Not to dismiss this man's experience he had at the seminary, but human nature being what it is, could not a man or even a large group of men, have had the same experience at a seminary say 50, 100, or even a 1000 years ago?
 

This isn't an inappropriate question, and I think it would take someone with more experience in seminaries and stories of seminaries of the past to answer this.  

Fr. Pfeiffer has mentioned that his mentor, an Irish priest, Fr. Hannifin (of happy memory), had told him many stories of how the priesthood had been before Vat.II and how the seminaries had changed since then.  So Fr. P. would be a good one to field this question your have, John Steven.

I might not be too far off by observing that it wasn't until the mid-19th century that Modernism was beginning to take a firm hold of seminaries worldwide, and we had been blessed with a string of good popes (Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XII and perhaps then Pius XI and XII), who waged a gallant battle against Modernism.  But all that changed with John XXIII et. al., to the point where we could then say that "the same seminary experience 50 years ago" might have been well-nigh impossible because the corruption had not sufficiently "evolved" at that time.  

This is a complex and anti-reactionary state of affairs, as I see it.  The deeds that were done in the 1970's were flat-out bad, but later, the deeds done inside the Society which was supposed to be correcting the Newchurch corruption, are doubly corrupt, and such a level of defection from the good had not been 'needed' before.  

But I could be wrong.

My sense of these times is, that Modernism, as condemned and defined in Pascendi, is not something that priests of 1,000 years ago would have understood.   What I mean to say is, if you could somehow go back in time and try to warn priests of the first millennium after Christ about "the grand sewer of all heresies" that would erupt in the distant future, they would most likely would have thought you to be off your rocker.  

There are many reasons for this, but it is founded in the fact that in the study of philosophy, specifically, the field of EPISTEMOLOGY was then something that they knew existed, because philosophy had developed to the point, even among the ancient Greeks (before Christ), on a natural plane, so as to recognize the existence of that branch of the "queen of the sciences" that would be identified as the study of what it means for man to know.  

Epistemology is the study of knowing about knowing, per se.  Now, you can know THAT you know something, but that does not address HOW you know that thing.  And in those 'saner' days, they would have not seen any great need to study the science of studying the science itself.  Even so, they were wise enough to recognize that this branch of the science in fact existed, yet it was so to speak, left unexplored, for lack of any motive for engaging what it took to make the exploration happen.  

But then along came Immanuel Kant, and that's a long story in itself.  Suffice it to say that in his home town, there endures to this day a street named "Philosopher's Walk," which is a street he used to take for his daily stroll. (Speaking of "exercise".)  People living in houses along this way could look out their windows and SET THEIR CLOCKS to the moment they saw Kant walking down the side of the road.  You see, they did not have Fort Collins, Colorado or Radio Controlled timekeeping based on a cesium clock that guzzles liquid nitrogen as if it were a soft drink.  He did the same activities every day.  He took his walk at the same time because he got up at the same time, got dressed at the same time, ate breakfast at the same time, read the newspaper at the same time, and sat down to "PHILOSOPHIZE" at the same time, every day.  Later, he took his walk at the same time, and he took the same walk at the same rate of speed.  So he passed each house at the same time every day.  Isn't that just beautiful?  He was the first modern "professional philosopher."  And in his so doing, he tore down what it means for us to think (the verb infinitive), to its most fundamental elements, and began to REBUILD the theory of how we think, and how we know -- EVERYTHING that we know.  He basically re-invented thought.  

Now, 1,000 years ago, nobody had to deal with the complications that emerge when a guy like that re-invents thought.  And since Modernism is an outgrowth of what Kant did to our thinking of thought, those guys in the year 1001 wouldn't even give you the time of day if you had tried to warn them about it.  Why would they be concerned with Modernism when it was nowhere on the radar?  

They didn't even HAVE radar.

.

i found thatwriting gripping. probably, because it resonates with many experiences with sspx. we all believed we 'had a dog in this race'(excuse the expression) we were there for the long haul, nothing was to much trouble, we gave our time, our homes, our pennies, all for the beloved society, and the glory of God. and the worst part for me is, the complete lack of charity, shown by ALL of the priests we accompanied on this journey. their failure to alert us, when things were changing, their their inability to defend the indefensible, and so their silence, became complicity, where colatteral damage to the souls they pledged to serve, is sacrificed, they lead us from the desert, into a greater one,

Ladislaus, I am sure you know that nobody goes to a monastery to become a priest but to become a monk. The superior of the monastery decides who among the monks will become priests. Perhaps it is not like that anymore in the Novus Ordo monasteries.

I wasn't speaking about just monasteries, but about orders in general:  Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans ... or even diocesan priests.

True, some of them did NOT have vocations -- but a 95% attrition rate? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Absolutely.  If I recall, 3 were ordained from my original class of 22.  Something definitely NOT RIGHT there.  Admittedly I left on my own for theological reasons, but none of the others did.  Not only that, but almost all of those who were kicked out or forced out left as basket cases.

There were some practices there which made some of us wonder out loud about whether there wasn't some cult-programming stuff going on.

No, he is not pro-Resistance. He is teaching at the SSPX school in Wilmot to make "Catholic men". This is the battle that he has chosen for now. He doesn't agree with the Resistance.

Amazing how some people cannot see the reality of the situation, and yet can analyze some components precisely.

 "Goodbye, good men."

 
That tragedy is exactly what I though of.  The (evidently) institutionalized destruction of vocations and the men who offered themselves for the love of Him and His church runs in a strong parallel in these stories, except the N.O. incorporates abomination to haze Good Men out of their vocations.  

I certainly felt the same despairing rage (among other things) reading this as I did reading "Good Bye, Good Men" years ago.  

In defense of those Trads who give up and "wait for the end" --

It sure seems to be humanly impossible for us to do anything. Just look at the "Story of a Seminarian" we just read.

I discovered the SSPX around 2000 and was totally inspired by their mission. I read the works and biographies of Archbishop Lefebvre, the history of Vatican II, etc. and I could see that the SSPX was at the top of a very short list of groups that were doing exactly what needed to be done in the Church today.

Fighting error 100%, not giving up where they shouldn't (on the Conciliar Church for example), but not sticking their heads in the sand either. Completely Catholic, but not bitter. They were apostolic and zealous to convert souls. They even had an unbroken line with Tradition (Abp. Lefebvre). They even had some measure of legitimacy, having been lawfully set up within the Catholic Church in a given diocese (was it Fribourg?) as a pious union to form priests, etc.

It was the perfect position! I'm not being sarcastic either. I really thought they had the perfect, Catholic, balanced position in this Crisis. Even today I still think they DID have the perfect position, which is why I support the Resistance today -- they are the heir apparent to the classic SSPX position.

And then look at this story. Zealous young men like myself who believed in the SSPX mission and signed up to become priests -- look what happened to so many of them. We thought we could throw our financial support, even our lives at this Great Cause to help rebuild the Church, and what did it get us? Disappointment.

Like Bishop Williamson, I'm very discouraged by the human side of things right now. I don't think any amount of street preaching, door-to-door, public processions, retreats (only Trads sign up for these), or any other apostolic work is going to turn this mess around. Only a chastisement would be sufficient to get everyone to shut off their gadgets long enough to think about Eternity and the state of their souls. Everyone is engrossed in distractions and pleasure -- how can even a saint compete with that?

The fact is that no book, not even the most well-written, can compete with a TV commercial, much less any TV show or movie. Even a poor TV program is easier to digest than the greatest of books. One is completely passive, the other takes effort.

St. Paul said that "Faith comes by hearing" -- suggesting that someone has to be speaking that truth to you. He didn't say "Faith comes by watching" or "Faith comes by viewing [on a screen]". When reading a book, you basically "hear" the words as well. So the only way to convert people is to preach (in person) or distribute pamphlets/books. But people won't and can't read anymore.

So yes, I don't have infinite amounts of patience or hope. I have hope, all right -- that God will send his Chastisement soon and save the greatest number of souls. What do we do with ourselves in the meantime? Just live as virtuous a life as possible, and maybe hope to help a few people along the way. But it's not going to amount to much, as far as results. There are too few of us, and way too much power on the side of distraction/pleasure/error. Things are too far gone.

Never has there been a turnaround after a situation as dire as this one. The world is now worse than it was before the Flood. And even though there have been turnarounds before, they have always involved a chastisement like the Black Death. It's simply the way things work.