By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
“Peter said to Jesus, ‘Behold, we have left all and followed you; what then shall we have?’”
In a recent television interview the Pope named what he believes to be the biggest crisis facing the Church. No, it’s not found in the open schism in German where the “Synodal Way” has just called for blessing same-sex unions. No, it’s not found in France where Muslims are taking over Catholic churches for their false worship, including an incursion into the second largest church in Paris. No, it’s not plummeting priestly vocations. And it’s certainly not Catholic Charities receiving money from the Biden administration to traffic illegal immigrants throughout the United States.
It’s none of these things.
According to the Holy Father the biggest problem afflicting the Church is Catholics. The problem is practicing Catholics who need an attitude adjustment. In the interview Francis described the problem this way: “The biggest crisis facing the Church today is a worldly spirituality, which causes clericalism and a rigidity, an ideological rigidity which is opposed to the Gospel.”
The Pope here can only be talking about those inside the Church, about Catholics. Which Catholics? And why is he dividing the Church by means of his comments along lines of ideology and a supposed “rigidity”? What could his purpose be in judging some persons negatively in this way?
The rigidity of vague accusations that are weaponized against the traditions of the Church are worldly and should have no place in the Church. That the Pope is the source of these is a great crisis for the Church.
What is a “worldly spirituality”? Might it be the German synodal way, which seeks to accommodate a worldly and sinful mockery of marriage for that instituted by God? Might it be allowing Muslims to claim territory inside Catholic churches by means of their prayers? Might it be Catholic organizations taking government funds to break the law and traffic in illegals? We are left to guess.
The pattern of late has been one of breaking God’s laws with abandon, “making a mess,” through the legion examples of idolatry and official approbation of the violation of God’s laws with regard to marriage and the sacraments.
The pattern has been one in which “giving away the farm” is considered Christian and refusing to pawn off the perennial truths of Church moral teaching and preserving the traditions of worship is “rigid” and unloving. This has been a perversion of the very purpose of the Church herself.
Priests are ordained precisely to give up everything in preference to the Gospel. They interact with the people primarily through the worship of Holy Mass. They are called to be concerned thus primarily with offering the liturgy correctly and regularly. This is not worldly. It is the opposite, for the liturgy is the primary way in which He who has overcome the world strengthens and sanctifies His people in, but not of, the world.
The Gospel and the Tradition, through which Revelation comes, the manifestation of the Lord from outside the world, are the very mission and life of the Church. When the Church hands on Revelation it is the very opposite of worldly and rigid. Rigid means unbending. But through Revelation God bends down lovingly to mankind to save the world.
Despite this we are nagged constantly with the lie that clinging to the past is “ideological.” Clinging to the past and to what came before us is “rigid.”
In an inversion which accepts anything the world offers now in preference to what was handed down by the Church in the past, anti-life and Godless oligarchs and profit-hungry peddlers of abortion and infanticide are invited to the Vatican.
Meanwhile all over the world the true work of the Lord continues. Many Vatican II priests are learning the Traditional Mass and this is good. Some of these priests, in their haste to put Traditional Masses in place on weekly parish calendars, have not learned to offer it properly. The transition from the nearly rubric-free new Mass to the Traditional Latin Mass, which governs every action and posture, can be a difficult one to navigate, especially for priests who must still offer the new Mass on a daily basis.
However, there remains one troubling fact and this is the political bent in the priesthood in the postconciliar period. The innovations and in some cases the contradictions of the traditional Catholic faith that were introduced into the open by some who misused the documents of Vatican II caused a political rift in the Church between those who want the received truth exclusively and those willing to accommodate worldly innovations.
The Church’s long history teaches that the battle against heresy is a perennial feature, not a bug, in the arc of Revelation through time.
Ambition is a strong narcotic rendering many clerics completely and uncritically amenable to everything promoted as a postconciliar improvement. The primary means of promotion has been manipulation and emasculation of the liturgy for the sake of achieving rank in the hierarchy. It has become a loyalty test in some instances.
Men in the seminary quickly learn to avoid any interest in the liturgy for fear of being seen as suspiciously fussy. Latin, organ music, and Gregorian Chant, though specifically mentioned in the Vatican II documents themselves, must never be pursued as possibilities. Guitar often takes the place of historic instruments, because from such no negative conclusions can be drawn.
Pensions, health care, compensation financial and otherwise, are holding many conciliar priests back; they’re keeping their options open and they’re not willing to assess the facts as they stand. They fear being cast out with no pension or health care.
Very few priests have their own resources to fall back on should their bishops disown them.
The author of division, the Evil One, has thus scored a victory in his war against the Church and Christ which continues to cause great damage today. How many souls have been lost in the endless conflict between tradition and truth and the innovations based on contradictions of truth?
If there is any rigidity or worldly ideology, it is that which stands against the true purpose of the Church and the priesthood of Jesus Christ to sanctify and save souls. Jesus the Lord comes to us by means of grace through the sacraments and Tradition. Anyone who rejects these as rigid or worldly is no longer Christian.
“And Jesus said to them, ‘Amen I say to you that you who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, shall also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting’” (Matt. 19:27-29).
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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