September 27, 2021

September 27, 2021 By

It Was Also Answered (with the Same Answers) by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2019

This is one of the standard objections that Francis-critics have against Pope Francis: “why hasn’t he answered the dubia?” I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that. The dubia are five questions asked of Pope Francis, by Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, and recently deceased Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffarra: dated 9 September 2016.

My friend, Dr. Robert Fastiggi, has argued that Pope Francis already in effect answered them in Amoris Laetitia itself:

Responding to the Five Dubia from Amoris Laetitia Itself (Dr. Robert Fastiggi, Vatican Insider / La Stampa, 3-9-18)

Dr. Fastiggi, commenting on my blog, has suggested a second way that Pope Francis has replied:

In the 2020 book, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, Pope Francis offers some reflections in conversation with Austen Ivereigh. On pages 87-89 of this book, Pope Francis explains the reasoning behind the approach he took in chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia. He says this approach was suggested by Cardinal Cristoph Schoenborn of Vienna, and it is based on “the true moral doctrine of the authentic scholastic tradition of Saint Thomas.” Pope Francis explains: “There was no need to change Church law, only how it was applied” (p. 88). “Because of the immense variety of situations and circumstances people find themselves in,” the Synod agreed “on the need for a case-by-case discernment” (ibid.) Pope Francis makes it clear that the approach taken by the Synod and Amoris Laetitia does not involve any change in “law or doctrine.” Instead, it enables pastors “to walk with people who are living together or divorced, to help them see where God’s grace is operating in their lives, and to help them embrace the fullness of Church teaching” (ibid.).

Pope Francis explicitly states that Amoris Laetitia introduces no change in Church law or doctrine. This is a sufficient response to the dubia. Pope Francis does, though, highlight the need for pastors to discern whether people in irregular situations have sufficient knowledge and full culpability and to what extent they can receive the assistance of the sacraments in accordance with footnote 351 of Amoris Laetitia. These pages in Let Us Dream help us understand that chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia involves no change in Catholic law or doctrine. Pope Francis simply highlights the need for pastors to deal with difficult cases on a case-by-case basis with proper pastoral discernment. This type of discernment is nothing new. Any good priest will tell you that he applies this type of discernment on a regular basis, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Moreover, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also answered the dubia in his essay, “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse.” (10 April 2019). And he answered in the same way that Pope Francis did (namely, no, yes, yes, yes, and yes). This is explained in the article, “The Dubia Were Answered,” by Elizabeth A. Mitchell (The Catholic Thing, 5-11-19).

Any other questions, Your Eminence Cardinal Burke and Your Eminence Cardinal Brandmüller (or the legions of folks still wondering about this along with you)? Is there any part of “no” and “yes” that you don’t understand in this instance? I’m not trying to be “cute” or disrespectful; it’s a direct question, just as your dubia were. You wrote in your “Explanatory Note” for the dubia the following:

What is peculiar about these inquiries is that they are worded in a way that requires a “Yes” or “No” answer, without theological argumentation.

Very well, then, those yes and no answers have indeed been given: by this pope (twice) and (with full agreement) by the previous one (though not writing as pope). The answers are:

1) No

2) Yes

3) Yes

4) Yes

5) Yes

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Related Reading

Taylor Marshall Lies About Pope Francis & Divorce [6-8-19]

Pope Francis: Indissoluble Marriage & No Divorce (+ Analysis of Ed Feser’s “Doctrinally Problematic” Criticisms) [6-1-21]

Ed Feser, Pope Francis, Divorce, “Ambiguity”, & Implosion [6-3-21]

Lawler vs. Pope Francis #4: Communion / Buenos Aires Letter [1-3-18]

Pope Francis: Pro-Marriage & Contra “Marital Skepticism” [1-29-18]

Pope Francis’s New Document on Marriage: 12 Things to Know and Share (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 4-8-16)

Pope Francis Shatters Reformers’ Dreams with ‘Modern Family’ Document (Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, 4-8-16)

Interpreting Amoris Laetitia ‘through the lens of Catholic tradition’ (Andrea Gagliarducci, Catholic News Agency, 4-8-16)

First Thoughts on “Amoris Laetitia” (Bishop Robert Barron, Aleteia, 4-8-16)

 “True Innovations but Not Ruptures”: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn Presents “Amoris Laetitia” (Diane Montagna, Aleteia, 4-8-16)

Pope Affirms Traditional Marriage (Bill Donohue, Newsmax, 4-8-16)

Pope Francis’s revolution has been cancelled (Damian Thompson, The Spectator, 4-8-16)

Pope Francis on love in the family (Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, CatholicPhilly.com, 4-14-16)

Pope Francis is a social conservative (Tim Stanley, The Telegraph, 4-18-16)

Amoris Laetitia and the Progressive Pope Myth (Anthony S. Layne, Catholic Stand, 4-23-16)

Cardinal Müller: Magisterium on Remarried Divorcees Unchanged by Amoris Laetitia [cites precedent in both Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI] (Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register, 5-4-16)

Cardinal Müller: Amoris Laetitia is in line with previous teaching on Communion (Catholic Herald, 5-4-16)

Pope okays Argentine doc on Communion for divorced and remarried (Inés San Martín, Crux, 9-12-16)

What Pope Francis said about Communion for the divorced-and-remarried (Catholic News Agency, 9-13-16)

Not heretical: Pope Francis’ approval of the Argentine bishops’ policy on invalid marriages (Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, 9-15-16)

Cardinal Schönborn: Pope Francis follows John Paul II’s teaching on communion (Catholic Herald, 4-8-16)

Amoris Laetitia – An Apologia for its Orthodoxy (Scott Smith, Reduced Culpability, 1-19-17)

Vatican’s Muller: No Communion For Divorced, Remarried — Not Even a Pope Can Change This (Michael W. Chapman, CNS News, 2-1-17)

Cardinal Müller, German bishops clash on interpretation of Amoris Laetitia (Catholic World News, 2-1-17)

Cardinal Müller: Communion for the remarried is against God’s law (Catholic Herald, 2-1-17)

Does Amoris Laetitia 303 Really Undermine Catholic Moral Teaching? (Robert Fastiggi & Dawn Eden Goldstein, La Stampa / Vatican Insider, 9-26-17)

Dr. Robert Fastiggi Defends Amoris Laetitia Against Critics (hosted at Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, 10-3-17)

Defending Pope Francis (Amoris Laetitia) [+ Part Two] (Tim Staples, unknown date)

Critics of Amoris laetitia ignore Ratzinger’s rules for faithful theological discourse (Robert Fastiggi & Dawn Eden Goldstein,  La Stampa / Vatican Insider, 10-4-17)

Dr. Fastiggi Replies to Dr. Brugger Regarding Amoris Laetitia (hosted at Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, 10-12-17)

Pastoral Charity is the Key to Pope Francis’s Endorsement of the Buenos Aires Bishops’ Document (Robert Fastiggi, La Stampa / Vatican Insider, 11-28-17)

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Photo credit: Pope Francis & Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, April 2019 (New York Times / Vatican Media)

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Summary: The question is always asked: “why hasn’t Pope Francis answered the dubia?” These are five questions asked by four Cardinals (requiring only a yes or no answer). The pope has answered twice, so has the previous pope.

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September 24, 2021

September 24, 2021 By

He’s Supposed to Not Utter a Peep About All the Slanderous, Worthless Gossip & Rumormongering Today Among Catholics

This is a follow-up to my article, Pope Francis Did Not Say EWTN = “Work of the Devil” (Case Study in “Conservative” Catholic Media Bias, Which is Becoming as Problematic as Mainstream Liberal Media Bias) [9-22-21] The usual prattle and negativism was occurring on one Facebook page, which was about an article from pope-basher Phil Lawler, and I chimed in. A few others spoke up for the pope, too (thank God). It was not a public thread, so I can only post what I wrote. Readers can pretty much figure out what I was responding to.

*****

He engages those who actually want to dialogue, and who have that spirit, and he doesn’t with those who don’t: precisely as Jesus did. As for traditionalists, it was bishops who approached him about problems in that community. So he acted upon it. As I have documented, thus far, only 1-2% of all the dioceses in the world have restricted or outlawed the TLM. The sky hasn’t fallen.
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This pope isn’t perfect. But he is not the Beast and Ogre that he is made out to be, in the biggest (and most absurd) slander campaign I have ever observed outside of politics.
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As I (and the pope) argued, insofar as attacks are made on the Church, coming from EWTN and the idiotic, scandalous “papal posse” etc., it is the work of the devil. How could it not be? Catholics build up and defend Holy Mother Church. They don’t tear her down.
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Ephesians 4:29-31 (RSV) Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. [30] And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. [31] Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice,
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You are under the impression that I denied that he was referring to EWTN. I did not. I deny that he stated that the work of EWTN, period, was a “work of the devil” or that it does no good whatsoever. This is an unconscionable distortion of his words.
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It’s all the more outrageous and irrational when some Catholics try to tear down that which they are part and parcel of.
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For the cynical, suspicious, second-guessing mind (i.e., the typical pope-basher of today) the pope’s words were careless, calculated, etc. . For the rest of us, it is simply a good old-fashioned biblical rebuke of evil-speaking, just as St. Paul made above, and as Jesus often made to those who should have known better.
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It always has to be his fault, no matter what. Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome . . . The biblical view (long forgotten today in our unhinged rugged American individualism and extreme derision to any faint notion of monarchy) is extreme deference to leaders, which is why Paul showed deference even to the high priest (not even a Christian leader) who had him struck, saying, “I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, `You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people'” (Acts 23:5). Look at how King David treated King Saul: the “Lord’s anointed”: even though he was trying to kill him. Peter commanded Christians to honor the emperor (who at the time he wrote was Nero). Etc. All this is long forgotten today.
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He has been attacked day in and day out, and regularly by Arroyo et al, and has hardly uttered a peep about it. He dares to mention it one time, and even then he doesn’t extensively fight back; he merely mentions it in passing and primarily objects to attacks on the Church, not himself (as he made very clear), but God forbid he do that! He’s supposed to sit there forever and accept this avalanche of negativity. If he complains (even once) or rebukes, it’s obviously his fault. He has to take it, as a good little pope who is there simply to soothe all of our little needs.
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St. Paul fought back at his trial. St. Cardinal Newman wrote an entire book defending his character and life’s work from the scurrilous attacks of Charles Kingsley (Apologia pro vita sua), and in so doing won great favor in the eyes of anti-Catholic England. He was more misunderstood and slandered by Catholics after that than Anglicans. Even Jesus didn’t always turn the other cheek, as I have written about.
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Phil Lawler has lied and slandered the pope over and over in his outrageous book, that I have critiqued several times (here are three of those: one / two / three). He never defends himself, and (like Taylor Marshall, who highly recommended my books for years) blew me off as soon as I dared to criticize him (even though his site had highly praised and rated my website for many years, and his cohort Jeff Mirus not long ago gave a very glowing review of my Quotable Newman). You wanna talk about who can’t take any criticism?
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Lawler has carried on disgracefully, as have many Catholics today with whom I would otherwise have little disagreement; some of whom are my own valued and respected mentors in apologetics. It breaks my heart to see what has happened.
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And this outrage will continue into the next papacy because it is a false and despicable mindset, which is why it has increasingly spilled over onto Pope Benedict and even Pope St. John Paul II (both of whom I have defended; and how soon people forget what went on just 20 years ago). This garbage will not cease when Pope Francis dies. Mark my words.
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I have had no trouble at all defending this pope: so idiotic and groundless are the accusations: almost always. I’ve defended him 207 times. I met Lawler’s accusations, showed that they had no basis and refuted them. I see no counter-reply from him or you or anyone else. If I were Pope Francis, I wouldn’t bother with the babble and blather that his critics come up with, either. Let the apologists like me deal with it. He has much more important things to do.
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Nor did his two predecessors reply to slanderous nonsense. JPII never explained the incident of “kissing the Koran.” Pope Benedict has not answered Michael Voris’ disgusting insinuations that he exaggerated or faked illness in order to resign (which was “immoral”) and greatly let down the flock.
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So Pope Francis follows the tradition of “don’t answer a fool lest you become like them.” I’m happy to do that work for him (and them).
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[I was asked about the famous dubia: questions asked of the pope]
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I wrote an article for NCR, which is owned by EWTN, urging the pope to answer them. He decided not to. He is under no legal obligation to do so. That’s the difference between us: I respect his authority and his decisions, whether I might personally agree with him or not. I don’t second-guess him. I don’t piss and moan and grumble and gossip about it, or think I’d be a better pope than him, or claim that he is a theological ignoramus or a heretic, devoted to subverting the Church. This is Catholic piety.
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That said, my good friend Dr. Robert Fastiggi, theologian and editor and translator of the latest edition of Denzinger, argued that in effect the pope had already answered the five dubia in Amoris laetitia.
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Photo credit: TayebMEZAHDIA (7-17-18) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]
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Summary: Follow-up about Pope Francis & his remarks directed at some folks at EWTN (e.g., Arroyo) who are regularly critical of him, & (as he mostly protested) also of Holy Mother Church.
September 22, 2021

September 22, 2021 By

Case Study in “Conservative” Catholic Media Bias, Which is Becoming as Problematic as Mainstream Liberal Media Bias

Here we go again. The slant alluded to in my title is (surprise!) a distortion of what the pope said. As a matter concerning media bias, this will provide a helpful example: with different levels of “anti-Francis” bias or lack thereof readily observed, depending on the viewpoint of the commentator.

It’s always good (and the best “policy”) to simply write and print truth, as best we can ascertain it. Let the chips fall where they may. Christianity (above all, Catholicism) was never (or should never be) a popularity contest. But alas, bias often has a deleterious effect on accurate reporting.

First, let’s actually see what the pope said, in context (what a novelty!), from the “official” transcript of a conversation with Slovakian Jesuits (9-12-21):

One of the participants tells the pope about the situation of the Slovak Church and the internal tensions. “Some even see you as heterodox,” he says, “while others idealize you. We Jesuits try to overcome this division.” He asks: “How do you deal with people who look at you with suspicion?”

There is, for example, a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation  in continually speaking ill of the pope. I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner, but the Church does not deserve them. They are the work of the devil. I have also said this to some of them.

Yes, there are also clerics who make nasty comments about me. I sometimes lose patience, especially when they make judgments without entering into a real dialogue. I can’t do anything there. However, I go on without entering their world of ideas and fantasies. I don’t want to enter it and that’s why I prefer to preach, preach… Some people accuse me of not talking about holiness. They say I always talk about social issues and that I’m a communist. Yet I wrote an entire apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate.

Inaccurate / Unacceptably Biased Reporting

1) Catholic Culture is a site co-run by Phil Lawler, whose bashing of the pope is well-known (and I have dealt with it many times). Anti-Francis bias in this venue comes as no surprise whatever:

Title: Pope rips EWTN ‘work of the devil’ [link]

Article: Pope Francis has lashed out at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), saying: “They are the work of the devil.”

Any fair-minded reader, attempting to be objective and fair to the pope (whatever they may personally think of him) must surely see how this slant is a gross distortion. The pope specifically said that “I personally deserve attacks and insults because I am a sinner”: so it follows that he couldn’t possibly have been implying that “the work of the devil” is a thing that he personally deserves. That would make no sense, and would mean that the devil was doing the right, rather than wrong thing.

Obviously, then, in context he is saying that “the Church does not deserve them [i.e., “attacks and insults” from earlier in the sentence] and that these attacks on the Church (not him) — however much they occur — are properly described as “the work of the devil”: which of course they are; he’s the accuser and liar and attacks the Church and the faith and Jesus and the Bible and Christians alike. It’s equally clear that Pope Francis was not equating EWTN [implied] with “the work of the devil”: which description was plainly referring to undeserved attacks on the Church, which may occur at EWTN or elsewhere.

2) The Catholic World Report, edited by Carl E. Olson, has published many articles highly critical of Pope Francis. That (unsurprising) bias certainly shows in this instance:

Title: Pope Francis says “attacks and insults” against him are “work of the devil” [link]

The article doesn’t comment further on the issue at hand. But the title chosen is unarguably a distortion, as shown directly above, by confusing Pope Francis with the Church. It misrepresents (whether deliberately, who knows?) what actually occurred.

3) The American Conservative. Good ol’ former Catholic Rod Dreher (whose questionable shenanigans and rationales I have critiqued) is a regular columnist here. In an article dated 9-21-21 he engages in wholesale distortion of the pope’s words and intent:

Article: Francis also denounced EWTN (though not by name) as doing “the work of the devil.” . . . if he’s going to call out EWTN for its supposedly satanic excesses . . . Despite the accusation that EWTN does the devil’s work . . . [link]

These three sweeping statements are lies insofar as they promote an insinuation that “EWTN = satanic excesses”, etc. That simply is not what the pope stated. He was specifically referring to however many attacks were made on the Church, at EWTN. But it makes for good copy for those eager to gobble up any gossip and slander about Pope Francis, doesn’t it? Dreher knows his audience well.

Dreher in the article frequently notes what he feels is hypocrisy in the pope calling out conservative Catholics but not so much, liberal, dissident Catholics on the left. That’s a legitimate point that I actually agree with to a large extent, but it’s not the topic at hand, which is media bias with regard to these particular remarks he made to the Slovakian Jesuits. One thing at a time.

4) Breitbart: conservative news outlet, joins in the parade of inexcusable journalistic inaccuracy:

Title: Pope Francis: Speaking Ill of the Pope Is ‘the Work of the Devil’ [link]

Article:  Pope Francis had harsh words for those who criticize him, saying such attacks are “the work of the devil,” . . .

5) Michael Matt, radical Catholic reactionary from The Remnant, joins in, in a tweet:

Pope Francis lashes out at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), saying: “They are the work of the devil.” Good to know, [at] Pontifex , but faithful Catholics still resist you…not EWTN. [link]

6) Taylor Marshall, the extreme and conspiracist radical Catholic reactionary (356,000 subscribers on You Tube) did the inevitable (and utterly predictable) video:

Title: Pope Francis Rebukes EWTN as Work of the Devil: What would Mother Angelica Say? [link]

Slightly Inaccurate and Biased Reporting

1) Crux is a fairly unbiased and helpful, educational Catholic venue, in my opinion. It’s disappointing to see its bias here, but it’s considerably less severe than the three examples above:

Title: Media critical of the pope do ‘the devil’s work,’ Francis says [link]

Article: it doesn’t elaborate on the crucial distinctions I pointed out above, regarding the pope’s remarks, but does report that EWTN ” has consistently aired commentary critical of Pope Francis and his decisions.”

Accurate / Objective Reporting

1) The Washington Times is a politically conservative newspaper. It gets it right in reporting on this incident:

Title: Pope Francis’ remarks seen as rebuke of critical U.S. Catholic media [link]

Article: Pope Francis recently delivered an apparent rebuke to an American Catholic cable-and-satellite network EWTN . . . slamming what he termed attacks on the Roman Catholic Church from such critics as “the work of the devil.” . . .

Rival independent Catholic newspaper National Catholic Reporter said Tuesday that EWTN is one of the pontiff’s most persistent critics. “No other Catholic media conglomerate has regularly featured such open criticism of Francis,” according to Vatican correspondent Christopher White.

Mr. White singled out EWTN personality Raymond Arroyo as hosting a “papal posse” of critics, as well as the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. The reporter reported that current apostolic nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre “had expressed displeasure” about the coverage to Michael Warsaw, chief executive at EWTN.

2) Newsweek, the well-known liberal / secular newsmagazine, gets it exactly right in its title:

Title: Pope Says Criticisms of the Church by Some Conservative Catholics is ‘Work of the Devil’ [link]

It’s a sad day when Newsweek, of all media outlets, accurately reports on the words of a pope, whereas two theologically orthodox outlets and two politically conservative ones (all of which would normally be “my guys” / “the good guys”) completely botch their reporting in a way that, if not deliberate, is grossly incompetent, brought on by an excessive hostile bias.

3) The Tablet (“The International Catholic News Weekly”), a British newspaper published since 1840, refreshingly gets it right, too:

Title: Pope condemns critics who are doing ‘work of the devil’ [link]

Article: Pope Francis has condemned those doing the “work of the devil” by whipping up hostility against the Church. . . . EWTN (The Eternal Word Television Network) is a large Catholic television platform that has become a platform for opposition to this pontificate, including broadcasting a Mass where the priest attacked Francis during the homily, and a weekly show presented by Raymond Arroyo which is consistently hostile.

4) The Jerusalem Post, citing Reuters, doesn’t distort the pope’s words, and notes that EWTN has indeed regularly taken shots at the pope:

Article: In recent years, Francis has been the focus of criticism from a small but powerful number of American conservatives unhappy with his stands on various theological issues as well as social matters from immigration to climate change. They are regularly given time on the US-based Catholic television network EWTN. [link]

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Photo credit: Ron Mader (Jan. 2016) [Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0 license]

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Summary: Pope Francis indirectly critiqued what most think was EWTN. Three “conservative” venues incorrectly reported his thought, while four media outlets of various persuasions got it right.

September 21, 2021

September 21, 2021 By

I shall be responding to Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap. and his article, “Is Pope Francis a Heretic?” (First Things, 5-7-19). His words will be in blue.

*****

Nineteen theologians and academics recently released a letter to all Catholic bishops throughout the world, accusing Pope Francis of being a heretic and urging the bishops to take action, even canonical, in order to rectify this dire state of affairs.

That sounds impressive, doesn’t it, until one realizes that at least 13 of the 19 are radical Catholic reactionaries; that is, on the extreme far right of the ecclesiological spectrum. One can follow my link to see the other sorts of things (besides the pope being a heretic, which Vatican I clearly stated — de fide –  cannot happen) that they believe. Not a single bishop signed (see the signatories at the end of the document). It’s little different from the liberal theologians in 1968 bashing Humanae Vitae and refusing to abide by its authoritative teaching against the grave sin of artificial contraception. The only difference is that this is theological far right rather than far left. But the bottom line is the same: dissent.

There is no need to repeat the concerns expressed within that letter. They are well known, and have already been critiqued by many theologians, academics, priests, bishops, and even cardinals. What makes this open letter unique is its formal charge of heresy. This is an extreme position to take, as the authors themselves admit, but they believe that, given the critical situation that has developed in the Church, such a position is merited.

Yes it is extreme: so much so that even strong papal critics like Phil Lawler and Canonist Ed Peters have rightly opposed the outrageous accusation.

Undoubtedly, many of the statements Pope Francis has made are ambiguous, and therefore troubling—for they can be interpreted in both an orthodox and a heterodox manner.

This drives me nuts: the “ambiguous” accusation is trotted out: just as it has been for fifty years from the far right critics of Vatican II. But it has no content; it’s entirely subjective (at least when stated baldly like this). We have to have particulars in order to have a constructive, objective discussion. The Bible itself is also far too often “interpreted in both an orthodox and a heterodox manner.” Is that the fault of the Bible or the interpreter? Likewise, the same can be true in the case of this pope and his endlessly prattling critics.

What is most disconcerting is that erroneous interpretations, those contrary to the Church’s doctrinal and moral tradition, are often propounded by bishops and cardinals—those who want to implement misguided teaching within their dioceses and urge that they become the norm within their national jurisdictions. 

If that is true, it’s terrible, and the fault lies with the bishops who do this. Without specifics, no further comment can be made.

In view of this, many of the concerns addressed in the open letter are valid, some more than others. 

No content to address . . .

However, the fact that Pope Francis articulates these positions in an ambiguous manner makes it almost impossible to accuse him rightly of heresy. (This is, in a sense, a saving grace.) Those who interpret his ambiguous teaching in a manner not in keeping with the Catholic faith may be heretical, but the pope is not, even if the pope appears to give silent approval to their erroneous interpretations.

The same vague accusation is repeated, which makes it no more of an “argument” than it already was (which was not at all any rational argument).

Thus, I think that the letter’s authors have gone beyond what is objectively warranted.

Good.

Yes, there are grave concerns and important doctrinal and moral issues at stake—ultimately the truth of the gospel itself.

Serious charge minus particulars. I’m still waiting for those.

But the manner in which they were presented, the conclusions drawn, and the actions proposed will not help rectify the present crisis within the Church.

We agree!

Actually, the open letter makes it more difficult for others to appropriately critique the ongoing doctrinal and moral chaos within the Church, a disorder that will continue to intensify as this pontificate progresses.

This assumes “doctrinal and moral chaos” without argument (petitio principii logical fallacy).

Why do I say that? First, let me speak of the bishops to whom the letter is addressed.  Yes, it is disheartening, especially for the laity, that the bishops do not speak out more forthrightly in defense of the Church’s authentic doctrinal and moral tradition. Yet, if bishops do maintain the integrity of the gospel within their own dioceses, this in itself is a major achievement, given today’s oppressive and fearful ecclesial atmosphere. Their silence, then, may be a guarded expression of their displeasure with the present pontificate.

Or they are choosing to “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself” (Prov 26:5, RSV). That’s why the pope doesn’t answer all these numerous charges made mostly by the same reactionary “usual suspects” over and over (in order to magnify their influence), as I have documented. Dr. Pedro Gabriel has explained  (now twice) why the pope takes the route of silence in these instances.

Nonetheless, because the open letter is extreme in its appraisal and intemperate in its approach, more than likely it will make it more difficult for bishops, and even cardinals, to address present concerns. 

I agree that it is “extreme” and “intemperate.” And that’s exactly why the pope (and apparently bishops, too) ignore it. It deserves no reply. I’ve been talking about extreme, unethical, and intemperate approaches to the Holy Father (and not just Pope Francis) for eight years now. I will continue to do so, no matter how few listen, because it’s wrong.

While they may be displeased, and even annoyed, with Pope Francis’s ambiguity and the manner in which he conducts his Petrine ministry, yet they rightly are nowhere near judging Francis a heretic and will remain silent about the letter.

Again, these things are assumed. He is assuming that most readers will automatically agree with him, sans actual evidence and documentation. Sadly, that is true. People are sheep, and “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings” (2 Tim 4:3). There is an entire cottage industry now of folks who hang upon every word that bashes, slanders, and lies about this pope and his alleged interior motivations. Fr. Weinandy is of moderate tone, but he still definitely contributes to the scandalous onslaught, in his more subdued fashion.

Moreover, if a bishop does attempt to comment on the present serious concerns, he will now be labeled as one who agrees with and promotes the “extremist” cause of the letter’s authors. Thus, this letter, while it may have been well-intentioned, has made it even more difficult for bishops to address the crisis within today’s Church. 

First, we have to establish what these “present serious concerns” are, and if they are wrongheaded or nonexistent upon examination.

Second, if we focus on whether or not the pope is heretical, the more pressing issue confronting the Church is pushed to the background: The doctrinal and moral chaos this pontificate has nurtured, regarding such issues as the sacramental nature of marriage, the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts, and whether Judaism and Christianity are merely two of the many religions that God willed.

Ah, finally we have some particulars to work with, and it’s all boilerplate anti-Francis rhetoric, tossed out as if no one could possibly disagree with the charges. As for Pope Francis’ true views on the indissolubility of marriage and impermissibility of divorce, see:

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As to homosexuality and sodomy, see:

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Pope Francis, Same-Sex Unions, & Chicken Little Mass Hysteria [10-22-20]

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“Gay Unions”: Leftist & Reactionary Catholics vs. Pope & CDF [3-23-21]

Pope Francis vs. Same-Sex “Marriage”: The Record [3-25-21]

Pope Francis’ “Endorsement” of Fr. James Martin, SJ (Does it Entail a Denial of Church Teaching on Gravely Disordered Homosexual Sex?) [6-30-21]

As to God willing supposed religious indifferentism, see:

Pope Francis: Don’t be afraid that God has allowed different religions in the world (Carol Glatz, America, Catholic News Service, 4-3-19)

Which God’s Will?  (Dr. Randall B. Smith, The Catholic World Report, 11-15-19)

Dr. Smith wrote:

Pope Francis later clarified that when he said the multiplicity and diversity of religions was “willed by God,” he meant “God’s permissive will.” If he meant God’s permissive will, then his statement is absolutely unobjectionable. Since he says that is what he meant, I take him at his word, and there’s an end of it. [Unfortunately, the link has been taken down]

But the problem is that many folks don’t take Pope Francis at his word, even when he clarifies. They still want to hold on to suspicion and misrepresentation and mind-reading and second-guessing. Catholic writer Scott Eric Alt brilliantly dissected this nonsense:

No Catholic ought be troubled by this. Even Fr. Z says that we must read the Abu Dhabi statement in light of the distinction I made in my lead:

When we speak of God’s will we make distinctions. God has an “active or positive will” and a “permissive will”. God’s “active will” concerns that which is good, true and beautiful. On the other hand, God has a “permissive will” by which He allows that things will take place that are not in accord with the order He established.

That’s Fr. Z, dear reader. And back on March 8, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, beloved of FaithfulCatholics™, said that Pope Francis had clarified. Let’s listen to what the man said. The man said that the reference was to God’s permissive will. “The bishop told LifeSiteNews that he had a direct exchange with Pope Francis.”

(Oh, he said this to Fake Site, did he? Indeed he did. Fake Site trumpeted it as a “win.”)

“You can say,” the pope said, “that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God.”

That’s what the man said.

But no matter what the man said then, Bishop Schneider tells Fake Site News now that Pope Francis needs to clarify. (Well, he’s not saying “clarify” this time; he’s saying “correct.”) The pope needs to correct the statement, because it represents “another gospel.” And if anyone preaches to you another gospel, let him be accursed! Schneider says this about the pope.

But wait. I thought Pope Francis had clarified. If the pope has clarified, if he has said the reference is to God’s permissive will, what does he need to correct? Can someone explain? Can someone clarify this? Anyone? Buehler?

And Fake Site, in this article by heresy accuser Paolo Pasqualucci, says that the bishop’s new words “lend weight to heresy accusations.” According to this article, the pope’s clarification actually contradicts the Abu Dhabi statement.

So let me see if I understand all this. Schneider asks Francis to clarify the words at Abu Dhabi about God’s will. The pope says: Sure thing, Athanasius. I’m always here to clarify. This document means God’s permissive will. Athanasius says this to Fake Site, and they in turn characterize it as a “win.” But now, the clarification is not enough, because it somehow contradicts Abu Dhabi, and we’re back to Pope Francis preaching another gospel. We need a correction now!

So what we have here—do I understand this right?—is a case where no clarification could possibly be enough because Schneider has already decided before any of it that the document is heretical. If Pope Francis says, “No, I meant this,” Schneider just says, “Oh, then it’s a contradiction.”

Now, the above is what happens when actual propositions are set forth to debate, yay or nay, pro or con. Particular claims were made (critical of the pope). Even so, they weren’t proven to be troublesome in this article; they were merely named and “trotted out” (this time, a trio of charges). I happened to have dealt with all three accusations (or in the third case, linked to those who do), so I could quickly provide a rebuttal.

Thus, readers can now scrutinize both sides (what a novelty!) and make up their own minds if there is anything to these charges. I say there is not. They’re all whoppers about him, and blatantly so at that. I don’t deny the sincerity of those making the accusations, but they are simply wrong.

And the biggest problem is that when it’s shown to them that they are dead-wrong, almost always folks of this mindset refuse to admit it or to be corrected. They want to hold on to falsehoods. Once folks who make these accusations are shown that they are misguided and wrong, and have promulgated the very opposite of the truth, they are fully culpable in terms of decided what to do with the new refuting information. [and — just as a bit of added trivia — this is why people not infrequently become very angry at me]
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None of these three things are “ambiguous” in Pope Francis’ teaching in the least. They are crystal clear.
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This doctrinal and moral chaos is where the real battle must be fought. 
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I deny that it is chaos! If examples like the three above are what Fr. Weinandy has in mind as “proof” of this supposed “chaos”, then he is (with all due respect) gravely mistaken and is participating in the bearing of false witness against the Holy Father.
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There are many theologians and academics, as well as many priests and laity, who have taken up this good fight of faith. They have done so through articles in academic journals and more serious periodicals, blogs, and websites.
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They are overwhelmingly extreme reactionaries (folks who also often, for example, bash Vatican II and the Pauline Mass), along with the usual fellow travelers and useful idiots who swallow the false narrative [the pope is a liberal, heretic, two-faced, dictator, bad man, etc. ad nauseam] whole –minus sufficient fair-minded analysis — and jump on the bandwagon.
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They have also done so in academic conferences and general public forums. The fruit is an ever-growing community of ardent believers, from all walks of life, academic backgrounds, and ecclesial vocations—united in the truth that there is but one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which cannot be destroyed or superseded by a new church, even if such is the aim of some in high ecclesial positions. 
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See the previous comment. But it’s also true that the extreme anti-Francis zealots precisely believe, or come close to believing, that both the pope and the Church can defect from the faith (or come so close that it is virtually a distinction without a difference). I have documented many times, for example, this theme of ecclesial defectibility in the prominent reactionary Steve Skojec. But he’s not the only one with these tendencies, by a long shot.
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Yet the open letter throws this work of the Spirit into jeopardy, for now those who have undertaken this battle will more easily be tarred with the brush of extremism.
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Most already were extremists long before this letter. I know. I’ve been dealing with their errors (as a Catholic apologist) these past eight years.

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The wisdom, the forthrightness, the prudence, the respect, and the love with which they have worked to proclaim and defend the truth of the gospel could easily be lost in the clamor for anathematizing the pope or the ensuing uproar in his defense. 

Very true! I have noted for over 25 years that when one becomes obsessed with bashing the Church or the pope or Vatican II or the New Mass, the first thing that goes out the window is evangelism and apologetics. This sort of junk doesn’t make Holy Mother Church appealing to outsiders. It pushes them away and/or makes us a ridiculous laughingstock.

What are lost are measured, intelligent, nuanced responses to the present ecclesial crisis and a rational Spirit-filled fortitude to bring truth to light in the midst of deceitful darkness. 

Again, I deny the “crisis” (i.e., as papal bashers and critics and nitpickers and reactionaries define it). It’s a trumped-up mythology based on relentless distortion of the pope’s actual positions. Again, I know, because I have systematically dealt with these charges. Almost all of them are like an onion. You peel away the outside and keep peeling and end up with no core. If there is a crisis, it’s with the actual theological liberals / dissidents in the Church and the far-right extremists as well; not with this orthodox pope.

So, while the open letter hopes to be a clarion call to rectify a grievous situation within the Church, it may have unintentionally contributed to making the victory of faith even more difficult.

Falsehoods always do that, because they are of the devil, the father of lies. No good can come of them.

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Photo credit: brett jordan (6-28-21) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]

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Summary: Fr. Thomas Weinandy was presented to me as a temperate critic of the pope. In some ways he is, in others, it’s the same-old same-old: fallacies, falsehoods, myths, & misrepresentation.

 

September 7, 2021

September 7, 2021 By

The Sad and Slanderous Promotion of a “False Narrative” Concerning Pope Francis’ Supposedly Massive Errors

[originally posted on my Facebook page on 9-6-21. You can see some further discussion there. I’ve expanded it presently.]

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One of my Facebook friends wrote: “Pope Francis is a cause of a lot of confusion! That’s why you are writing about it!”
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This is my reply:
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The confusion arises because he is 1) massively lied about, and 2) massively misunderstood. And those things happen because many people won’t take the time to be fair and open-minded and read two sides of any given “controversy”. It’s very much like President Trump in that respect . . . It’s groupthink: sheep jumping on the bandwagon; clones . . . There is also the problem of the “false narrative” that has been created. I wrote on 3-5-21:
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The problem, then, seems to be that folks . . . aren’t willing in charity to withhold scathing judgment of the pope, until the full story of any given [almost always trumped-up] “incident” is heard. They’re lightning quick to judge. . . .
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As with so many people today, otherwise good Catholics . . . have bought a cynical, hostile, outrageously false narrative regarding Pope Francis: against which mere facts and reason — within this mentality — are oblivious and irrelevant, almost disallowed.
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If someone doesn’t like my (or anyone else’s) defenses of the pope (and to me the defenses are perfectly plausible and sensible), they can go and knock themselves out showing that they are invalid, point-by-point. But no one ever wants to do that, because that takes work and actual thinking, rather than the easy way out of the quick accusation, moaning and groaning, simply parroting the gossip of others, and furthering the false narrative about the Holy Father. Anything but actual rational analysis and interacting with different points of view.
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And on 4-26-16:
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More and more people have jumped onto the narrative and bandwagon of “Pope Francis as a liberal and loose cannon” and they interpret accordingly. But the foundational premise is wrong. . . .
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I’m saying that they are the ones (for varying reasons) who are beginning to increasingly buy into the narrative that there is something fundamentally, seriously wrong with Pope Francis, whether he is (at best) maddeningly inarticulate (the mildest form) or ignorant of basic tenets of theology and moral theology (more severe criticism) or flat-out heterodox / modernist (the strongest bashing).
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I can understand someone being confused. There are many reasons for it. They might listen to the liberal media, or the radical reactionaries, or liberal Catholics who think the pope is one of them, or the increasing bandwagon chorus (among orthodox Catholics) of the pope’s detractors (what I have called “the [false] narrative”). They don’t study or don’t have time to.
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Lots of folks are confused about Catholicism itself, and believe many lies about it. Is that Catholicism‘s fault, too?
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Lots of folks are confused about — and sometimes even downright distort and twist — the Bible. Is that the inspired, infallible Bible‘s fault (God’s revelation) or theirs? The cults don’t get it right. They can’t even grasp the obvious biblical teachings of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Trinity.
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Atheists play the game of coming up with “700” bogus so-called “contradictions” in the Bible and sit there and say, “there just so many of ’em; how can I believe this Bible?” Someone like me comes along and systematically debunks scores and scores of those (just as I do with slanderous lies against this pope), but it has no effect. They simply say “there are still 601 left that you haven’t solved.” It’s a game; it’s intellectual dishonesty and special pleading (richly fed — let no one doubt it — with an obstinate, relentless ignorance) so that they don’t have to be accountable to God or anyone.
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Lots of folks didn’t grasp what Jesus said, either. . . . They didn’t have “ears to hear.” “No one is so blind as he who will not see.”
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1 Corinthians 2:6-8, 12-14 (RSV) Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. [7] But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. [8] None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . [12]  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. [14] The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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In other words, the mere presence of “confusion” does not prove that Pope Francis is responsible for it. It may very well be coming from the other “end”: his innumerable loudmouthed critics. I say it flows from their hostility and bias (not to mention intellectual laziness) far more than it does from the things themselves. Simply saying, “I have heard about 39 things where Pope Francis said or did something stupid / heretical / incomprehensible” [take your pick] doesn’t prove diddly squat and doesn’t cut it. It’s rumormongering, gossip, and slander. Each accusation has to be specifically examined.
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I save people the work of doing that by spending my time as a professional apologist, either showing, myself, that they are groundless charges, or providing almost 300 articles from others that explain all of these supposedly “incomprehensible” or “confusing” things. But if people aren’t fair-minded or honest with themselves enough to read them, then I am helpless to dissuade them from their illusions and delusions.
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The attainment of truth and wisdom takes work (“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”: Philippians 2:12 / “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own”: 3:12 / “for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. [14] But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil”: Hebrews 5:13-14.).
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One doesn’t achieve that by simply following what is fashionable at any given moment. We need to stop being afraid to death of what other people think, and start seriously worrying about what God thinks of our behavior and our words, with regard to the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church, protected from ever binding the faithful to heresy (so said Vatican I in 1870, with the highest authority).
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Related Reading
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Photo credit: geralt (5-22-18) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]
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Summary: I take on the boorish canard that “Pope Francis is so confusing!” It’s automatically assumed that he is to blame, not the critic. I show in many ways how this is a lie & shoddy thinking.
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September 6, 2021

September 6, 2021 By

I hate to say “I told you so!” but yes, this article is essentially that, I freely confess. I catch so much hell from radical Catholic reactionaries for my criticism of their errors and excesses that I do think it is worthwhile (not to mention educational: if they will accept it) to point out to them that I was dead-on in my predictions about what would happen after the issuance of Pope Francis’ Motu proprio Traditionis Custodes (16 July 2021), which regulated the Tridentine Mass and placed the authority of approval with bishops rather than priests.

Most of them were dead-wrong. Hysteria and pandemonium ran rampant in reactionary and less extreme traditionalist ranks for a good week at least (which I documented on 7-20-21), until a few less emotional and more objective, fact-based souls among their number started pointing out that, hey, maybe the sky wasn’t gonna fall after all. I had said so on the day the document was issued:

Pope Francis desires a tightened regulation of the use of the Tridentine Mass (not a prohibition!), in order to avoid these excesses and undesirable secondary outcomes, for the sake of Church unity. . . .

Again, it isn’t said how many or what percentage were thought to have these attitudes. But it’s sufficiently serious enough to take action.

By the time of 2 August 2021, just seventeen days after Traditionis was promulgated, I stated all the more clearly that not much was going to change: that the paranoia and hysteria was well-nigh groundless. I wrote:

[T]here has not been a massive move on the part of bishops to suppress or ban (or even disparage) the Tridentine Mass / Old Mass / extraordinary form Mass. Things haven’t changed very much, which is usually the case whenever bishops (rather than the pope) are in charge of just about anything.

[I cited five articles documenting the lack of change] . . .

Looks to me like the sky is very much intact. . . .  We can be sure that if there was a wide occurrence of restrictions, that we would have heard about it by now. But one has to search far and wide to find any significant restrictions. . . .

[T]his was all very predictable, at least for those who know much of anything about how bishops typically operate.

In a dialogue on the same day, I reiterated the same opinion:

[Y]ou use this language of feeling “punished.” Have you been deprived of being able to attend the Mass of your choice? Do you have to drive 100 miles? Has your bishop shut down your parish? If not, then what is the issue[?] . . .

I don’t see how you are “deprived”, from what you have said. . . .

The pope isn’t suppressing; he is regulating for the good of souls . . . He’s simply giving bishops what they were asking for. . . .

Have you been prevented from attending the Mass of your choice so far? If not, why concern yourself with it? As long as you can do that (maybe a little further drive; I drive 32 miles to our parish) then you have what you want. I think the concern is a big overreaction. I can’t see too many bishops shutting it down wholesale. . . . There may be some . . .

Here, on the other hand, are just a few of the more hysterical, unhinged, and ridiculous responses to Traditionis Custodes in the first four days after it was issued:

Joseph Shaw: Pope Francis appears to be punishing all priests who celebrate the Traditional Mass and all the laity who attend it for the alleged sins of a few: who ‘reject Vatican II’, whatever exactly that means.

Peter Kwasniewski The “logic” of Traditionis Custodes is tortured, to say the least, . . . Can we not see here the utter breakdown of the hyperpapalism that makes the pope a mortal god, a divine oracle, who gets to rewrite liturgy, theology, morals, and even the record of history in pursuit of ideology?, . . . the final stripping-away of all pretense about the deadly game the modernists wish to play, . . .

Sophia Tait: . . . the Church authorities condemn the Mass we’ve all grown to love . . .

Catholic Culture [possibly Phil Lawler]: Pope Francis has all but forbidden the traditional Mass, and clearly suggested that the ancient liturgical form is now harmful, . . .

Rorate Caeli / “New Catholic”: Attack of Hatred and Vengeance Against the Latin Mass [title]

Whispers of Restoration: It will now be “disobedient,” whether sooner or later, to celebrate the Mass of our Fathers without paying homage to the New Paradigm, . . .

Fr Hugh Somerville Knapman, OSB: the old Mass was good in the “old days” (all 1400+ years of them) but is not good for today, and so cannot be countenanced in the modern Church.

Michael Matt: Francis is also obsessed with crushing the tiny remnant of believers left in a world of universal apostasy because he is a globalist tool.  He has locked down Summorum Pontificum because like a crucifix to a vampire, the old Catholic liturgy threatens the diabolical New World Order to which Francis has signed on, . . . And that kind of Catholicism must be banned if the New World Order is to take flight. Catholics must be forced to reject any claim of religious supremacy or objective truth.

Stuart Chessman: Clearly, Francis and his episcopal allies want a war in the Church, The real problem is not traditionalism, but the manifest, catastrophic failures of the Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo and the ultramontanist organization of the Catholic Church, The sin of the Traditionalists is that, by their very existence and even more so by their success, they bear witness to the fact that (a)the current “Conciliar” regime is in discontinuity with its pre-Conciliar predecessor; . . .

Tim Stanley: it’s a lesson in how liberalism in this gerontocratic, Brezhnev-esque stage behaves — utterly intolerant of anyone who breaks from the party line. It is not enough to be quiet or even submit. You must conform, . . .

Fr. Peter Stravinskas:  We know, from painful observation over the past eight years, that this Pope often and strongly punishes perceived opponents of his agenda . . .

Hilary White:  I submit that for the American Trads right now, their task is to stiffen the sinews, tighten the belt, build up the spinal bone mass, and start figuring out how you are going to live the Faith without the Mass for the time being, . . . this letter from the pope has made it explicit; there have been two rival, competing religious ideas – two incompatible religions, implacably opposed in their goals, their doctrine and understanding of the meaning of human life and the nature of God – residing in the house of the Church, and that cannot be tolerated any longer, . . . Pope Francis Bergoglio has made it clear that he intends to purge the Church of the remaining Catholic elements. It will be a Catholicism-free Church. Which means a Christ-free Church. And what does that mean? It means it will not be the Church.

Chicken Little! It’s all over! The Mass as we know it is forbidden and consigned to the dustbins of history! So these de facto infallible, pseudo-prophetic luminaries all told us with one thundering and toxic voice.

But lo and behold, an article at the reactionary website One Peter Five has now dramatically verified what I predicted: subtly on 16 July 2021 and more explicitly on 2 August 2021. It’s entitled, “Traditionis Custodes: 40 Days Later” (Allan Ruhl, 8-25-21). The words of the article will be in blue below:

Now we can see better where we stand.

Yes you can. Why is it, I wonder, that I could see “where [you] stand” the day the document came out, and with more certainty 23 days before this article?

Traditionis Custodes is a harsh document. It makes no secret that Francis doesn’t want the TLM in the Church. He wants it dead and desires the young families who attend it to conform to the most liberal tendencies of the Church.

Pope Francis expressed no such thing, and it does no good, either to Catholic piety or the logic and force of an argument, to second-guess the pope, rather than go by the words he actually wrote:

Art. 2 It belongs to the diocesan bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole liturgical life of the particular Church entrusted to him, to regulate the liturgical celebrations of his diocese. . . .

§ 5. to proceed suitably to verify that the parishes canonically erected for the benefit of these faithful are effective for their spiritual growth, and to determine whether or not to retain them; [my bolding]

Regulation is not wanting the Old Mass “dead.” The first thing is a shepherd fulfilling his calling; the second irrational, mind-reading caricature.

Fortunately, last month has shown us that he isn’t going to get his wish.

It hasn’t been established that it was ever his “wish” in the first place!

Traditionis Custodes was published on July 16. I knew that very day that it would fail and the last month is proof of that.

Again, this presupposes that the motive was to massively or totally suppress the Old Mass. But the document doesn’t say that. The accompanying letter doesn’t, either. Rather, it states:

I am nonetheless saddened that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the “true Church”. . . . [my bolding]

He doesn’t give a percentage of what he means by “often.” So there are no grounds whatever to conclude from this that he wanted the Old Mass “dead.” It’s ludicrous.

Ruhl was right about the result of the document, but for the wrong reasons: based on false premises. It didn’t fail to get its desired result because it was never about total or massive suppression in the first place. I was right about its result, for the right reasons: some regulation was necessary; probably not massively so, and indeed it is a pretty small amount of regulation, as we shall see as we proceed.

The traditionalist movement exists in many countries but has its center of gravity in America, France, and England. Most diocesan bishops in those countries simply said that the TLM in their dioceses will continue as normal.

Just as I wrote on 8-2-21: “I think the concern is a big overreaction. I can’t see too many bishops shutting it down wholesale. . . .”

In the days after Traditionis Custodes was published I contacted traditional Catholics across the world to see if they had lost their liturgy and was pleased to discover that their TLMs are proceeding as usual. This includes people in Canada, America, France, England, Germany, and Latin America. I personally know no one who had a TLM before July 16 who doesn’t have it now. Obviously the odd TLM has disappeared, depriving some Catholics of the ancient liturgy of the Church but those are certainly the exceptions.

Exactly.

The motu proprio stated that it was to take effect immediately. Forty days later, according to TraditionisCustodes.info, only 8.5% of reporting dioceses have outright suppressed the Latin Mass (in accordance with the letter and spirit of the motu proprio).

[1] Editor’s Note: TraditionisCustodes.info is reporting data from 212 worldwide dioceses, of which 18 suppressed all TLMs and 17 restricted them, while the rest left them alone. The number of dioceses with Latin Masses is higher than this, but this percentage also accords with the anecdotal data from reliable sources we have consulted. 

Ah, so we have a whopping 18 dioceses that have shut down the Old Mass out of 212 (or 8.5%). Another 17 restricted them (or 8%). That leaves 91.5% of the dioceses with the Old Mass intact: 83.5% with no restrictions whatever compared to previous practice. This is the sky falling down? Obviously not, judging by Ruhl’s elation at how things have turned out. There is some regulation so far: to the tune of  16.5% of 212 dioceses.

Francis probably believed that half of the TLMs in America would disappear inside of a week since he clearly expressed contempt for the ancient liturgy of the Church in Traditionis Custodes. 

There is no basis for concluding this from his actual words. But lack of mere documentation has never stopped the inveterate Francis-critics from second-guessing and slandering him.

Pope Francis probably expected conservative and more traditional leaning bishops to hold on to their TLMs but even large amounts of liberal bishops have decided to keep their diocesan TLMs. This probably comes as a shock to a lot of people, including Francis. Most liberal bishops are fine with having a TLM in their diocese for those who wish to attend it.

All we know about what the pope desired, was that he wanted reform in places (he doesn’t say what percentage of the total number) where schismatic and quasi-schismatic, reactionary views were becoming alarming and spiritually dangerous to the flock.

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Related Reading

Pope Francis’ Traditionis Custodes is for the Sake of Unity [7-16-21]

Skojec Loathes Traditionis; Illustrates Why it is Necessary [7-19-21]

Catholics (?) Trash, Judge, & Mind-Read the Pope (In 1968, “all” the liberal Catholics rejected Humanae Vitae. Now in 2021, “all” the self-described “conservative” Catholics reject Traditionis Custodes — and none see the outright absurdity and irony of this) [7-20-21]

Traditionalist Fr. Chad Ripperger Critiques Traditionalism [7-21-21]

Traditionis Custodes: Sky Hasn’t Fallen (Bishops) [8-2-21]

Dialogue w Traditionalist “Hurt” by Traditionis Custodes [8-2-21]

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To keep track of the continuing tally of which bishops disallow or restrict the TLM, see: The application of Traditionis Custodes in the world.

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Photo credit: William Warby (6-10-07). Chicken Little in Disney Cinema Parade, Walt Disney Studios, Disneyland Resort Paris [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]

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Summary: It was supposed to be the end of the world for Old Mass devotees, when Pope Francis called for more regulation in Traditionis Custodes. As I predicted, things are pretty much the same.

 

September 6, 2021

September 6, 2021 By
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[originally written in a slightly shorter version as a disclaimer added to my article, Bad Popes: Replies to a Sincere Inquirer], and posted on Facebook. It received a strong response, so here it is on my blog]
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I do not think Pope Francis is a “bad pope”. As of 9-5-21, I have defended him 201 times, and have collected 283 articles of others doing so. I’ve done the painstaking research, and have yet to discover a single proof that he is a theological liberal or dissident or seriously wrong theologically, let alone a “heretic” or “bad man” etc.
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For whatever reasons (I think there are many, and none of them sustainable), he has been subject to a massive slander and disinformation campaign (much as President Trump was), and people are often ignorant as to the most basic details of any given charge.
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They simply hear some rumor and believe it (jumping on the “bandwagon”). See a typical recent example from a reactionary venue. This is what I’ve found over and over. Most of the accusations are downright absurd, upon close examination. And when I expose them, his critics are almost always unwilling to interact with my defense.
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Readers may be assured that if I believed that Pope Francis was any of these bad things, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to say so (“shouting from the rooftops”), as I have never fled from speaking my mind about anything I felt was important or necessary to say, nor from taking the heat if I must.
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There’s nothing “in this for me.” Sadly, it is an unfashionable position to take these days, and no doubt I have been harmed by it (even financially). But I’m driven and motivated by the seeking of and defense of truth, as opposed to being loved by one and all.
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Catholic apologetics is not a popularity contest. I’ve been publicly called a “modernist” and a “papolater” and “ultramontanist” for defending Pope Francis. These are all desperate and ludicrous lies, too. There have indeed been bad popes, as this article and several other similar ones of mine state, and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out. But we must be accurate and factual. We must not bear false witness (a mortal sin, last time I checked).
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Lastly: my own rock-solid Catholic orthodoxy (joyful acceptance of all that Holy Mother Church teaches as required belief) has never been shown to be deficient. For example, Karl Keating, with whom I have strongly clashed regarding Pope Francis, was gracious enough to write (on 3-23-18):
Dave has produced a lot of good work over the years. He’s one of the better U.S. apologists, and I don’t recall him ever being accused, legitimately, of theological error.
Catholic Answers apologist Tim Staples recommended my blog as “entirely Catholic and in union with the Church” and my views as “relentlessly orthodox.”
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In other words, my defenses of Pope Francis do not flow from any affinity with theological liberalism or heterodoxy, which I have always utterly despised, and have a web page devoted to refuting, as well.
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Related Reading
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Pope Francis On . . . [31 different issues] (Mark Mallett, The Now Word, 4-24-18)

Is Pope Francis a Heretic? (+ Part II) (Tim Staples, Catholic Answers blog, October 3-4, 2016)

Amoris Laetitia – An Apologia for its Orthodoxy (Scott Smith, Reduced Culpability, 1-19-17)

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Summary: Summary as to why the orthodoxy of Pope Francis is so often denied by his many critics, noting my in-depth research into the matter, which has never found proof of this accusation.

August 21, 2021

August 21, 2021 By

Charlie Fromm-Starkville, a Facebook friend of mine, describes himself as a “traditional Catholic”. This back-and-forth exchange took place on my Facebook page: edited (some sub-threads not included) for the sake of relative brevity and flow of content. His words will be in blue.

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Pope Francis has endorsed (as he must, because it is solidly established Catholic teaching) the right to conscientious objection:

I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscience objection. But, yes, I can say the conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.
Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.’ It is a human right. It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right. (September 2015)
We see every day that the powerful countries create laws that force us to go through this path … a nation that doesn’t follow these modern laws, these cultures, or that at least doesn’t want to have them in its laws, is accused, is politely persecuted. It’s a persecution that robs man of his freedom, even from conscientious objection! Conscientious objection is a right, and part of the body of all human rights. If we want to make peace, we must respect all rights. (April 2016)

Moreover, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith produced on 12-21-20: Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines. At the end it states:

The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 17 December 2020, examined the present Note and ordered its publication.

This papal approval included the following, from section 5:

5. At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary. In any case, from the ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good. In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed. Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable. [my bolding; italics in original]

See also:

“On vaccination, NY archdiocese tramples the rights of the faithful” (Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, 8-5-21)

“Two Catholic groups: No vaccine mandate without conscience protections” (Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service, 8-2-21)

To my knowledge, when Pope Francis has encouraged people to receive a COVID vaccine [see one example], it was a general recommendation: not a mandate that all Catholics must receive it, as a matter of absolute moral obligation, in conjunction with the commands to love our neighbors, etc.

The Church is also crystal-clear as to the individual right of conscientious objection. See, for example, the Catechism:

1776 “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” [Footnote: Gaudium Spes 16.]
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1778 Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:
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“Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”
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[Footnote for citation: John Henry Cardinal Newman, “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,” V, in Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching II (London: Longmans Green, 1885), 248.]
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1782 Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.” [Footnote: DH 3 § 2.]
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1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. . . .
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1800 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.

I am a traditional Catholic. I am also a realist. It brings me no joy to say this, but the reality is that Darwinism is taking care of those who object to vaccination or treat mask mandates like a conspiracy theory.

Peter has spoken through his successor Francis. And it appears from news reports that he is speaking directly to Catholics in America. [provided a link]

I will not receive parts of murdered babies used for vaccine research and development into my body; period.

To me this is the moral equivalent of Nazi research on Jewish concentration camp victims. The Church has condemned it (while allowing Catholics to receive vaccines due to remoteness of participation in the evil). This is a matter of conscience. It applies only to me. I’m not here telling you or anyone else what they should do. Go do your thing and leave those of us who have a different view alone.
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Exactly!
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As a Catholic apologist it would be completely and professionally irresponsible for you to tell others not to receive the vaccine when Pope Francis himself, the successor of St Peter, just cut a public service announcement aimed primarily at Americans telling us to undergo vaccination as an act of love towards our neighbor.
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I know many other Catholic apologists have exposed themselves as dissenters during Pope Francis’ pontificate. But you have for the most part remained faithful. So I could not imagine you taking a position contrary to the Holy Father’s.
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With that in mind, though, please keep in mind that there are a number of conservative and traditionalist Catholic apologists and writers who advocate that the Church ought to take a more aggressive approach to vaccination. It’s not just the Patheos crowd taking this position. Personally, I can appreciate Pope Francis’ approach: which is to use both tradition (Angelus message) and modern social media (YouTube) to appeal directly to the average Catholic in those parts of the world where clergy and lay apologists and theologians have proven most resistant to vaccination. If you have not seen the Holy Father’s video, it is well worth watching. 
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Here is the Holy Father’s public service announcement promoting COVID vaccination. [link] I much prefer the Pope Francis’s fatherly and loving appeal to vaccinate out of love of neighbour (Christ’s second commandment), to advocacy for mass excommunication.
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I’m not an ultramontanist, and this statement from the pope is not an infallible one. It’s not binding for all Catholics. He has to abide by the Catholic Church’s recognition of the right to conscientious objection, just like everyone else.
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And in fact he does recognize it, as I documented above. He must do so, because it is solidly established Catholic teaching) the right to conscientious objection. I have not argued that folks shouldn’t get vaccinated. I have said that it is overall a good thing.
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I do think Pope Francis is taking the right approach as pastor of the universal Church by cutting targeted public service announcements instead of using the hammer of censures and canonical penalties, as some have called for.
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Do you agree that any and every Catholic who has conscientious objections to the use of aborted babies, is not morally obliged to ignore their conscience and receive a COVID vaccine?
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I believe that. I also believe they have an obligation to examine and try and understand why Pope Francis, various Eastern Catholic Patriarchs, Cardinals, bishops, and learned theologians are promoting vaccination against COVID, especially if the anti-vax Catholics are clergy, religious, theologians, catechists, teachers, apologists, or public figures.
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Obviously they are promoting it because it lowers the incidence of COVID. That still doesn’t touch my objection based on conscience (though that’s not my only one: just the primary and most unassailable one). It doesn’t follow logically that if Pope Francis says “go get vaccinated. It’s an act of love” etc., that he is therefore denying conscientious objection. Elsewhere he has made it clear that there is such a thing as conscientious objection.
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I’m “anti-vax” for me, not “anti-vax.” It’s a big and important distinction. No one has any basis to attack my position, which is firmly entrenched in Catholic moral teaching. Conscientious objection was a fundamental notion of things like the civil rights movement, protests against Vietnam, and Operation Rescue’s blocking of abortion death center doors (of which I was a part).
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I start from the position that as both a scientist and a theologian Pope Francis is much more competent in these areas than I am. I admit up front that I am no expert, and so I cannot judge, but I personally believe that Pope Francis is more competent in science and moral theology than the vast majority of his critics within the Church. So my assumption is that he has considered all objections to the vaccine prior to putting out his YouTube PSA targeted to Catholics in the Americas. This includes both objections claiming moral theology and objections claiming science as their basis.
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To be fair, as a traditional Catholic and a pro-lifer I also shared your initial conscientious objections. Once Pope Francis, Pope Benedict, various patriarchs, cardinals, bishops (including our local bishop who says the TLM) . . . came out in favour of vaccination, I realized there is no moral objection I could formulate that these successors to St Peter and the Apostles had not already considered.
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It does not include those who object in good conscience, because it cannot. Catholic teaching on that is firm and clear. See, for example, the Catechism. Nor is he a science expert, as he himself admits, and this is not part of his jurisdiction. He can only give opinions. We must respect them, but we’re not bound to them. So, for example, in his encyclical Laudato si, he wrote:
There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good. [188]
I certainly did respectfully disagree with him regarding global warming and nuclear energy. Otherwise, I enthusiastically praised the wonderful document.
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Vaccines are a matter of science and medicine, and the pope is assuredly not infallible in those areas. Nor is the Holy Father a “scientist”. His Wikipedia page states:
He attended the technical secondary school Escuela Técnica Industrial N° 27 Hipólito Yrigoyen, . . . and graduated with a chemical technician’s diploma (not a master’s degree in chemistry, as some media outlets incorrectly reported). In that capacity, he spent several years working in the food section of Hickethier-Bachmann Laboratory, . . .
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As a Jesuit novice he studied humanities in Santiago, Chile. . . .
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In 1960, Bergoglio obtained a licentiate in philosophy from the Colegio Máximo de San José in San Miguel, Buenos Aires Province. He taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepción, a high school in Santa Fe, from 1964 to 1965. In 1966, he taught the same courses at the Colegio del Salvador in Buenos Aires.
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A “scientist” is generally considered a person with a doctorate degree in science. The school he got the “chemical technician’s diploma” from is a high school and community college. In any event, that is not a “scientist’s” credentials. So kindly refrain from acting as if he speaks with that expertise. He’s a very intelligent, educated man, of course, but no scientist.
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Pope Francis has a lot more knowledge, experience, and credentials in science than I do. He also has a lot more theological credentials. And of course he is the successor of St Peter and Christ’s Vicar on Earth. So even though I initially had some conscientious objections to receiving the vaccine, which is why I can sympathize with where you are coming from, I have opted to respectfully agree with the Holy Father on vaccination, as is my right as a traditional Catholic.
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We can and should all agree that it is good for many to take the vaccine. He has not, on the other hand, indicated that there has been a reversal of Church teaching on conscience. I disagree where I have a perfect right to, in non-magisterial areas where the pope cannot bind me to obedience, and it is not disobedience. Reactionaries disagree where they are wrong, and even have views contrary to de fide dogmas: such as the indefectibility of the Church and the pope.
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I’m not sure how much obedience a successor of St Peter, especially one with a science education, is due in this area.
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I am, as an apologist. You can either take my word on that or go on arguing, in perfect futility, with no basis. He can’t possibly disagree about conscientious objection because he okayed the Vatican document above, last December, which included that very thing. What is he: two-faced? Many of his critics think so. You shouldn’t . . .
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I can also ask my pastor or my bishop, or one of the moral theologians at our local Catholic college. Though the issue is somewhat moot since you acknowledge my right as a Catholic to agree with the Holy Father. I was criticizing clergy and Catholic apologists who deny Catholics have a right to agree with the Holy Father on this issue.
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I don’t judge those like yourself who disagree with the Holy Father on the basis of conscientious objection. I will, however, assert my right as a traditional Catholic to agree with the Holy Father on this topic, where prior to his intervention (and that of several patriarchs, cardinals, and bishops) I had disagreed based upon conscientious objection. If Catholics have a right to disagree with the Supreme Pontiff on this matter, they also have a right to agree with him.
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Of course you can agree. You have to know, however, exactly what it is you are agreeing with.
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By the way, my non-judgment is based upon a Catholic being honest in one’s actions flowing from one’s objections. We have a few Catholic apologists locally who have actually lied about being vaccinated and/or exempt from mask mandates because they object to vaccination and mask mandates. This is dishonest and it is always wrong.
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This document must be understood in light of Pope Francis’ more recent fatherly exhortation alongside several cardinals to receive vaccination as an act of love. I as a traditional Catholic will exercise my right to agree with the Holy Father.
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Yes, voluntarily, with the exceptions on the basis of conscience or advice of one’s doctor, etc. Learn the difference between “agreeing” and being “obliged to agree based on the magisterium.” This thing is not the latter. You’re simply agreeing with a non-magisterial opinion of the pope, where his particular view carries no more weight than anyone else’s.
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By living a healthy lifestyle, my family (generalizing) has healthy immune systems. None of my family have gotten COVID. That’s ten people: wife and I, four children, two daughters-in-law, and two granddaughters. Only one of us has received the vaccine.
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I’ve followed all of the public protocol. Michigan had some of the strictest restrictions in the nation for well over a year. Meanwhile, a guy like President Obama didn’t give a damn about the rhetoric of his own party concerning masks: with a birthday party of 700 mask-free people. So I follow rules even when I am skeptical about them, whereas folks like Obama and Pelosi and our beloved Governor Whitmer talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. They’re not even consistent with the advice they dish out to others and force them to abide by (typical of liberal elitism).
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That said, we’re not gonna live our lives cowering in fear over a variant now that mostly has the terrifying symptoms of a common cold, and results in very very few deaths (most no doubt in those with other serious conditions already).
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My doctor is also a friend of mine. What I understand from him is that the symptoms often are not as serious for those who are healthy and have been vaccinated. It is different if you have not been vaccinated. Much higher risk of requiring hospitalization and of dying or experiencing serious long-term health consequences. The Delta variant which is much more contagious and appears to be much more serious. I would be extremely cautious.
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We go to church (our main social activity), go to our favorite lake, and my daughter just went to a concert in Comerica Park, where the Tigers play: filled up and almost no masks.
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Now, if, say, a thousand out of that crowd get COVID and have the sniffles and a sore throat for a week, I think they will think it was worth it to get back to normal again. Anyone there was obviously not concerned about it. Or they were vaccinated in the first place, or have natural immunity from having had it already.
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Meanwhile, those who are at serious risk can get vaccinated as they choose, and stop worrying so much about it. And they can take all the more precautions. It doesn’t follow that all of us must do so.
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Life is filled with risks. A certain percentage of people will get killed in car accidents. But virtually no one will say they refuse to drive a car because of that. Smoking is legal, even though we know full well that many thousands will die of lung cancer because of it (as my father did). No one is advocating making cigarettes illegal, or forcing all smokers to cease immediately. We’re relatively unconcerned about drunk drivers, who kill many thousands every year. The bars are doing a brisk business. Very few talk about the harm done by white sugar (that I have avoided for now 38 years), or the suicide and overdose epidemics among young people, etc., etc.
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The original virus was much more dangerous than this present one (though this one is more contagious: so they say). All your examples are from “before the Delta variant” as you yourself say. The media rarely makes any necessary distinctions. So they’ll say, for example, that the hospitals are filled to the brim, but they talk little about the mildness of symptoms, and long-term prognosis, or how very few die, or how those who do already were immuno-compromised or otherwise seriously ill, or elderly (i.e., among those who need to be much more cautious). The public deserves all of the truth, not liberal selected tidbits that fit their agenda.
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My understanding is that Delta is a lot more mild for those who are immunized.
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Here’s some homework for you:
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Please find me two articles: one that thinks Delta is really terrible and alarming, and another that doesn’t. Or do you think it is impossible to find anyone who thinks the latter? I’m pretty sure there is more than one legitimate scientific / medical opinion out there. And this is what ticks so many of us off. Only one side is ever presented, as if any disagreement is wacko conspiratorialism. The Democrats habitually do this with every issue.
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I’m not a medical expert. So generally I agree with my doctor and friends in the medical profession. Most of them are pretty much in agreement with Dr Fauci.
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Can you conceive of a legitimate scientific / medical opinion that differs from Dr. Fauci and current liberal dogma?
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Science is neither liberal nor conservative. It is science.
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Exactly my point. So why don’t you answer my question? Is it conceivable to you that a non-wacko regular old scientist could possibly disagree with Fauci and those who think there are no concerns whatever with the vaccines?
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On what basis?
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It’s a simple yes or no answer. Don’t play games.
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I have yet to meet a doctor in person among my various medical experts, family members, and social contacts who disagrees with Dr Fauci when it comes to COVID.
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I didn’t ask that. I asked, “Is it conceivable to you that a non-wacko regular old scientist could possibly disagree with Fauci?”
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The most candid answer I can give you is that I would need to know what that looks like. Conception, for me, should be based upon reality. And my reality so far is that every doctor and medical professional with whom I have spoken personally agrees with Dr Fauci. I’m not a doctor. So when it comes to medicine and disease control I trust what pretty much every doctor and medical professional is telling me. But as Christ states in the Gospel according to St Mark, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” What I have noticed is that the non-vaccinated trying to convince me doctors are wrong are all among the healthy.
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So you can’t conceive of it. Thank you. Of course, this is the characteristic of a closed mind. No one could possibly disagree with the Standard Line. It can’t even be conceived that a non-wacko, non-conspiratorialist doctor or scientists might have a different opinion. You won’t concede that. And my point is abundantly made.
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First, I think it was GK Chesterton who said: “An open mind is like an open mouth. It’s purpose is to close it again on something solid.” In this case the solid I identify as a non-expert in medicine is every doctor and medical professional I know, including those I know through the pro-life movement, telling me to get vaccinated.
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I have not told you or anyone else not to get vaccinated. So I am not contradicting that advice. But your latest replies are simply yet more obfuscation, and still don’t address my deliberately provocative, socratic question.
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As a traditional Catholic I know this advice from medical experts is not contrary to Catholic teaching because it is the same message professed by Pope Francis and several cardinals in the Holy Father’s recent PSA to Catholics. So the fact Pope Francis and Dr Fauci are in agreement seals it for me as a solid from the perspective of both medical expertise and Catholic moral theology.
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Second, I believe it was Socrates who pointed out that no person can read another person’s mind. Therefore it is never advisable that one presume to do so. My conception of you in the context of this discussion is that you are not a doctor, medical professional, or scientific expert in public health or disease control.
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The question does not depend upon, nor presuppose that you have to be a medical expert to answer it. It was asking whether you can “conceive” of a different medical opinion. It wasn’t asking whether you personally are aware of same, or whether you have the expertise to intelligently ascertain its truthfulness or plausibility.
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The refusal to directly answer and the hemming and hawing and topic-switching shows that you are uncomfortable with the question at some deep level: that you don’t want to grapple with it. And I say that it indicates a profoundly closed mind. Not only do you keep implying that there is no such legitimate dissenting opinion, but far beyond that, you can’t even conceive of such a thing.
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That’s exactly what the Liberal Thought Police want you to think and assume: no one can possibly disagree with what they decree and demand without being nuts, a wacko, a fringe fanaticist, or tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist. You’re a good, obedient sheep.
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If there is anything that genuine, authentic, true science assuredly is not, it is this:
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It’s not a set of dogmas asserted from on high, that no scientist (on pain of being classified and “cancelled” as a nutcase) can possibly challenge or submit to test, or hypothesize or theorize against, by the usual methods of science.
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By its very nature, anything can be questioned. Even Newton’s laws of gravitation (over against ferocious opposition) were eventually questioned and then overthrown (by eventual empirical observation), per Einstein’s initial theorizing.
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That is science. But this nonsense that “all” sane, rational, thoughtful, objective scientists and doctors supposedly accept one thing and one thing only is not science at all. It’s preconceived dogma, motivated by purely political considerations. And as you correctly noted, true science is not political.
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“You’re a good, obedient sheep.” Is that not a biblical image first introduced by Christ in the gospels for His people?
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Yep. But that’s theology and a religious matter, and the submission is to Jesus Christ and the Church. We’re talking about science, and its current massive corruption by politicization, and being “sheep” in the bad sense of fearful kow-towing to Arbitrary Liberal Dogma.
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Science is not of that nature. Scientists don’t accept without question any supposed “dogma.” Dogma is not a proper category in science. Nor is “obedience.” The scientist (by the very nature of science) relentlessly questions and tests and sees whether any given view can withstand scrutiny.
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Related Reading
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COVID Potpourri: Herd Immunity, % of Critical Cases, Lord Fauci, Etc. [4-16-21]
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Photo credit: fernandozhiminaicela (4-1-20) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]
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Summary: We discuss the objection from conscience to the COVID vaccines (use of aborted babies). Then we address whether any legitimate scientist has valid concerns about the vaccines.
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August 16, 2021

August 16, 2021 By

Two days ago I put up an article: Unvaccinated People, Conscience, Condescension, & Coercion (A Vigorous Group Discussion Among Equally Committed Orthodox Catholics). Robert W. Woodman objected to my stated position in the combox and a debate ensued. His words will be in blue.

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I flatly disagree that the objections of your conscience trump the need to protect the health and safety of society writ large from this pandemic. The idea that we need to be sensitive to people’s consciences when the public health and safety is at risk strikes me as absurd. Furthermore, I am unpersuaded by the moral arguments in favor of not being vaccinated. Moreover, the United States has a rather long history of compulsory quarantine and vaccination. If it were up to me, I would bring back compulsory vaccination or quarantine.

The problem here is that you are a Catholic (far as I know) and the Church gives me precisely the right of conscience that I claim, which I proved in the paper from the Catechism and a moral theologian. If you thumb your nose at Church teaching, then you are a functional Protestant, or Catholic dissident. That’s not good.

No one in my family has gotten this virus. Unlike folks like President Obama, Queen Bee Pelosi and our beloved Michigan Governor, we’ve followed all the rules in public (even when we disagreed with them). We have strong natural immunity, from years of clean living and eating (no drugs, no alcoholic excess, health food, vitamin supplements, etc.). I even get a cold only about every three years. I’ve never been to the hospital ever, for any physical condition (not counting getting my tonsils removed as a child and one time with a wrist sprain and a concussion; in other words, not an ongoing condition). So I’m not giving it to anyone and I don’t need the vaccine, even if I didn’t have several principled objections to it.

Now, if I was getting the virus every few months (which doesn’t happen anyway, because one obtains immunity after getting it) and going around and not giving a damn about spreading it, you would have at least one valid point. But since I’m not . . .

1. I am a Catholic, a convert since 1996.

2. You claim a privilege for your conscience, which, I grant, the Church teaches, but you stake your claim upon an erroneous understanding of the vaccine. Consequently, the judgment of your conscience is impaired.

3. It is unclear whether the origin of HEK293 was an elective abortion. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it was, but direct evidence proving that point is lacking.

4. Apart from your conscience, you justify your refusal to get vaccinated on fallacious claims that no one in your family has gotten the virus, strong natural immunity, clean living, etc. etc. Frankly, none of those claims are sound or logical, and in any event, the virus doesn’t know or care about healthy immune system or clean living; the only thing the virus wants to know is if you constitute available real estate, that is, your immune system isn’t primed to prevent the virus from infecting you and using you as a platform to spread to others. Moreover, your justifications exclude the possibility that you or a family member had an asymptomatic case of COVID-19, which a recent JAMA report estimates to be about 24% of COVID-19 transmissions. Reference:

Johansson, M. A.; Quandelacy, T. M.; Kada, S.; Prasad, P. V.; Steele, M.; Brooks, J. T.; Slayton, R. B.; Biggerstaff, M.; Butler, J. C. SARS-CoV-2 Transmission From People Without COVID-19 Symptoms. JAMA Network Open 2021, 4 (1), e2035057–e2035057.

5. Where does “love your neighbor as you love yourself” come in? I see no love of neighbor in this position of refusing to get a vaccine. As long as you don’t have an immune system already primed against SARS-CoV-2, you constitute a health risk to others, particularly those who cannot be vaccinated or who have weakened immune systems for whatever reason.

6. People can get recurrent infections with SARS-CoV-2, just like they can with other endemic coronaviruses. Several reasons exist that may make a vaccine superior to infection-based immunity, but your claim that you can get COVID-19 only once is simply erroneous. References:

(1) Chen, D.; Xu, W.; Lei, Z.; Huang, Z.; Liu, J.; Gao, Z.; Peng, L. Recurrence of Positive SARS-CoV-2 RNA in COVID-19: A Case Report. Int J Infect Dis 2020, 93, 297–299.

(2) Adrielle Dos Santos, L.; Filho, P. G. de G.; Silva, A. M. F.; Santos, J. V. G.; Santos, D. S.; Aquino, M. M.; de Jesus, R. M.; Almeida, M. L. D.; da Silva, J. S.; Altmann, D. M.; Boyton, R. J.; Alves Dos Santos, C.; Santos, C. N. O.; Alves, J. C.; Santos, I. L.; Magalhães, L. S.; Belitardo, E. M. M. A.; Rocha, D. J. P. G.; Almeida, J. P. P.; Pacheco, L. G. C.; Aguiar, E. R. G. R.; Campos, G. S.; Sardi, S. I.; Carvalho, R. H.; de Jesus, A. R.; Rezende, K. F.; de Almeida, R. P. Recurrent COVID-19 Including Evidence of Reinfection and Enhanced Severity in Thirty Brazilian Healthcare Workers. J Infect 2021, 82 (3), 399–406.

(3) Garg, J.; Agarwal, J.; Das, A.; Sen, M. Recurrent COVID-19 Infection in a Health Care Worker: A Case Report. J Med Case Rep 2021, 15 (1), 363.

(4) Galanti, M.; Shaman, J. Direct Observation of Repeated Infections With Endemic Coronaviruses. J Infect Dis 2021, 223 (3), 409–415.

(5) Welle (www.dw.com), D. Coronavirus: Is a repeat COVID-19 infection possible? | DW | 26.08.2020 https://www.dw.com/en/coron… (accessed 2021 -08 -15).

7. Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC, who is also on the Patheos platform, has a strong background in moral theology, and he’s currently working on his doctorate in moral theology from Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He has written several articles on the morality of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. One of those articles is titled, “12 Things Less-Remote Cooperation in Evil than COVID vaccines.” If you haven’t read the article, you should, and you should afterwards consider how much of your daily routine involves cooperation with evil.

You claim a privilege for your conscience, which, I grant, the Church teaches.

That was my primary and strongest argument, and you concede the point. The other things I just mentioned in passing, and are secondary reasons, but I don’t claim nearly as much for any of them as I do on the objection from conscience (as is obvious from my article above: even in its title). So yes, reasonable and equally upstanding people can and do differ on those matters (as your well-argued comments above indicate).

Fr. Matthew Schneider is a friend of mine. We had lunch together a while back when he was in town. His articles are uniformly excellent. I’m not sure he deals with the issue of conscientious objection in his articles. I long ago granted the validity of accepting the vaccine based on the remoteness of cooperation with evil, so that is a moot point in this discussion (where I am concerned). That’s why I have never dissuaded anyone else from receiving the vaccine, and have always said that it is overall a very good thing. I wrote on 2-9-21:

I didn’t say a word about the virus: its nature, etc. I haven’t questioned anything about it. I simply explained briefly (originally in a PM) why I will not be receiving the vaccine. Moreover, in the combox . . ., I didn’t knock the vaccine in and of itself. I didn’t tell anyone else not to take it (I was neither legalistic nor conspiratorial), and I said it would have a good overall result as a result of people taking it.

I wrote in my article, that was censored by Facebook, shortly before that date:

What both the pope and Church leaders are teaching concerning it is that Christians are not responsible if in the past any portion of these vaccines was drawn from aborted babies. It’s a question of “how remote a thing can be before we are not personally responsible for it.”

As an example, we all buy many things made in China because so much is! Does it follow that in purchasing a shirt or a video game from China, that we therefore are supporting slave labor, prison re-education camps or forced abortion that occur there? No. We’re not required to not buy things from China. On the other hand, it might be good to further reflect on cutting down, based on these same reasons.

Yet my own conscience won’t allow me to receive a vaccine that includes use of aborted babies in research and/or implementation. In the past, His Eminence Lord Fauci (in his self-contradictory opinion #464) strongly objected to mandatory vaccination (this is all now conveniently forgotten). Thus, my position even has a secular as well as theological basis:

You don’t want to mandate and try and force anyone to take a vaccine. We’ve never done that. You can mandate for certain groups of people like health workers, but for the general population you can’t. [added in context, from another similar article: We don’t want to be mandating from the federal government to the general population.]

It would be unenforceable and not appropriate. (“COVID-19 vaccine won’t be mandatory in US, says Fauci”, MedicalXPress, 8-19-20)

As noted in a WebMD article (a standard medical site), Lord Fauci was even more definite:

I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public. . . . [I’d be] pretty surprised if you mandated it for any element of the general public. . . . [people] have the right to refuse a vaccine. If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine. (“COVID-19 Vaccine Likely Won’t Be Mandatory”, Carolyn Crist, 8-20-20)

There is growing evidence that at least some people who receive the vaccine, die shortly afterwards: possibly because of the vaccine itself. I’m not saying it is “many” or a “lot”; just (undeniably) “some”. Lest anyone conclude that this is “right wing conspiracist garbage” don’t just believe me (who detests false conspiracy theories as much as any liberal), take it from “mainstream” media news outlets:

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“Coroner reviewing Florida doctor’s death 2 weeks after vaccine” (Associated Press, 1-11-21)

The famous baseball player Hank Aaron received the vaccine on 5 January 2021: seemingly healthy at the time. He died on 22 January, just 17 days later. Just a coincidence? I suspect not. I kept looking to see what the claimed cause of death was, and all one can ever find is “natural causes.”

It is unclear whether the origin of HEK293 was an elective abortion. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it was, but direct evidence proving that point is lacking.

Let’s examine that question more closely.

[my original citation has been removed because — as Robert protested — the writer mistakenly referred to the “liver” of a child who died (some question as to how), rather than “kidney”]

There are much better articles on the morality of using HEK293 cells in:

(1) Wong, A. The Ethics of HEK 293. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2006, 6 (3), 473–495.

(2) The National Catholic Bioethics Center. Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared from Cells Derived from Aborted Human Fetuses. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2006, 6 (3), 541–550.

Very well, then. Let’s look at your first article cited [link]:

Could there have been any chance that the “abortion” referred to in the FDA document might mean a naturally or spontaneously aborted (i.e., miscarried) fetus? The context certainly sounds as if it referred to a routine-induced abortion, with no qualifications mentioned. In examining the issue further, it appears that in all probability the cells were obtained from the embryo of a willfully induced abortion. Not only is it easier administratively to receive cells from induced abortions of normal pregnancies than from spontaneous miscarriages, it may also be scientifically more advantageous to use tissue from induced abortions, which are “healthier,” since the majority of fetuses are usually genetically normal and aborted for social reasons. In the FDA proceedings, Dr. van der Eb admits that the fetus was “completely normal.” He later gives testimony to the development of PER.C6 (human embryonic retinal cells), in which the evidence that it was obtained from a willfully induced abortion is undeniable. Again, it was a “healthy fetus.” PER.C6 is used for similar purposes as HEK 293 in the field of gene therapy. . . .

Since Dr. van der Eb does admit to working with tissue from induced abortions, even if there may have been one or more occasions of working with tissue from spontaneous abortions, it seems more likely that the tissue would be from an induced abortion. The convenience of getting tissue from routine, elective abortions compared to waiting for an unforeseen miscarriage supports this likelihood.

Furthermore, there seems to be an ongoing industry in this area, where obtaining fetal tissue from routine abortions becomes a standard procedure. The use of aborted fetuses in the development of cell lines had begun as early as the sixties, looking at the well-known WI-38 and MRC-5 lines. The WI-38 cell line was developed in July 1962 from lung tissue taken from a therapeutically aborted fetus of about three months’ gestational age, while the MRC-5 cell line was developed in September 1966 from lung tissue taken from a fourteen-week-old fetus aborted for psychiatric reasons from a twenty-seven-year-old physically healthy woman. The likelihood that the source of HEK 293 was a direct abortion must be considered in this context. In short, the possibility that the HEK 293 kidney cells come from a directly procured and deliberately willed abortion is extremely high. . . .

It is already known that the cells are embryonic in origin, so there is a high probability that they are from an induced abortion.  . . .

To summarize, we do not have moral certainty about the source of HEK 293. There is no information assuring the end user of the moral licitness of its source. The obligation is on those who developed and distributed HEK 293 to demonstrate without a doubt that the cells were obtained in a morally licit manner, and not for the end user to prove the opposite. I argue that we must assume HEK 293 was developed from a willfully aborted embryo. The Pontifical Academy for Life’s recent statement on vaccines is consistent with this position. [bolding added]

The word “conscience” appears 13 times in this article. Dr. Wong cites the Pontifical Academy for Life:

“However, in this situation, the aspect of passive cooperation is that which stands out most. It is up to the faithful and citizens of upright conscience (fathers of families, doctors) to oppose, even by making an objection of conscience, the ever more widespread attacks against life and the ‘culture of death’ which underlies them. From this point of view, the use of vaccines whose production is connected with procured abortion constitutes at least a mediate remote passive material cooperation to the abortion, and an immediate passive material cooperation with regard to their marketing. Furthermore, on a cultural level, the use of such vaccines contributes in the creation of a generalized social consensus to the operation of the pharmaceutical industries which produce them in an immoral way. Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.” Pontifical Academy for Life, “Moral Reflections,” 547–548. [bolding added]

American Life League has weighed in on the issue (“Unethical Vaccines: From HeLa to COVID-19”, Leslie Sholly, 8-24-20):

Sweden, 1962: A baby girl was conceived. Overwhelmed by the several children she was already raising with little help from an often-absent and alcoholic husband, her mother sought an abortion. The procedure was legal, but finding a doctor willing to perform it took awhile. The baby’s life ended around four months’ gestation.

However, the tragic end of that baby girl’s life was not the end of her story. Her lungs were dissected at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm then flown to the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. She is known only as WI-38—a name created by biologist Leonard Hayflick to identify her cell line. So let’s call her Wendie.

Unlike Henrietta’s cells, Wendie’s were healthy, thus ideal for Dr. Hayflick’s research in culturing cells. Dr. Hayflick hoped to provide himself and other researchers with cell lines that would grow continuously in the lab. The lines could then form the basis for all kinds of scientific research. He had his own experiments to conduct as well—for example, studying the relationship between viruses and cancer. . . .

Wendie’s [cells] have been used for all types of medical research. In fact, you can buy a vial of the cell line derived from Wendie’s initial donation online for just over $400. And while you may not realize it, Wendie’s involuntary sacrifice has almost certainly benefited you: Her cells were used to develop vaccines against rubella, chicken pox, shingles, and adenovirus.3 Yet, she was not the only one whose cells were used.

England, 1966: A 27-year-old woman aborted her healthy preborn son—we’ll call him Malcolm—for “psychiatric reasons.” Malcom’s lung tissue became the source for the MRC-5 cell line, available online for $257. Malcolm’s donation was used to develop vaccines administered in the US and Canada for hepatitis-A, chicken pox, shingles, rabies, and polio.4

In addition to Malcolm and Wendie, the remains of many, many other preborn babies were used in earlier stages of vaccine development. At least 99 elective abortions were involved in the creation of the rubella vaccine alone. . . .

[T]he prospect of using a vaccine created as a byproduct of an abortion is understandably distasteful, and many of today’s parents who know about vaccine origins have chosen to exercise conscience and religious exemptions not to vaccinate against diseases that few of them have ever experienced and that their own parents had accepted as a normal part of childhood. . . .

In April, American Life League president Judie Brown wrote a letter to President Trump and to all 535 members of Congress regarding federal funding of such a vaccine, calling on them “to only fund an ethical vaccine that is NOT derived from aborted fetal cell lines.” Brown warned that “millions of pro-life individuals across the nation will not allow themselves to be injected with unethical vaccines.”

A number of other pro-life leaders, including several bishops, also penned a letter to the Trump administration to insist on the development of an ethical vaccine. Addressed to Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, the letter was copied to President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex M. Azar II.

Signed by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities; the heads of three other bishops’ conference committees; and leaders of many other groups, the letter stated that “it is critically important that Americans have access to a vaccine that is produced ethically: No American should be forced to choose between being vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating his or her conscience.” . . .

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a component of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, is currently partnering with several companies that are working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine: Merck/Germany, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sanofi, and Johnson & Johnson. COGL’s research indicates that, of these five, only Sanofi’s vaccine is being developed without the use of fetal cell lines, although there are several other companies pursuing ethical vaccines.

Is that true about Sanofi? No, according to “The Catholic Answer to Vaccines” (MyCatholicDoctor, updated 3 August 2021):

Pfizer: Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus/COVID vaccine known as “BNT162b2” was developed using genetic sequencing on computers without using fetal cells. The HEK-293 abortion-related cell line was used in research related to this vaccine, but not the testing of the vaccine. This cell line originated from kidney cells from a fetus that was aborted in 1973. No cell line, fetal or otherwise, is required for the ongoing production of this vaccine. This vaccine is currently in use and requires two doses.

Moderna: Moderna’s “mRNA-1273” vaccine does not require aborted fetal cell lines for production, but aborted fetal cell lines were used in both the development and testing of this vaccine. This vaccine is currently in use and is easier to distribute than Pfizer due to cooling requirements. It also requires two doses.

Johnson & Johnson: The J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, “JNJ-78436735” does use the abortion-related PER.c6 cell line for ongoing production. This cell line was also used in the development and testing of the vaccine. PER.c6 is a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. This vaccine is currently in use. This is a single-dose vaccine, unlike other COVID vaccines which require 2 doses.

AstraZenica: The AstraZenica/University of Oxford vaccine “AZD1222” does use the HEK-293 cell line for production. This cell like was also used in both development and testing of the vaccine. The AstraZenica vaccine is not approved in the United States.

Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline: The Sanofi/GSK vaccine is not associated with aborted fetal cell lines for production. GSK produces this vaccine using a modified virus cultivated on insect cells. The HEK-293 cell line was used in the confirmatory testing of the vaccine. It is unclear if and when this vaccine may become available to the American public, it is currently in phase 3 trials. The Sanofi company is also developing a different COVID vaccine that did use the HEK-293 abortion-related cell line in the research phase.

This article is a goldmine of information as to the Catholic, pro-life perspective on these matters. And it also discusses matters of conscience:

Meanwhile, the Vatican also made statements on the COVID-19 vaccines. On December 21st, 2020, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith released a “Note on the Morality of Using Some Anti-COVID-19 Vaccines.” In this document they reiterate the concepts from the prior documents, stating that it is licit to use COVID-19 vaccines that are associated with aborted fetal tissue if no reasonable alternatives exist, and that “the licit use of such vaccines does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses. Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health agencies are therefore encouraged to produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the people to be vaccinated.”

Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC, . . . has written several articles on the morality of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

In fact, Fr. Schneider recognizes that a Catholic can refuse these vaccines, based on conscientious objection:

Thus, it comes as a surprise that the Colorado bishops write, “We continue to support religious exemptions from any and all vaccine mandates,” and a “Person should follow their conscience [if it says not to take these vaccines], and they should not be penalized for doing so.” This makes sense if applied to a universal mandate[.] But applying this line to a mandate for hospital or nursing home staff is contrary to the common good. . . .

Vaccines should not be mandatory for all, but it would appear acceptable for smaller mandates in higher-risk situations like hospital and nursing home staff. (8-9-21)

Pope Francis has endorsed (as he must, because it is solidly established Catholic teaching) the right to conscientious objection:

I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscience objection. But, yes, I can say the conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.
Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.’ It is a human right. It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right. (September 2015)
We see every day that the powerful countries create laws that force us to go through this path … a nation that doesn’t follow these modern laws, these cultures, or that at least doesn’t want to have them in its laws, is accused, is politely persecuted. It’s a persecution that robs man of his freedom, even from conscientious objection! Conscientious objection is a right, and part of the body of all human rights. If we want to make peace, we must respect all rights. (April 2016)

Moreover, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith produced on 12-21-20: Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines. At the end it states:

The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 17 December 2020, examined the present Note and ordered its publication.

This papal approval included the following, from section 5:

5. At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary. In any case, from the ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good. In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed. Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable. [my bolding; italics in original]

See also:

“On vaccination, NY archdiocese tramples the rights of the faithful” (Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, 8-5-21)

“Two Catholic groups: No vaccine mandate without conscience protections” (Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service, 8-2-21)

As to immunity after COVID infection:

1) “Study Suggests Lasting Immunity After COVID-19, With a Big Boost From Vaccination” [JAMA. 2021;326(5):376-377. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.11717]:

Nussenzweig predicted that variants will not cause serious illness in most people who have recovered from COVID-19. Nevertheless, he said, they should be vaccinated “because they become bulletproof when they do so.”

2) “Rand Paul: The science proves people with natural immunity should skip COVID vaccines” (Sen. Rand Paul [an ophthalmologist who does surgery], Courier Journal, updated, 5-29-21):

To dictate that a person recovered from COVID-19 with natural immunity also submit to a vaccine — without scientific evidence — is nothing more than hubris. If you have no proof that people who acquired natural immunity are getting or transmitting the disease in real numbers, then perhaps you should just be quiet.

People are not getting re-infected in large numbers. And that’s not me saying so, that’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quietly admitting that on its website.

One thing they also admitted, while at first trying to hide it, was that there are no studies showing that getting the vaccine if you already have natural immunity is of any benefit at all. They can’t show that, because it has not yet been studied. It took my friend Congressman Thomas Massie to make them admit this, by the way. They originally denied their own studies on this.

So, when I go out to the media and say that I, as a recovered COVID patient, will not get a vaccine that is not proven to help me nor proved I even need — the science deniers, bureaucrats and media typically go nuts.

But facts are facts. I’m no more likely to get or transmit COVID than someone who is vaccinated.

We know this. Doctors know this. Scientists who design vaccines know this. Vaccines are created to attempt to replicate the immunity we get from having been infected with a disease.

I want all the science deniers to read that again. Vaccines are a replacement for natural immunity. They aren’t necessarily better. In fact, natural immunity from measles confers lifelong immunity and the vaccine immunity wanes over a few decades.

I choose to follow the science with COVID, rather than submit to fear-mongering.

We are simply not seeing any numbers that tell me otherwise.

In a recent British study, David Wyllie and others found no symptomatic re-infections from COVID-19 after following 2800 patients for several months. In fact, there have been no reports of significant numbers of re-infections after acquiring COVID-19 naturally.

Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, concludes from his experiments that, “The amount of (immune) memory (gained from natural infection) would likely prevent the vast majority of people from getting hospitalized disease, severe disease, for many years.”

In this study which was published in Science, Crotty showed that antibody levels stayed relatively constant with only “modest declines at 6-8 months.”

Crotty reported that “Notably, memory B cells specific for the spike protein or RBD were detected in almost all COVID-19 cases, with no apparent half-life at 5 to 8 months after infection.” In other words, Crotty found significant evidence of long-term immunity after COVID infection.

Furthermore, Crotty noted, “B cell memory to some other infections has been observed to be long-lived, including 60+ years after smallpox vaccination, or 90+ years after infection with influenza.”

We have begun to study this, though we already know the answer — natural immunity against COVID 19 appears to be at least as good as vaccine immunity.

In one extensive recent study in The Lancet, Dr. Florian Kramer of the Icahn School of Medicine noted: “the findings of the authors suggest that infection and the development of antibody response provides protection similar to or even better than current used SARS COV-2 vaccines.”

Rather than being pessimistic toward people gaining immunity after they’ve had COVID, studies argue for significant optimism. Because what we do know is that there have been no scientific studies arguing or proving that infection with COVID does not create immunity.

There have also been no studies showing significant numbers of reinfection. Of the 30 million Americans who have had COVID, only a handful of reinfections have been discovered.

Additionally, a recent study shows that vaccines and naturally acquired immunity do effectively neutralize COVID variants. Participants who had previously been either vaccinated or infected were exposed to four variants of the coronavirus.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that for the participants they “found neutralizing activity of infection- and vaccine-elicited antibodies against 4 SARS-CoV-2 variants, including B.1, B.1.1.7, and N501Y. Because neutralization studies measure the ability of antibodies to block infection, these results suggest that infection and vaccine-induced immunity may be retained against the B.1.1.7 variant.”

And just this week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky publicly said that, “our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”

Their website offers similar information for those who have natural immunity.

That’s great news for everyone except the bureaucrats who are running out of ways to control every aspect of your life!

We should be excited, throwing away our masks, and celebrating after hearing about these real scientific studies.

Whether you have natural immunity or vaccine immunity.

Of course, what this means, if Dr. Paul is right (and it seems that he is, because he backs himself up with several reputable journal studies) is that all these people now getting infected (because of states opening up, I am assuming) — with extremely few dying — , will be subsequently immune. Therefore, the combination of their immunity and the natural immunity of millions of others such as myself, who never got the thing, plus the immunity of the vaccinated, will combine to create an overall herd immunity, whereby the incidence will greatly reduce in the not too distant future.

This is why Lord Fauci and other overlords used to speak in the same way: if 60-70% of the population get vaccinated, herd immunity will take care of the rest. Then they changed their tune later on, because of the usual liberal intolerance and scapegoating of anyone who doesn’t share their own political opinions. The science remains the same, regardless of the political machinations and monthly revised “truths” of Lord Fauci and the Democrats.

Lord Fauci, remember, is a guy who was in favor of funding the research at the Wuhan Laboratory: the very origin of the pandemic in the first place. And somehow he can lecture us about how to ethically proceed, when arguably he has several million deaths on his own conscience?:

See: “Sen. Rand Paul: Fauci not honest about Wuhan Lab funding, COVID-19 origins” (ABC 13: WBKO, Brandon Jarrett, 7-22-21):

Brandon Jarrett spoke with Dr. Paul during a one-on-one interview to ask him what he knows, “officially”.

“Well, you know, we presented a significant amount of evidence, we presented research from 2017. From Dr. Shi, she’s the bat scientist, that’s prominent, that leads the lab in Wuhan. In her research, she acknowledges that Dr. Fauci and NIH gave her money. In fact, she lists the grant number. So there’s no question that the NIH was funding her research,” said Paul. “The only real debate is over whether or not it was gain of function. But in the research, we presented the evidence that she took two viruses, the genes for the S protein to two viruses, bat viruses that she found in a cave, and she melded them or merged or recombined them with the backbone of a virus called the SARS virus. Now the SARS virus is like the one we’re dealing with now. COVID-19 was a virus from 2004 that had 15% mortality. It wasn’t very transmissible, but it was much more deadly than what we have. So she’s experimenting with a virus that had a 15% mortality, merging it with two new viruses she found in a cave to create a virus that does not exist in nature. And then she proves that it can infect human cells.”

We asked Dr. Paul why his definition of Gain of Function research differs from Fauci’s.

“I think he has self-interest and not being attached to this research, because more and more of the evidence is pointing towards the virus having come out of that lab, if it did, you can see how moral responsibility or culpability attaches to Dr. Fauci because he had the poor judgment to fund this lab. So I think it was a mistake to fund the lab in Wuhan period, because I don’t think the Chinese government or military has been very forthcoming,” said Dr. Paul. “There are reports that the Chinese military has actually been working on weaponizing viruses. So I think it was a poor judgment. Even as much as a month ago, Dr. Fauci was asking the Judiciary Committee whether he still trusted the scientists and the Chinese scientists. And he says, Oh, of course, he was also asked in 2012, if a bug should escape, if a virus should infect a researcher, escape and become a pandemic, what then? And he said, Well, the science and the research is worth it, even if a pandemic should occur.”

“So this to me shows incredibly poor judgment, not wisdom, poor judgment. And really, there’s a possibility we are suffering from his poor judgment. This research still goes on in the United States, we should want to know, you know if the NIH is still funding this type of research in North Carolina? And in Galveston, do we want this to occur? Are we worried that we could have the worst virus leak out of the lab? So these are important questions, and instead of really answering any of the direct questions I had, it became sort of an ad hominem attack with him simply calling names,” said Paul. . . .

“So there was a lot of covering up, there was a lot of belief that you know, guilt would attach to them. If it looked like it came from the labs, this is a very organized effort all along. Now they’ve tried to find out if this came from animals, naturally, they’ve tested 80,000 animals from the wet market to see if it came from the wet market, not one of them tested positive for COVID-19. They’ve also taken COVID-19 and tried to infect bats. And they found that it doesn’t infect bats very well, it seems to be most adapted to infect humans,” said Paul.

Q: “Dr. Rand Paul, you recently told Fox News that you will ask the Department of Justice for a criminal referral over Dr. Fauci his testimony and that Dr. Fauci is possibly responsible for 4 million people dying because of this pandemic? Talk about that accusation?”

“You know, we have laws in Section 1001 of the Criminal Code that says you can’t lie to Congress. So I think there needs to be repercussions. I gave him every chance to retract or modify a statement, it would have been very easy for him to say, well, there is some debate over whether or not this was gain of function. But I tend to decide with those in my administration and said it wasn’t. He just acted as if there’s no way it can be gain of function, and then call me a liar. So he really didn’t respond to the specific arguments or whether it’s gain of function or not,” said Paul.

Lord Fauci used to talk about herd immunity. Here he is doing so in an article dated 15 December 2020:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s senior official for infectious diseases, predicts the United States could begin to achieve early stages of herd immunity against the deadly coronavirus by late spring or summer. And if that happens, Fauci anticipates, “we could really turn this thing around” toward the end of 2021.

In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday on Morning Edition, NPR’s Rachel Martin asked Fauci how many Americans need to receive the vaccine to have an impact on the number of COVID-19 infections.

“I would say 50% would have to get vaccinated before you start to see an impact,” Fauci said. “But I would say 75 to 85% would have to get vaccinated if you want to have that blanket of herd immunity.”

Herd immunity occurs when enough people become immune to the disease that the spread of the virus from person to person becomes unlikely. Fauci pointed to polio and measles as examples of herd immunity. (“Fauci Predicts U.S. Could See Signs Of Herd Immunity By Late March Or Early April”, Brakkton Booker, NPR)

Lord Fauci actually publicly admitted that he was being deliberately deceptive in his talk about herd immunity; cynically waffling and equivocating:

Late last week, Fauci told the New York Times that new science had changed his thinking on the herd immunity threshold — but he also admitted that his statements were influenced in part by “his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.”

Specifically, the fraction of people who would need immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (either through vaccination or recovery from prior infection) to extinguish the spread of the virus was initially estimated to be 60% to 70%. In recent weeks, Fauci had raised the percentage: from 70% to 75%, and then to 75%, 80%, and 85%.

Allow me to quote verbatim from the article, titled “How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?”:

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”

Of course, the herd immunity threshold is just an estimate, and the precise figure is contingent on population mixing and a host of other assumptions that may vary from location to location. The same threshold may be different in Rome than in Montana. For these reasons, Fauci has some wiggle room. But, the two undeniable admissions in the Times article are 1) Fauci is, to some degree, basing his statements on what he thinks the public will accept, and to what degree his rhetoric might help vaccination efforts, and 2) this is the absolutely stunning part, he is admitting this openly to a reporter for the New York Times!

This is not the first instance when Fauci made a public statement while considering, in part, what he believed people would do with the information. The first instance concerns masks and occurred during an interview on “60 Minutes” in March. (“Op-Ed: Why Did Fauci Move the Herd Immunity Goal Posts?: Scientists play a dangerous game when they tailor factual statements to promote policy goals”, Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, MedPage Today, December 29, 2020)

I don’t know what causes people to think that SARS-CoV-2 is going to be different from other coronaviruses. Yes, it might be, since SARS-CoV-1 abruptly disappeared around May 2003 after first exploding onto the scene in November 2020. However, many coronaviruses repeatedly infect people 1-2 years after their initial infection. There’s no reason yet to think that SARS-CoV-2 is different in that respect. Each virus is different, and rather than compare SARS-CoV-2 immunity to smallpox, polio, or chickenpox, it is more reasonable to ask whether it is more like other coronaviruses, where we know that reinfection is possible. The questions of reinfection and degree of protection conferred by infection or vaccination are important ones to know, and answering them begins by asking relevant questions.

Do you have any response to my many and multi-faceted answers in reply to you, or is this over (as is so often the case) just as it begins to be interesting to dialogue about?

You gave a response so lengthy that to read all the sources, identify the errors, find the counterpoint references, and write a coherent response would take more time than I currently have. Professionally, I’m a biochemist, and most of the time, I’m incredibly busy. At the moment, I’m at home, sick, but I expect to be back at work tomorrow. In the meantime, sick or not, I’ve been asked to log in remotely and work.

That’s fine. As you know, this is my work. If and when you get the time and desire to counter-respond, I’ll be here, and I will add whatever you reply to in the future, and likely offer a counter-reply. Certainly you understand that if you provide a vigorous critique, I’m going to defend myself (or concede, where required: one or the other). But it always takes much more ink to defend oneself against what one believes to be inaccurate or unjust charges, than to make the charges. Hence, my length.

I always write as much as I deem necessary and relevant to the issue at hand, so that it is thoroughly dealt with. Some think it’s too much. Not my problem. If I didn’t think something was necessary, I wouldn’t have included it. In your case, I had to do so all the more, knowing that you are a scientist. So I produced many scientific studies backing up aspects of my overall view, just as I had already produced authoritative Catholic sources to back up my conscientious objection.

That said, lack of time is perfectly legitimate. You are free to respond whenever you have some spare time. I hope you do. Your challenges so far have provided great stimulation for me to defend my views far more than I had previously. So I’m grateful for the opportunity.

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Photo credit: DonkeyHotey (4-6-20). Anthony Fauci is an American physician and immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. This caricature of Anthony Fauci was adapted from a photo in the public domain from The White House’s Flickr photostream. [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license]
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Summary: Wide-ranging debate on my conscientious objection to COVID vaccines, including discussion of herd immunity & various related factors, thoroughly documented from scientific studies.
August 2, 2021

August 2, 2021 By

This exchange occurred in the combox underneath my post, Traditionalist Fr. Chad Ripperger Critiques Traditionalism (7-21-21). The words of Ryan Close will be in blue.

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“Most” [traditionalists / TLM attenders] do not reject Vatican 2. Some do.

Maybe it’s not “most” but it is a troubling amount. Do you have an opinion as to the approximate percentage in TLM circles?

I don’t know. I heard Christopher Ferrara say that it was just 12 people in the middle of Kansas. I think he is dismissing it too readily. I acknowledge Fr Ripperger’s critique.

But I think the majority of those that attend the TLM just want to raise their kids in a setting where the atmosphere of reverence and beauty teaches them the faith. Honestly, most young people, even faithful who attend NOM, don’t really like the modern hymns and kitchy music. It is all so cringe worthy. I think if you attend the TLM, it’s probably because you take the Faith seriously and want to worship in a place that comports with that seriousness and in circumstances where the ceremony honors the sacrifice of the Mass. They worry that a Mass that is irreverent or sloppy may inculcate the thought in their children’s minds that what we are doing here is not that important at all, that the sacrifice of Christ and the whole Christian thing is just a kind of cringy joke.

Good Catholics who attend the TLM are being faithful. The proof just is the fact that they are attending the TLM in an approved diocesan Mass and not fleeing to the SSPX. They want to be in communion with and in submission to the Pope. And for that they are being punished. It seems unfair.

Related question? In order to not be a reactionary, I know we must submit to — of course — all ecumenical councils and the Ordinary Authentic Magisterium of the Pope and the Bishops. We cannot formally resist the Pope. But, does this mean that we have celebrate everything that the Pope does as a good thing? Should I tell all my friends how amazing and wonderful TC really is even though my heart is broken? Or can I feel and voice my feeling of being unjustly punished, even though I will submit? How far must I take not being a reactionary?

Well, I would say that Steve Skojec, formerly of One Peter Five, knows the trad / reactionary community pretty well, and he thinks it is beyond repair and not worthy of even continuing. That’s why I documented his own thoughts. Fr. Ripperger’s critique indicated the same thing. The reactions of many people clearly prove that they are in the reactionary camp. I documented that too.

That would be my argument: it’s a very serious problem, based on the reports of people who would be in a position to know from the inside that it is. It’s not just those of us outside coming up with arbitrary opinions, with no knowledge.

I have defended this pope 200 times and have observed the traditionalist community for over 25 years. I know that this thinking is rampant within it. Maybe it’s not evident in a parish after Mass eating donuts, but it certainly is online.

It is true that most Catholics at the TLM are orthodox. But denial of the indefectibility of the pope and of the Church are both serious heresies, and many have those views. The pope cannot promulgate heresy, according to Vatican I, in the same section that defined papal infallibility.

The pope can be criticized by the right people for the right reasons, in the right spirit. 95% of papal criticism today does not fall under those categories. I know, because I am out here defending the pope, just as I did the two before him. Taylor Marshall in his atrocious book implies that Pope St. Paul VI had an ongoing homosexual lover. My own main publisher put out that trash.

Pope Francis is not “punishing” a person like you who simply prefers the Old Mass. He is concerned that the whole movement is infused with quasi-schism and even some heresy.

Can I ask a question? Your blog, as well as Timothy Gordon’s vlog, have really helped me understand these issues more. I can see what you are saying about the necessity of TC in a certain sense. I even acknowledge there is a problem, especially if even Fr. Ripperger called it out.

But how widespread is the problem? Do we have the numbers? What percent of the faithful who attend the TLM are really guilty of this divisive attitude or denying Vatican II? Should all the good and faithful Catholics who do not reject Vatican II and try to be loving and welcoming and evangelical be punished for the rigidity of a minority of perhaps vocal reactionaries?

You can always ask a question here.

Again, as I answered another of your comments: the observations of Skojec and Fr. Ripperger and my own observation as an apologist and critic of the movement for a quarter-century show that it is very widespread. In fact, it’s getting so bad that the anti-papalism in particular is spreading into the non-traditionalist community and is showing up (in some ways) in people who were my own mentors, like Karl Keating, Scott Hahn, and Fr. Peter Stravinskas, and others like Fr. Mitch Pacwa. It’s openly shown now at EWTN; my publisher, Sophia Institute Press, Phil Lawler, many others. You feel heartbroken? So do I: to see so many whom I respected and admired (and still do in many ways) going down this path of adopting these quasi-schismatic views.

Three more things.

You point out how vocal this reactionary minority are. I wonder why faithful traditional (non-reactionary) Catholics such as yourself do not try to address legitimate scandals in a respectful and and faithful manner. The abortion issue comes to mind. There are bishops that are complicit in the abortion industry through their failure to call out leaders who actively promote child murder. How do we ask the hierarchy to be faithful to oppose abortion without straying into “reactionary-ism”?

I wrote about that very issue five weeks ago, in fact: Cowardly (?) Bishops, Pro-Abort Biden, & Holy Communion [6-22-21]. That’s how I would do it (and did do it).

What about stuff like “God wills a plurality of religions”? Saying that it’s God’s permissive will is just “Pope splaining”, not to be disrespectful. Is our responsibility as Catholics to always explain away the very problematic statements of the Pope or other bishops with ever more elaborate mental gymnastics or can we say, “that is contrary to the faith”?

I explained the “plurality of religions” thing. It’s nothing. It’s a fallacy, a falsehood, and simply the usual traditionalist collapsing of all ecumenism into indifferentism. If you haven’t read my paper on it, see: Pope Francis & the Diversity of Religions.

People need to be fair to the pope and respect him. If you wonder about something, read both sides, not just the critics. Give him a fair shot. I have written 200 defenses of him: and collected 282 more defenses from others.

I’ll guarantee you that almost all “perplexities” and “confusions” about various issues are explained somewhere in those 481 articles. You owe it to yourself to read both sides. Any person is owed that much who is being blasted (and yes, widely slandered and lied about); how much more the Holy Father?

Second, part of the problem some people are having with TC is that it seems, like I said, to punish faithful Catholics for the sins of the reactionaries. That feels abusive. Like I said, not every one who attends the TLM is a reactionary. To be punished unjustly, and yes, submission and obedience is our duty, still feels like abuse. Is it divisive or schismatic to feel and voice your feeling that your are being abused?

Third, part of this feeling of being abused unjustly is how good and faithful and orthodox Catholics who happen to love the beauty of the traditional rites are being singled out while others who support abortion, homosexual agenda, women’s ordination, and other actual heresies are embraced and celebrated. That doesn’t feel right.

I currently attend the Byzantine Liturgy on Sunday’s and NOM on weekdays. Beside the precious and life creating mysteries of Christ, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself, nothing about the NOM inspires me. The architecture is sparse and boring. The verses and responses are simply said instead of being even said on a single note which would elevate them just a little. The whole experience is very banal and pedestrian rather than glorious and uplifting. Even Pope Francis’s letter mentions liturgical abuses in the NOM contrary to the council and the rubrics.

I think that the NOM can be done right. I’m not a TLM only’st. I want more NOM, just done reverently and beautifully. It just seems so weird that the vast vast vast majority of NOM’s I attend are so banal and flat. It is like there was a coordinated effort to push a particular kind of celebrating the NOM which is most likely to distance it from the reverent and beautiful. I pray for a future Roman Rite, unified and strong, retaining the best of both the TLM and the NOM. In the vernacular, but respecting tradition. Participatory but also reverent, beautiful, and other worldly, like the Byzantine Rite.

Again, you use this language of feeling “punished.” Have you been deprived of being able to attend the Mass of your choice? Do you have to drive 100 miles? Has your bishop shut down your parish? If not, then what is the issue. If all it is is a desire to worship in the older manner, and you can, just go do so and be happy and content.

But if you can’t do so, I can see that this would make you angry and hurt. I think you should be able to worship as you please. That has always been my position, for 30 years since my conversion. If you don’t know my background: I attended Novus Ordo Latin Mass for 25 years in a beautiful German Gothic Revival church building built in the 1880s. I totally get that. I want reverence and beauty and I detest all abuses at Mass with a passion and refuse to go to any parish where they occur.

Well, I see that you are attending the Byzantine Liturgy. That’s simply Eastern Catholicism. It’s not affected by Traditionis at all. So I don’t see how you are personally affected by whatever will change as a result.

If you detest the Pauline Mass, then don’t go. Just say extensive prayers every morning or do the liturgy of the hours or eucharistic adoration somewhere. Read the saints. Say the Rosary. Volunteer in a soup kitchen or something. Why go? I certainly wouldn’t if these Masses are as “banal and pedestrian” as you say. Find a daily Byzantine Liturgy if it is offered.

Again, I agree with you that many ordinary Masses suffer from certain defects of lack of reverence. There is a certain “banal” spirit. I saw it in our local parish that we don’t attend regularly. I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph.

Thanks for answering. Can I ask a clarifying question? The Pope is not punishing me then why am I being deprived of a spiritual good? And how does suppression of a liturgical rite suppress the heretical tendency? It seems a bit indirect. Why not allow the Old Mass and censure and excommunicate the heretics? This seems passive aggressive and harsh. It further cements and promotes the hard feelings and resentments that have fostered this heretical tendency. Why couldn’t the Pope have accompanied those who are nourished by the old rites? Why not promote the widespread application of reverent and beautiful NOM to give traditional minded Catholics an alternative to extreme Trad communities?

Thanks for the help processing.

Clarifying questions are okay, too. I will probably make this a blog dialogue, because it’s been good.

I don’t see how you are “deprived”, from what you have said. You attend the Byzantine Liturgy, which you (and many) find spiritually edifying in all respects. Great. So your beef is with a relatively “unspiritual” daily Mass. Simply find another parish with a more reverent one. How hard is that? Do you live in or near a big city?

The pope isn’t suppressing; he is regulating for the good of souls because of the errors that have sadly arisen and are widespread. He’s simply giving bishops what they were asking for. It seems that any criticism should be directed towards bishops who (if a case can be made) have exercised their powers unjustly and unfairly without proper cause.

The Church is slow to excommunicate, for whatever reason (good or bad). It has done so only in the most extreme cases. Do you think if Taylor Marshall, Peter Kwasniewski, Abp. Vigano (the most reactionary bishop), and Steve Skojec were all excommunicated, that the reactionaries would lay down their arms and repent? No. It would be an immediate firestorm, and they would be practically lionized as martyrs. That would accomplish the opposite of what is desired.

I think we should promote reverence and beauty in all Masses. Those are always the kind that I have attended.

Thank you for dealing with me with patience and fairness.

No, there are no reverent NOM in my city. We only have six parishes and they are equally the way they are. I did not say they were “unspiritual.” I said they were lacking reverence and beauty and feel banal instead of being uplifting. Yes, I can go to the Byzantine Rite, but I desire to worship according to the Roman Rite. I would love a reverent and beautiful NOM in the vernacular.

I don’t know if excommunicating these men would help, I’m just pointing out that this an indirect way of getting at them that really does harm to orthodox Catholics who are nourished by the reverent and beautiful masses. And it seems that this kind of “suppression” will increase resentment and martyr complexes.

Besides the lack of beautiful and reverent worship, I think the trad movement is driven by apparent errors that are not clarified, such as: God wills a plurality of religions, allowing divorce and remarriage, the Pachamama scandal, breeding like rabbits comment, the Scalfari interview where it was reported that the Pope said Jesus wasn’t divine. All of these may have explanations, I’m not saying that the Pope has taught anything heretical, but why can’t these things be clarified in a way that ensures and confirms the faithful.

If orthodox Catholic faithful could hear the Pope supporting them, loving them, confirming them in the faith instead of confusing them, allowing them beautiful and reverent worship, then we wouldn’t have this problem. Instead, you say the Pope plays nice with actual heretics to avoid schism with them and treats orthodox Catholics like they are the problem, intensifying their feelings of isolation and confusion. I know Catholics must be submissive but constant abuse does not really encourage loving submission.

That’s unfortunate [if he can find no “reverent” Masses in his area], but it has little to do with the controversy over Traditionis. This would be the jurisdiction of your bishop. If you believe you are deprived, it would fall on him, from where I sit.

I already addressed the plurality thing. It’s a nothing burger. Nothing has changed on divorce whatsoever. The question bandied about was merely whether certain divorced people could receive Holy Communion under very special and unique conditions. That was already discussed under Pope Benedict and is no innovation of Pope Francis. The Pachamama myth is based on a host of misperceptions and outright lies. I’ve written about it some ten times or so. I’ve written about the rabbits comment. I don’t see that the pope did anything wrong there. Scalfari can’t be trusted because he takes no notes. I have agreed that the pope shouldn’t do interviews with him. But it doesn’t prove that Pope Francis believes all this nonsense that is reported. That has to be documented if true. But it isn’t true.

The pope has chosen silence in the face of serious charges like these. He probably figures that his defenders will show the falsehoods involved. I’ve done all this in my own work, and I’m only one person. If trads would simply read what I’ve written, they would be a lot less confused.

I don’t see “constant abuse.” We have very different perceptions on that. When Pope Francis has criticized traditionalists (I’ve examined several examples that were brought up), he went after the excesses and corruption, just as I have done, and as Steve Skojec and Fr. Chad Ripperger have done. He didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. I would say he is far less critical of traditionalism than they are.

This is helping me a little and I am very very appreciative.

Glad to be of service to you. Praise God. But before I answer this, I have to figure out whether you are Catholic or Orthodox. Here you say you are “a submissive obedient Catholic who believes the Pope can not teach heresy.” But yesterday on another site you wrote: “I am Orthodox by the way, and I have to undergo my own mental gymnastics to reconcile the ancient faith with the contemporary Orthodox Churches.” So which is it, and how is this not a contradiction, at the very least?

I just discovered your blog and I promise to read your posts about the things that bother me.

I think that will help you. Maybe also “a little” but I hope, a lot!

But I don’t think I am explaining just how I feel hurt and betrayed. First, is it a sin to feel hurt and betrayed?

It’s not a sin per se, but I think two things about that:

1) it’s largely based, in my opinion, on misunderstandings and false information that is spewed daily by reactionaries and other fellow pope-bashers. Knowledge is power. The more knowledge one attains about these things, I think the less hurt they will feel.

2) it’s largely a function of postmodernist thought, whereby the front and center thing is always “how I feel” and subjective matters of that sort. Catholicism is not a “touchy-feely” belief-system, although passion and experience are certainly part of it. We believe what we do (as expressed in the Creed at every Mass) and it includes an indefectible papacy and Church.

We can feel hurt and betrayed if it is warranted, but in this case, I think it is not. To the extent that you think it is, as I have already indicated, I think your ire and disagreement has far more to do with your bishop (assuming you are a Catholic, because you say yo are Orthodox too), rather than Pope Francis.

Grumbling and complaining too much, and irreverence towards the pope or Church are, however, sins.

Second, just because people can explain away these difficult sayings and scandals doesn’t change the fact that many Catholics were scandalized and deeply hurt.

You cynically call it “explain[ing] away” as if papal defenders like myself are merely engaging in sophistry and special pleading. I call it “explaining” period; telling the truth and speaking out against the perpetual slander of this pope.

I understand what you are trying to say about TC simply allowing bishops to regulate the TLM. That if there are no reverent masses in our are that this isn’t Pope Francis’ fault.

Good.

But, as I was trying to say, the problem is the perception of a double standard that seems to push orthodox Catholics to the margins while embracing heterodox voices and causes within the Church.

I have agreed that liberals ought to be much much more regulated and rebuked also, so this is not at issue between us. That said, it has no direct bearing on this decision about the TLM.

For example, you said that in Amoris Laetitia Pope Francis did not allow the reception of Holy Communion by civilly divorced and remarried people.

He didn’t for the entire class, only for very few extraordinarily complex situations.

But many people do think he taught this and they are very happy about this doctrinal change. The document “The Misuse of Amoris Laetitia to Support Errors against the Catholic Faith: A letter to the Supreme Pontiff Francis, to all bishops in communion with him, and to the rest of the Christian Faithful” shows how this is a misuse of Amoris Laetitia. But it also asks His Holiness to formally correct those who misuse his words. We haven’t seen this.

The pope deliberately chooses the response of silence when he is vastly misunderstood or outright attacked, called a heretic, etc. See two papers [one / two] by my friend Dr. Pedro Gabriel about this.

As to Amoris Laetitia, word-search “Amoris” to find 16 articles on it, on this page of mine.

So heterodox causes misuse the Pope’s words and get away with it while those who love the Latin Mass, who happen to believe every word of the Bible, the Ecumenical Councils, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and want to conform their lives to Catholic truth are dealt with in a harsh manner.

Already dealt with . . .

As another example, I. England, in a diocese where the TLM has actually been suppressed, in that same diocese there are LGBTQ+ Masses. It’s a double standard.

It is in that diocese. It’s a double standard of the bishop.

This double standard, whereby traditionalists are treated harshly while heterodox on the progressive side, priests who promote homosexual lifestyles, politicians who have openly defied the Church in publicly supporting the murder of thousands of children and dared the bishops to excommunicate him get away with all of it or are celebrated and lauded as exemplary priests and good and devout Catholics.

This has to be explained.

I have given my explanation. Bishops fear schism, because these liberal errors are so widespread. And they like to be popular. See the classic 1995 article, “Conservative Bishops, Liberal Results”, by James Hitchcock.

I know, what you are saying is that the radical traditionalist movement is a huge problem, a cancerous and schismatic blight on the church that must be dealt with. I can agree that there are certain people who fit this description but I don’t think we have the numbers to prove that this represents all of faithful Catholics who attend the TLM.

No one is saying “all.” Exaggerating doesn’t help anything or anyone. We are saying it is significantly high enough to be concerning and alarming in terms of Church unity and possible schism. People like Skojec and Fr. Ripperger agree that it is a very serious problem.

Whenever I find a chance to go the the Latin Mass I find good Catholic families who want to raise their kids in a church the looks and sounds and feels like the historic faith. They worry that their children would loose faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist if they are constantly exposed to the Mass as a kind of unserious cringy joke with bad music from the 1970’s. (For contemporary worship music done we’ll see Bethel.)

No doubt there are many like that. But this doesn’t preclude the pope’s action. It’s the reactionaries that are ruining it for their non-reactionary legitimate traditionalist friends who simply prefer a reverent TLM Mass. They are the ones you should be angry at: not the pope. He’s trying to correct a real problem and you get mad at him, rather than the source of the problem!

And if there is this serious problem with schismatic radical traditionalists on the one side there is also the countervailing problem of schismatic heterodox pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and others who deny core claims of the Catholic Faith.

You’ve said that over and over. It doesn’t become more true by repetition. That’s the ad nauseam logical fallacy.

How big are these two problems? I have an extremely hard time believing that the scismatic traditionalist problem is a larger problem in terms of numbers or institutional influence. The traditionalist movement is extremely small and the progressives have control of the entire institutional apparatus of the Church.

In fact, as I have noted, these reactionary and particularly anti-papal strains of thought have widely infiltrated the orthodox Catholic and even apologetics communities (my own comrades). It’s so bad that I can’t even defend the pope in some places where I write, as if that is a bad or unheard-of thing for an apologist to defend a pope.

So I don’t doubt that there is a major problem among the traditionalists. But we probably don’t agree that this problem extends all the way down to the Catholic families in the pews who want to be obedient. The proof is that they attend their diocesan Latin Mass instead of the SSPX. They want to live and die in submission to the Pope. And they will be obedient now and suffer for it.

If you agree there is a major problem, then what do you suggest doing about it? I have a friend who has a good saying: “I prefer their way of doing it to my way of not doing it.”

But what needs to be explained is why the other problems are not even being acknowledged. Why one problem is treated harshly in a way that harms the innocent while the other problem is not dealt with at all but ignored or even celebrated.

This is now probably at least the tenth time you have said the same thing, including all your comments.

As a submissive obedient Catholic who believes the Pope can not teach heresy, should I support LGBTQ+ and abortion rights and bow down to Amazonian sculpture that look like idols?

No, no, and the third thing is a massive misunderstanding as to what occurred.

Am I bound by religious submission of intellect and will to love bad 1970’s music, puppet masses, clown masses.

No. You are expected to use your judgment and attend a parish where you can wholeheartedly enter into serious worship without these sorts of silly distractions. If they are too far away, then you offer it up to God, pray for the people who make it possible, and thank God that you are receiving our Lord Jesus in Holy Communion. But if you are actually Orthodox, perhaps you shouldn’t be. You should become a Catholic first.

For all these reasons I feel confused and abused. Is this sin?

Dealt with.

What I want is a Pope and a hierarchy that love me and confirm me in the Faith. I don’t feel supported or loved. I feel marginalized and punished.

I think what is true is far more important than how we feel. I’m not dismissing your hurt feelings; just putting them in proper perspective in the scheme of things.

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There are so many problems in the Church right now. Why focus on this now?

Good Catholics who happen to attend the TLM actually believe the Catholic Faith and are submissive to the Church in higher numbers than Catholics who have lost faith in most of our precious doctrines. Yes, there is the irony of those “on the right” who reject Traditionis custodes in the same way that those “on the left” rejected Humanae Vitae. We have the responsibility to submit. Personally, I think that we have to understand that it is hard for people to accept teachings that are hard for them to accept. Obvious? They want to be Catholic but it’s going to take some time for them to process and learn how to integrate it into everything else they know and believe. Of course, they should not openly, publicly, and disrespectfully descent. But they are going to need some time to process and that isn’t uncatholic.

But, generally, Catholics who attend the TLM are devoted to the historic Catholic Faith in all of its fullness. Why does the Church focus its energy on punishing them unjustly instead of correcting those that blatantly and publicly reject the Faith and the authority of the Church?

Furthermore, if we are meant to be less rigid and clerical and more compassionate and accompany those on the margin with tolerance, why are the ecclesiastical authorities being so rigid and intolerant when it comes to the faithful TLM Catholic in their top-down persecution of minority Catholics on the margin?

I am just so confused and brokenhearted.

I totally agree that it would be good to reform the massive liberalism “on the ground” in the Church too. It hasn’t been done for fear of schism. But I think it is now time to take them on. But that doesn’t make this proclamation wrong, simply because the other has quite arguably been neglected. This problem is also real and concerning.

It’s not “submissive to the Church” to tear down the Supreme Head of the Church day and night for eight years; nor to imply that the Church has gone off the rails, and that it has been officially overrun by heterodox dissidents. This cannot happen, according to Catholic dogma at the highest level. One either accepts all the teachings of Holy Mother Church or not. To not do so, is to pick and choose: precisely the mindset of the radical theological liberal.

I think the magisterium is harder on the reactionaries because they have actually split from the Church in schism (SSPX, and even worse, sedevacantists). A major split could happen if the present trajectory were allowed to continue.

Have you been prevented from attending the Mass of your choice so far? If not, why concern yourself with it? As long as you can do that (maybe a little further drive; I drive 32 miles to our parish) then you have what you want. I think the concern is a big overreaction. I can’t see too many bishops shutting it down wholesale. [see a paper of mine on that]. There may be some . . .

**

I thank you. I appreciate your stand.

I believe that Catholics cannot reject Vatican II. They must accept it with full ascent of intellect and will. If there are passages that don’t seem to square readily with prior tradition or the magisterium then they must apply a hermeneutics of continuity so that both the older statements and the newer statements are both right. And the average trad argument makes Vatican II out to be much worse that it really is. Vatican II, in the original public meaning of its text, is traditional.

I’m going to daily Mass right now. I love all the people here, and the priests.

I don’t think that Pope Francis has taught error.

But I just feel marginalized as an orthodox Catholic when the Pope confirms the ministry of Fr James Martin but puts obstacles in the way of little boys and girls receiving first communion in a beautiful traditional rite, a rite that for most of them is the only rite they know. It feels like there is a bias against tradition and for these other things like LGBTQ Masses.

I am sorry for how I feel and if I have offended you.

I’m not offended. You’re the one who is offended (by the pope). I already acknowledged that you can feel whatever you like, but I also analyzed it as part of what I believe is the influence of postmodernism.

You still have avoided my question, now asked three times: are you Orthodox or Catholic? Here again you claim to be a Catholic, but just a few days ago on another site you claimed to be an Eastern Orthodox Christian. You can’t simultaneously be both. Which is it, and why did you say contradictory things?

I just put up a new blog dialogue of our exchange, as I said I would.

***

Photo credit: VSRao (8-1-21) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

***

Summary: A traditionalist is most distressed & hurt by Pope Francis’ motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes. I argue that it was necessary & that he should not be so hurt by it. It won’t change much.

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