As I have finally decided to respond to the issue of Pope Francis' apostolic letter Traditionis Custodes (TC), the purpose of this posting is to explain in part my reluctance to do so up to this point.

When the news of this event first came out, I knew with the absence of context, this move would be ripe for misinterpretation. So before I did anything else, I carefully read the texts involved. I then compiled on July 18, 2021 a list of threads from this site going back 2.5 years prior to TC to point out a longstanding and undeniable pattern of actions and behaviour by various folks both lay as well as clerical claiming to be traditionalists. That list was compiled within days of the motu proprio's publication. 

At that point, an examination of the apostolic letter itself along with the accompanying text was appropriate so a text was drafted in preliminary form on July 23, 2021 and after additional prayer and reflection, extensively revised on August 6, 2021. Finally, I came up with the idea for a third piece to complete the subject and drafted the initial text August 6, 2021. A reread of all three texts took place on August 13, 2021 with modifications being made to all of them at that time, most notably in the introduction of the main response. 

I was considering a late August-early September 2021 publication of the threads but was really demoralized by the fall of Kabul and to be honest, the motivation to finish and publish the texts at that point subsided. I also was hoping that after an initial furor from the Usual Suspects that things would more or less die down and publication of the threads could be put off indefinitely. That unfortunately has not happened.

I have been seeing in the past couple of months not only nothing from the so-called traditionalists and their allies of a truly Traditional attitude on the matter in question, but in general completely tone deaf responses oblivious to the objective reality involved. Therefore, I have decided that there is no point in sitting on these texts any longer. They were given a final review on October 5, 2021 and as nothing of substance was deemed in need of changing, the three texts will be published in sequential order starting tomorrow. 

Points to Ponder:

He speaks in vain who tries to persuade me of the orthodoxy of those who, like himself, refuse obedience to his Holiness the Pope of the most holy Church of Rome: that is to the Apostolic See. [Pope Leo XIII: Excerpt from the Encyclical Letter Satis Cognitum §13 (circa June 29, 1896)]

Points to Ponder:

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.

The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially. [James Clear]

The truth about Galileo and the Catholic Church

This is one of those things that "everybody knows about" that in reality almost no one does. As the article above adequately covers the subject, in the interest of both reason and ethics, I post it here for the reader's consideration.

Apologists Must Embrace Charity Not Argumentation As The Foundation Of Their Work 

The above piece is well done. To add slightly to what was written above, I have long believed that spiritual instructions should take precedence for anyone wanting to get involved in apologetics. Unfortunately it usually gets neglected and the results are often tragic.  

Democrats Melting Down: GOP Flips Long-Held Blue Seat in Iowa Special Election

Between this and the powerful head of the House Finance Committee deciding to not seek reelection in a pretty safe blue district in Louisville, these would seem to be canaries in the coal mine portending an election bloodbath next year.

BOMBSHELL—New internal CDF information shows Pope Francis flagrantly lying about bishops’ TLM survey

The time for me to fully weigh in on Traditionis Custodes is nearly at hand. That said, the purpose of this posting is to address only the accusation made at the link above. I read the thread and it was more conspiratorial trad outrage porn. However, for the purpose of this posting, let us assume that the claim is true.

If Pope Francis did ignore a report favourable to the Tridentine liturgical form to publish Traditionis Custodes, it would be no different than Pope Benedict XVI ignoring the bishops of the world episcopate in issuing Summorum Pontificum back in 2007. Or Pope John Paul II twice ignoring the world episcopate in issuing Quattuor Abhinc Annos in 1984 and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta in 1988. 

Yet the same people getting their undies in a wedge about Pope Francis supposedly ignoring a favourable trad survey to rule against them were not similarly outraged by Pope John Paul II (twice)  and Pope Benedict XVI (once) ignoring unfavourable episcopal feedback to issue rulings trads liked. You cannot have it both ways without being a flaming hypocrite.

So even if Pope Francis went against episcopal consensus in issuing Traditionis Custodes, so did Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II with their indults of 1984, 1988, and 2007 respectively. And need I mention that Pope Paul VI ignored a nearly unanimous consensus on his Birth Control Commission to side with the 4 commission dissenters in issuing Humanae Vitae? I do not hear conservatives so outraged about that. Or that Pope Leo XIII's commission examining the validity of Anglican orders was split but mostly favouring validity but the Archbishop of Westminster persuaded the Pope to rule in Apostolicae Curae that they were invalid lest a favourable ruling undermine Catholic efforts amongst the Anglicans. I do not hear anyone on the right getting their knockers in a twist over that.

The bottom line is this: the Pope can consult with whomever he wants but he is not required to follow the advice given if he does not want to. Irrespective of what individuals may think about the issues involved, that is his prerogative as Supreme Pontiff.

Points to Ponder:

Sunrise lies beyond the setting sun. It cannot be reborn in the east unless it dies in the west. And once it dies, there's nothing to keep us here. Only darkness remains. Unbelievers rage against the dying light. But for the saints, our light must die below to then ascend to the zenith of meridian glory. Before we rise to light everlasting, our sun must set. [Steve Hays]

I cannot imagine going through life constantly pissing on people while claiming to be some high falutin defensor ecclesia. Unfortunately there are those who do this stuff on at least a weekly (if not seemingly daily) and in the process remind myself and others of "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" (cf. 1 Cor xiii,1). And when such folks attack other people under the guise of being a true Christian, they do great harm to Catholic evangelization.

I thought of going against my usual policy of not "answering a fool according to his folly" (cf. Proverbs xxvi,4) but fortunately, Providence intervened and a couple of other folks more or less encapsulated at least to a macro extent what I would have said. Their responses can be read below.{1} As for the fool, they are not even worth acknowledging except in rebuke and the footnote below handles that adequately enough. 

Note:

{1} See these links for details:

I apologize

The substance of my criticism

Points to Ponder:

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure. [Reinhold Niebuhr]

Points to Ponder:

Do you really believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you really preach what you live? The witness of life has become more than ever an essential condition for real effectiveness in preaching. [Pope St. Paul VI: From Evangelii Nuntiandi (circa 1975)]

I have not mentioned a planned response to Traditionis Custodes in a while. Suffice to say, I have a main response and two subsidiary ones that were more or less completed as of my last mention of them. They need a final review before being published but I simply have not been able to motivate myself to do that yet. I do anticipate getting to that before the end of the month of October with all likelihood.

Anyway, I am just posting this blurb to notify folks who have wondered about that if anything would ever be forthcoming from me. The answer is yes, the question is a matter of when not if at this point.

MOTHER JONES TO THE LEFT: STOP JONESING ABOUT BRETT KAVANAUGH

When extreme liberals have lost Mother Jones...

LIBERAL HYPOCRISY: CHAPTER 12,186

9 high-stakes issues the Supreme Court will take up this coming term

Though written from a left wing perspective, this article is useful in outlining some significant cases on the docket in the upcoming Supreme Court term.

House May Pull Infrastructure Bill as Manchin Deals Knock-out Blow on Reconciliation: "Fiscal Insanity"

This is the second time a vote has been scheduled and postponed.  

Points to Ponder:

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.[Alexander Hamilton]

New York Post Pens Delicious 'Toldjah So' After Politico 'Confirms' Some Hunter Biden Laptop Emails

They knew this was true last year but tried to bury and/or discredit it for political reasons. The media in this country is even worse than it was sixteen years ago when I referred to "[t]he depravity to which the journalistic profession has fallen since the days of Watergate" and other such statements in a lengthy expository musing on the death of Deep Throat and the problems in journalism that were wrought in the wake of what Woodward and Bernstein did. Here is just a sample: 

The depravity to which the journalistic profession has fallen since the days of Watergate can be to some extent pinned on Woodward and Bernstein...not as much them personally as what they ushered in in the aftermath of the Nixon resignation.[...] The journalistic profession has become one where you "make it" by finding someone whose reputation you can destroy. Ethics are often not a factor, indeed morals and ethics often get the screw from journalists who are trying to "make it" and then (for those who "make it") the same tactics are utilized to try and stay "on top." The same is the case with the legal profession and the political profession: oftentimes those who "make it" do so by screwing other people. So the parallel to prostitution is an apt one. The only difference of course is that prostitutes are somewhat honest about it. But enough on that subject for now. 

To summarize these musings, Woodward and Bernstein by their approach to "Deep Throat" ushered in a new era of journalism which is rotten to the core. It is comprised of people who seek to create news and who are interested in spinning the facts to advance an agenda rather than report on what is happening and letting the readers draw their own conclusions. The ethics in this field are abysmal and a strong reason why the MSM is slowly becoming more and more irrelevant in this new age of alternative media is because they are no longer a monopoly.{1}

If I can criticize myself a bit from the vantage point of more than sixteen years, I was a bit too optimistic back then about alternative media. Yes it does serve to a certain extent as a hedge against the mainstream media but as the coverage of the last election showed, they are just as susceptible to being corrupted as the mainstream media to an escalated degree has been in recent decades. 

The bottom line here is potentially damaging information for the Biden presidential aspirations was deliberately ignored, downplayed, or covered up by the lions share of mainstream media outlets as well as by those running social media platforms. This was done in a coordinated attempt to benefit one political candidate over another with absolutely no possible claim of plausible deniability being possible. For those who wonder why some of us put an asterisk next to President Joe Biden*, it is not without good reasons for doing so.

Note:

{1} Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Posting On the Subject of "Deep Throat", the Correlative Ramifications Thereof, Etc. (circa June 1, 2005)

Points to Ponder:

I am sure there are many things better than a good cigar, but right now, I can't think of what they might be. [Richard Carleton]

Fugees reunite with Lauryn Hill as they announce first tour in 25 YEARS to celebrate critically-acclaimed 1996 album The Score