Many from novus ordo had plenty of time to rape and molesters children and go to gαy bars and exchange porn on computers and now that lay people are doing mostly all the work, including funerals and even weddings...these fake and phone novus ordo priests have time to take their 5 week paid vacations and big salaries while the rest of us are working two three jobs just to pay our property taxes...

 

I think it's really as simple as the OP said.  "Having servants is not American."  Well, why should Catholics care about the Liberal and Protestant cultural sensibilities of United-Statesians ?  French culture has a tradition of hierarchy and it is not opposed to the virtue of humility to employ assistants to help one better perform one's duties.  It is a Protestant and humanist and liberal error to claim that egalitarian social attitudes coincide with virtue.

As for the rest...

But ironically this French obsession with food appeared after the Revolution with the appearance of restaurants to serve the emerging middle class.

That depends on how you define this "obsession" with food.  The preparation and dynamics of food are vital parts of Louisiana Acadian and Créole culture as well and, as far as I know, always have been.  It seems to have more to do with the influence of so many feasts and the spirit of conviviality and hospitality than it does with bourgeois pretensions or anything like that.  Now, the classic XIXth-century French café is certainly the outcome of the unhappy tumorous growth of the middle class, as is the classic Parisian restaurant culture that now prevails throughout the metropolises of the so-called Western world, but fine dining was always in the homes of the nobility.  It was simply that eventually somebody realised that they could profit by selling the dining experience of an aristocratic household to the merchant class who could afford it.  This of course exploded after the Revolution, since the middle class exploded (metastasised ?) with the mechanisation of French industries, but even in the country side and in former French colonies, there is still an attention to food preparation and traditions that I think most Anglophones would find to be confusing (and enjoyable).

High standards and fancy dishes came to the fore and eatng there has become an art and a science and one of the seven deadly sins!

I agree that the spread of formal restaurants is a serious problem for society, since it means that there is a public service culture that caters to urban customers, something that I find to be symptomatic of social corruption and disorder.  But I don't think that this means there is no place for the art of fine cooking in society.  What about feasts or special occasions or receiving guests ?  And surely nobody here thinks it to be a crime for the upper class to employ professional chefs or for there to be cooking guilds, right ?  A craft should be performed well and a man should take pride in his work, no ?

To an Englishman, of course, happy with a meat pie and a pint of ale, all this is rather unmanly ...

Normans, Bretons, Québécois, Acadians, and Louisiana Créoles (not the African kind) all have meat pies.  Amongst Louisiana Acadians, men know how to cook and are very proud of fidelity to concepts and techniques.  This originally developed due to two things :  First, because the men would bring their cattle down to the salt marshes to feed in the winter time and would join together to make gumbos in a common pot and, second, because they had to feed themselves when hunting waterfowl at their hunting camps (within the past one hundred years, many Frenchmen in South Louisiana fed their families through hunting and trapping).  Anyway, I have never understood why men knowing how to cook well is considered unmanly, maybe because I have this tradition of men cooking in my family (not that women don't do most of the cooking, of course).  The Anglo custom of men being totally inept in the kitchen seems really silly to me, especially when one has the opportunity to excel in a discipline that truly is an art form.  It's not for pretense but for that sense of pride that a man gets when he knows that (i) he made something and that (ii) he made it well.

... and when coupled with French priests is rather suspicious!

I know it was a tongue in cheek comment, but I think that this is ultimately what this is really about.  Protestant culture is not equipped to justify natural and supernatural hierarchies and has therefore eroded them to such a point that they are abhorrent to the sense of any self-respecting Anglo -- or they are considered utterly ridiculous, the butt of jokes and the source of endless psychological diagnoses.  In the archdiocese where I live, for almost 140 years the prelate's title has been simply "Archbishop."  "Your Excellency" is considered silly and arcane, even disgusting.  I can't help but think that ultimately all of the anti-French and anti-servant rhetoric is rooted in the same evil soil that grow weeds like calling an archdiocesan ordinary "Archbishop" to his face, as in, "It's very nice to meet you, archbishop," before shaking his hand (of course it was not an honour to meet him...).

By the way, this is not just an "American" attitude. I know the The Eastern European Catholics are accostumed to their priest being carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, and anything else that needs to be done around the Church. The new SSPX priests appear to be inept at everything having to do with working with the hands.

By the way, this is not just an "American" attitude. I know the The Eastern European Catholics are accostumed to their priest being carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, and anything else that needs to be done around the Church. The new SSPX priests appear to be inept at everything having to do with working with the hands.

Bishop Williamson made sure that seminarians were familiar with "Manualia" or manual labor. We did plenty of it when I was there.

I don't know what it's like now, with 100+ seminarians -- I do know this: the more people, the more people get a "break" from work. Many hands do indeed make light work, and there is certainly an "economy of scale" involved with any household.

I worked my butt off during the summer when only 6 seminarians were there to run the place, even though there were FAR fewer people to tend to (dishes, etc.) But during my last year there, when we hit around 65 seminarians, the upper years started getting "weeks off" from the weekly chore duties (clean hallways, bathrooms, meal jobs -- dishes, waiting tables, etc.) because there were only so many jobs that needed doing.

So even if they have to work a lot during their first couple years, I bet manual labor becomes a thing of the past -- or at least more rare -- as they rise through the ranks. But I can't say for sure though; I haven't visited the place for 8 years.

But I can also attest to the fact that the French are VERY big on hierarchy. If 3 people are going for a casual walk, there is a proper place for each one of them. The highest ranking goes in the middle; then the 2nd highest on the right, and the lowest ranking on the left. I didn't know that until my 4th year at the seminary -- the year +Williamson left, and Fr. Yves Le Roux became rector.

I do think the real problem is an attitude of arrogance.  It is unmistakable, and it wafts an acrid odor in its wake.

This is certainly not a description of Fr. Thierry Gaudray or ABL.  As for sticking to eating dry bread dipped in wine as in Diary of a Country Priest, I read that book.  And if I remember correctly, that lovely old priest died of stomach cancer.  As for the way the French talk--I find it lovely.  At least they try to speak our language; whereas, Americans expect everyone to speak English. And I can't fathom how any nation who practically lives on hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza and macaroni and cheese, can criticize a masterful use of God's gifts, both in talent and of the land we have been given dominion over.  Lastly, if the SSPX priests had time fit in "shop" along with their Theology courses, then maybe they would do some handyman chores for themselves--that is, if they could find the time between Mass, traveling, sick calls and the schools they have been given charge over.  And in that case, I would think that time would be better spent in prayer.    

 :ready-to-eat:  

   

Quote from: Telesphorus

I do think the real problem is an attitude of arrogance.  It is unmistakable, and it wafts an acrid odor in its wake.

This is certainly not a description of Fr. Thierry Gaudray or ABL.

Indeed.  Fr. Gaudray was professor at the seminary when I was there. He is a very learned and devout priest.

A simple parish priest, such as the SSPX priests that we are talking about, has never been considered "hierarchy". If this is the mindset of these "high life" priests, then you've identified the problem. They act as if they are hierarchy, they are not, and never have been.

In old Poitou in France, the parishioners at the country parishes would always give the priest the first bushels from the annual harvest (a custom called "bushelry," in English).  In other times people would kiss the priests ring finger when greeting him rather than shaking his hand.  Even in the US in the days before the Robber Council laymen who ran meat shops would give priests a free ham here and there.  I am not talking about canonical jurisdiction, which SSPX priests do not have except for their sacraments as per the need of the faithful.  I am only speaking of the hierarchy of honour and respect that natural piety has reserved for priests for the simple reason that they are consecrate men of God.  In France, hierarchy is more preserved in the culture of the faithful, whereas in the US, exceptionally, and in other Anglophone countries, this deference is wanting.

I have a high regard for austerity and simplicity, especially amongst the clergy, but I find it hard to believe that St Jean Marie Vianney even did not have somebody from the parish help clean his house, since such help and service would most likely have been offered, and it is right for priests to allow themselves to be honoured in that way.  "The poor you shall have always with you."  Isn't this better, for the pious women to bake cakes for their pastors and so forth, to give he priests more time to tend to souls ?

I have a few French friends with a great sense of humor, that are happy people. On the other hand, by far the larger percentage of the French people I have known are boogers, that have to resort to a great deal of acting, just to appear somewhat friendly.

Well, part of that might just be cultural difference between French and Anglos.  I know that, despite growing up speaking English, I don't feel at home around Anglos except very rarely because of the large gulf of cultural mindset that comes from being conscience of my heritage and the French traditions of my family.  Besides, the English-speaking cultures have been steeped in centuries of Protestantism, as is especially evident in attitudes toward work, food, drink, smoking, liberty, hierarchy, science, and so on.  Regarding your experiences, I imagine it also has to do with the difference between Parisians and the rest of France; Parisians have a reputation for being generally snobbish, worldly, and cynical.  One Lyonnaise I know (not Catholic, as far as I know) says that he "hates Paris" and what it represents, which is a common attitude outside of Paris.  Other non-Parisian or non-Parisian-sympathising French throughout the world, especially North American Frenchmen, tend to have a reputation for being jolly, frank, and hospitable.  Sadly, however, as the social democratic state and liberal-bourgeois culture wax, those good old qualities wane.