[Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]
Faithful Catholics are rightly uncomfortable with attacks on any pope, even if popes can make some pretty imprudent if not stupid decisions.
Michael Voris is an example of one who is unwilling to criticize Pope Francis, even though he has no problem criticizing many bishops who appear in one way or other to have betrayed the Faith or to have been negligent in their duties.
In today's "Vortex," Voris's daily 5-10 minute reflection, discussion, or fusillade aimed at trapping and exposing the latest falsehoods and lies about what concerns Holy Mother Church, he appears to have turned a corner. By way of reacting against the pervasive criticism of Pope Francis for mismanaging the Synod, Voris overtly shifts the blame away from Francis and back to Benedict XVI for having appointed so many of the cardinals and bishops who have turned out to be major disappointments and even saboteurs of the Faith in the present crisis. He also blames Benedict for resigning and abandoning the Church amidst the present confusion, effectively leaving a vacuum in theological leadership. Ironically, perhaps, in bending over backwards to avoid attacking Pope Francis, Voris attacks former Pope Benedict.
(And the attack on Benedict, be forewarned, is pointed and unrelenting -- See his "Vortex - Benedict's Fingerprints" [video with transcript] for the details.)
As painful as this attack on Benedict may be, especially for some among the more conservative Catholics and even some traditionalists, Voris is right about one thing: the roots of the present crisis are not to be found in the pontificate of Pope Francis and his two Synods on the Family, any more than these roots are ultimately to be found in Pope John XXIII and Paul VI and their Second Vatican Council, even if the latter was more seminal and decisive influence.
In that respect, Benedict cannot be justly cited as more than a very indirect instrumental cause (like John Paul II) in having made some unfortunate appointments as well as perhaps imprudent decisions during their pontificates. We are not privy to the personal rationales behind these appointments or decisions, or even to the full reasons or causes behind Benedict's resignation, as unfortunate as that has been. The more substantial and distant causes of the present crisis must be traced back through the aftermath of Vatican II, and through the Council itself to anterior causes in modernist movements of thought simmering beneath the surface of pre-conciliar pontificates. The long trajectory back to the ultimate roots of the present crisis lie far back, as a number of good studies on the rise of Modernism and Neo-Modernism attest (see for example, the book by H.J.A. Sire mentioned in my previous post).
For an example of traditionalists who have no hesitation whatsoever about laying the blame for this Synod at the feet of Francis, or for that matter tracing it back through Vatican II to even earlier movements, see this video interview of John Rao by Michael Matt, in what they self-identify as a prolonged "rant," with the over-the-top title of "Synod Send Off: It's the End of the Church as We Know It."
(Advisory: it will offend, but watch and learn. There are things you can pick up from these guys, precisely because of their hyper-sensitivity to the merest whiff of historical revisionism, that you won't find from the "Everything-is-Awesome-Because-The-Gates-Of-Hell-Will-Not-Prevail" crowd. The promises of Christ are not in question; but the recent performances by some of the princes of the Church are very much in question. The promises of Christ are no excuse either for blissful ignorance of what is happening today or for willful ignorance of the realities before us. We -- you and I -- are the generation now responsible for transmitting the Faith to our children, to our families, to our friends, and through our parishes so that it will not die. We are responsible, not just our priests and bishops and popes.)
Just think about this: How much he would be willing to criticise Francis if he resigned from the office ? In fact, Michael Voris is being dishonest in trying to hide the whole truth of the CVII mentality who ran many of the seminaries sincethe 1960s. He doesn't dare to say the CVII is responsible for the deformation of priests, who would become synod's bishops in the future and that the whole thing, since its very beginnings was doomed to cause a tragedy in the Church. It is hard for him to hide his hatred of Benedict maybe because of his probable later perception that what CVII brought about was just chaos. CVII was a betrayal of Catholics: At the very moment the Church should go behind trenches and fight the strongest trend of modernity in the 1960s, it "opens" to it and they "invent" a mass for Men not Christ.. Benedict's Motu Proprio who brought back the Old Mass to many Catholics is anathema to Mr. Voris simply because it shows how different religion it is compared to the mas of CVII. Moreover the Novo Ordo is flawed, as said an invention of men( Benedict hinted at this). The Old Mass only strengthens the traditionalist's point against the CVII big mistakes.
ReplyDeleteFinally the more he speaks the more he reveals himself as the arrogant person full of self entitlement as the ultimate authority on Catholicism. Any doubts ? just check his messages at the beginning of each video. " Save your loved ones from Hell, Go premium" . " Restoring the true Catholic faith ". The bottom line is he is just another smart guy making money on the faith , who refuses to criticise the Pope just because he has too much to loose, a bureaucrat who doesn't follow Christ and Peter, but rather follow Popes with a canine subservience no matter how incompetent and destroyers of the faith they are.
Someone has defined him as "too much clarity , but little charity" I would add up honesty.
The long trajectory back to the ultimate roots of the present crisis lie far back,...
ReplyDeleteThey do. What is more, the specific playbook of papering over moral doctrine with 'pastoral solutions', leaving the doctrine intact as a kind of decoration which doesn't place any important demands on anyone in how they live the 'concrete reality' of their daily lives, and especially never in practice involve denial of absolution or communion for the unrepentant, long predates Vatican II.
Exhibit A is Usury: https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-money-on-the-pill/
Very well said, Doc.
ReplyDeleteO, and do you remember when Mr. Voris criticised Pope Benedict XVI?
Me neither, so, the hypocrisy is as grating as his retreat from his praxis of not uncovering the nekkidness of the Pope is satisfying.
This descent from the Teaching Church to the Church of Dialogue and Ecumenism and Anthropocentrism and Listening has been a slow, gradual, process that, as the Great Dr Rao points-out, has been defended by neo-catholics the entire way; you know, men like ABS his own self.
Sorry, I got better.
If the estimable Ralph still reads your Blog, Kudos to him for having had such a gimlet eye lo those many years ago.
You had this nailed, Ralph, when most of us slackers were still bed-wetting knee jerk papolatrists
Anonymous and others,
ReplyDeleteLet me be clear: I speak no ill of Michael Voris here. If you read my post with care this is apparent. If you don't, you may read into it an animus against Voris that is not there. My pointing out that the trajectory goes back beyond Pope Benedict or that Benedict can be justly criticized for certain things but not his unknown motives is just that, and no more.
Mr. Voris is a fellow parishioner of mine, although he goes to the noon Novus Ordo Mass, not the 9:30AM traditional Latin Mass, he says, because it's the one day for him to take his mornings easy with all he does every other day of the week, on top of the fact that he also helps care for his ageing father who lives with him.
I have considerable respect for his work, whatever its human limitations and whatever small differences with him that might surface here or there. His apostolate, which goes far beyond the daily "snapshot" Vortex episodes, meets a genuine large need created by the refusal of the mainstream Catholic media to touch many of the issues on which he reports, as well as the ample resources he offers to "premium subscribers" ($10/mo), including courses in Latin, Gregorian chant, along with the expected resources on apologetics, Church history, etc.
And if he goes to the ad orientem Novus Ordo Mass, his remarks and programs dealing with the traditional Latin Mass have been consistently positive, at least in my hearing. (Have you seen his hour-long investigative report on the "reform" of the Roman liturgy? It's something Msgr. Klaus Gamber might have appreciated.)
Kind regards,
+ PP
Zippy, I admire how thoroughly you've researched the topic of Usury, something the vast number of those influenced by the Acton Institute, ISI, and the Austro-Libertarian thinking of Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Misis are not too eager understand sympathetically. Kudos.
ReplyDeleteVoris seems well-intentioned and admirable. But also in denial. Plain and simple. He needs to deal with the content in James Larson's "The War on Being." The last several popes are a big part of the problem. JPII -- Saint! -- was just as ethnically blind with his Polish affections as Francis apparently is with his Argentine ones. These men ... godly and placed by God, apparently -- still turned the papacy into a cudgel for their countrymen. Meanwhile the Church on the side of the road bleeds and "dies.' e so want heroes we can't see when we have nice guys with little strategies. That may sound arrogant, but I point to to a dissolving Church and ask, "New Springtime?" What admirable guy can utter such bogus lines? Likewise, Voris so wants to keep the papacy afloat he will say anything. But God does not need him to retrieve the papacy -- He will do it Himself. In the meantime, pretending it is not in the swamp... well, what is the point. Modern Catholicism is a Church without a gospel or message. Hence the sucking up we witness now.
ReplyDeleteDAVE WEBSTER
ReplyDeleteNow you know precisely why Voris has never been any real threat to the agenda of the enemy for the destruction of the Church. Voris becomes in fact a real asset to the enemy by his never focusing on the actual source of the threat at the top until it becomes too late to make any difference. Now in his own words he actually reveals his deceit and duplicity by admitting this corruption has come not from the bottom up but from the popes on down! Is this man really just another Judas working primarily (entirely?)to make a name for himself? That is what the evidence here certainly indicates! I am left quite stunned by this disclosure!
D. W.,
ReplyDeleteMethinks thou protesteth too much, that thy rant is a trifle monological. The guy's obviously not perfect, by why pillory his entire apostolate? You're saying he's on the side of the demons? Holy baloney.
Dear PP,
ReplyDeleteI'm not buying Mr. Voris' excuse for not attending your 9:30 TLM. All of us who attend the TLM have busy work schedules and families to care for. Let him switch his lay-around-the-house morning to Saturday, if he really believes in the Traditionalist cause. Trust me, if I could bi-locate, so that I didn't have to miss one of OUR great homilists, at St. Josaphat, I'd be there no matter what.
RFGA, Ph.D.
Don't criticize Obama for black on white racism: he didn't originate civil rights boondoggles. Don't criticize Lenin for communism: he didn't write Das Kapital. Don't blame Pete Carroll for the Seahawks blowing the last Super Bowl: he's not the first coach to make a completely moronic tactical call.
ReplyDeleteWhat an obstinately stupid point for Voris to make! And why? So that he can somehow cling to his holier-than-thou decision to refrain from condemning evil when it emanates from the current pope? Evil can be condemned only after the fact?
This is neo-Catholic incoherence at its most crystalline.
On the other hand, once the ban on criticism is lifted, Voris becomes a very effective counter puncher. The cowardly hypocrite Ratzinger deserves everything he gets, and a great deal more. And so does our sainted JP2, the so-called "conservative" whose 26 year reign was a testament to the consequences of ignoring the responsibilities of governance in order to waste everyone's time with doing rock star tours and egotistically spewing reams of personalist doggerel upon the sheep's heads.
The Church would have been far better off without any of the post-V2 popes, but piously refusing to say so until years after the fact is the essence of "too little too late."
I suppose Voris's fans will have to pay to keep Church Militant afloat another decade or two to see him unload on Francis. By then his trenchant commentary will be irrelevant, as his flamings of Ratzinger and Wojtyla are today. Well, he's not going to get any of that dough from me. Voris reminds me of Lincoln's feckless general of the Army of the Potomac, of whose performance the president muttered, "if General McClellan isn't going to use his army, I'd like to borrow it for a time."