The Problem With The SSPX (Or Why Catholicism Is For Grownups)
I’m getting really, really tired of having to do lots of extra legwork to convince people that just because I’m a devotee of the Traditional Latin Mass I’m not some sort of a nutjob.
I have defended the SSPX numerous times, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve been doing it for the past week, in fact, at Inside Catholic, where you’ll be hard pressed to find another truly sympathetic voice. Today, reading what sounded like the rejection of the ultimatum, I cracked a bit.
I’ve been walking the fence on this issue for years. I made it clear when I was heading up the blog groups known as The League of Evil Traditionalists and, later, Catholic Restorationists, that SSPX attendees need not apply. My position was essentially that related to me by Hilary of the late John Muggeridge, who said that “The SSPX has all of our sympathy and none of our support.”
That time is passing now. I am ready to revise the statement to read, “They have none of my sympathy and even less of my support.”
This morning, a friend sent me this, which I am still struggling to force myself to finish reading. I have long marvelled at the odd (and in my opinion, immature) sensibility of the author, whom I know believes entirely sincerely that he is fighting the good fight. But when I read and see these things, I can’t help but wonder if what has happened is that individuals who were meant to become Goths or workers at a Renaissance festival became traditional Catholics by mistake, and are now peppering us with anachronistic adolescent nonsense from their steampunk enclaves in the hills of cyberspace. Their Catholicism comes across as largely a role-playing fantasy, more complex and mysterious than any roll of the 12-sided D&D dice and more serious than cancer. After all, the fate of a celestial battle for souls hang in the balance, so one must always be sure to have tunic, mail, sword, and spell of +20 mustache-curl at the ready.
But to those of use who have been working to get wary Catholics to recognize that the traditional liturgy and sacraments and teachings of the Church are a treasure for the entire Mystical Body of Christ, not just a niche and elite few, we are forced to constantly shed the baggage which groups like the SSPX saddle us with, making the work exponentially harder to accomplish. Always and everywhere we must establish our credibility, pledge our allegiance to the pope, recite our wrote platitudes about the validity of the Novus Ordo and the Second Vatican Council, and so on.
Those who idolize men like the SSPX’s Bishop Williamson are better off in their fantasy world. What fantasy world, you ask? This one:
Girls, be mothers, and in order to be mothers, let not wild horses drag you into shorts or trousers. When activities are proposed to you requiring trousers, if it is something your great-grandmother did, then find a way of doing it, like her, in a skirt. And if your great-grandmother did not do it, then forget it! Her generation created your country, your generation is destroying it. Of course not all women who wear trousers abort the fruit of their womb, but all help to create the abortive society. Old-fashioned is good, modern is suicidal. You wish to stop abortion? Do it by example. Never wear trousers or shorts.
Got that, ladies? Stop wearing pants or you’re contributing to abortion. But don’t think about that too much…after all:
Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature which characterizes our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.
This disconnect from reality, however well-intentioned, underscores the problem. I have been praying for the reconciliation of the group to Rome in my daily rosary, but I always nuance my petition, “if it is acceptable to Your divine will.” We want the society to come home, but only if they can be a positive force, not a negative one. The Church already has more than its share of those who seek to undermine her mission from within.
Catholicism, while it suffers always the little children, is still a faith for grownups. It is not a place for petty grudge matches against Rome, alternative Magisteriums, adolescent fantasies about disobedience as prime virtue, and theological temper tantrums. Being Catholic, much to my own chagrin, entails suffering, often due to some injustice. It requires an esprit d’ corps, a willingness to work in charity toward a common good, and a sense of obedience that outweighs all but grave moral objections based in rightly-formed conscience. Working for change is part of being a man, and since the Church is made for all men, it, too, is subject to reform.
But true reform is impossible without humility. And the lack of this one, simple virtue is what seems to have made toxic the relationship between the society and Rome.
It is entirely possible that a variation on Bishop Williamson’s theme is in evidence here: That disobedient Catholics should not be a part of the Church flows from the nature of the Church and from the nature of disobedient Catholics: the true Church is for the faithful, the faithful can never be truly disobedient, so the true Church may not be for the SSPX.
Feel free to double-check my math on that one.
Filed under: Catholicism
Darn!
I only have a spell of +10 mustache-curl. Time to go on another campaign so I can get more experience points.
Or do I have to obtain the Scroll of Ancient Facial Hair from the Barber of Seville? Where is the DM when you need him?
Don’t be too ready to believe media reports on this. The ultimatum was addressed to Fellay personally, after he apparently (and indirectly) disparaged the Holy Father’s orthodoxy after their meeting last year. Of course the Pope’s not going to accept that, so he sent word to Fellay that if he couldn’t restrain his mouth, the whole deal was off.
The problem is that loudmouth malcontents like Williamson are waging a public relations war while Fellay, the actual head of SSPX, is busy dealing with Rome.
Fellay has sent a response that was reportedly well received by Castrillon. Sending a response by 30 June was one of the ultimata. Another was to not propose the SSPX as an alternative magisterium. Since it has been Fellay’s stance (and LeFebvre before him) that the SSPX could not be an alternative magisterium, that was no problem with that.
The remainder of the ultimata are about attitude rather than specifics and are quite vague. It’s likely that Fellay (being French) responded by asking what specifically he would be committing to by accepting each of them. It would be very like him.
And while Fellay walks a tightrope between his duty as head of the SSPX (as he sees it) to be sure he can defend Tradition when he does rejoin the Church, and the demands of the Pope, a crowd of the more radical and less Catholic members of his own Fraternity are trying to undermine his effort. This includes planting stories in the European and South American press.
Dan,
I get the delicacy of the situation (and the lack of finality on this issue) and have written about that at Inside Catholic, as linked above in my post. What I am tired of, as indicated here, is the incessant bravado and anachronistic and/or fantatstic nonsense being bandied about giving the rest of us trads a bad name.
The more one reads the statements coming out of that quarter - Bp. Fellay’s insistence that Pope Benedict is a “perfect liberal”; his homily in Winona last week saying that Rome just wants him to shut up; the borderline crazy diatribes of Bp. Williamson; the dress up and play-act like we fell out of a Wodehouse novel and its still the 1920s crowd; the angry tradholes and rad-trad malcontents who fuel the anti-traddishness of many in the conservative Catholic community; and the overall sense that Archbishop Lefebvre was some epic hero who is the only reason tradition was preserved in the Catholic Church, rather than a wounded an noble man with a good heart who took things too far and failed in the obedience he owed to his pope, and whom tradition survived in spite of, not because of.
God is not mocked. If tradition is what all of us believe it to be, if the differences between the new and old liturgies (and their respective effects on the faithful) are as profound and significant as we have witnessed since 1970, if everything we have fought for while being marginalized and treated like second class Catholics (and I point to men like you, here, Danby, because I’ve only been in this game for four years, not forty) was worth it to see the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, then I state with absolute moral certainty that tradition would have been preserved without a direct act of disobedience to the pope - a most UNtraditional act. God provides, and he rewards those who have faith of him even when all seems lost (Job, anyone?). If tradition is what is best for His children, he would never have allowed it to be smothered, and its preservation would have come through some other means.
This attitude of “when the pope calls, we come running” but “once we get there, we pick and choose whether we care to listen to and/or mock what he has to say” is way, way old now. If they can’t straighten up and fly right, they’re better off out there in their bunker-world, reducing themselves to caricatures of what real reform looks like.
Those among them who have an ounce of sense will follow the lead of the FSSP, Institute of the Good Shepherd, Campos, et. al.
A response could be made that those who embrace the ways of the modern world in their support of the traditional liturgy are simply doomed to fall into the same attitudes that led to the Novus Ordo in the first place. The Novus Ordo was the triumph of the Revolution, not its beginning. If we happily unite ourselves with a society entirely based upon “non serviam”, how can we possibly hope to work towards the Social Kingship of Christ? It is both arrogant and ignorant to ignore the fact that restoration of the piety, purity, and customs - both secular and religious - of the past have always been a part of authentic Catholic renewal.
Keep drinking the kool-aid, Nick. We needn’t be so dualistic about it. This is the world we live in, and this is the one we have to fix. Making yourself inaccessible to the average person, no matter how much they are rooted in a “non serviam” culture, will never fix a damned thing.
They don’t relate to people who constantly condemn them; who play dress up and make-believe that it’s a different time; who affect a way of doing things that is arbitrarily chosen as better, despite being entirely out of context. They just think it’s weird, and it’s one less reason to be a part of the Church. Show me the large number of converts coming through that sort of manifestation of the faith and maybe I’ll buy in too.
That doesn’t mean we needn’t be respectable, but it does mean finding balance and learning how to be in the world and not of it. And by “in the world”, I don’t think it is reasonable to include outward manifestations, attitudes, and beliefs that alienate others or make them think you’re smoking the cheap stuff.
I respect your dedication, but not your approach. And the elitist arrogance of the society and its adherents does a disservice to any real restoration that might be accomplished. Instead of people being influenced by the example of trads, they see a bunch of bitter, disenfranchised egomaniacs telling everyone how their way is better and the world and the Church is nothing but a ship of fools. Regardless of how much truth may exist in that perspective, it’s not going to accomplish a lot.
Hope this was coherent…I’m rushing out the door.
Ah yes, what’s the quote? “They shall know we are Trads by our ceaseless bickering and internecine backstabbing?” Let’s stop. I retract the negative and accusatory tone of my comment above. Mea culpa.
Now let’s try again. We both agree that we must be in the world but not of it. We differ on where the distinction between “of” and “in” lies.
First, let’s set aside the straw men. I know no one who claims that arrogance is Christian. I know for a fact that the gentleman you impugned in your post is not one of these fantastical “bitter, disenfranchised egomaniacs telling everyone how their way is better and the world and the Church is nothing but a ship of fools” that you seem so worried about, and none of us arbitrarily chooses random anachronisms to revive (“ooh dearie me, I think I feel like wearing a beaver fur busby today!”).
Second, let me try to understand what you contend (correct me if I sum up your arguments incorrectly):
1. Attempting to restore elements of tradition (be it secular or ecclesiastic) makes one inaccessible to modern man.
2. Making oneself inaccessible to modern man will not “fix anything.”
If these are your premises, I find them highly suspect. If not, please clarify and we’ll go from there.
I would like to share this link though. This shows that even in our more tongue-in-cheek moments, our “spells of +20 mustache-curl” don’t elicite the whole-hearted detestation and revulsion from the moderns that you seem to think they do: http://www.manscaping-101.com/check-out-this-great-handlebar-mustache-think-you-could-do-this/
In other words, perhaps you’re simply too worried that your co-religionists are so dorky that they’ll get you thrown out of the “cool kid’s club,” whatever that may be.
Personally, I think promiscuity has more to do with not-wearing pants or shorts than wearing them.
Holy moly that thing on angelqueen.org is long. I mean, I’m the google generation. I can’t spend an hour on this, what, poetry?
Besides, isn’t it an archaeologism, burping up junk forms popular in the 12th century? Be traditional, I say, or at least be brief.
Like, give us a haiku or something.
Nick,
I responded at length and my browser ate the comments. I spent too long on it - time I should have spent in bed - and I’m in no mood to revisit. Half an hour of sleep I need is down the tube for nothing, and I’m sort of pissed about that right now…I’ll only make things worse.
Steve,
No problem. Same thing happened to the first two (less cranky) versions of my first comment above. This exchange has reminded me why I don’t participate in the trad mailing lists or fora anymore - this is a terrible way to conduct what should be a friendly argument over a few beers. I’m going to be on vacation and off the grid from tomorrow through July 21st. Drop me a line if you want to pick this back up then.
See? Responding at length gets you no where.
Haiku, people. Haiku.
There once was a man named Carriere /
He slipped and fell on his… oh drat, that’s limerick, not haiku…
LOL
Steve,
When you’re talking about the last week’s events regarding the SSPX, one important consideration is the situation of the SSPX in Europe. SSPX is after all, a French order, not an American one. Literally millions abandoned the Church over the last 40 years. Some 1,000,000 have clung to the SSPX on the way out. Fellay is responsible, to some degree, for those souls. Any move he makes which alienates them endangers their salvation.
So while he obviously wants to move in Rome’s direction, if he hits the gas too hard, too many of those passengers will fall out. He need’s the Curia’s help to convince them to hang on. Some number of them won’t, and Williamson is rumored to be one of those.
He is walking a tightrope, and I frankly think he’s doing a pretty good job.
On the other hand, I think they tend to send too many of their nut jobs to the Western Hemisphere.
Your site- steveskojec.com is excellent resource, good job, owner.
Good luck.
Steve, it’s a little late, but I wanted to tell you that I found this post to be very well written and expressed. I have strained my intellect in a dozen different ways trying to understand the particular attitudes you describe. Grace to you and Peace…
Pope Benedict IS a perfect liberal. The fact that you don’t recognize this is part of the problem you are having with the SSPX and Traditional Catholicism. True conservative Bishops in the Church were defeated at VCII and then slowly died off, replaced by Modernist Bishops. Today you have Modernism and Modernism Lite to which Benedict subscribes.
Steve,
Did your SSPX priest tell you to write that? or are you just channeling the Dimond brothers?
Paging Fr. Moderator, your impersonator has arrived …