Wednesday 26 February 2014

Highlight: Dave Armstrong Defends Benedict XVI and his Reform of the Reform Spledidly from TBBs and Naysayers

Hello Everyone.

So, the next, fad for the Trads Behaving Badly (TBBs), and additionally from some new allies, the "naysayers" (who are not necessarily TBBs, more just giving more ammunition to validate the TBBs in their minds), is to say "The Reform of the Reform" touted by Pope Benedict XVI, is DEAD.

Well, Dave Armstrong, one of the best modern Catholic Apologists on the Internet, who has done frequent work with North America's Catholic Answers in past, has decided to critically examine the TBBs/naysayers' latest attack from the right, and to speak with the mind of the Church and defend it.

Please see these postings to dispel the latest shenanigans of the TBB side:

Part One & Part Two.

Pax, Julian.

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Wow ... Maybe Someone Should Tell Jimmy Fallon about the Latin Mass

Well, you'd think everyone in show business is Anti-Catholic. Turns our Mr. Fallon who's now leaving his talk show, actually was inspired to become a priest once. In the NPR Fresh Air interview he did recently, he went on about his Catholic upbringing. Two really cool gems came out of that to me:

First from the interviewer, Gross:  "GROSS: And there are comparisons, I think, between a theater and a church. They are just, kind of, places that are separated from outside reality."

Second, from Jimmy Fallon about when he tried to return to the Church, and the "horrors" he encountered in coming to Mass in L.A. (no surprise there if any of you have Googled the notorious Catholic education conference held there annually):

"GROSS: Do you still go to church?

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that. You know, I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Mr. FALLON: Now, I’m holding hand – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba.

(Laughter)

Mr. FALLON: I’m holding them (Singing) ha nah hey nah ho.

(Speaking) I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

Seriously? Why hasn't Mr. Fallon searched the internet for "traditional Catholic Mass?" We got your solution for you Jimmy Boy! Come on down to the Mass Mass of All Ages! No gimmicks, just a priest, Christ, some good ol' boys in surplice and cassocks, and Heaven and Earth co-mingling in the Sacrifice of All Time! Someone, get word of the Latin Mass to him pronto!!!!

Pax, Julian. 

Monday 17 February 2014

Hypocrisy on the Catholic Trad Blogosphere

Hey Everyone,

Lately there hasn't been motivation in my life until today to blog, but I got something finally. On one of the blogs I monitor, there was a post about how returning to the traditions of 1950's Catholicism is not going to solve the "crisis of the Church."

It is not the argument itself and the content of the post I disagree with. However, I am disagreeing more with one thing that is underlying the whole of it and other bloggers on the internet with the Catholic Trad-o-sphere: Hypocrisy.

What upsets me is that these bloggers and/or their blogs are of a hypocritical nature and a severe lack of Charity within the Church. On the one hand, being ones with authors who represent, or blogs that are about Traditional Catholicism, they write defamatory and negatively critical posts about any number of things: The local chancery office/(Arch)diocesan office, the lead bishop, our current Pope, those "cross-dressing" girls in the sanctuary at your local 8am Mass, defame and slander people like myself online who don't follow their rhetoric, etc., in addition to their behaviour outside of the blogosphere in the trad communities, all the while being its unofficial mouthpieces.

On the other hand, they then turn face and decide to praise Pope Francis despite the known trad attitude is one of distrust due not being Benedict XVI with regard to the Liturgy and the things he has said, decide to criticize their own kind and say, in essence "Radical Traditionalism" is bad, and even say that 50's Traditionalism is not the solution.

Yet if one scans their overall body of work, in archives (if they haven't maliciously edited their posts or deleted them,) these actions are clearly face-value actions which mask their overall true attitude, of which theirs is truly that of Trads Behaving Badly, an attitude that one should avoid. Even more deceptive, some of these bloggers do not identify themselves and cower behind pseudo-names to give them a cover when they spew this vile poison on the Internet.

To me, the best action that should be taken in Traditional Catholicism/Latin Mass communities, would be to stop supporting communities financially with known members exhibiting such behaviour, to complain to the priests of such communities about their behaviour online/in person, to also move to communities with positive environments and an intolerance for ``Trad Behaving Badly``behaviour, to respectfully challenge these bloggers and commentators online about what they write, and for the bloggers themselves to STOP blogging period. I doubt the last item will happen as they tend to be a stubborn lot, thinking you are part of the "Novus Ordo" Church wanting to suppress them and further the Crisis of the Church.

I`ll be honest, I haven`t been at the Latin Mass as of late. A good part of it is my current work and Novus Ordo parish responsibilities. However, the current online environment in Traditionalism AND knowing some of the more TBB types attend at my closest Latin Mass parish, has also discouraged me from wanting to be as active as I once was, and I really don`t want to go to a Latin Mass without my friends or if I am serving with my local TLM choir.

That is a load off my chest. Pax Tibi Christi, Julian.

P.S. Angry at me? Go spew your venom on your own blog. It's a free country for now on the Internet so go muck up your own backyard.


Sunday 2 February 2014

Rorate Caeli Attacks their "Hero", Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI? More Context is Needed ....

Hello Everyone

I just caught something weird right now in my blogger feed, from Rorate Caeli. The title of the article is "She wanted to convert. But she listened to Cardinal Ratzinger and died a Lutheran." (with hyperlink attached).

The summary I can draw out of this, is that this woman named Sigrid Spath, was a translator for a number of Pope Benedict XVI`s documents from Italian into the language of his heritage, German, while he was the prefect for the CDF in Rome. She was told to remain a protestant to be of better service to the Church.

WHAT????? Something smells like rotten fish here, because Rorate Caeli is supposed to be "Trad" as it were, and Benedict XVI is so revered because of Summorum Pontificum and Ecclesiae Unitatem in Trad culture. Why would Rorate post this if Benedict XVI is supposed to be one of the heroes of Traditional Catholicism for his Latin Mass documents?

On the one hand, I will re-quote another Blogger's analysis of Rorate Caeli, "Spike is Best" which I put in my last couple of posts, which summarizes well their stance on Church issues and their "authority" in the Church:
"And just a friendly neighbourhood reminder: Rorate Caeli is the schismatic-but-without-the-guts-of-declaring-it blog that on the very heels - within minutes in fact - of the public declaration of the election of Pope Francis posted "The Horror" as their reaction, and did not offer any sort of apology stating their filial obedience to the Holy Pontiff. Thus, everything they post, write, disseminate, can be dismissed out of hand without second thought whatsoever, in the full comfortable knowledge that the neo-orthodoxy which they present is entirely floated."

On the other hand, this doesn't make sense! Why would a blog that necessitates adherence to these traditional heroes as it were, attack its own? There MUST be something more to this than a senseless attack on Benedict XVI by his own "party" as it were (traditional Catholics). Something has to clarify what this is all about!

So I must ask the question, what's going on here? Is there more to this story about this translator NOT becoming a Catholic at the advice of our living Pope Emeritus??? If anyone has anything SENSIBLE and not laced with TBB vitriol to add, please do share. Just be advised there are certain people whose comments will NOT be published here, even if they are valid. So don't try it, and follow my blog rules (see September 2012).

Pax, Julian.