Heroes and Villains of Traditional Catholicism

Heroes and Villains of Traditional Catholicism - Part B

JMJ

Introduction

So we pick our heroes and villains. Necessarily there are fewer heroes than villains. In order to stand above a crowd we put heroes on a pedestal as an example to follow. Unfortunately, when they fall from the pedestal, there is no middle ground, they become villains. That doesn't mean that they are everyone's hero's because we say so, they are our heroes. Just as those who fall out of favour are are our villains.

So these heroes and villains are subject to the whims and fancies of their followers.

I don't think this is a good way to select heroes and villains. I think that a better standard is to select them based on their virtues (for heros) and vices (for villains), their adherence to Catholic Truth and in the sacrifices that they make to defend that Truth.

Our Heroes

Hitler was both a hero and villain to Germans. It just depended on who you asked. The reality is that he sought to exterminate those of Jewish descent as well as those who didn't fit in with his vision. Added to this was his desire to dominate much of the world.

Steeped in the vice of pride, he was attempting to usurp God, deciding who were the sheep and who were the goats.

But he isn't alone, history is full of people who make this fatal mistake, I have encountered Catholics (Traditional and otherwise) who pass judgement on the actions of others, believing they know their most secret intentions. I find it highly unlikely that God has granted them the gift of reading hearts, so they only believe that they know what the other is thinking. In this they mistake belief for knowledge and create a fantasy.

In my personal experience when their fantasies run into reality, they will do mental gymnastics and contortions to defend their fantasies.

Fantasy:A pleasant situation that you enjoy thinking about but is unlikely to happen, or the activity of imagining things. A pleasant but unlikely situation that you enjoy thinking about. (Cambridge Dictionary)

I have encountered many who try to bend reality to match their will:

Psychiatric patients
Narcisstic-sociopaths
Benny-Vacantists
Ecclesia-Vacantists
Sede-Vacantists

When confronted with a reality that disagrees with your beliefs, you have three choices:

Change your belief
Change the reality
Change your perception of reality

I have personally witnessed people changing their perception of reality and falling into error. Some are still in psychiatric facilities, other still roam the streets looking, for all intensive purposes, like normal people. 😆

How do you handle reality?

The ultimate 'subjectivism', is to seek to bend reality to our will. This is simply playing God, refusing to accept reality and the personal need to align our thoughts with reality. This refusal of an objective reality reeks of Liberalism and taken to its extreme it is a mental illness and in some cases the person affected doesn't realize that they've tricked themselves and last what psychologists call 'Insight'.

In psychology and psychiatry, insight can mean the ability to recognize one's own mental illness. ... This form of insight has multiple dimensions, such as recognizing the need for treatment, and recognizing consequences of one's behavior as stemming from an illness.A person with very poor recognition or acknowledgment is referred to as having "poor insight" or "lack of insight". The most extreme form is anosognosia, the total absence of insight into one's own mental illness.(Wikipedia)

In the absence of a mental illness, the Catholic Church has referred to this as 'blindness' or 'hardness of the heart'.

Humans are complicated beings and exceptionally creative when trying to find ways to justify their actions. So losing insight is just an extreme example. Other examples are projecting our faults onto others and side stepping the reality (think beam and mote Luke 6:42).

Criteria for Selecting Our Heroes

Since Liberalism is BAD, I think that there must be a better way to select our heroes and villains.

My thought is that a hero should be defined by their adherence to Truth. At the same time we need to understand that heroes are human and therefore metaphorically speckled covered with black and white specks.

They are fallible, just a we are.

Truth is embodied in various forms and rests on various authorities. The highest of these are the Dogmas of the Catholic Faith. These rest on the authority of God. The next would be the Doctrines of the Catholic Church that rest on various authorities of the Church (Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Religious, and Theologians). These are put into practice via Catholic Virtues and Principles.

Tradicat: Dogmatic Fact or Fancy
Tradicat: Dogmatic Fact or Fancy II
Tradicat: Yes Sally, Pope Francis is Pope

Beyond these reliable Truths and Principles, we have facts (historical, scientific etc), in other words reality as observed by ourselves and others. In the situation where we haven't observed an event ourselves we must trust the 'authority' of someone else. Examples of this include experimental results supporting the Theory of Relativity, the Gravitational Constant, and who won the 2019 world series.

It seems to me that we accept 'observations' as facts as along as the trust in the observer exceeds the importance of the fact to our perspective of reality.

Hence the reason for conspiracy theories and cult leaders.

When presented with a public figure, the questions we need to ask ourselves are:

Is the person:

Contradicting or placing in jeopardy any Catholic Dogmas or Doctrines?
Practicing virtue?
Departing from Catholic Principles?

If you checked off any of these you need to consider whether or not their actions are worthy of emulation.

P^3

Morning and Evening and other sundry Prayers

+ JMJ Along the theme of P^3 (Prayer, Penance, Patience), and for my own reference ... here is a collection of Morning and Evening prayers from the Ideal Daily Missal along with some additional prayers. In this crisis of the Church, I do not think it is possible to do too much prayer, penance and have patience. P^3

SSPX and the Resistance - A Comparison Of Ecclesiology

Shining the light of Church Teaching on the doctrinal positions of the SSPX and the Resistance. Principles are guides used to aid in decision making. It stands to reason that bad principles will lead to bad decisions. The recent interactions between Rome and the SSPX has challenged a number of closely held cultural assumptions of people in both sides of the disagreement. This has resulted in cultural skirmishes in both Rome and the SSPX. Since it is the smaller of the two, the skirmishes have been more evident within the SSPX. The cultural fault-line that Bishop Fellay crossed appears to be linked to two points of Catholic Doctrine: Ecclesiology and Obedience. The cultural difference of view points is strong enough that it has resulted in the expulsion of a number of members. It should also be noted that some other priests expelled since the beginning of the latest interactions (starting in 2000) held the same view points and have joined with the l...

Comparision of the Tridentine, Cranmer and Novus Ordo Masses

+ JMJ I downloaded the comparison that was linked in the previous article on the mass (here) . ... a very good reference! P^3 From: Whispers of Restoration (available at this link) . CHARTING LITURGICAL CHANGE Comparing the 1962 Ordinary of the Roman Mass to changes made during the Anglican Schism; Compared in turn to changes adopted in the creation of Pope Paul VI’s Mass in 1969 The chart on the reverse is a concise comparison of certain ritual differences between three historical rites for the celebration of the Catholic Mass Vetus Ordo: “Old Order,” the Roman Rite of Mass as contained in the 1962 Missal, often referred to as the “Traditional Latin Mass.”The Ordinary of this Mass is that of Pope St. Pius V (1570) following the Council of Trent (1545-63), hence the occasional moniker “Tridentine Mass.” However, Trent only consolidated and codified the Roman Rite already in use at that time; its essential form dates to Pope St. Gregory the Great (+604), in whose time the R...

The Curious Case of Steve Skojec and the Dangers of Deep Diving into the Crisis Sub-Titled: The Failings of Others

+ JMJ It's been a while now since Steve Skojec sold 1P5 and abandoned the Catholic Faith. I've been a 'Trad' since 1982 and in those 40+ years I seen this death-spiral before with a similar end point. It seems that anyone who jumps into the fray unprepared for the enormous task of righting wrongs will, eventually, become discouraged by not the task but the people who surround them. I remember when Skojec complained of the treatment his family received from a traditional priest. This seems to have been the start of the end for him. So what can we learn from the likes of Steve Skojec, Michael Voris (maybe?), Louie Verrecchio, Gerry Matatix and other celebrity Catholics? Probably quite a lot about what not to do. First, don't burn out on the crisis? When you burn out, on work or anything else, little things assume a more greater importance than they are due. This is one of my 'canary in the coal mine' signals that I've been stretching myself too th...

What the heck is a congregation of "Pontifical Right"

+ JMJ In a discussion with a friend the question occurred to me that I didn't actually know was is involved in being a religious order of 'pontifical right'. I had a vague notion that this meant they reported to Rome as opposed to the local diocese. I'm also aware that, according to the accounts I have heard, the Archbishop received 'praise' and the written direction to incardinate priests directly into the SSPX. This is interesting because it implies that the SSPX priests were no longer required to incardinate in the local diocese but in the SSPX. This is something that belongs to an order of 'pontifical right'. Anyway here's some definitions: Di diritto pontificio is the Italian term for “of pontifical right” . It is given to the ecclesiastical institutions (the religious and secular institutes, societies of apostolic life) either created by the Holy See or approved by it with the formal decree, known by its Latin name, Decretu...

Tradicat

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