As Geese in the Midst of Wolves

The passing of the pastoral torch at the local Tradistani parish has caused minor unrest among the flock. Thankfully the move had nothing to do with scandal. The outgoing pastor Fr. Smiles was a decent administrator and fund raiser. As a catechist and sermonizer he toed the FSSP line of neo-Thomism and Counter-Reformational priestly clericalism, in addition to his own peculiar ideas about the proper behavior of "traditional" laity. He was of great spiritual help to certain close friends of mine, so I have no wish to speak especially ill of him, but his ideals of total obedience to clerical authority and of silence concerning their known faults are disturbingly similar to the behaviors that allowed predators like Cdl. McCarrick and Rev. Maciel to flourish.

One thing I have noticed among Catholics discussing the #MeToo round of the sex abuse scandal is how exhausted people get after their initial flurry of indignant fund-witholding and commission-demanding. They want things back to normal. They want to be able to trust their priests and bishops again, by which they mean they want to revert back to the point where they do not have to think about how their pastor spends his personal time or about how the bishop allocates the diocese's charitable giving. They want to be unthinkingly passive and receptive to sermons and confessional advice.

The latest revision to the Catechism condemning the mortal execution of criminals is a red herring that well-meaning but unclever Catholics follow until the trail dead-ends far away from the real threat. One of the great improvements of Catholic morality upon even the best of pagan classicalism was the abhorrence of sodomy and of what we now call sexual grooming. Ancient Athenians and Spartans winked at such relationships, but until modern times one could not find a large contingent of Christians who would recommend anything but a severe punishment for a man who so destroyed the life of a child. Recent popes have made a show of punishing the clerics sloppy enough to get caught with a life of solitary reflection and supposed penance. The elimination of the ultimate punishment for worldly crime is timely, one might say. One thinks St. Gregory the Great would have hung these men by their own bowels from the Pons Fabricius as a warning for others.

Catholics comfort themselves with platitudes about the coming "conservative" generation of priests that will replace the white-haired perverts en masse, forgetting that each generation is chosen and formed by the previous. The unspoken desire is the desire to relax, to dissolve anxiety and simply be able to trust one's betters. How quickly we forget that eternal vigilance is the price of protecting the young from monsters.

But vigilance has its own price in a perpetual distrust of the clergy. Cynicism is difficult to avoid when one is always on the lookout for simonists and sodomites. Orthodoxy is difficult to maintain when one does not know if a Roman declaration is motivated entirely by politics and lacks the proper weight to require assent. Spiritual survival in the postconciliar reality requires courage, wit, and good humor more than it needs fear and hatred. The latter is easier to cultivate than the former. To laugh without bitterness is the quality of saints.

Giving and Taking Offense

Fr. Longenecker's latest complain-o-gram on Patheos includes a few noteworthy bits:

Traditionalist Catholics are constantly getting on their high horse. Then its the feminist and homosexualists who are stomping off in high dudgeon. Next it is the Liberals or the Eastern Orthodox or the Lutherans or the college students or the environmentalists.[...]

That’s why we have these college “safe spaces” and the fear of free speech–because other people’s truth is a threat and makes you feel bad.

The irony of criticizing safe spaces while shutting down his own comment box is almost too obvious to point out, but I cannot seem to help myself. Last year, "Fr. Dwight" was deeply offended by any objection to Mother Teresa's canonization, and he frequently displays the same thin skin as most Patheos/Aleteia/NCR/WordOnFire ephemerists. His casual calumnies of everyone who is not exactly him are too boorish to be attended in any great detail.

Still, the basic conceit of the article—that Catholics should grow a sense of humor and thick skin—is solid enough. It is no virtue to be quick to anger at every little thing, nor to be habituated towards emotional rather than intellectual arguments.

One simply wishes that the good padre would take his own advice.

In Persona Christi?

Maybe, maybe not.

The recent Good Friday article by His Traddiness reminded me of a theological question that has bothered me for a while. Namely, what is the history of the theology of Holy Orders in regards to the idea that the priest acts in persona Christi? (Of similar interest is the theology of the priest as alter Christus—"another Christ"—but this is more rarely found in writings on the priesthood.)

The phrase itself appears to be borrowed from St. Paul's second epistle to the Corinthians, wherein he writes, "I myself, wherever I have shewn indulgence, have done so in the person of Christ for your sakes" ("nam et ego quod donavi, si quid donavi, propter vos in persona Christi").

It appears in its more recognizable form in St. Thomas's Summa, where he distinguishes between Sacraments: some being effected in the person of the minister (e.g., "I baptize you..." or "I confirm you...") and others in the person of Christ (e.g., "I absolve you..." or "This is my Body..."). For Thomas, this appears to be a technical point concerning the meaning of the words effecting these Sacraments, rather than an observation on the effects of Holy Orders on ordained persons.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), though not quoting the council itself, says, "The priest is also one and the same, Christ the Lord; for the ministers who offer Sacrifice, consecrate the holy mysteries, not in their own person, but in that of Christ, as the words of consecration itself show, for the priest does not say: This is the body of Christ, but, This is my body; and thus, acting in the Person of Christ the Lord, he changes the substance of the bread and wine into the true substance of His body and blood." In this, the catechism is basically following Thomas.

Whereas previously the bishops held a special place as the ministers and missionaries of Christ, the Counter-Reformation seems to have gradually extended of this idea to all priests. St. Alphonsus Liguori (†1787), for instance, wrote tracts on the dignity of the priesthood, at one point opining, "For us it is enough to know that Jesus Christ has said that we should treat his priests as we would his own person."

Similarly, St. John Vianney (†1859) wrote, "After God, the priest is everything! Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is." Like sentiments are found in popular moral manuals and spiritual writings from the Counter-Reformation to the second Vatican Council.

The twentieth century saw an increase of exposition on the exaltation of priests. Even James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) famously depicts a priest trying to encourage the eponymous hero to pursue Holy Orders based on its magnificent dignity: "No angel or archangel in heaven, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, has the power of a priest of God: the power of the keys, the power to bind and to loose from sin, the power of exorcism, the power to cast out from the creatures of God the evil spirits that have power over them; the power, the authority, to make the great God of Heaven come down upon the altar and take the form of bread and wine."

P. Pius XII wrote in the encyclical Mediator Dei that "Christ is present at the august sacrifice of the altar both in the person of His minister and above all under the eucharistic species" and that priests "represent the person of Jesus Christ before their people."

The Vatican Council increased the danger of clericalism even while giving lip service to the importance of the laity. In Lumen Gentium, the council fathers wrote that the bishops "in an eminent and visible way sustain the roles of Christ Himself as Teacher, Shepherd and High Priest, and that they act in His person." Also that the priests "by reason of their sacred office represent the person of Christ."

In the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church, the phrase is mentioned three times (875, 1348, & 1548), albeit modified into, "in persona Christi capitis." The extension of the persona Christi theology goes even further in 1348: "It is in representing [Christ] that the bishop or priest acting in the person of Christ the head (in persona Christi capitis) presides over the assembly, speaks after the readings, receives the offerings, and says the Eucharistic Prayer." This is the first "official" suggestion that a Sunday sermon should be considered as being preached in the person of Christ.

In 2009, P. Benedict XVI issued a motu proprio in which he modified the Code of Canon Law to clarify that only bishops and priests act in the person of Christ, not deacons.

While I am no expert in the development of doctrine, it seems that the relatively modest proposal of Thomas Aquinas got quite out of hand by the 20th century. His theological writings on the words of consecration have also caused no end of consternation with the various eastern Churches. It seems clear at this point in time that they contributed very unfortunately to the culture of clericalism, the quasi-quietism that idolized obedience even for the common layman.

One might say that a bishop acts in the person of Christ much like an ambassador acts for his country: in an official capacity, but sometimes poorly representing the desires of his fatherland, and being occasionally the cause of international incidents. Indeed, the aforementioned Pauline epistle calls the apostles "ambassadors of Christ," but it seems that St. Thomas had a very different meaning in mind when opining on the effecting of Sacraments.

P. Benedict's legal clarification is welcome, but does little to undo the damage of excessive clericalist spirituality. The recent sex abuse crisis saw many priests manipulating young men by asserting their role as "another Christ," and by claiming that whatever they willed was therefore willed by God. This is an extreme example of clericalism gone wrong, but not an irrelevant one. When your local parish pastor starts asserting his authority as an alter Christus, even for silly things like liturgical preferences in the Pauline Novelty Mass, but especially for more serious matters like demanding complete obedience to all advice given in the confessional, one must wonder why.

An Episode in Clericalism

(Alfred Weber)

Location: Local Tradistani Parish

Occasion: Monthly Men’s Group Meeting During Lent

Mr. B: Any other suggestions for Lenten reading?

Mr. C: I haven’t had the time to read much, unfortunately.

Mr. J (Me): I’ve been reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. It was recommended by the pope! (Polite laughter from the others.) Augustine’s Confessions would make for good Lenten reading, I think.

Mr. B: Well, I have been reading this collection of devotions to St. Joseph. It has a lot of good prayers and novenas you can use.

Mr. J: (Twitching noises.)

Mr. D: Oh yeah, St. Joseph is great! He’s really helped me out with finding a job after I had to leave my last one.

Mr. B: There are some interesting biographical things about St. Joseph in here I had never heard of before. Like how he was from the royal line of David—

Mr. J: (More twitching noises.)

Mr. B: —and how he was actually pretty young when he and the Blessed Virgin were married.

Mr. J: Ahem. Actually, the oldest traditions about St. Joseph were that he was older and widowed at that time.

Mr. B: You know, that’s what I always thought. I don’t know where this writer got his information. He also says that there’s good reason to believe that Joseph was assumed bodily into Heaven, but I can’t figure out where he gets those beliefs.

Mr. J: They were made up in the late Middle Ages, just as the Renaissance was kicking in.

Mr. B: Huh. I was not aware of that. It’s good to know. Oh well, it’s still a decent book if you just stick to the prayers.

Mr. J: (Sigh of relief.)

Mr. D: We should definitely pray to St. Joseph. His intercession is very powerful.

Mr. B: No doubt. Well, unless anybody else has reading suggestions, I suppose we can break for toni—

(He is interrupted as Fr. M walks in. This is the first time Mr. J has ever seen one of the parish priests show up in a Men’s Group meeting.)

Fr. M: I hope I’m not interrupting. I thought I’d pop in since I was done with confessions.

Mr. B: Not at all, Father! We were just talking about reading suggestions for Lent.

Fr. M: Oh, you should all read about Fatima! We’re coming up on the centennial, after all. Our Lady has many important messages for our time.

Mr. B: I was also talking about this St. Joseph book I’ve been reading.

Fr. M: Oh, if you want to read about St. Joseph, you should read The Life and Glories of St. Joseph, by— oh, I can’t remember who the author is.

Mr. J: (Twitching noises.)

Fr. M: But you can find the whole thing online. Joseph is a great saint. He’s the patron of the universal Church! The Life and Glories has lots of great information about St. Joseph, and all the wonderful graces given to him in accordance with his state in life.

Mr. B: Wow, I’ll have to get my hands on that.

Fr. M: You should! It’s very well researched, with many quotes from the Doctors and Fathers of the Church. He even received the grace of sinlessness and of being assumed bodily into Heaven with Our Lady!

Mr. J: I’ve read a lot of Mr. Healey’s book. I can’t say I was very impressed with his scholarship. In fact, he includes some patristic quotes nobody has ever been able to verify.

Fr. M: Oh, I don’t know. He quotes many Doctors of the Church, including St. Francis de Sales!

Mr. B: Well, if it’s online, I’ll have to find it. Maybe we’ll talk about that book in the next meeting.

Fr. M: Oh, that would be wonderful.

Mr. B: All right, let’s break for tonight. Have a good rest of Lent, everybody.

Mr. J: (The twitching noises become eerily calm.)

"Idolatry and Divination"?

Our traddiest readers will probably already be aware of the recent radio talk given by the Elderly Gentleman from Argentina, concerning the relationship of disobedience (and "cling[ing] to what has always been done") to idolatry and divination. One might be tempted to consider this yet another example of the modernist's misuse of scripture and doctrine to support whatever program is needing to be pushed.

But it is not only modernists who abuse 1 Sam. xv.23. The bishop of Rome's off-the-cuff remarks remind me very much of a sermon heard last year in a Tradistani parish, regarding the (ahem) sin of disobeying the parish's dress code:



Clericalism is alive and well, and when clergy start accusing those who aren't following their every personal rule of witchcraft and idolatry, it might be because they feel the walls closing in.

The Ultramontanist Debt to Luther

Martin Luther Publicly Burning the Papal Bull

“So one is the Abraham who believes, one is the Abraham who works; one is the Christ who redeems, one is the Christ who works… distinguish between these two things as between heaven and earth.” —Fr. Martin Luther

It’s not a well publicized fact that Martin Luther hated St. Augustine and his theology. Those who study Fr. Luther’s personal copies of Augustine’s works against the Manichees have discovered that the mad Augustinian monk wrote glosses in the margins defending that ancient heretical sect against their defector’s attacks. Luther the dualist believed there were deep divisions within the life of the Trinity itself—especially during the suffering of the Crucifixion—but he also ascribed similar divisions to the human person.

How did these manifest? Mostly in the distinction between Man the Sinner and Man the Justified. Every fallen man was, to use his own word image, a pile of feces. Justification fell from Heaven upon said pile of feces like a thick layer of snow, lying over but never transforming the filth beneath. The “saved” man thus has two identities: Sinner and Justified, and never the two will merge. This is in contrast to the metaphorical Old Man and New Man of St. Paul’s theology, who represent one’s worldly and spiritual natures, and who both wish to make the Christian into the image of himself.

It is an identity crisis not unlike that posited by the ancient Greek myth of Heracles, for the son of Zeus was also the son of the mortal woman Alcmene, and he possessed two natures. When he died, burned alive on his own funeral pyre, his divine part flew upwards to Olympus, while his human part sunk down into Hades. His human soul, or shade, yearned forever for its divine counterpart; his divine self, one assumes, happily could not have cared less about the human.

Odysseus Meeting the Shade of Heracles

In like manner, Luther saw the human person as a sort of vessel for hellish and heavenly parts, neither of which could truly transform the other. Since justification sits upon the sinner like a blanket of snow, is it only the snow that is saved? One wonders what happens to Man the Sinner at the moment of death while Man the Justified is swept up into Heaven. Is the former annihilated? Used as compost? Damned, and forever yearning for the cool snow?

Dualist that he was, Fr. Luther was comfortable accepting this contradiction. Quasi-Lutherans that they are, ultramontanists are comfortable accepting a sharp, irrational dualism in the papacy.

This expresses itself especially in their attitudes towards the Bishop of Rome. Believing him (quite rightly) to be the Vicar of Christ and head of the visible Church, the Catholic ultramontanist habitually holds a sharp division between, say, John Paul the Pope and John Paul the Man. John Paul the Pope can do no wrong, and every word and action must be piously praised as coming from the Holy Ghost himself. John Paul the Man is either non-existent (having been destroyed by his elevation to the papacy) or a kind of doppelgänger that emerges when John Paul the Pope slumbers. When a papal Mass is adorned with topless natives or the man in white kisses a Koran in full view of a camera, those faults are either maniacally ignored, or they actually insist that these evil actions are praiseworthy, and that we are simply too sinful to see their merits.

Similar breaks with reality occur concerning other members of the clerical class: laymen defending pederastic priests, priests defending heretical bishops, bishops defending mad cardinals, and so forth. Clericalism is a form of dualism in which Fr. Sinner is covered in the snowy mantle of Fr. Justified—and who are you to judge when he falls?

The Sacrament of Holy Orders imprints an indelible spiritual mark on the soul, bestowing the powers to consecrate, offer sacrifice, and forgive sins. This sacrament is not, however, a magical fluffy layer of snow that makes a priest’s feces stop stinking.

Luther himself was a clericalist, returning from Rome scandalized by the excesses of the Roman clergy and full of zeal to denounce them. He was scrupulous about his own sins after he was ordained a priest, since he did not think himself worthy of the priesthood. He was so obsessed by his own unworthiness that he was nearly unable to finish saying his first Mass, much to the embarrassment of his father.

The general attitude of pre-Reformation Catholics can best be described as one of holy resignation to clerical vice. Whether they had to suffer the keeping of concubines, the buying and selling of offices, the thieving of tithes to live in exorbitance, or even outright perversities, the laity’s reaction to wicked priests was to express their disgust and move on with life. They understood and readily admitted that bishops who murdered others for their own gain were on a steep slope to Hell, and this understanding granted them a measure of peace.

Surely it can do the same for us.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

"Theaters are the new church of the masses – where people sit huddled in the dark listening to people in the light tell them what it is to be human." —1930's theater critic

The recent desecration of St. Peter's Basilica has proven to be quite the conversation starter. His Traddiness and I discussed the violent reaction this would have induced in the Catholic Romans of olden times—a new pope would need to have been elected soon thereafter—and I heard a sermon on Gaudete Sunday where the priest took the opportunity to chastise the faithful for allowing such sacrilege to make them unjoyful. Meanwhile, Mark Shea and other lukewarm hissyfitters are scourging anyone who points out the obvious about their precious Padre Jorge.

It's a demoralizing situation. The liberal Catholics who operated quietly (but freely) under Wojtyła and more surreptitiously under Ratzinger are now parading openly through the streets, waving prismatic flags and wearing tee shirts with peace signs as they make war against God. The Holy Trinity laughs at the Gentiles as they rage, but in the mean time we suffer under the weight of the yoke of their iniquities.

The Year of Mercy has turned into an orgy of indulgence, pejoratively speaking. Annulments are to be handed out for everyone, homewreckers are encouraged to desecrate the Lord's Body, and soon outright perverts will march up demanding the right to desecration. The façade of St. Peter's has been transformed into a projection screen for an anti-human environmentalist show, so how long will it be until Papa Franky removes the statues of the apostles and replaces them with carvings of endangered beasts?

"A people that continually provoke me to anger: these shall be smoke in my anger, a fire burning all the day." (Isa. 65)

"Monkey see, monkey do," was the old adage used to insult passive yes-men who facilitated the worst ideas of their leaders, never thinking twice about the consequences nor worrying to compare them against the eternal Ideas. These Monkey Catholics were anti-modernists under Pius IX, liturgical inventors under Pius XII, natural family planners under Paul VI, hermeneutical continuitists under Benedict XVI, and climate change believers under Francis I. What will they be under John Paul III, Koran-kissers? The Devil is God's ape, and today's ultramontanists are aping being Catholic. One wonders if the post-modern obsession with "authenticity" is due to this generation's inability to be clearly one thing, whether it be good or evil.

"See no evil, hear no evil," is another relevant monkey-related adage. What could it possibly take to infuriate the ultramontanists into action? Allowing pagans to desecrate Catholic churches with their perfidious ceremonies didn't do it. Watching prelates receive blessings from heathen priestesses didn't, either. We shouldn't be surprised if atheists are soon invited to preach from our cathedral pulpits. After all, we need to learn how to listen better!

Fiat Lux, indeed—"Woe to you that put darkness for light, and light for darkness." Now there is no virtue but leniency, and no vice but criticizing the pope. God help us.

"It shall no more be inhabited for ever. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there." (Isa. 13)