"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the cunning statements of those who persistently claim to wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight so that people do not leave Her...But judge them by their works. If they despise the shepherds of the Church and even the Pope, if they attempt all means of evading their authority in order to elude their directives and judgments..., then about which Church do these men mean to speak? Certainly not about that established on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20)." [Pope St. Pius X: Allocution of May 10, 1909]
The blog Lidless Eye Inquisition of I. Shawn McElhinney, et. al, cites this quote with a view to "crackpots of the lunatic self-styled 'traditionalist' fringe who disingenuously pose as faithful Catholics." Doubtless that is a propos. But it would apply just as appropriately to those who despise the shepherds and popes of past generations and applaud only all that is "new" as over against the traditions of Trent, Pius V, and Pius X, as noted by Ratzinger, when he declared:
"It is only against this background of the effective denial of the authority of Trent, that the bitterness of the struggle against allowing the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal, after the liturgical reform, can be understood. The possibility of so celebrating constitutes the most intolerable contradiction of the opinion of those who believe that the faith in the Eucharist formulated by Trent has lost its value."(Read more on Ratzinger's views here.)
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