The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Fear God and Dreadnaught versus
Brave New World
September 19, 2007


Action stations !	"Tiptoe through the tulips..."

Years ago I remember Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X discussing the classical formation of Catholic priests. He said they were meant to be battleships (like the old British Dreadnaughts so heavily fortified and bristling with firepower that those who sailed on them had nothing to fear hence their nickname: Dread - naught (or "nothing"). Why use the term a "battleship" for a Catholic priest ? In the old days they were so stuffed with proof texts against the errors of the world they could do battle with it. The same bishop used to say many times (feigning an American accent): "Amuricans are praaaactical !" and "Amuricans don't like ideas!" He would also tell us "Ideas have consequences!"

A couple of evenings ago a priest friend called me and we fell to discussing this very problem: namely that Trads in general don't seem to like ideas either. On a practical level my exercise of any ministry has only been in the United States so I cannot really speak for Trad laity elsewhere but I have an idea that the principle is probably applicable elsewhere if my surmise of earlier this year is correct - more on that later.

It seems to me with all the hoopla over the MP of late, that lay people think the battle has all been just about the Mass - the "Latin Mass". Cardinal Danneels of Belgium was far more accurate than most Trads when he objected not so much to the Motu train engine (i.e. the Tridentine Mass) as he did vehemently object to the Motu train carriages that follow the engine. What did he mean ? Well Vatican II was much more than a Council that authorized liturgical changes, it fundamentally altered the way the Church views her relationship with the world. Thus there are two views, the pre-conciliar one and the conciliar view. The carriages that Cardinal Danneels objects to are of course the pre-conciliar view of the world and the Church in the world.

Old View

The pre-conciliar view of the relationship between the Church and the world usually begins with the 1789 French revolution. Here the Church suffered her first real setback in the modern age. Until this point Christianity and Catholicism in particular held the ascendancy. The French revolution marks the entrance of the philosophical values of the Age of Enlightenment into the political sphere, more particularly the end of the age of Monarchism. In those parts of Europe that were still Catholic, Monarchy and Church often went hand-in-hand. Even in England, the Monarchy was still tied to an established church. Man no longer needed a despot (monarch or pope) to tell him how to live and what to think.

In the face of this new reality, Rome had a big problem: She was fighting a rear-guard action which militarily speaking means you're on the defensive (and usually on the run). Many of the major encyclicals of the 19th century decried the inroads of secularism into what had been previously Catholic culture. The Church suffered not just spiritual setbacks but also temporal ones as well viz. the loss of the Papal States and eventually the fall of Rome. After the loss of Rome the Pope became "the prisoner of the Vatican" a situation that endured from Blessed Pius IX until Pius XI.

To offset her temporal decline, one can see the Church struggling to re-assert herself with all sorts of condemnations such as the Syllabus of Errors, Quanta cura and especially with the proclamation of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council. Newman, although he supported the doctrine, like many of his time, questioned the oportuneness of this dogma. The encyclical Pascendi also finds itself in the same line, as does the encyclical of Pius XII Humani generis. Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, called this ecclesiastical posturing "ghetto church" (a church closed in on herself) very much a Church that needs to defend herself and hence the world of "battleship priests" to which we alluded above. The summit of this view of the Church is to be found in the notion that Christ is the Societal King of all Nations and ought to be recognized as such. Pius XI's encyclical Quas primas extols the idea that while secular and pagan nations (particularly former Catholic Europe) have abandoned the yoke of Christ, the Church seeks to return the world to the sweet dominion of Christ. I think the unwritten and implicit thrust of this whole cultus was not so much the return of Europe to Christ as an attempt by the Church to reassert papal authority such as it had been in the Middle Ages.

New View

At the Council a new spirit was in the air and Blessed John XXIII summed it up best in his opening speech. The Pope said that the Church would surrender none of her teachings but seek new ways to represent these truths without the spirit of excommunication and denunciation of the past. The Church would update herself in the way in which she dialoged (interacted) with the world. (The brave new world approach). Instead of a fortress or "ghetto" mentality, the Church would now accept that 1789 had razed the Catholic bastions of Europe, she would recognize the cultural and political environment of the modern age, she would come to terms that - what was once, was now no longer. Christ, the Church would admit, was no longer to be viewed as societal King of all Nations, the Church (a Trad might say) would effectively capitulate, sell out and compromise with the world.

On many levels this has certainly been the case, as Pope Benedict has himself affirmed. However, even in the world of ideals, does one not sometimes have to recognize that we are no longer where we would like to be and in an "Amurican" and pragmatic way work with the situation as we find now without any sell out of what the Church really believes ?

Take an analogy (and this one kind of limps) if you believe the horse and buggy days were the heyday of human forms of transportation are you prepared to sell your car ? A few days ago I was discussing this issue with Sister Mary Michaela and she made a remarkably apposite observation that gave me much food for thought: "If you really want to go back to the 'good 'ole days' then you will also need to take up the discipline and the hairshirt !" Yes, that's right - no compromisers allowed !

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