A reader writes…

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 2:42 pm by Mark Shea

A reader writes… 2014-12-30T14:42:46-07:00 Mark Shea

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Have you ever noticed that there is this very vocal tradical misconception that the abuse crisis is a “new” church thing? And that somehow it does not affect traditionalist orders…. Well, my father sent me this article because he lives in the Scranton area of Pennsylvania, and it touches the SSPX, FSSP and SSJ in the sordid history of the traditional St. Gregory’s Academy.

However, when the school closed, Rorate Caeli towed the official line given by the FSSP with no mention of the liability the school had become or the crisis.

Apparently, some tradicals don’t consider it a matter of justice to print the truth, and it is because they have built up this myth that the abuse crisis was not their problem.

I apologize for the nature of the email, but it angers me because this subterfuge has already hurt the church, we don’t need more secrecy, we need the light of day. I have spent a lot of time and money promoting the TLM and tradition, and I am forced to sit back and reevaluate exactly what I am promoting. After reading about this abuse, and after years of reading an unchecked flood of poisonous comments and reactionary posts on Rorate Caeli toward Rome and VII, I have to wonder… am I hurting the Church? As much as there exists a false spirit of VII that is repugnant, there also exists a false spirit of traditionalism that is equally repugnant and destructive. Unfortunately, while the false spirit of VII is in decline, the false spirit of traditionalism is not.

Yeah. It’s a cherished myth with a lot of Reactionaries that everything was great before the Council, that everything that’s wrong is due to a) the Council, b) Garrulous Karolus the Koran Kisser; c) damn libruls; d) Jews; e) Masons; and e) anybody who is critical of the widespread Traditionalist culture of pharisaic, paranoid, anti-semitic, conspiracy-mongering Inquisitorial lovelessness and pride. So they spend an inordinate amount of time doing things like spitting on the graves of good, holy and devout men who were same sex attracted and chaste, all while turning a blind eye to problems in their own spiritually superior subculture. Hard to be holier than thou if you admit that your gang are as prey to unholiness as the rest of us slobs. There are a growing number of people like my reader who admire the goals the TLM crowd but who are coming to the conclusion that they are often the absolute worst enemies of the Benedictine reforms on planet earth due to the sheer ugliness and bitterness of their spiritual fruit.

Traditionalists love to brag about being “deep in history”. In fact, an awful lot of them are shallow in history, particularly when it comes to moral theology. They adopt a thoroughly American Calvinist attitude toward concupiscence on selected subjects, notably pelvic issues, and acutely on homosexuality. Actual Catholic teaching on temptation is this:

1263 By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.

1264 Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, “the tinder for sin” (fomes peccati); since concupiscence “is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.” Indeed, “an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.”

So, for instance, a gay man who remains chaste is not guilty of any sin and should, in fact, be commended for his virtue on the field of moral combat with temptation.

But for a Calvinized Catholic like the Trads at Rorate Coeli, mere temptation is already sin. There’s no mercy for you if you are a gay man, even if you are faithful to the Church’s teaching. And God help you if you struggle and fail. That just *proves* you are a fifth columnist and a cancer in the body of Christ, not a sinner needing grace and mercy like the rest of us.

Given that merciless and toxic attitude, it’s no huge wonder that they simply turn a blind eye to the occurrence of homosexual sin (and homosexuals) in their ranks. There is, in their theology, no place at all for people who struggle with this particular form of concupiscence.

But they’re still there and they still need grace and mercy. Actual Catholic faith offers that. The cartoonish parody of Catholic faith that is the Reactionary Catholic subculture: not so much (though, of course, there are people in the Traditionalist subculture who are not like this).

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