\u2026in the pages of the New York Times<\/em>, so they have officially hit the Big Time. Douthat, whose super-judicious and perceptive prudence about all things Catholic once moved him to write this encomium<\/a> to documented white supremacist and aspiring ethnic cleanser Stephen Miller<\/a>, is quoted and answered here<\/a>:<\/p>\n He mentions WPI while describing the second path forward:<\/p>\n \u201cAnother alternative is a conservatism that simply resolves the apparent conflict between tradition and papal power in favor of the latter, submitting its private judgment to papal authority in 19th-century style \u2014 even if that submission requires accepting shifts on sex, marriage, celibacy and other issues that look awfully like the sort of liberal Protestantism that the 19th-century popes opposed. This would be\u00a0a conservatism of structure more than doctrine<\/strong>, as suggested by the title of a website that champions its approach: \u2018Where Peter Is.\u2019\u00a0But it would still need, for its long-term coherence, an account of how doctrine can and cannot change beyond just papal fiat.<\/strong>\u00a0So it, too, awaits clarifications that this papacy has conspicuously not supplied.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n His description of our position is sadly inaccurate, but it is reassuring that he describes our approach as\u00a0\u201cconservative,\u201d rather than liberal, progressive, or modernist. Too often in recent years fidelity to the pope has been associated with a liberal agenda.<\/p>\n Our position is simply that Catholics are called to respond with docility and obedience to the ordinary Magisterium of the pope, regardless of who the pope is. Our position is that the Living Magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Scripture and Tradition in the Church. As the Catechism says:<\/p>\n \u2018The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.\u2019 This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome (CCC #85).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Douthat suggest that in order for the\u00a0Where Peter Is<\/em>\u00a0approach to be coherent, there needs to be \u201can account of how doctrine can and cannot change beyond just papal fiat.\u201d Such an account already exists, and it is called\u00a0the development of doctrine<\/em>. This is what we\u2019ve been asserting since the beginning: that the development of doctrine is sometimes more mysterious and often less predictable than the critics of Pope Francis would have you believe. Yes, there is continuity, and there are unchangeable truths, but the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church isn\u2019t something that we can predict or immediately comprehend.<\/p>\n If the Magisterium is the only authoritative interpreter of the Tradition, then it follows that the Magisterium that informs the faithful\u2019s understanding of Traditions. We should be\u00a0learning<\/em>\u00a0from\u00a0Laudato Si\u2019<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Amoris Laetitia<\/em>, not picking them apart and judging them against our ossified understanding of the Faith. Pope Saint Paul VI spoke of this in a 1976 letter to SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:<\/p>\n \u201cTradition is not a rigid and dead notion, a fact of a certain static sort which at a given moment of history blocks the life of this active organism which is the Church, that is, the mystical body of Christ.\u00a0It is up to the pope and to councils to exercise judgment in order to discern in the traditions of the Church that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit<\/strong>\u2014the deposit of faith\u2014and that which, on the contrary, can and must be adapted to facilitate the prayer and the mission of the Church throughout a variety of times and places, in order better to translate the divine message into the language of today and better to communicate it, without an unwarranted surrender of principles.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thus a development in doctrine is legitimate precisely because it is the Holy Spirit, through the Magisterium, that guides the Church in the development of doctrine. Popes do not rule by \u201cfiat.\u201d Rather, we as Catholics can trust that all magisterial teachings, are in continuity with Tradition.<\/p>\n We believe that Christ leads us to an always greater understanding of Himself by giving us the Holy Spirit who speaks through the living Magisterium. Stay close to the Pope and through him you will be led by the Spirit to the inexhaustible depths of Truth Himself.\u00a0Vatican News<\/a>\u00a0recently published an explanation of the development of doctrine that said:<\/p>\n \u201cCatholics should not only never be lacking in respect toward the Pope, but should love him as the Vicar of Christ. Fidelity to Jesus does not, therefore, mean being fixated on some text written at a given time in these two thousand years of history; rather, it is fidelity to His people, the people of God walking together toward Christ, united with His Vicar and with the Successors of the Apostles.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chesterton remarked that one of the things that struck him about the enemies of the Church was their odd habit of being so eager to contradict the Church that they did not mind contradicting themselves.\u00a0 I am reminded of it as the ongoing struggle of Reactionaries against the Holy Father stumbles on, saying anything that comes to hand just to complain and hoping any stigma will do to beat a dogma.<\/p>\n One complaint that gets bruited whenever there is a synod is the Reactionary gripe that \u201csynodality\u201d is \u201cliberal\u201d because God help us if those pagan Amazonians desperate for pastoral care and sacraments where currently virtually none are available should hit on the absolute novelty of ordaining married men (as the Church has literally done here and there since Simon Peter had a mother-in-law).\u00a0 \u201cThe Church is not a democracy!\u201d goes the shriek against a synod that at no point suggested the Church is a democracy.\u00a0 So the Reactionaries gripe that \u201csynodality\u201d is weak tea and we need a strong authoritarian Pope to set things to rights not knuckle under to the cries of brown Catholics in need.<\/p>\n But then they also claim that he is a \u201cdictator pope\u201d who rules by \u201cpapal fiat\u201d.\u00a0 It reminds me weirdly of this\u2013because Catholic Right Wing Media has, in fact, copied the same ceaseless, unflagging, relentlessly accusing, Panic du Jour technique that FOX and secular Right Wing Lie Machine talk radio have perfected to keep their low information audience angry, frightened, and ignorant:<\/p>\n