Sacraments

Torkay, one of our American bloggers, has been on the mailing list of a new group calling itself RealCatholicTV.com. RCTV puts out internet videos exposing various points of clerical corruption, usually connected with the American bishops’ conference, the USCCB. A couple of weeks ago, RCTV did a week-long series about “progressives,” defining them and detailing the dangers they present to the Church. They were excellent – as RCTV’s productions usually are – but Torkay noticed a strange omission. Nowhere did these videos mention the role of “progressives” at Vatican II and afterward, including their masterminding and implementing of the radical changes in liturgy, theology and discipline that have so poisoned the Church ever since.

Torkay wrote in to express his concerns, and so began a brief but intense (and ultimately futile) discussion between himself and an official of RCTV, who shall remain nameless. Below – in Part 1 of 2 – are some excerpts from their exchange:

TORKAY: Well done as far as it goes, but you have not gone far enough. On the subject of “Protestantizing the Liturgy,” I’m still waiting for you to address the elephant in the room: that the Novus Ordo is itself a Protestantizing of the Traditional Mass, and is therefore deadly to Catholics. What else would you expect from a rite designed by a man dismissed twice under the suspicion of Freemasonry, and approved by 6 Protestant advisers? You speak of abuses within the Novus Ordo, but not of its inherent radical abuses of our theology and the role of the priest! As far as I’m concerned, though you have accurately portrayed progressives as heretics, you have yet to address the real cause of the crisis, which is the suppression of tradition. The Novus Ordo is not “tradition,” but a progressive novelty, described by Cardinal Ratzinger as a “banal, on the spot product.”

RCTV: It will never happen at RealCatholicTV.com that we debate the relative merits of the Novus Ordo vs. the Traditional Latin Mass.  That debate is well covered, within faithful and orthodox guidelines, in too many places to count.  We are familiar with all the arguments.  The bottom line is that the Novus Ordo when celebrated obediently, respectfully and reverently is not only a valid Mass but as spiritually enriching as the Traditional Latin Mass. I grant you that the Novus Ordo has been too often used as an instrument of propaganda, abused to the point of sacrilege, and deformed the faith of countless millions.  That is less the fault of the form of the Novus Ordo Mass than the reprehensible conduct and lack of faith of too many celebrants.The Novus Ordo is incredibly easy to abuse.  Even when it isn’t explicitly abused, the use of the vernacular language still makes all present dependent upon and responsive too the “mood” of the celebrant in a way that isn’t possible with the Traditional Latin Mass.  The Traditional Latin Mass is much less vulnerable to abuse.  John Zmirak recently wrote on this: “There’s something to be said for a liturgy whose very nature resists and defeats abuses. The Ordinary Form can be extraordinarily reverent when said by a holy priest. I’ve been to such liturgies hundreds of times, and I’m grateful for every one. On the other hand, the new liturgy, with all its Build-a-Bear options, is terribly easy to abuse. The old Mass reminds me of what they used to say about the Catholic Church and the U.S. Navy: “It’s a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots.” The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.”

(For your edification, you can read this and subsequent articles by John Zmirak on the same subject here, here and here.)Pope Benedict XVI, before he was Pope, said: “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy.”

I think it is fair to say that reform of the liturgy is a critical piece in the process of renewal and restoration of the Church.  Under Pope Benedict, it appears that this reform has begun.  It is not likely to be completed in any of our life times, but that doesn’t mean we have no choice but to sin through disobedience or anger. Just as pain is a sign that something is wrong with our body, so anger can be a sign that something in our life needs to change.  If the Mass in your parish is routinely an occasion of sin for you (as in “generating anger and hate”), it is imperative that you find a different place to live and pray your Catholic faith, such as another parish, no matter the perceived inconvenience.  Think of this response as a variation of “If the eye be an occasion of sin for you, pluck it out.”There are Traditional Latin Mass parishes and settings that are in full union with the Church, such as parishes staffed by the FSSP and others.  Under no circumstances should you allow your anguish over the liturgy to move you into schism, as is the case with SSPX parishes.  No one ever disobeyed their way to holiness.  The Holy Father is working hard to heal this schism with the SSPX and it should be the prayer of all of us that he is successful in these efforts.Regardless of your aesthetic preferences, you cannot mount theological arguments against the Novus Ordo and its validity and consider yourself one with the mind and heart of the Church.  Even Archbishop LeFebvre acknowledged the validity of the Novus Ordo while still maintaining the overall superiority, in every way, of the Traditional Latin Mass.  It is unfortunate that such a good, holy and learned man of God could not trust the Church enough to resist an act of explicit disobedience to the Holy Father.As for Freemasons and Communists, they make a lot of noise but the virtual apostasy of massive numbers of Catholics is a far more important reality.  Evil people cannot eviscerate the faith of Catholics.  That happens in the hearts and souls of individual Catholics.  Freemasons and Communists may create situations of persecution, but they cannot eradicate the faith: only we can do that to ourselves (and it appears we’re doing quite a job of it!).Be at peace in all this.  Pray for the Church.  Find a “safe harbor” for your hungry and thirsty soul.  Love the Church. God bless you.

TORKAY: By way of introduction, let me say that I am not interested in debating the merits of the TLM vs. the NO. That was not why I wrote to you (besides, I would probably lose the debate! since I’m not very learned in liturgical and theological matters). I wrote because I did not, and still don’t, understand why you spent a week exposing progressives, but failed to address the activities and schemes of these same progressives at Vatican II and in its aftermath. That is, you failed to address the heart of the crisis. That said, I’ll move on to some specific points.

1. “The Novus Ordo is as spiritually enriching as the TLM.” I suppose that depends on how you define spiritually enriching, but I’ve never attended one I would define that way, esp. after I attended my first TLM in 2002. If it was really spiritually enriching, then would it be so susceptible to abuse? If it was spiritually enriching, then would it have caused so many Catholics to stop going to Confession, stop believing in the Real Presence, stop living their Catholic identity (a point which Michael repeatedly raises in his videos)? If it was spiritually enriching, would it have caused so many priests to lose sight of their vocation as alter christus? If it was spiritually enriching, would its armor be so porous as to practically allow the arrows of the enemy free entry? And finally, if it is so spiritually enriching, then why is it constantly being revised and tinkered with?

(By the way, I don’t contest its validity – I contest its theology. Or lack thereof. That is, being a relatively ignorant layman, I trust the judgment of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci: “…if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.” Here is the “Ottaviani Intervention,” in case you haven’t read it: http://www.fisheaters.com/ottavianiintervention.html

2. “Pope Benedict quote on the disintegration of the liturgy.” I believe there are two types of disintegration: one, the built-in disintegration of the rite itself, and two, the abuses to which it has been subject during celebration. However, when Cardinal Ratzinger described the Novus Ordo as a “banal, on-the-spot product,” he wasn’t speaking of it the way it was celebrated. He was speaking of it as it exists “on the books.” Now, I suppose you can celebrate a banal, on-the-spot product reverently, respectfully and obediently, but those qualities apparently failed, in the mind of Cardinal Ratzinger, to disguise or improve upon the essential nature of the rite. By the way, I would be very interested in your definition of “obediently.”

3. The elephant in the room. You didn’t address this in your note, but the inescapable fact is that the Novus Ordo is the creation of progressives – the very progressives about which RCTV warns us against with so much zeal. It was the progressives who hijacked the Council; it was the progressives who trashed the original schema of the Commissions; it was the progressives who re-populated the Commissions themselves with fellow progressives; it was the progressives who produced Council documents filled with vague and even heretical language; and it was the progressives who, after the Council, introduced the “spirit of Vatican II,” i.e. their progressive interpretation of their deliberately vague language, including the Novus Ordo. So, to my way of thinking, any expose of “progressives” should begin with these very things. Yet, your videos did not even touch on them. To me, it boils down to this non sequitur: progressives are poisoning the faith and the faithful, says RCTV rightfully, but the Novus Ordo they created is spiritually enriching! Sorry, that just doesn’t make sense.

What I’m asking is this: how you can expose the dangers of progressives without running smack into the brick wall of the progressives’ rite of Mass?

4. “The SSPX is in schism.” This is a common misunderstanding, which is simply not true. Cardinal Hoyos has affirmed as much: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/mershon/070410

5. “It is unfortunate that such a good, holy and learned man of God could not trust the Church enough to resist an act of explicit disobedience to the Holy Father.” But “trust the Church” is exactly what Abp. Lefebvre did; that was the very basis of his rejection of the modernist novelties of Vatican II. He held to Tradition in the face of the Council’s rupture from it. His disobedience was in fact a tragedy – but have you ever wondered why, by his one action, he excommunicated himself, but the voluminous words and actions of the legion of heretics who have flourished over the past 40 years have not caused them to excommunicate themselves? For example, how about the goodly number of heretic presenters at Cardinal Mahony’s “Religious Education (sic) Congress”? Why haven’t they excommunicated themselves? Theirs is an act – actually, repeated acts – of explicit disobedience, after all – disobedience to the Magisterium, no?

6. “Evil people (i.e. Freemasons and Communists) cannot eviscerate the faith of Catholics.” But that is precisely what they did, by altering the faith in the liturgy, by suppressing and obscuring the Catholic theology of the Mass, by altering the role of the priest, by turning priests into peace ‘n justice social workers, by suppressing St. Thomas Aquinas….their accomplishments have created this apostasy, this crisis. And no, they did not do it by “persecution”: they did it by the manipulation of obedience, causing the clergy and the faithful to march willingly into this land of mystery-less, sacrifice-obscured, devotion-less, identity-less Protestantized Catholicism (except for the millions of laity and thousands of priests who left the Church, that is, rather than accept the new changes). And after 40 years in this wilderness, the orthodox still insist: there’s nothing wrong with the Novus Ordo, it’s spiritually enriching, it’s efficacious…as the Church continues to collapse around us. I just don’t get it.

No, I’ll take that back: there was and is persecution: persecution and marginalization and ridicule of those who attempt to cling to tradition, and the traditional Mass. Not only by the internal enemies of the Church, but by those who claim to be orthodox! (I’m not referring to you.)

7. “Freemasons and Communists make a lot of noise.” Well, they did a lot more than that: they infiltrated the Church and wreaked havoc! Have you not read the testimony of Bella Dodd? The deathbed confession of Cardinal Lienart?

Finally, and this may surprise you, I do understand the Holy Father’s “brick-by-brick” plan – but in terms of our discussion, all roads lead back to two questions: 1. If the Novus Ordo is spiritually enriching, then why must it be reformed? 2. If progressives are a danger to the faith, then why is the rite they created not a danger to the faith?

RCTV: I have, in response to everything you have written (which I both admire and respect without qualification), visited a number of sources, including the SSPX site itself, in an attempt to better understand the issues which prevent an understanding of full unity between the SSPX and Rome.  I am convinced by my own reading that the priests and faithful who live their lives within SSPX loyalties have never been considered excommunicated or schismatic.  The word “schismatic” and the latae sententiae excommunications were attached to the acts of episcopal ordination affecting six people.  There has not, to my knowledge, ever been a formal declaration of schism applied to the SSPX as such, only latae sententiae excommunications of its episcopal leaders.This means, at best, that the SSPX is in an imperfect union with Rome not unlike what could be said about most Protestant denominations.  The SSPX certainly has more in common with the Roman Catholic Church than any Protestant denomination, but its union with Rome is still imperfect due to, if nothing else, its rejection of Papal authority.  The Orthodox churches are also in imperfect union with Rome, even though they, just as the SSPX, have valid sacramental ministers and sacraments: they, too, reject Papal authority and jurisdiction.All statements that I have read coming from SSPX leaders reject some teachings contained in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, most frequently the Declaration on Religious Liberty, but others as well.  Many express more than a mere preference for the Traditional Latin Mass, suggesting the invalidity of the Novus Ordo Mass and other sacraments.  The mere fact that the SSPX even feels the need for discussion of doctrinal issues with Rome is a sign that the leaders, and probably most members, do not feel they are in union with Rome.There’s a considerable amount of self-justifying sophistry and casuistry contained in the SSPX responses to “frequently asked questions” on their site.  For example, they reject the excommunications which followed the disobedient episcopal consecrations as misapplied canon law because sentences against disobedience are not valid when the disobedience was “for the good of the faith,” which they believe the episcopal consecrations were.  What is overlooked, a true “elephant in the room,” is that in this act of disobedience they have set themselves in the position of judge of the Church, in a sense “more Catholic than the Pope.”  You cannot claim conditional submission to the authority of Rome.  You cannot, as the Protestants say, proclaim the infallibility and the inerrancy of Scripture and then qualify that statement with “rightly interpreted.”  No matter how you slice and dice it, individuals making statements like sola scriptura Protestants or apologists for the SSPX are setting themselves up as judges of the authority they proclaim exists outside themselves.I could be wrong, but my impression is that the SSPX believes not that they have separated themselves from Rome but that Rome has separated itself from the Tradition and that this Tradition is now under the protection of the SSPX.The FSSP, offspring of the SSPX at the time of the excommunications, are in full, conscious union with Rome.  They exist as a “society” in almost every way resembling the SSPX except (and this is important) all their priests serve under the authority of the Ordinary of the diocese in which they minister as priests.  They do not have Bishops independent of local Ordinaries.  They do not, currently, have any Bishops at all.  SSPX priests do not submit to the authority of the local Bishop and, therefore, cannot be said to be in union with Rome.The Orthodox churches are in formal schism with Rome.  The SSPX is not.  Still, the SSPX is not in union with Rome.  Their only heresy, if there is any, is their rejection of the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff as manifested in their rejection of authoritative teachings of the Church.  I don’t understand how one can say “we are in union with Rome except” and be considered in full communion with Rome.It may not be a formal sin to participate in the life the SSPX in any way.  It is, in my opinion, to place oneself in a “near occasion of sin” because of a pervasive “culture of doubt” that accepts conditional submission to the authority of Rome.  Even the most devout Traditionalist who rejects the authority of Rome plants a cancer of disobedience in their soul.  If you think I’m exaggerating, just look at the history of the Protestant Reformation: once they rejected the authority of Rome, all manner of doctrinal aberrations became thinkable, then possible, then doable.  And do them they have.  Or consider the Orthodox: they have successfully resisted severe doctrinal problems, but they have no way to deal with new contemporary moral issues in any binding way and their resistance to Rome has stiffened over time.  Given time, the distance between those not in union with Rome and Rome becomes ever greater.  No schism in Christian history has EVER been healed.I know there are specific issues that you addressed in your wonderful communication and I want to respond coherently.  I just decided that I needed to address the confusing issue of “schism” first since that’s a rather important issue to be clear about.  I, like many, heard that the SSPX was “schismatic,” it sounded plausible, and I never investigated it further.  I am satisfied that it is a highly distracting and misleading characterization of the SSPX, one that stops most productive discussion in its tracks.  That doesn’t mean, however, that there are no issues of substance that need to be addressed, and it appears that the SSPX and Rome are addressing them.  I reject the claim that Rome has abandoned the Tradition as inconsistent with the indefectibility of the Church.So that I don’t leave you with only my words, here are some links to intelligent discussions of the SSPX situation:http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=60279