We may see that attacks
against the Pope and the Church
do not only come from outside;
rather, the sufferings of the Church
come from inside the Church,
from the sin that exists in the Church.
This was always common knowledge,
but today we see it in truly terrifying form:
the greatest persecution of the Church
does not come from external enemies,
but is born of sin within the Church.
—POPE BENEDICT XVI,
interview on flight to Lisbon,
Portugal, May 12th, 2010
WITH a collapse of leadership in the Catholic Church and a progressive agenda emerging from Rome, more and more Catholics are fleeing their parishes to seek out “traditional” Masses and havens of orthodoxy.
In the process, however, some are falling into the traps of radical traditionalism, which is really Protestantism dressed up as Catholicity. As such, some are uncritically following the distorted arguments that disregard authentic movements of the Spirit in the Church, such as the Charismatic Renewal — which was birthed before the Blessed Sacrament — that have brought hundreds of millions of Catholics into a living relationship with their God and awakened their thirst for Scripture and the Eucharist. Moreover, some of these so-called “traditionalists” have adopted the mindset that “Vatican II” is the source of all our problems (without really explaining why) and shun an entire ecumenical council, which can be one the highest authoritative acts of the Church on earth: “Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held. This is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith” (Lumen Gentium 25).
These individuals have become, as it were, their own magisterium — which is really the mindset of Martin Luther and a subsequent train of schismatics.
I watched the following video this week and agree with every single word. In this calm, charitable, but direct rebuke of trending social media posts and “traditionalist” webcasts,
Watch:
Related Reading:
Read my seven-part series on the Charismatic Renewal and its roots in Scripture and Sacred Tradition: Charismatic?
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