Faggioli & Longenecker on the radical disconnect between liberal academic theology and nearly everyone else in the Church

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Are Liberal Catholic Theologians Past Their Sell By Date?" (Fr. Dwight Longenecker, March 7th, 2018), comments on Massimo Faggioli's latest article at Commonweal. First, Faggioli honestly acknowledges that young Catholics don't care for the older, established liberal theological establishment [with the bold commentary of Guy Noir - Private Eye* in brackets]:

"[T]he estrangement between academic theology and the institutional Church is one reason many younger Catholics are now turning to neo-traditionalist circles for instruction. A new generation is re-examining what’s happened in the church since the 1960s and reacting against the theology that came out of the Second Vatican Council. Some younger Catholics are also questioning the legitimacy of the secular, pluralistic state. This is why the concerns of academic theology are no longer merely academic. [Notice that! Theology is no longer academic because it now touches on… the political! Speaks volumes about his priorities].

Those who have contact with young Catholics… have noticed that this theological anti-liberalism is not just coming from a few marginal intellectuals. Catholic anti-liberalism is part of a broader phenomenon, a new quest for Catholic identity that takes various forms. It may be expressed as an enthusiasm for the Tridentine Mass and a distaste for the Novus ordo. Or it may take the form of an interest in countercultural communities—in some version of the “Benedict Option.” But it can also take the form of a theo-political imagination that rejects liberal democracy in favor of a new Christendom. [Would he think it fair to say Catholic liberals reject ‘Church’?] Mixed in with this ideal is often a suspicion of those who come from parts of the world where Christianity is not the predominant religion. [Guffaw. Cardinal Sarah? And in Latin America Catholicism IS still predominant.]

This rise of Catholic anti-liberalism marks a regression in the ability of Catholics to understand the problem of the state and of politics in our age. [Only if you disagree with their analysis, right?] But it also says something about the state of Catholic theology, especially in America."

Faggioli then goes on to make the claim that theology can only really exist and flourish in a traditional academic setting. [Because only their can it be toyed with without regard for devotional or moral relevance].

"I believe that the fate of Catholic theology in the Western world is inseparable from the fate of academic theology. [In one way, liberal Catholicism cannot maintain any standing unless propped up by the academy and its priest culture.] In order to survive and flourish, theology needs universities, publishers, and journals. [Like America and Communio?] You can just about imagine the church surviving intellectually without academic theology, but I think it …

Longenecker remarks: "I don’t buy it. In my experience it is just as arguable that the very academic establishment the Faggioli wants to prop up is the very kiss of death of any real, creative and dynamic theology."

Guy Noir seems to concur. He comments: "All quite telling. I read once that Evangelicals are really the only ones who any longer talk theology, and that’s simply because they actually believe it. We could extend the comment to trad Catholics. Really, do you ever get the impression any of these liberals passionately believe anything at all outside of a vague moral therapeutic deism? No, because the most feel, and whittle down their doctrine to match those feelings. Liberalism and real theology are antithetical.

If anything new is to come along in theology, concludes Longenecker, it will not come from within the halls of academe, but will most likely "spring up from some home schooler, some start up online academy, a blogger who reads instead of watching TV or some hard working home grown scholar who is teaching at a classical school or slaving away teaching the great books to undergraduates."

You're right: way past sell by date. Let the younger generation discover the neglected treasures of Catholic tradition and discover that Catholic theology, like the Catholic Faith itself, can be the most beautiful adventure in the world.

[Acknowledgement: Guy Noir - Private Eye is our underground correspondent we keep on retainer in an Atlantic seaboard state.]

Are traditionalists insane, or do they just have more fun? Or is that a false dichotomy?

[Disclaimer: Rules ##7-9] See for yourself:

Ensconced in his "Evangelical Catholic" perspective, Weigel "positively hysterical" over Rome's SSPX overtures

[Disclaimer: Rules ##7-9] P. J. Smith, "George Weigel and the SSPX" (Rorate Caeli, April 28, 2017):

George Weigel, in his most recent column, has decided that the Holy See should not offer the Society of St. Pius X a personal prelature. It appears from statements by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society, that a personal prelature is the current offer. More than that, it seems that the Holy See is not insisting on the Society’s submission to every jot and tittle of every document of the Second Vatican Council. This is wonderful news.

Many informed commentators noted that the 2012 negotiations between Rome and the Society were torpedoed at the last moment by the sudden insistence of the Roman authorities on such submission. Archbishop Pozzo has conceded in public interviews that there are levels of authority in the documents of that “pastoral council,” and that total assent may not be necessary. And Weigel is positively hysterical at the prospect. Read more >>

What one traditionalist is saying about Benedict XVI's theology

Msgr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, "Faith imperilled by reason: Benedict XVI's hermeneutics" (from La Sel de Terre, Issue 69, Summer 2009, via Biblia y Tradicion, translated by C. Wilson.

"After reading this fascinating essay," writes Peter Chojnowski in his Preface, "anyone who thought that 'reconciliation' between Catholic Tradition and Vatican II theology is right around the corner will have to think again!"

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

Patrick Archbold on "Rad Trads" -- a beautiful thing to behold

Patrick Archbold, "The Most Radical of Traditionalists" (Remnant, September 28, 2016).

Humor: Traddie hymn to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changing"

Once again, from the indomitable Amateur Brain Surgeon, we have another gem, this time a 'hymn' from the ABS Ministry Hymnal, "Tradition is reemerging" (see below). The hymn is preceded by the following introductory remarks:

During the turbulent years of 1962-1965 B.C.E. (Bestest Council Ever) when we all thought that everything with the One True Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church was jake, a sudden revolution fell upon us.

And now the revolutionaries appear to be in complete control but the lessons of history remind us that, often, it is just at that moment when the Empire seems indestructible that it is at its weakest.

And here, my friends, is the hymn, to be sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changing":

Tradition is reemerging

From ABE Ministry Hymnal.

Come gather ’round Catholics
Whose Capitol is Rome,
And admit insipidity
Around you has grown,
And fight it like Hell
Tooth, Nail, and Bone,
If your soul to you is worth savin’
You'd better keep fighting or you’ll sink like a stone
For Tradition is reemerging

Come libs and progressives
Who rhyme hen with pen,
And keep your ears open
Your chance won’t come again,
And don’t speak too soon
For Heterodoxy is sin,
The one's smiling now will soon lose that grin
For the loser now will be later to win,
For Tradition is reemerging

Come Cardinals and Bishops
Ignore the call,
Don't dress in your civvies
Shun Paul the sixth hall;
For he not arriving
Will someday be thriving,
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For Tradition is reemerging

Come priests and deacons
Throughout the land,
And don’t criticise
What you can’t understand,
The men of Tradition
Are beyond your command,
Papolatry is rapidly agin’
Pray Ad Orientem, Worship not man
For Tradition is reemerging

The line it is drawn
The future is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
Modernism has been submergin’
And the first one now will later be last
For Tradition is reemerging

Guy Noir's 'Great' books for disturbed Catholics

... to see the day First Things would be plugging Michael Davies

Our underground correspondent in an Atlantic seaboard city that knows how to keep its secrets, Guy Noir - Private Eye, just sent me an email (yes, he's no longer using carrier pigeons for the time being), commenting on a First Things article entitled "What We've Been Reading," by the Editors (First Things, May 27, 2016). Noir comments: "You know the now passé slang "It's all good!"? I think it actually applies here: all these sound very good, and who thought we'd live to see the day 'First Things' would be plugging Michael Davies ..."

Excerpt from Elliot Milco's contribution:

In light of the recent (and increasing) rumors of Pope Francis's inclination to grant canonical recognition to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, I've been reading up on that group. Currently I'm working through the first volume of Michael Davies's trilogy Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, which is a collection of documents relating to the FSSPX, paired with contemporary news items and interspersed commentary. The books favor a certain side of the FSSPX question, but they offer an unparalleled level of detail regarding the formation, investigation, and suppression of the religious order, as well as Marcel Lefebvre's relationship with Pope Paul VI and the Vatican.

What strikes me so far in reading the book (and I should note that this is not my first foray into the history of the post-Conciliar fallout) is how right Lefebvre was in the early 1970s about most of the things going on in the Church. (I recommend his 1983 Open Letter to Confused Catholics to anyone who has been dismayed by dissolution of Catholicism in Catholic institutions.) Today if one wants to know about the fruits of disciplinary relaxation and innovation in seminaries in the 1960s and 70s, one need only read the USCCB's report on the origins of the clerical abuse crisis. Very sad that the FSSPX was treated with such hostility by the curia under Paul VI, and unfortunate that Lefebvre disregarded the authority of John Paul II. Wouldn't it have been better to allow him to continue with his “experiment of tradition”? And now, over the past ten years, aren't we all inching our way toward the realization that that “experiment” is the one that needs to be undertaken?

... and there's much, much more. Read more >>

"Latin Mass prejudices"

Kevin Tierney has a guest post over at Unam Sanctam Catholicam (May 15, 2015), which is quite good. Blog host, Boniface, introduces the piece with the words: "We are grateful for this lovely post on the question of the Traditional Latin Mass and why calls for a 'better tone' among online defenders of the TLM are meaningless."

Tierney gets into the meat of his discussion by raising the question:

But is the Latin Mass at least equal to the Novus Ordo? I think that's where the interesting question is. According to Vatican II, Ecclesia Dei and Summorum Pontificum (amongst many others) the answer is an unqualified yes. It is an approved form of worship within the Church, and like all of the liturgical life of the Church, it is worth cherishing and celebrating.

Does that sound like the way the Latin Mass is treated? The answer is an unqualified no. According to Robert Cardinal Sarah, Summorum Pontificum is not a reality within the dioceses of the world because a spirit of exclusion exists within Catholics who celebrate both forms. They weaponize the liturgy with hate and malice. Those are interesting words, but they don't convey the reality of why those words in Summorum Pontificum are often pious aspirations.

In several dioceses here in America, there is a de facto ban on advertising the availability of Latin Masses on websites, parish bulletins, etc. Other times there are countless hurdles being placed for celebrating the Latin Mass, including the bishop determining for himself whether or not someone is "competent" to celebrate it, something Ecclesia Dei has made clear is wrong. Saying the priest should tell the bishop to go screw while he appeals to Rome is nice in theory, but is probably going to make life quite difficult for the priest, and his congregation. In any such case, when priests have their visas revoked for saying that both the faithful trads and bishops need to be more accommodating towards each other, that is not faithful to the spirit of the Magesterium.

Read more >>

Point-counter-point on Cardinal Robert Sarah

Too little time to comment on the following, but two very interesting and radically opposed "readings" of the significance of Cardinal Robert Sarah and his best-selling 434-page Dieu ou Rien [God or Nothing] (Fayard, 2015):

• Samuel Gregg, "Cardinal Kasper could learn from this African bishop" (Crisis, April 13, 2015) - an all-positive, thoughtful appreciation of the insights of the good Cardinal by the Research Director at the Acton Institute.
  
  
• Louie Verrecchio, "Cardinal Sarah interview nothing to cheer about" (Harvesting the Fruit of the Vatican II, March 6, 2015) - a self-professed "rain on the parade" analysis of all that's wrong with Cardinal Sarah's views by the Al Pacino of la cosa nostra tradizione cattolica.

[Hat tip to JM]

I hope I'm not suffering psychological "imbalances"

I used to think the "Reform of the Reform," the purging of the Novus Ordo of all its accumulated abuses, a good thing. Fr. Joseph Fessio, James and Helen Hitchcock and a host of other faithful Catholics devoutly hoped and prayed for this. Adoremus Bulletin, a publication of the Adoremus Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, was founded by these individuals; and they both promoted the "Reform of the Reform."

After my more recent discovery of the older, more traditional liturgy, I began to lose interest in the "Reform of the Reform," which seemed a bit like a losing rearguard battle with little hope of getting anywhere. By the time Pope Benedict's publication of Summorum Pontificum (2007) and the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae (2011) guaranteeing universal permission for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass and promoting its proper instruction, I had become more familiar with the ancient liturgy and learned not only to appreciate lack of politically-correct abuses and innovations attendant to it, but had time to process the learning curve involved in it and to appreciate its own particular virtues.

Now a ZENIT report (February 19, 2015) [via Rorate Caeli] on the Holy Father's recent two-hour meeting with the Roman Clergy in Rome has just been published in which he evidently declares his opinion that the "Reform of the Reform" is a "mistake," and seminarians (and presumably others, like myself?) attached to the "traditionalist" liturgy may be suffering "psychological" problems and certain "imbalances." I surely hope the Holy Father is being misquoted here, or, in order to regain my sanity, I may have to start praying for the gift of speaking in tongues -- a gift thus far denied me.

Revealing Dietrich von Hildebrand letter takes issue with previous Wanderer editor over new Mass

F.Y.I. [Disclaimer: See Rules 7-9]: "The Remnant Scrapbook History ~ In The Beginning" (Remnant, February 18, 2015) offers a meaty history of a couple of traditionalist brothers involved in the beginnings of two newspapers, The Wanderer and The Remnant, the second founded by Walter Matt as a result of a falling out over the new Mass with his brother, Alphonse Matt, who was then left as editor of The Wanderer. Walter Matt opposed the liturgical changes and Alphonse supported them.

Walter Matt’s strong stand against the new Mass was not shared by everyone, but Dietrich von Hildebrand quickly allied himself with Walter Matt and his fledgling Remnant in trying to mount a "Catholic counterrevolution." In a letter dated April 27, 1970, von Hildebrand wrote a letter to Walter Matt’s brother, the new editor of The Wanderer, summing up, in effect, the substance of the issue that had separated the two Matt brothers. Von Hildebrand wrote:

Dear Mr. Alphonse Matt:

I thank you very much for your kind letter. But I believe that there is some misunderstanding. You assume that the new ordo missae and especially the rubrics constitute for me merely a personally painful change by replacing something very beautiful and perfect with something less beautiful and less perfect. But unfortunately it is my conviction that the new ordo missae is the greatest pastoral mistake and that its consequences for the Church may be disastrous.

I agree however completely with you that it is a grave problem, whether one should criticize it publicly or only intra muros. Concerning this problem every one must follow his conscience. But I frankly cannot understand that you do not only abstain from a public criticism of the new ordo missae but make the “Wanderer” an instrument for propagating and praising the new ordo. You even suggest in your letter, dear Mr. Matt, that I should join this propaganda. As you say that you agreed with my article in “Triumph” in which I stress that obedience to practical decisions of the Pope does not imply approval of them – it is difficult for me to understand why you expect me to utter a univocal approval of something which seems to be, from the purely religious point of view, a “suicidal” practical decision. I do not believe that a mere loyalty to the present Pope who does not act against those who destroy the Catholic faith daily more and more – like Kueng, Schillebecks, Padovano, Greeley and many others – and who does not use the means by which the Church survived through 2000 years: anathema and excommunication – can preserve Catholic faith untarnished.

Dear Mr. Matt, it is painful for me to disagree with you because of my sincere admiration for the “Wanderer” throughout the past years and our warm personal union in Christ. This disagreement, however should in no way affect our friendly relations.

Faithfully yours in Christ
Dietrich von Hildebrand

Looking back: from the Synod to the Council

THE “JOHANNINE TURN” WAS CARRIED OUT BY OTHERS
Pope John XXIII through the Testimony of Silvio Cardinal Oddi

By Beniamino Di Martino (Translated by N. Michael Brennen)  October 2014

Fr. Beniamino Di Martino, a Catholic priest from Naples, Italy, teaches “History of the Churches” at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Benevento and “Social Doctrine of the Church” at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Castellammare. He is a visiting professor at the Claretianum Institute of the Pontifical Lateran University. --------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Brennen is a freelance translator who lived in Italy for two years. He is nearing completion of a master’s degree in the philosophy of economics, with concentration on the ethical dimensions of economics. He translates in philosophy, ethics, economics, political theory, and related areas. His website is nmichaelbrennen.com.

Popes John Paul II and John XXIII were canonized on April 27, 2014, the Feast of Divine Mercy (a feast created by Pope Wojtyla during the Jubilee Year 2000). On that same feast day, on May 1, 2011, John Paul II had been beatified, six years after his death. The beatification of John XXIII had already happened a few years previously, on September 3, 2000, when John Paul II simultaneously elevated him and Pius XI to the “honor of the altars.”

Pope Francis’s decision to preside over a single ceremony for John Paul II and John XXIII came as no surprise. He had expressed this preference while talking to journalists during the return flight from the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. A Mexican journalist asked the Pope what model of holiness emerges from these two great figures. After illustrating some of the characteristics of the spirituality of the two popes, Francis concluded, “I believe holding the canonization ceremony of both popes together is a message for the Church.”

What might this message be? Italian journalist Antonio Socci interpreted the simultaneous canonization as “a decision that gives a sign of unity and that finally takes the Church beyond old controversies concerning the [Second Vatican] Council that characterized the second half of the twentieth century.” In other words, the simultaneous proclamation of the two saints would emphasize magisterial continuity and help set aside interpretations that in the past few decades have contrasted not only a post-conciliar Church to a pre-conciliar Church but also John XXIII to the popes who preceded him, and that have pitted “Wojtyla the Restorer” against “the Good Pope John.”

+++

The commitment of some scholars to reconstruct the figure of John XXIII in order to purify his image and avoid any sort of “mythologizing” that could be used to consolidate biased interpretations and ideological ploys is certainly not without historical significance; several recent studies have contributed to this end. Though in a more modest and less articulated form, a further contribution can come from a witness to the times of John XXIII and the Council in the person of Silvio Cardinal Oddi. In light of the canonization of Pope Roncalli, the contrarian opinions expressed by Cardinal Oddi about the personality and tendencies of John XXIII are again of current interest. The event prompted me to dust off the notes of an interview that Cardinal Oddi granted me — in the form of a long conversation — in the now distant time of November 1991.

Progressive, Liberal, Conservative, Traditionalist

"A polyhedron is just a deformed Platonic sphere ..." (Cogitator, September 26, 2014):

A conservative Catholic believes that all the doctrines and precepts of the Church must be held as a whole or not at all. A liberal Catholic believes that at least some of the doctrines and precepts of the Church can be jettisoned or fundamentally altered, while a progressive Catholic believes that many, if not most of them, must be so reconstructed. As for a traditionalist Catholic? He just believes that the liberals envy the progressives, and that the conservatives vastly underestimate the liberals, since the liberals aren’t even Catholic, and thus aren’t even worthy of collaboration.

In other words, traditionalist Catholics are essentially conservative Catholics, with the added feature that they are willing to admit that the conservative Catholic status quo is gone, baby, gone; and thus it must be fought for and restored. Meanwhile, any hint that the status quo is out of whack is anathema to conservative Catholics, who seem unwilling to admit that their majority status has long since flown the coop.

This is why traditionalist and conservative Catholics are the most contentious subgroups: they are fighting over the same mutually beloved turf, yet without recognizing a common enemy. Absent such clarity, they more often than not turn on each other, much to the glee of the liberals and their progressive masters. Ultimately, the conservatives are not wrong, but the traditionalists are more right. [Emphasis added by JM]

[Hat tip to JM]

For the record: "The Rise of Bergoglianism"

A "very harsh assessment of the current pontificate," as Ferrara warns in a cautionary note to the reader in "The Rise of Bergoglianism" (The Remnant, September 26, 2014). His rationale? That someday he and his fellow traditionalists might be exculpated for "what was done to the Bride of Christ," presumably under this pontificate. [Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]

For the record: latest update on SSPX status assumes "full communion" but "imperfect reconciliation," says commentor

[Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]

Details come from Fr. Claude Barthe, "La Fraternité Saint-Pie-X en état de « réconciliation imparfaite »" (L'Homme Nouveau, September 24, 2014), translated HERE (RC, September 24, 2014).

Zmirak's "myth" of Catholic social teaching

Some readers may remember earlier discussions of Zmirak, such as "Integralism vs Liberty ('the god that failed')" (Musings, February 12, 2014), which referenced his piece on "Illiberal Catholicism" (Aleteia, December 31. 2013).

Whether you agree with him or not (I don't), Zmirak's articles are often "arresting," as one of my readers put it; and in relation to this piece, he added: "Of course, you do wonder where one line stops and another starts. Witness capital punishment, inerrancy, missions...."

John Zmirak, "The Myth of Catholic Social Teaching" (The Catholic Thing, August 30, 2014) [Advisory: Rules 7-9]:

Self-styled Catholic critics of the free market and “Americanism” have adopted the term “social Magisterium” to suggest that there is a coherent and morally binding body of papal teaching on politics and economics, from which we can derive specific policy initiatives and firmly condemn alternatives as “un-Catholic” or even (that dreaded word) “dissenting.”

Hence defenders of market economics, or opponents of mass immigration, can be tarred with the same brush as those who favor women’s ordination or homosexuality. Indeed, if we accept the premise of a “social magisterium,” we are led to believe that we can actually build up a detailed Catholic political economy that is a “third way” between capitalism and socialism, which bravely “cuts across” the lines dividing Left and Right, and between America’s political parties.

We can start, of course, with Belloc and Chesterton, who laid the groundwork for an officially Catholic system of economics, distributism. We can move forward bravely by reading the fruits of bishops’ conferences and statements by the Vatican’s various social justice officers. As we proceed, compiling divinely approved answers to each burning current question, we can fill in the empty spaces of politics and economics, then present it to a rudderless world like a completed crossword puzzle.

I won’t spend time here talking about the practical effects of such talk in Catholic circles. My hope is that it has none – that patriotic, prolife Catholics simply ignore the posturing that fills the blogosphere, the tortured statements that emerge from bishops’ conferences, the rants of leftist, anti-Semitic cardinals, and the questionably translated fruits of interviews with the pope.

I hope this not simply because I want people to vote against the persecutors of the Church, to whom the rise of illiberal Catholicism gives active aid and comfort, but for a much more important reason: the explosion of irrational and false political statements that carry some vague imprimatur of Church authority will undermine people’s faith: “If I have to believe that nonsense to really be Catholic….”

But there are smart, sincere people out there who struggle seriously with the idea that the papacy is a 2,000-year-old Delphic oracle, that a “spirit-led Magisterium” inspires and guards from error the statements of popes about economics and politics. Even if such statements are not infallible, we are obliged to grant them a docile “religious submission,” as we are to other non- ex cathedra assertions of Catholic teaching. Or so people say.

... But is it true? Is there a “spirit-led” “social Magisterium” that works by accretion over the centuries, gradually building up a coherent, defensible program of economics and politics, which can be drawn by simply reading what popes have said and fitting those statements together like Lego blocks, to construct a Catholic city? Is that what Jesus intended to give us when He founded the papacy?

If we really believe that, and expect every Catholic to form his views accordingly, then we should be able to survey papal statements over the centuries on economics and politics, and find in them the same exquisite consistency we see in papal teachings about the natures of Jesus Christ and the sacraments – the slow, organic unfolding of that divine revelation which ended with the death of St. John the Apostle.

If we found that this was not true, that papal social teaching did not exhibit the same crystalline integrity, we might be tempted to leave the Church – or else to descend into cognitive dissonance, in bad faith blocking out or distorting the inconvenient facts of history, to cling to a “faith” that has morphed into a modern-style ideology. I am not sure which of those two temptations would be more deadly, to abandon faith or to corrupt it.

But those are not the only choices. A third way is to see Catholic social teaching not as analogous to Eucharistic doctrine and Marian dogmas, but as something much more akin to the Catholic literary tradition – a treasure trove of often-brilliant insights and deep investigations into the best ways for men to live which claims our respectful attention.

... I will not catalog every assertion by any pope that makes modern Catholics cringe. Some quite liberal Catholics did compile a book like that: Rome Has Spoken. Its authors intended to minimize papal authority to a vanishing point, to remove it from faith and morals as well. Their case is overstated. But the statements they collected on politics and economics ought to give pause to anyone who asserts that Jesus meant to make the popes political and economic oracles. In attempting to discern God’s will from the evidence of history, these cases demand our candid reflection, not tortured, last-ditch defenses of preconceived ideas.

Here is a short (and non-exhaustive) list of issues on which, over the course of time, papal positions have made what can only be honestly called a 180-degree reversal. Entire scholarly books have been written to explain how and why – and sometimes to suggest that “development of doctrine” can be stretched to accommodate such reversals.

I do not have space here to argue why such rationalizations are unconvincing. Suffice it to say that the plain meaning of “development” suggests something organic, not a Hegelian dialectical leap from “A” to “the opposite of A,” not even one that happens gradually over centuries. When a tadpole turns into a Steinway grand piano, that’s not an organic development.

Zmirak procedes to itemize "reversals" of papal positions on lending at interest, slavery, religious liberty, and torture, and concludes by stating that our Lord "never meant to leave behind an oracle. When we invent one for our convenience, we are forging a golden calf."

Of course, in his own case, all of this just happens to be jolly convenient.

[Hat tip to JM]

Cardinal Siri's banned forgotten book on ecumenism

Our undercover corresponded we keep on retainer in an Atlantic seaboard city who knows how to keep its secrets, Guy Noir - Private Eye, wired me the following telegram back on June 20, and the footman from the telegraph office in Reno, Nevada (of all places!), just arrived at my door with it this evening. Here's what he wrote:

[Cardinal Giuseppe] Siri! Talk about counter-Resourcement, or a name unlikely to be on any recent papal bedside reading stand. LOL. Forgotten in under a century, akin to Garrigou-Lagrange. His "Gethsemeni" appears available now only in French.

Actually, he is happily mistaken, though, unhappily, used copies of the bad English translation run between $65.98 and $284.62. Anyway, he continued:

I very much doubt I could persuade Ignatius Press to republish what is essentially a polite take down of Henri de Lubac. Despite the premium currently placed on dialog and diversity, people really want to hear just what they want to hear. Siri's common sense can't really be answered, so it will remain simply discredited by official disfavor versus any sustained theologizing. Reminds me to of Romano Amerio, whose Stat Veritas may we yet someday see in English. It's not that I enjoy insurgency so much as I enjoy Catholic theology and clear thinking.

Related: "Catholics and Ecumenism - considerations by Cardinal Siri" (RC, June 19, 2014).

[Hat tip to GN]

And now for something on the more positive side

An interview with The Very Rev. John M. Berg, F.S.S.P. ('93): "God Has Been Generous" (Thomas Aquinas College, California, July 15, 2014).

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

A speculative calculus on the future of traditional and non-traditional priests in France

"Traditional priests in France until 2050" (Centurio, July 6, 2014). Conclusion?

... if the Roman Catholic faith will be saved from secularism in France, it will be the achievement of the traditional groups of priests celebrating the Traditional Mass such as FSSPX, FSSP and ICRSS.

Wishful thinking? Do the math, adjust the variables, see what alternatives you come up with. The wild card, of course, is a possible geo-political event of historic magnitude. Short of that, things will more or less continue in their current trajectory. It's true, the TLM may be available daily in no more than 75 places nationwide, as a reader observed, and aside from a few bishops like Cordileone and Morlino, the majority remain disinterested or downright unfriendly. But the trajectory in question spells, mutatis mutandis, the exponential collapse of the churches spawned in the 1960s; and if Centurio's calculations are even half-right, they spell a much greater leadership role for traditional priests in the future of France.

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]