Hey, it wouldn’t be Christmas if the pope weren’t dogging trads, would it?
According to the AP: Francis appeared to also want to take broader aim at arch-conservatives and traditionalists who have become the pope’s biggest critics. Francis blasted their way of living the faith, insisting that being Catholic doesn’t mean following a never-changing set of dicta but is rather a “process of understanding Christ’s message that never ends, but constantly challenges us.”
“True heresy consists not only in preaching another gospel, as Saint Paul told us, but also in ceasing to translate its message into today’s languages and ways of thinking,” Francis said.
So the trads are heretical for attending Mass, raising their children in the faith, and donating to their parish? They’re heretical for believing what every Catholic was supposed to believe up to five minutes ago?
If I didn’t know any better, I’d start thinking that Pope Francis just didn’t like traditionalist Catholics.
December 22, 2022 at 12:37 pm
“…being Catholic doesn’t mean following a never-changing set of dicta…”
The difficulty with this phraseology is that while this can be true, it can also be completely untrue, depending on the content and source of the dicta in question. After all, a specific dictum of Jesus was to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Are we to infer from Francis’ comments here that this not a never-changing dictum and thus not something characteristic of one’s life as a Catholic?
This is also obviously a two-edged sword. If Catholicism isn’t about following a set of never-changing dicta, what are we to make of the dicta of the current pontificate? Why should not Traditionis Custodes, et al. be seen as just as liable to the same vague process of being challenged by Christ’s message? Or why should not VII be also liable to the same vague challenge?
“…but also in ceasing to translate its message into today’s languages and ways of thinking…”
I don’t know if those of Francis’ generation understand this, but their message is simply not one that either speaks to or is interesting to today’s ways of thinking, as is painfully evident by the continued mass exodus of people from the faith. I also don’t see why the constant harkening back to VII (or other such hobby horses) couldn’t be subject to the same critique (irrespective of whether it is accurate or not), or why those challenging it or its implementation or the liturgical reform or the confusing messaging of this pontificate etc. shouldn’t be charitably characterized as being involved in a “process of understanding Christ’s message that never ends, but constantly challenges us.”
One could also reasonably apply this critique to much of the current liturgical experience which seems in large part to be solidified in the amber of the 1970s. I guess one person’s current “ways of thinking” is another’s ossification.
December 22, 2022 at 4:45 pm
I am sure there are very rigid orthodox people, parishes, etc. But in my parish, there was a cluster of hysterical modernist women (yes, they were 55-70 years old…I said modernist) who overreacted to a post by our priest about veiling. The modernists have just as much of an unwelcoming and unChrist-like way of dealing with things they dislike. So I want to understand the double-standard, but all I can think is that the current pope is politicizing our faith rather than rising above it.
December 23, 2022 at 12:28 pm
In the 1973 made for T.V. movie Catholics, the Abbot (Trevor Howard) summed it up very well. “Yesterdays orthodoxy is today’s Heresy”.
December 23, 2022 at 1:07 pm
Its time for Vatican III. You gotta keep this process of re-understanding going. How can one council be expected to last 60 years? I must be born!
January 3, 2023 at 9:24 am
I hate to sound morbid, but their way of thinking is dying alongside them. It’s the last gasp of a failed generation. The flailing and lashing out of a desperate, dying generation who spewed errors.
Ironic Pope Francis talks about “changing” and “translation” of ideas and “challenge” when he is resisting those very same things.
I can only hope the next generation of priests and popes is firmer in their faith than these ones.