Saturday, August 2, 2014

THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?/ And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Brooke

Nothing characterizes the ongoing ecclesial crisis more accurately than the absence of certitude about once certain assumptions of Catholic life. The result has been a riot of competing guesses -- a few plausible, most untenable --about the Church's constitution. Exacerbating the confusion has been the appearance of self-interested, striving, clerical adventurers hell-bent on grabbing for themselves the kind of comfortable life that their social class, poor work ethic, and inferior education would have denied them were it not for the pitiable state of Christ's Church. (To be frank, the majority of these detestable loafers would've had a hard time becoming lay brothers in the good ol' days.)

For most of us, this uncertainty is maddening. We join a chapel based on emotion or prejudice or convenience. We persevere in our choice, for we've resigned ourselves to never knowing with certainty whether our decision was right or wrong. That's probably how most Traddies ended up in one or another of the several sede sects. It also explains why most don't leave even after such moral catastrophes like the 2009 SGG School Scandal. It's plainly a matter of negative loyalty: No matter how bad things are, the situation is probably worse elsewhere, so stick with the devil you know.

We'll never have meaningful answers until the Restoration. That event may not happen in our lifetimes. Nevertheless, our ignorance needn't condemn us to living with the nasty results of an honest mistake. In other words, there must be a way for us to sort out which Trad sect or chapel is the least injurious to our soul, our family, our bank account, and our will. Then we can escape Cultilandia.

Well, we think we've found the way, and that way is uncertainty itself. Here's what we mean:

If you're thinking of joining a chapel or want to decide whether to stay in the one you're in, talk to the priest about such topics as the defection of the pope, the Pius X/Pius XII/1962 liturgies, the validity of N.O. holy orders, una-cum Masses, modesty and strapless women's shoes, attendance at chapels with differing views, the Thục lineage, Sedevacantism and/or Sedeprivationism,  etc. (If, like many of Tradistan's clergy, yours is surly, backward, uncommunicative, or arrogantly standoffish, you'll have to listen to his public remarks on these matters.)

If he somehow acknowledges that these are opinions, not Church dogma, and that you are by no means required to agree 100% with him in order to assist at Mass and receive the sacraments, then you may have found the right place. Don't worry if he tries to persuade you. That's to be expected, as long as his attempts aren't high-pressured or harassing. Just leave at once if later he denies you communion or absolution, threatens you with removal, accuses you of mortal sin if you can't go along with his whole program, or claims that you are "confusing" the other faithful.

Believe it or not, there are priests out there well-formed enough to know the difference between sacred dogmas pronounced by the magisterium and mere speculations concocted by malformed ecclesiastical entrepreneurs. An intellectually honest, trustworthy, intelligent priest will acknowledge that the opinions he holds on these topics are not revealed truth. His uncertainty, then, is a sure sign that you haven't landed in a cult where a money-mad, disturbed control-freak aims to do violence to your conscience and empty your pocketbook.

On the other hand, run from any con artists who glibly offer pat answers to the profound mysteries of the Vatican II crisis. You now can recognize them. (But, then, you knew their identities without our help, didn't you?)

17 comments:

  1. Yes, I did know their identities, and they're not only at SGG.

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    1. "They're everywhere!" as the kids say nowadays.

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  2. The man says what needs to be said. Even if this post was wrong (just being another "opinion" among opinions) or past charity, let the traditionalists then offer POLITE and CERTAIN correction with LOVE.

    I applaud that P.L. makes this post here. Lack of certainty is among the biggest plagues upon "traditional Catholicism". If any -ism was CERTAIN like 2+2=4, how could there possibly be argument? At least among heretics their false doctrine is clear. Yet, among traditionalists there are all kinds of uncertain speculations.

    The uncertainty needs to stop, and yes, until then, it is not reasonable to expect someone *must* believe a given thing if there is uncertainty surrounding it, namely about how to correctly respond to Vatican 2 and what's going on with the papacy. This uncertainty may be destroyed by prayer and study (any other methods known?).

    What we need to do is have more conferences and meetings in person to sort out different uncertainties with an open, objective mind. Something like a "tradcumenist" Vatican 2 commission needs to be created. In this, all the possible arguments for different positions can be collected and weighed. Perhaps through working together, we might attain a true unity with God's help and the truth will win out and be established in CERTAINTY to put to rest many of these confusions.

    A simple belief which "traditionalists" seem to reject is that people can convert. In spite of sedevacantists having gone from novus ordo to SSPX to sedevacantism, they decide that no one else can do this. They decide that CMRI and SSPV are fated to be divided. They decide that "things are too chaotic and people are too proud" for a Restoration to happen. But the Restoration will happen, and we will work hard in prayer and intellectual labor to make it happen. We will not sit idly while many of our peers become non-Catholic, while "traditionalists" war it out with one another instead of focussing on the rapidly disintegrating world around them. We will believe in God's ability to fix this and He will do it, at least as much as is necessary to save our souls.

    cont'd

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  3. cont'd

    We will have faith that moves mountains and which will move the mountains of confusion away from the divided factions. We will not be fatigued by present confusions. We will remember that the Church was once clear and active in the 20th century, and we will be amazed to see how it gets restored to this and BETTER. We will dream of at least a functional future where there are no unnecessary divisions between SSPX/sedevacantists/etc. We will imitate JESUS' example and not that of speculative traditionalism. We will evangelize and try to work with traditionalists, and if there is irresolvable conflict, we will "shake the dust off our feet" (Matthew 10:14) and move on. We will not "resist evil" but "turn the other cheek" (Matthew 5:39). We will not call them names or try to otherwise wrestle them into our position anymore than is acceptably assertive. We will work to build up in good faith what we understand to be correct. We will not yield to the cancerous attitudes of this age, but we will in faith in God's Providence and love of our neighbors seek to create a true Catholic unity. We will in good faith work to heal divisions, but yet if they must happen, we will accept this, without being judgmental or "being a murderer in our heart by being angry with our brother" (1 John 3:15). We will not be angry with those wicked "novus ordites", but will focus on simply being Catholic and building up Catholicism, helping all (including novus ordites) to be Catholic.

    We will work with other like minded traditionalists on similar goals without compromising our disparate convictions. We will identify division among traditional Catholics as the work of the Devil and NOT as something that God wills (though God certainly wills the good gained from the adversity we experience). We will overcome evil by doing good (Romans 12:21).

    We will love God with all our heart, mind, body, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves Matthew 22:37. We will work to overcome all other sins as we await for God's decisive help on these uncertain points of division as we continue to pray for it.

    Having clearly defined these problems of knowledge of how to certainly respond to Vatican 2 and on figuring out where there papacy is and how to restore it, we will diligently crusade towards solutions to these issues without fatigue, with great fasting, prayers, and almsgiving by doing spiritual and corporal acts of mercy. We will become as holy as we ought to, fulfilling our role in this crisis of the Church.

    We shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free John 8:32.

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  4. P.S. Traditionalists often want to go back to the 50s. But the 50s yielded to the 60s revolutions. We need, then, probably to go back to the 1910s. But, we cannot simply go back to the 1910s, for the world has changed in over a century of developments. Therefore, really the task we have is to move the clock back 100 years and bring it up to speed 100 years. This is, in a sense, a double-century task. With God all things are possible Matthew 19:26, so we should not fret. However, in order to solve a problem, we must know what the problem is in order to implement the solution. We have been merely hacking at symptoms rather than fully understanding the scope of the problem.


    P.S.S. Tweet moar maybe under pseudonyms

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  5. All the foregoing is an insightful analysis of the challenge decent Catholics face. It's thoroughly grounded in a Christian ethos, and it deserves wider publication than this comment forum. What's best is that it respects the complexity of the post-Vatican II crisis and recognizes that an answer lies somewhere beyond factionalism.

    We heartily concur with everything written -- including the possibility that our opinion may be wrong. We especially admired the resolution not to " be angry with those wicked "novus ordites", but [to] focus on simply being Catholic and building up Catholicism, helping all (including novus ordites) to be Catholic." And as *aliquid pravists*, we embrace the commenter's exhortation to "work with other like minded traditionalists on similar goals without compromising our disparate convictions."

    To put an end to all these destructive divisions, we Catholics must stop enabling the cult masters who depend upon separation and exclusion to promote their own selfish interests. They are the cataracts that prevent traditionalists from seeing the simple Gospel message of which this commenter has so eloquently written.

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    1. I agree with Anonymous that prayer and penance and needed now more than ever, but I disagree with his general sentiment that we are to restore the glory of the Church by some human effort. If the Church is suffering and ashamed it is because God has willed it for the sake of punishment. The analogy I would draw is this one: in the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites false prophets amongst them preached that the Israelites ought to win their freedom by rebellion, but God said through his own prophet that the captivity was punishment for the sin of Israel and he would only free them at the time appointed by Himself. Similarly, we are under Modernist captivity and we will only be freed at the Lord's appointed time.

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  6. I have a relatively minor quibble with Anon @ 12:33. Once there is a revolution which changes everything like Vat 2 there is never a return to the status quo ante. There is something new-ultimately something better in God's good time-but something new which we as fallible humans try to grope our way through. No going back to the past and reconstructing them for our own day. The good old days are history.

    A good example might be the French Revolution. After Napoleon was overthrown there was a short-lived attempt to restore the monarchy. It didn't last though because the Revolution had poisoned things so that the monarchy would ultimarely be superseded by a republic. Bishop Williamson explains this concept much better than I. Hopefully some will understand despite my incoherence.

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  7. Anon 5:13 - Doesn't Bishop Williamson like The Poem of the Man-God? And doesn't he believe that women shouldn't go to college? There's a poison well right there. Sorry, but I don't drink the water from a poisoned well even if it's only got a couple of drops of poison.

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    1. Our view is that we should avoid the cult of the personality in every respect.

      Williamson, Dolan, Sanborn, and the other "wandering bishops" should not even enter into our thinking. They've all been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

      While we'll admit that Williamson is more educated and better bred by several orders of magnitude than the churlish American cult masters, by continually invoking these men's authority as though they somehow could provide the answers to the mystery of why the Church is suffering so cruelly now, we show ourselves to be childishly dependent on mere men, some of whom are worthy only of our contempt.

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    2. The Reader: no man is "worthy only of our contempt".

      I agree with you on the dangers of the cult of personality. However, it is to be expected in a time of apostasy; look back to the time of the Old Law when God sent His prophets in times of crisis. I'm not saying that these wandering bishops, as you call them, are God-appointed prophets; far from it, a time of crisis is as much a time of false prophets as a time of true ones. I've come across this issue in my own thinking; if we are to abandon the Holy See as being vacant, then do we not become dependent upon individual men acting in the stead of the Holy See, or to take the position of the Holy See ourselves? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this, dear Reader.

      Faithfully,
      Anonymous.

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  8. Anon@412. I admit that I am not that much a fan of Bishop Williamson myself. In his view, the Sound of Music is pornographic. Nonetheless he does expound correctly, in my view, that sentiment for the past is not a building block for the future. Perhaps he read Belloc's Characters of the Reformation like I did and realized that a revolution like the Protestant Reformation changes everything. The same could be argued with Vatican 2. He has explained it frequently better than I so that is the only reason I burdened the argument with a mention of him.

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  9. Reader, I'm Anon 4:12 & get your point & agree. I guess I was just a tad irritated with the mention of Bishop W. I read too many posts on the internet glorifying him as if he's our last hope & it bothers me no end. We live in mighty confusing times that I never thought I'd live to see. We just have to keep our eyes on the cross.

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    1. We agree with you 100%. Williamson, although superior in every respect to Dolan, Sanborn, and a host of other "sede saviors," indeed is not our last hope. In fact, once we jettison all such men from our thinking, then we'll have some hope. As long as we allow these creatures to loom large on our horizon, we'll never see the Cross through the dark shadows they cast.

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  10. I think your full of shit and I quite remembered you when you went to St.Gertrudes. To say I'm throwing my money away when I give to my parish, is like saying you could get laid in a morgue.
    Your a nerdy Magoo who gets off on putting down priests who really care for souls. I should have punched you in the face when I had a chance when you treat your little temper tantrum back in 09. Please do me a favor and come visit me next time you're in Cincinnati.
    Love,
    Dominic O'Donnell

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