You will find that many of these persons are very insistent with their spiritual masters to be granted that which they desire, extracting it from them almost by force; if they be refused it they become as peevish as children and go about in great displeasure, thinking that they are not serving God when they are not allowed to do that which they would.
For they go about clinging to their own will and pleasure, which they treat as though it came from God; and immediately their directors take it from them, and try to subject them to the will of God, they become peevish, grow faint-hearted and fall away. These persons think that their own satisfaction and pleasure are the satisfaction and service of God.
This is to judge God very unworthily; they have not realized that the least of the benefits which come from this Most Holy Sacrament is that which concerns the senses; and that the invisible part of the grace that it bestows is much greater; for, in order that they may look at it with the eyes of faith, God oftentimes withholds from them these other consolations and sweetnesses of sense. [St. John of the Cross: From The Dark Night of the Soul, Book I (circa ante-1582)]
I have a few thoughts on the July 16, 2021 motu proprio Traditonis Custodes and the stated reasons for it in the accompanying letter to the bishops to follow on the brief ones mentioned some time ago. Some of what I say in this thread could very well anger many people including a few longtime friends. I am also aware that not everything I say here will apply to everyone who in some form or another identifies with the movement that calls themselves traditionalist.
There are reasons it took some time to finish drafting a response. Life in general has its ways of imposing on our available time for one. But I also have mixed emotions about this. It really bothers me that some very good people are going to be hurt by this. But unfortunately, for reasons I will detail in this text, this action was in a certain sense inevitable based on how things had been going for quite some time, particularly in recent years.
To begin our exposition on the aforementioned apostolic letter, it was made clear in an accompanying letter that a major reason for Traditionis Custodes was that the generosity of Pope St. John Paul II and particularly of Pope Benedict XVI was badly abused:
Regrettably, the pastoral objective of my Predecessors, who had intended "to do everything possible to ensure that all those who truly possessed the desire for unity would find it possible to remain in this unity or to rediscover it anew," has often been seriously disregarded. An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.
This is unfortunately quite on point. For those observing these matters over the years, a cottage industry developed around Summorum Pontificum which rather than being useful for promoting ecclesial unity was instead regularly showing "neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself"{1} instead of "due reverence and submission."{2} Its contributors trafficked in doctrinally defective idiocy that ran the gauntlet from questioning the integrity of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the recent pontificates to a kind of yellow journalism that took relish in painting in the worst possible way various papal teachings and directives.
With the pontificate of Pope Francis, these folks were particularly similar to "sounding brass or tinkling cymbals" (cf. 1 Cor xiii,1). In fact, the entirety of that biblical chapter is quite germane to this matter because it highlights the core flaw of so many in the traditionalist cottage industry: the absolute and fundamental lack of charity. This can be seen in particular over the past seven plus years where these folks have treated the Successor of Peter with contempt at every turn. You can see this not only in the numerous articles cranked out by the Traditionalist Outrage Porn contingent but also from those who both comment on said pieces in comments boxes as well as circulate them to others.
These sorts of people were described in a rather prophetic way in an allocation of Pope St. Pius X over one hundred years ago:
Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the cunning statements of those who persistently claim to wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight so that people do not leave Her...But judge them by their works. If they despise the shepherds of the Church and even the Pope, if they attempt all means of evading their authority in order to elude their directives and judgments..., then about which Church do these men mean to speak? Certainly not about that established on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20)." [Pope St. Pius X: Allocution (circa May 10, 1909)]
This quote precisely encapsulates the attitudes of the lions share of vocal traditionalists and conservatives over the current pontificate. And these once problematic (but somewhat containable) matters have unfortunately gotten much worse since Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio was promulgated. What was intended to be a healing action and a magnanimous gesture was instead horribly abused. And as of July 16, 2021 these graceless brats used up the last of the papal goodwill:
In defense of the unity of the Body of Christ, I am constrained to revoke the faculty granted by my Predecessors. The distorted use that has been made of this faculty is contrary to the intentions that led to granting the freedom to celebrate the Mass with the Missale Romanum of 1962. Because "liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity," they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church — the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion — affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only "with the body" but also "with the heart" is a condition for salvation.
It is very sad that a liturgical form that used to be a source of unity now is the domain of those who regularly foster division. It could not have been Pope Benedict XVI's intent to facilitate the growth of groups that to varying degrees are schismatic, heretical, and refuse obedience at every turn. The very same More Moral Than Thou sorts who with Pope Francis' recent decision "when they heard this, they were cut to the quick" (cf. Acts vii,54) are in the end generally not going to act differently than they have in the past seven plus years. That is why it is perfectly justifiable with Traditionis Custodes for the Supreme Pontiff to "cut them in pieces and assign them a place with the other hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (cf. Matthew xxiv,51).
My personal view on this as I said earlier is complicated. There are folks who will be hurt by this who are legitimately innocent bystanders. But the smug, self righteous, phylactery-widening, tassel-lengthening Pharisees who brought this on themselves{3} are another story altogether.
For those who are hurt and angry about this, if they are of goodwill, they will seek in this difficulty consolation in the writings of the spiritual masters of the Catholic tradition. And I believe all of goodwill should be both sensitive to these folks' difficulties as well as seek to help them in navigating the waters that lay ahead.
However, of those other folks who have without shame or repentance trafficked in detraction, slander, calumny, sacrilege, idolatry, and written scandalous manifestos against the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the popes who have confirmed said synod, they deserve only contempt. Most of them are not going to stop now that they have squandered Summorum Pontificum. But hopefully, their influence can be effectively exorcised from the Church and a genuine renewal can take place.
[I]t is to give proof of a submission which is far from sincere to set up some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them and in some ways they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation, would wish to appeal to a future council, or to a Pope who is better informed.
On this point what must be remembered is that in the government of the Church, except for the essential duties imposed on all Pontiffs by their apostolic office, each of them can adopt the attitude which he judges best according to times and circumstances. Of this he alone is the judge. [Pope Leo XIII: Apostolic Letter Epistola Tua (circa June 17, 1885)]
Notes:
{1} Pope Pius XII: Excerpt from his Encyclical Letter Humani Generis §18 (circa August 12, 1950)
{2} Cf. Humani Generis §42.
{3} In the event that some of The Usual Suspects doubt my veracity, it bears noting that is at least one priest within the traditionalist movement (with whom I have had past disagreements) has to his credit outlined these problems in pretty good detail for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
