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I agree.  Furthermore, the three main problem people on the site (CM, Raoul, and FK) ALL responded in the negative to Matthew's request and put forward their own requirements.  That definitely warrants banning in my opinion.

I'm sorry that I bother you, Jamie.

The ONE requirement I have is that I be allowed rights over my own brain.  Matthew has no right to ask me to believe everyone here is Catholic, any more than Joseph Stalin has the right to make me believe he is God.  This would be to infringe on my conscience.  That is why it triggered a reaction among those whose consciences are sensitive.

As someone who loves freedom, I'm going to take a wild guess that Matthew did not mean what he said literally.  

Otherwise I fully intend to comply with all of Matthew's wishes, and always have, to the best of my ability.  

Your "brain" is subject to the requirements of charity insofar as when a man expresses to you that he is Catholic and believes what the Church teaches in its dogmas and doctrines, or the Fathers, and assents to accepted theological conclusions, you're obliged to take him at his word.

The only ones dissenting from the traditional papal magisterium are you and CM on the pretext of course that you have a better grasp of true doctrine, papal teaching notwithstanding.  In fact, you don't faint from even deposing Popes who stand in your way to true enlightenment.  A frightening thought for most Catholics.    

What are we supposed to do with that?  When you declare our popes to be invalid usurpers because you've come along with your enlightened points of view and new fangled opinions?  Do you expect us to take it lightly?  Do you expect us to see virtue in that?  The Catholic system starts to unravel when a man attempts to kick against the goad.  In this you two are related to the liberals and modernists that fill the ranks of the hierarchy.      

Matthew has actually been very tolerant of sedevacantists, consistently resisting calls to have them all banned.  That's why I joined this forum.  Matthew's openness and tolerance towards opinions that fall short of dogma are incredibly refreshing.  Over the years, both the dogmatic sedevacantists and dogmatic sedeplen!sts have caused eachother to polarize more and more, so that one can find denunciations of heresy and schism coming from each quarter against the other.  Such attitudes have short-circuited real rational discussion of this horrific crisis in this Church and have served to create a real crisis of humility and charity among Traditional Catholics.

Consequently, in openly discussing issues around sedevacantism, the necessity of baptism, and NFP (the three most hotly controverted issues among Traditional Catholics), I have actually seen more rational discussion and charitable tolerance on this forum than I have anywhere else.  I find it incredibly refreshing and edifying.

I for one enjoy when people challenge my positions.  Even if I don't agree with the arguments they bring, I always learn something if I keep an open mind--if in no other way than by causing me to take a more balanced, nuanced, and logically refined view of the matter in question.  I often devil's advocate against my own positions, to keep myself honest, and it's funny that I can actually find better objections to my own ideas than what usually come from those who have been blinded to all logic due to various agendas.  And therein lies the brilliance of the scholastic method as well, in putting up objections to your own conclusions and having to refute them.

And I understand why people get so dogmatic.  Because this crisis has so attacked the Faith, almost shaken it to its very core, people sometimes feel a need to put up psychological defenses to help safeguard their own faith.  Sometimes, however, these defenses can be overly simplistic, or black-and-white, lacking the appropriate logical distinctions and nuances.

Unfortunately, however, the defenses of these positions become extremely vitriolic.  Why do people get so bitter in these polemics?  Truth needs no defense.  Truth is the truth regardless of whether anyone believes it or not.  So if we argue and engage in polemics, trying to convince others of our positions, the only real motive for this should be charity, the desire to bring others out of their errors and to truth.  If we see excessive bitterness, that usually comes from a polemic motivated by the desire for self-justification, and to keep up our psychological barriers against this horrible crisis.

I made a conscious decision to almost completely disengage from the polemic about thirteen years ago now.  I do enjoy theology, but this polemic had done great harm to my own mind and soul.  I now much prefer to spend time in prayer, in contemplation, and in acts of charity towards others.

Our Lord taught us that His followers would be recognized by their love for one another.  If Traditional Catholicism is to be seen as the right way, we need to begin demonstrating that charity.  Otherwise, it'll be rejected out-of-hand for its "bad fruits" by those who might otherwise be inclined in that direction.  We can become a stumbling block for others.

I actually recognize a certain amount of validity in the points made by sedevacantists, as well as the anti-sedevacantists.  And I have argued both sides of this issue since I've been a member of this forum.  I have taken an in-between position of "Papa Doubtism" (LOL).  I find great peace in that spot intellectually, because I leave the resolution of this crisis with God, acknowledging my inability to fully come to terms with this great crisis.

I have over the years gotten to know very many SSPX, sedevacantist, conservative Novus Ordo, Eastern Rite Catholic, CMRI, Feeneyite, and independent bishops, priests, religious, and lay people.  I have nothing but compassion for everyone--especially for those who have strayed the furthest from charity into extremism.  We must remember to have charity for all, even for the uncharitable.  And I know how most of those who have strayed from charity are in fact tortured souls.  I know that first hand from how deeply this kind of attitude scarred me.  Truly the shepherd has been struck (in some manner) and the sheep scattered.  But I am certain that when Our Lord chooses to come out once again and call His sheep, those of His flock will know and hear His voice--and many Novus Ordo, SSPX, FSP, sedevacantist, and independenet folks will happily reuinted under Our Shepherd.   Sadly, there will be those in each group also who will not.  And in that way shall we know who have been formal Catholics and who have not.  I think that Our Lord has allowed these divisions in order to actually separate out the bad impurities from the Church, not unlike how a centrifuge operates, with the heavier impurities being pushed further and further out towards the extreme so that it can be separated from the pure essence.  We're in the difficult painful stages of a marvelous and miraculous purification of the Church by Our Lord.

If all sides could at least momentarily put down the axes they are grinding and extend a hand of charity, perhaps we could actually get somewhere, and Our Lord would then begin through us to thwart the devil's divide-and-conquer tactics.

 

I'd actually like to know the extra-forum relationship between CM and fk, for there can't be two people who think so alike, rejecting all the same popes, etc. who came to these conclusions entirely independently.

For some time, I suspected that CM and fk were the same person, acting good-cop (CM) and bad-cop (fk).