The Gullible Theme - Part 2: Examining the Calgary SSPX School Policy - Introduction, Perspective and Principles

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JMJ

Introduction

Gullible made a number of comments regarding the SSPX school in Calgary and the wording that they were compelled to add to the school policy.

Actually, as noted here, Gullible made lots of comments, but they don't contain the reflections on why these proof texts are important and how they apply.

This is where I find most people (even myself upon occasion) fall short.  In essence, when we just react (posting proof-texts) we become the blog equivalent of script kiddies. Context is king and if you don't make the message explicit you lose your impact ... and your readers.

There is one thing worse than not communicating your message, it is communicating the wrong message.

However, there is a problem.

Humans read correspondence through a perceptual lense.  This lense causes them to misinterpret and even miss whole sections of the text.  Why?  Is it on purpose?  Not usually,  its just that our brain continually seeks the most efficient way to process information and uses mental models to accomplish this goal.

When something doesn't align with the model, there's a good chance it will get dropped or re-framed.

For example ...

Recently, I was involved in a negotiation via email.  It wasn't small potatoes either, each party represented organizations with thousands of members.  One morning I received a copy of the latest position from the 'other side'.  I read the first sentence and got angry and frustrated.  I stopped reading.  The next day I picked up the email and managed to get through two sentences before the same thing happened.  Again, I set it down to look at later.  It took me four days before I could read the entire email without being upset.  The result: I noticed something that the other half-dozen reviewers had missed - an offered compromise.

What's my point?

People allow emotions to skew their perception of what they are reading, hearing, seeing.  In some cases, they re-frame information to align with what they WANT to read / hear / see.

That's how wars get started.

That's how the 'resistance' got started and continues to perpetuate itself, inspite of its doctrinal errors the 'resistance' keeps on claiming that they are 'following the line of Archbishop Lefevre'.

I mean seriously, the claim is ludicrous - especially for the sede and benny vacantist factions.  They have departed from the line of the Archbishop because he always abided by the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

I digress.

So, in order to make certain that I really understand a piece (written or otherwise) I try to be aware of how it is affecting me emotionally (NB: I am still working on this ...).  I've even read some criticisms of my posts by 'resistance' authors and in one case I can see how I missed an aspect of the question that was posed to me. In the other, they simply had re-framed what I said.

Perspective

Now how does this apply to Gullible et al?

The 'resistance' has, like many Traditional Catholics, an automatic emotional response to anything that 'sounds' modern.

Which is ok ... if they don't stop there. What's happening is their subconscious is alerting them to something that falls out of tolerance.  The next step is critical: Think.

Yep, you read it right, I quoted Bishop Williamson.  Unless someone is attacking you, you don't need to react, you need to respond. In order to respond you need to stop and think.  Easy acronym:  Don't answer until you've SAT on it for a while.

When we think and re-construct the context around what we are thinking about, we are more likely to come to valid conclusions and make good decision.

That is what I'm going to do as I review the principles, context and text of the 'Calgary School Question'.

Principles

As any regular reader will know, I take Catholic Doctrine seriously.

The principle that I will use as a reference point is obedience.  I've studied and written a number of articles on obedience that can be found here.

I summarized it in the above matrix.  The left hand part of the matrix is clear - if sin is involved then a Catholic MUST disobey the order.  If no sin is involved, obedience is subject to whether the order is within the sphere of the superiors authority.

It is that simple.

P^3