Thanks to the generosity of Pope Benedict, the traditionalist cause is making great gains in the Church. The lifting of the censures on the bishops of the SSPX has opened a discussion within the Church, and Traditionalists are eager to defend the Faith with renewed vigor.
A recent defense comes from Chris Ferrara, author of The Great Façade, an excellent analysis of post-conciliar novelties. Entitled Neo-Catholic Blues, Chris makes short work of the usual anti-traditionalist fare, a task he compares to "shooting parked cars." Included below are some excerpts from his article.
(Posted 02/25/09 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) Shortly after I responded to Phillip Lawler’s piece on the catholicculture.org website concerning the alleged (but never specified) doctrinal infidelities of Roman Catholic traditionalists, a Remnant reader alerted me to a piece published two days later on the same website by Jeffrey Mirus, who apparently operates the site.
...Refuting Mirus’ inane commentary is about as difficult as shooting parked cars, but the exercise is nonetheless necessary. As Mike Matt quipped in a conversation about this essay, “the parked cars are in the middle of the freeway.” That is, neo-Catholic commentators are still doing their best to impede advancement of the traditionalist cause, which is simply the cause of restoring the Church to her condition before the post-conciliar “reforms” inflicted their devastation.
...As to Catholic doctrine below the level of defined dogma, traditionalists do not “prefer” some Magisterial statements over others. That accusation is just plain silly. In fact, traditionalists assert precisely the opposite: that one must not prefer some Magisterial statements over others. In particular, one must not do what neo-Catholics do, along with Modernists: give overriding importance to the teachings of Vatican II merely because of their recency.
...Thus, ironically enough, it is really the traditionalists who adhere to a hermeneutic of continuity, refusing to concede that any constant teaching or defined dogma of the Church could have been “repealed,” “overruled,” “revised” or “deepened” by Vatican II or the conciliar Popes in a way that would alter its previous understanding, for if that could happen then the Magisterium would be an uncertain trumpet and Christ would be a liar.
...In 1988 Cardinal Ratzinger, addressing precisely the objections raised by traditionalists, told the Bishops of Chile that “The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council…”
...But what Mirus and those who think like him really condemn in traditionalists is not any dissent from doctrine, but rather their refusal to adopt his own progressive attitude of accepting and defending patently ruinous ecclesial innovations to which no Catholic was ever obliged to adhere in the first place. Indeed, by “liberating” the Latin Mass from a “prohibition” that never existed, and by lifting the excommunications of the SSPX bishops, the Pope has sent the message that Vatican II does not require Catholics to believe or to do a single thing they had not believed or done before the Council.
Just take a minor look at the fruits of VCII; they are dry and putrid. What are the gains of our Church regarding the mandates of "Ecumenism?" Only offenses from the part of our suposedly brothers; not to mention from the side of the Jews religion. This "older brothers" as the pope JPII used to call them, are always on the attack against the decisions of our pope, as if they were part of PBC. Added to this intrigue, they want to put the holocaust on top of the Divine Holocaust; it is my opinion that, one day, not far away, that pretention would be the "Abomination of the desolation" predicted by the prophet Daniel. Think about it for a momment.
Thanks Rodolfo. That is a very interesting interpretation of the abomination of desolation. Two other interpretations I've heard are birth control (NFP) and the Novus Ordo Mass.
Help me with your abbreviation: PBC?