they currently do not. In the Byzantine Churches, the hierarchy is a mess. In the Roman Church, the normative expression of the faith is unrecognizable as the faith of history.<BR/><BR/>What is imperative is that all those involved recognize the irregularity of the situation, and do not become satisfied with that irregularity. I shan't presume to lecture the Orthodox on what they need to do to fix their problems, but I'll say that a mentality exists among certain Orthodox (and certain traditionalist Catholics) that the Papacy isn't just in a bad state, but that it isn't important at all. That takes an irregular situation and makes it regular. <BR/><BR/>But the wooden beam in the Roman Church's eye is pretty obvious. The new conservative Catholics refuse to admit that anything but a minimalist sort of traditionalism (which could fit between the covers of the 1992 Catechism) is important at all, and only then as an expression of Papal power with no real objective content. <BR/><BR/>That is just as offensive, just as wrong. Probably more so, as the pastoral effects have been far more disastrous in the Roman Church. And it is the animating mentality of the new conservative Catholics.<BR/><BR/>But the reasons for hope are several: First, the near destruction of the Roman Church on the initiative of the proper hierarchical authorities has cured a small but important group of traditionalist Catholics of papal sycophancy. Pontificator may not have recognized the neo-ultramontanism that is deafeningly obvious to the blogger and to me, but he is right that our sort of criticism would not have been advanced by a traditionalist before this mess. Before the Council, enough of tradition had survived that we really could entertain all sorts of naive illusions about the papacy.<BR/><BR/>And a smaller but still important section of traditionalists - those who have begun to make their traditionalism into a workable philosophy rather than a mere protest or an exercise in nostalgia - have begun to seriously and sympathetically examine the Orthodox Churches, and to recognize that Roman Catholicism has problems that long predate VII.<BR/><BR/>I think that it is among these that the ideas necessary to truly reform the Roman Church, and to work toward a real union with the Orthodox, are beginning to be discussed. They are beginning to ask the right questions.<BR/><BR/>Because the wrong question, the one that expends so much intellectual energy, is this: If the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant are set at odds, which do you choose? The correct questions are <I>Why in God's name are they set at odds, and how can we correct that?</I><BR/><BR/>And among Roman Catholics, the wrong question is this: How do we make the Orthodox become Catholic? The constructive question is rather <I>How do we make the Catholics become Orthodox?</I> Because Roman Catholicism should be an Orthodox-with-a-capital-O religion. <BR/><BR/>And I'll say from my own experience: If a Roman Catholic has access to the traditional rites enough to live a full sacramental life without attending the new Mass (obviously many Catholics are denied that right), it is pretty easy to live and think and pray as a Latin Orthodox sort of Christian, without needing to question his obedience to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Too much of the sense of scandal and betrayal among traditional Catholics is a result of paying too much attention to every silly thing the Pope says or does - precisely what we fault the new conservative Catholics for doing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22517294.post-1165237335739938522006-12-04T13:02:00.000+00:002006-12-04T13:02:00.000+00:00MikeThanks again for linking to your excellent and...Mike<BR/><BR/>Thanks again for linking to your excellent and very valuable article. As a matter of fact I had read it (or at least part of it) before – it was a pleasure to do so again. As for "dismiss(ing) it as special pleading", the thought would never have occurred to me; are you perhaps operating something akin to a "hermeneutic of suspicion" of your own ;o)? <BR/><BR/>However…(yes, I'm afraid the "however" persists): <BR/><BR/>You identify two "parties of rupture": traditionalists "in technical schism" and "progressives and others". I'd like to concentrate on the "others" as constituting a third party - a "party" which includes, in fact, most of the rest of the Church – laity, priests and bishops.<BR/><BR/>Party 1 – There's been a rupture – bad.<BR/>Party 2 - There's been a rupture – good<BR/>Party 3 – There's been a "rupture" - It's a matter of indifference. Catholics "follow the Pope." <BR/><BR/>For Party 3 the disputes around the contested points of doctrine you identify are either absurdly recondite, or too entirely in the category of the self-evident to give rise to a moment's hesitation. I don't have the slightest doubt that authority, assisted by learned and conscientious apologists, is able to posit a hermeneutic of continuity in these as in other areas: but it's an exercise which, however necessary, will remain under the radar of Party 3 – because the primary locus of rupture <B>as actually experienced</B> is not in doctrine but in praxis – in the liturgy. The reformulation of the liturgy does actually entail a real, tangible alteration to the most powerfully formative influence on the way Catholics think and believe - not merely in relation to the objective content of the Faith - but about the relationship of the Magisterium to that objective content itself. And it's a fait accompli – there's no clear way in which the genie can be got back in the bottle, because any kind of "change back", while delivering this or that correction, will nevertheless only confirm the impression that everything, down to the most intimate actions of the believer, is at the disposal of the living Magisterium.<BR/><BR/>This is simply an observable fact. I reject absolutely the proposition that pointing it out amounts to insulting the Pope, or pretending to some privileged perspective denied to those far better equipped than myself with learning, intellect and graces of state. I talk to Catholics every day, of progressive, middle-of-the-road, and "conservative" stripes, for whom it is simply self-evident that there is at least some level of discontinuity between pre- and post-Conciliar Catholicism, and they are for the most part absolutely untroubled by it. For them, "to think with the Church" means simply to assimilate the current policies, whatever they are, of the living hierarchy, without much regard to anything that has gone before. You can quote <I>Pastor Aeternus</I> (with which, incidentally, I have no difficulties) or Trent or even Pius XII and it will provoke nothing more than an indulgent rolling of the eyes. This is what you're up against, compared with which crass espousal of the "Hermeneutic of Party 2" by the French Hierarchy pales into minor significance.Anagnostishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03706938507885553293noreply@blogger.com