Quote from: J.Paul

Indeed! This and other like threads point to how many are becoming neutral, or even hostile to what they now term "hardline" Traditionalists.

The goalposts, attitudes, and the very ground which has been held for so long is beginning to shift under our feet.

Might we not wonder if there will be an Ecclesiastical "Rodney King moment" looming in the near future?

No. That's not what's happening.  What's happening is hardline trads are increasing their hardness to the point of becoming Donatists and Puritans.  They are becoming what Neo-Catholics have caricaturized trads as being from more than a decade ago.  

When Catholics apply the teaching of St. Thomas and can back it up with citations from the writings of St. Thomas, they are called "modernists," it becomes apparent that something is wrong.  

The Neo Catholics adopt a blind faith and ignore the crisis, the Neo-Donatist trads and the sedevacantists adopt a blind scorn and see nothing Catholic but only the crisis.  

Hardline against the New Mass; compassionate towards people in the Novus Ordo of good will.

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As lay people, we are all already "neutralized" and always have been.

I don't agree with this at all.  How many lay people bought property, built/renovated churches, and organized things for the priests post V2?  How many lay people wrote books or articles in protest of V2 and in favor of tradition?  How many lay people kept alive the faith in their large families and gave their children as priests and nuns to the church, post V2?  

This is what I wrote and in blue I'll add more to make it clearer:

I have no effect on anyone but those around me, so, I can't "affect Rome" in any way and "Rome" can't affect me. As lay people, we are all already "neutralized" and always have been, we have no effect on "Rome".

All those examples that you gave are examples of "affecting those around us", and insulating ourselves from "Rome", "Rome" can't affect us.  We are neutralized and always have been to affect "Rome" and the 99.99% of Catholics around the world.

Lucia of Fatima said it would be this way, she said do not expect assitance from the pope and the bishops, each person is now responsible for his own salvation and those around them.

F.E.,

No. That's not what's happening.  What's happening is hardline trads are increasing their hardness to the point of becoming Donatists and Puritans.  They are becoming what Neo-Catholics have caricaturized trads as being from more than a decade ago.

That is certainly not the case. Recalling the Novus Ordo apologists of more than a decade ago including the great John Paul II, we can easily remember being called "Integrists", schismatics, rigid, uniformed, having no idea what the Church teaches, etc.  What you and the Bishop see as a hardening is not the reality, which is that what we were guessing about and hoping was not happening in those times, has now indeed happened and has come to pass in a irrefutable way. The revolution was proven real, the ambiguities have proven to be clear errors and heresies, and the conciliar church has shown itself as a counter church and an evil subversive enemy of souls and salvation.

When Catholics apply the teaching of St. Thomas and can back it up with citations from the writings of St. Thomas, they are called "modernists," it becomes apparent that something is wrong.

Applications of the Holy doctor's writings have been used to support all manner of odd ideas, it is all a matter of interpretation and application or misapplication.

The Neo Catholics adopt a blind faith and ignore the crisis, the Neo-Donatist trads and the sedevacantists adopt a blind scorn and see nothing Catholic but only the crisis.

The first analysis is correct, the second is not accurate as by and large, these folks see what is NOT Catholic and say that it isn't.

But, you have overlooked the middle of the roaders  who hang in the lukewarm center of the pot, and justify their contradictions by excoriating the other two.

Principle is Principle, and one commits to it and perseveres within its bounds. With God's help that man holds to the truth of that principle and makes no accommodation against it, no matter how much time passes.
To the mind which believes in progress of principles and truth interpreted by subjectivism,  the constancy of a principled man does indeed come to him as a hardening, simply because he will not give in to contrary ideas.

I and many Catholics who I know, have the same level of rejection for those things which are not of the Church and which war against souls, as we did ten years ago, fifteen years ago, forty years ago, but we know the enemy much better now, and we have no reason now to give him a way out.

Heterodoxy, heresy, error, and evil are not like fine wine, the do not get better with age, but rather they fester and corrupt and grow in their power over the minds of men.

Hardening no, fidelity in the face of intensified evils yes. There can only be one true way, not three.


My JesusMercy!

That is certainly not the case. Recalling the Novus Ordo apologists of more than a decade ago including the great John Paul II, we can easily remember being called "Integrists", schismatics, rigid, uniformed, having no idea what the Church teaches, etc.  

First, it certainly is the case.  Second, I remember those times very well and what was not true in great numbers concerning those accusations  is becoming the reality as time goes on.  

What you and the Bishop see as a hardening is not the reality, which is that what we were guessing about and hoping was not happening in those times, has now indeed happened and has come to pass in a irrefutable way.

No. The docuмents of Vatican II have not changed since they were foisted on the Church in all of their glorious ambiguity and verbal slobbery.  

The revolution was proven real, the ambiguities have proven to be clear errors and heresies, and the conciliar church has shown itself as a counter church and an evil subversive enemy of souls and salvation.

The revolution was proven real right after 1965.  The ambiguities are still ambiguities.  Those who choose to take them as errors and heresy are guilty of error and heresy. The docuмents themselves simply present a choice of interpretation according to the orthodoxy of the interpreter.  

Using a vague and ambiguous statement like " the conciliar church has shown itself as a counter church and an evil subversive enemy of souls and salvation" is just as detached from anything concrete as any docuмent of Vatican II.  It's gobbledygook worthy of John Paul II himself.

Applications of the Holy doctor's writings have been used to support all manner of odd ideas, it is all a matter of interpretation and application or misapplication.

Perhaps, but no such misapplication is contributed by Williamson on this topic.  

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The Neo Catholics adopt a blind faith and ignore the crisis, the Neo-Donatist trads and the sedevacantists adopt a blind scorn and see nothing Catholic but only the crisis.

The first analysis is correct, the second is not accurate as by and large, these folks see what is NOT Catholic and say that it isn't.

Unfortunately, the Novus Ordo is not offered uniformly enough to make an all inclusive statement.  

No trad and no Neo Catholic can make a uniform praise or condemnation of every Novus Ordo Mass offered.  

The trads we are discussing go on a tear about the "intrinsic evil" of the Novus Ordo and then they catalogue a series of errors and abuses that have nothing to do with the official rubrics of the Novus Ordo promulgated by Paul VI or even the GIRM.  

But, you have overlooked the middle of the roaders  who hang in the lukewarm center of the pot, and justify their contradictions by excoriating the other two.

I haven't overlooked the Hegelians but that doesn't condemn the Thomistic formulation as expressd by the SSPX and other trads for decades, "It is, however, a moral virtue, since it is a part of justice, and it observes the mean between excess and deficiency. Excess thereof is measured in respect, not of quantity, but of other circuмstances, in so far as a man obeys either whom he ought not, or in matters wherein he ought not to obey, as we have stated above regarding religion."

Principle is Principle, and one commits to it and perseveres within its bounds.

The trouble is one has to apply the proper principle.  

With God's help that man holds to the truth of that principle and makes no accommodation against it, no matter how much time passes.

Again, he has to be holding the correct principle. One could hold the principle of non-contradiction and deny the Virgin Birth.  But if one holds to the principle of the paradox, one can be consistent, reasonable and hold to the dogma of the Virgin Birth.  

To the mind which believes in progress of principles and truth interpreted by subjectivism,  the constancy of a principled man does indeed come to him as a hardening, simply because he will not give in to contrary ideas.

But to the mind that can make the distinction between subjectivism and subjectivity  and objectivity and objectivism, is, the moderate rationalism of St. Thomas, it's no problem at all.  

I and many Catholics who I know, have the same level of rejection for those things which are not of the Church and which war against souls, as we did ten years ago, fifteen years ago, forty years ago, but we know the enemy much better now, and we have no reason now to give him a way out.

That's absolutely just rhetoric.  I don't know what specifically you are referring to.  

Why should anyone believe that statement detached from any specific accusation?  

Heterodoxy, heresy, error, and evil are not like fine wine, the do not get better with age, but rather they fester and corrupt and grow in their power over the minds of men.

I guess the minds of men might not even see it coming.  They might think they haven't hardened their position, narrowed their understanding or failed to make distinctions and discernments correctly.  

Hardening no, fidelity in the face of intensified evils yes. There can only be one true way, not three.

Fidelity can be held in the face of intensified evils and decreasing evils as well.  

There are numerous areas of improvement in pockets of Catholicism compared to the 1970s and 1980s.  

Is the increase in the use of the St. Michael Prayer after being thrown into obscurity an intensification of evil?  Is the higher standards in some pockets of the Novus Ordo for chastity and purity far greater than it was in the 1970s and 80s an intensification of evil?  Is the restoration of tabernacles to the center of the Church an intensification of evil?  

Christ rebuked the Apostles when they wanted to stop a man from casting out demons in Jesus' name because he was not one of the Apostles.  

Christ essentially told them to praise the good that he was doing and not shut him down for what he was not doing in order to bring him to the fold.  

But if +W condones the N.O. mass (even slightly), then i'd bet a large amount of $ that he'd condone the indult (he really has no logically way to be against it).  

Of course +Williamson doesn't condone the Indult. If he did, he wouldn't be opposing the NSSPX.

He doesn't condone the NO Mass even slightly. To be confronted with a women in tears, apparently not a traditionalist, at a public and recorded meeting, when she might have got hysterical or broken down if he'd told her she had to stop going to the NO, was a one-off situation. He couldn't take her aside to discuss it or talked to her in the confessional - so he answered as I think Archbishop Lefebvre would have done, given the circuмstances.

It's just being mischievous to turn his answer into a doctrinally or theologically considered position.  

Of course +Williamson doesn't condone the Indult.

If +W makes exceptions for the N.O., then he would certainly make exceptions for an indult latin mass.  There's no way, logically, to argue that a N.O. can "nourish one's faith" but an indult latin mass could not.

- In my opinion, +W opposes the NSSPX because they want to "formalize" their back-and-forth condoning attitude towards the N.O./V2 (the sspx has been back and forth for decades).  +W knows this formal recognition would be destructive so he opposes it, even if privately, he holds the N.O. "could be" ok.  I hope and pray he will one day speak "yes, yes or no, no" but until then, he remains a man divided.

He doesn't condone the NO Mass even slightly.

 Yes he does.  Read his emails of the past 2-3 months.  He had a chance to clarify himself from the "one off" situation with the lady at the conference, and he did not.  He doubled-down on that stance and it made no sense.

so he answered as I think Archbishop Lefebvre would have done, given the circuмstances.

 Your interpretation of ABL may or may not be accurate.  But it goes to show that either he, or you, or both, condone the N.O. in some way.  Either the N.O. is from the Church, or it is not.  Either it is from God, or it is not.  If it is from God/Church then we MUST accept it, and we must condone it.  If it is a bastardized rite (to quote ABL) which was forced on the Church by revolutionaries and if it isn't a command to attend/condone it (which it isn't) then we must reject it, entirely, absolutely, and without hesitation.  To accept it, even mentally, is a compromise of the Faith because we cannot accept things which aren't from God or his Church, especially things that go against that which we already know is good.

- No one is being mischievous; I am simply analyzing +W's emails.  He says V2 and the new mass are dangerous to the faith, then he says the new mass could "nourish one's faith" in the right circuмstances.  Which one is it?  It's totally contradictory.