The Liberals' softness on people extends to softness on principles; the sedevacantists' hardness on principles makes them go hard on people.
How are sedevacantists "hard" on people? How is saying a man is not the Pope based on his formal heresy -- and it is formal -- uncharitable or harder than saying he is the Pope but rejecting everything he does or says?
There is no logic to what the SSPX says; this is emotion-based reasoning, and it is only the confidence and assured authority with which it is said that makes it convincing. There is nothing intrinsically "nicer" or more charitable about SSPX than sedevacantism; these are simply theological stances.
It might be helpful to see Ratzinger less as a Pope and more as a heresiarch. Then you will see why the una cuм is unacceptable. It's not only a matter of determining who is or who is not Pope. It's a matter of honoring God by not calling a notorious, massively destructive heresiarch "famulo tuo" in the Canon of His Mass.
Why, for the SSPX, does loving those who are erring mean to SHARE in their errors? He is mangling Augustine. We don't want to offend the Vatican II laity by rejecting their heresiarch so we are going to call him Pope? What kind of imaginary community does Bishop Williamson think exists between Vatican II Catholics and SSPX Catholics? Does he think that they get on their knees and thank SSPX-ers every day for being more considerate than sedevacantists? Doesn't Bishop Williamson know that most Novus Ordo types think that SSPX-ers are schismatic fanatics anyway?
Constantly, with the SSPX, the theme is pushed that sedevacantists are cruel and they, steering the middle course, are "moderate" and considerate. It is not the reasoning of the argument that convinces, because it is flimsier than a wet toilet-paper roll, but the hypnotic repetition of it. They try to make it seem like deciding a man is not Pope is some kind of violent, revolutionary, Protestant action, when it is simple common sense. How can a man be the head of a Church to which he doesn't even belong? And how can the body of this Church follow a head teaching another doctrine than the one they profess to hold?
Like a Hollywood movie the idea of SSPX as the "nice guys" appeals to a vague sense of the warm fuzzies. Imagine a movie that ends with a black kid and white kid riding off together into the sunset on their bicycles after surviving various dangers together. Applauding this flatters you and makes you feel like a good and nice person, not like one of those RACISTS -- but if you really analyze it in depth, there's nothing there, it's empty. And who and where are these villainous racists anyway?
Likewise what Bishop Williamson is saying, when you analyze it, just like when you analyze a sentimental Spielberg movie, all falls apart. It's all based on painting sedevacantists as extremists, which brings those in SSPX together as good, sensible people who are against imaginary extremism, just like all those watching the movie described above are all brought together into an imaginary bond against imaginary racists.
You're dealing with a former screenwriter and Machiavellian plotter here. I know manipulation. I know it from the inside-out, like a Swiss watchmaker knows what makes a watch tick. I don't say I have many talents but that is one that I'd be falsely humble to deny.
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Unfortunately, reading this, I can see why Matthew thinks the way he does. It shows when he suspected me of pride the other day. The implication, as always, is that sedes are haughty vigilantes who take the law into their own hands, while those in SSPX are meek and obedient and patient, waiting for God to resolve the problem.
But there are several types of pride: The pride Matthew accuses me of might be an intellectual pride, pride in my writing style, something like that. If I do have pride, that's what it is and that's what I have to work on. I do not have righteous religious pride though. That would be ridiculous for someone with my background.
Whatever the case, it is usually arrogant righteousness that we consider pride.
But there is also the kind of pride that flatters itself on its humility.
This is arrogant righteousness in a more insidious form.
People who suffer from this second kind of pride may see simple truth-tellers as arrogant jerks, because the truth, which they don't want to hear, would wrench them out of their dreamworld. It is this "wrenching" -- really an awakening -- that they associate with violence and extremism. They fear it so much that it leads to exactly what you see here, the accusations of going too far, of being extreme, just as Jesus was seen as being very extreme in His time when all He did was tell the truth. Yet for most it was far too much to bear; it was a light that was too bright being shined into their comfortably dark hidey-holes. They accused Him of pride when THEY were the ones who were too proud to accept His wisdom.
I'm not saying this is true of you, Matthew ( nor am I comparing myself to Jesus, of course! ) You don't strike me as being afraid of the truth at all. But you do strike me as taking this approach of Bishop Williamson that you have found the via media, the tolerant, charitable, happy medium that sets you apart from rigid, frothing, maniacal sedes, and that in a subconscious way you pride yourself on it because you have been subliminally taught to pride yourself on it.
You have shown that you can recognize fallacious logic when it is used by Rawhide. Why do you fall for it from Bishop Williamson? Is it because he tells much of the truth about cօռspιʀαcιҽs and Jєωs, because telling 90% of the truth to sell one big lie is another effective hypnotic technique.
It's not about how people SEEM, or how they are made to seem, but what they SAY. Forget about appearances and follow the doctrine and you can't go wrong. If you're a jury member are you going to believe one lawyer because he seems nicer than the other, walks with a cane and acts handicapped to win your sympathy, or are you going to believe the one whose proof is the most convincing?
Topic: Bishop Williamson on Sedevacantism (Read 3602 times)