Guest-Post: George Weigel and the SSPX

George Weigel and the SPPX

by P.J. Smith

George Weigel, in his most recent column, has decided that the Holy See should not offer the Society of St. Pius X a personal prelature. It appears from statements by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Society, that a personal prelature is the current offer. More than that, it seems that the Holy See is not insisting on the Society’s submission to every jot and tittle of every document of the Second Vatican Council. This is wonderful news.

Many informed commentators noted that the 2012 negotiations between Rome and the Society were torpedoed at the last moment by the sudden insistence of the Roman authorities on such submission. Archbishop Pozzo has conceded in public interviews that there are levels of authority in the documents of that “pastoral council,” and that total assent may not be necessary. And Weigel is positively hysterical at the prospect.

What does it mean to be a "traditional Catholic"? Aren't all Catholics traditional?

a guest-post by Peter Kwasniewski PhD

Tradition means handing on something to someone
(Traditio of the keys to St. Peter - 12th Cent. manuscript, France)

It is sometimes asserted that traditional Catholicism is bound up with a prideful attitude—that it is impossible to profess traditionalism without being pharisaical. Some even object to the phrase “traditional Catholic,” as if it were redundant: Aren’t Catholics by definition adherents of Catholic tradition—and thus, any Roman Catholic has as much right to be called “traditional” as he has to be called “Roman”?

How nice it would be if this were true, but alas, it is far from being the case.

First, the psychology of the issue. There is a danger of pride or pharisaism in any possible true description of oneself: Christian, Catholic, Roman Catholic, traditionalist. To say “I am a Christian” is a genuine boast for St. Paul and for every martyr who has died for Jesus Christ, including the God-fearing victims of Islamic extremism in Syria and elsewhere. Are we to say that because someone might revel too much in the title of Christian and think himself better than his unbelieving neighbor, the very title ought to be abolished? One might just as well avoid baptism, which, thanks to no merits of our own, truly makes us better than we were before, and far better off than any unbeliever.

Tradition of goods and assets: a concept well established in Roman Law. 
"Traditio nihil amplius transferre debet vel potest ad eum qui accipit, 
quam est apud eum qui tradit." (Corpus Iuris Civilis, Dig., XLI)
(Justinian, Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna)

Or, to take up the charge of redundancy: “Catholic Christian” may seem like a triple redundancy, yet it is useful precisely because there are Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

“Traditional Catholic,” likewise, is no redundancy, because there are so many Catholics who are, intentionally or not, modernists in their thinking and their practices. In an ideal world, the Christian ought to be the Catholic, just as the Catholic ought to be traditional; but even as not every Christian is Catholic, not every Catholic is traditional in a meaningful sense of the word.

Pursuing this point, we would be deceiving ourselves if we did not recognize that it is quite possible today—in a startling and unprecedented way—for Catholics not to be traditional, not to be thinking and living in accordance with major elements of their 2,000-year tradition, such as asceticism, liturgical praxis, and adherence to orthodox doctrine. For the first time, we have seen the widespread acceptance of an interpretation of Catholicism that is anti-traditional, that considers itself free from tradition, free to reshape itself according to indeterminable “modern needs.” Apropos the concept of aggiornamento, Karl Barth apparently asked the Catholic Church this uncomfortable question in 1966: “When will you know if the Church is sufficiently updated?” This is the Achilles’ heel of every Weigel-style critique of traditional Catholicism: just like Bugnini in his liturgical reform, Weigel has to pick and choose what’s worth keeping and what ought to be discarded in his evangelical re-envisioning of the Church, as if he were standing outside of tradition, history, and papal teaching, standing over it rather than submitting to be formed, measured, and judged by all of it.

If there are dangers of pride in any state or way of life, there is no less a danger of being proud of one’s very open-mindedness, one’s freedom from ideology, one’s immunity to the error of judgmentalism, one’s superbly balanced apprehension of reality. One can be a Pharisee of open-mindedness, an ideologue of dialogue, a dogmatist about refusing to dogmatize. One can be simplistic by seeing everyone who takes a strong line as a simpleton.

The only one who can escape pride, judgmentalism, and ideology is the one who completely submits his mind to an objective external standard, one who submits his heart to another whom he loves without qualification. The traditional Catholic is one who says: There is such a standard, and it is Divine Revelation, communicated to us in Scripture and Tradition and guarded by the perennial Magisterium. He is one who says: There is such a beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom absolutely everything—all human actions and sufferings, all arts and sciences, all cultures and governments, cities and nations—must be intentionally and explicitly ordered if they are to achieve their God-given purpose. And when they are not so ordered, they are doomed, over time, to feebleness, perversion, anarchy, and suicide. The traditionalist can maintain these positions humbly because they are true, and it is the truth that sets us free from all sin, including the sin of pride.

Traditio means delivering something to someone
(St. Peter holding keys delivers Epistle to St. Silas from his Chair -
cf. I Pt 5:12 - 14th Cent. Bible, France)

The traditionalist desires to receive humbly what the Lord has given us, to open wide his heart to his blessed inheritance that is always so much greater than his own limited mind can comprehend, much less improve upon. The pridefulness of the modern(ist) Catholic consists in thinking himself superior to his Catholic inheritance—in a position, one might say, of “self-absorbed promethean neopelagian” creativity towards what has been devotedly handed down, century upon century. The judgmentalism of the modern Catholic can be seen in his dismissive attitude towards traditions and the traditionalist who loves them, whom he refuses to see as a lover of the full breadth and depth of Christ and of His Church, and whom he finds it easy to caricature as narrow-minded, rigid, joyless Pelagian, et cetera.

I am reminded in this connection of some pointed remarks by Cardinal Siri, published in the Rivista Diocesana Genovese in January 1975 (courtesy of Rorate):

Slogans abound, while catechism is not taught; “pastoral” is continually mentioned, while sacred ministries are gradually abandoned; there is talk of the Word of God—yet it is taught as if it were all a fairy tale. There are dissertations about closeness with God, while at the same time the Most Blessed Eucharist is mocked or ridiculed. At least in practice. And all of this is progress!

One might have thought, in recent years, that Catholics were at last beginning to escape the shadowlands of the seventies, leaving its pomps and works far behind. Alas, in the Church today we are seeing a renewed effort on the part of some to promote the same old postconciliar “progress” lamented by Cardinal Siri. We are being given as our “pastoral model” a modus operandi that originated in the secularizing confusion of the years immediately following the Council—a modus operandi that badly failed back then and will, by God’s justice, fail again and again, since it is anti-traditional in content, method, and goals.

Indeed, something worse has come upon us: a return to the open denigration, marginalization, and persecution of traditionalists. It is as if, in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, there were a new regime intent on reintroducing slavery or, at best, arranging strict segregation and second-class citizenship. In the realistic words of Don Ariel Levi di Gualdo:

We did have the Second Vatican Council, but, in practice, during the following years, we returned to the period that preceded the Council of Trent, with its corruption and alarming internal struggles for power. After abundant discourses ad nauseam about dialogue, collegiality—for nearly half a century now—new forms of clericalism and authoritarianism have emerged. The progressive champions of dialogue and collegiality use aggression and coercion against anyone who thinks outside of the “religiously correct.” (Don Ariel, cited at Rorate)

To return to our point of departure: in normal circumstances, “Catholic” should be equivalent with “traditional.” Today, it decisively does not mean that; indeed, with the infiltration of modernism into the highest echelons of the Church, it cannot mean that, for some individuals. And yet, since to be a Catholic is—and must always be—to adhere to the Tradition handed down to us from the saints and to honor and preserve Catholic traditions, it follows that an explicit or implicit adherence to Tradition is, in fact, necessary for salvation, whereas hating or despising Tradition is a sign of one’s intention to depart from the Church of Christ, as a result placing one’s soul in jeopardy. There is far more resting on this matter than a particular person’s preference or inclinations: the very salvation of souls is at stake. The joy of the Gospel is bound up with knowing the truth, confessing it in season and out of season, and clinging to it with the determination of love. May God preserve us from the false joys of this world and all of the new Gospels that clamor for acceptance.

[Images and captions chosen by NC for the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter.]

Apostolic Rivers flowing from the Heart of the Lordor George Weigel's small-mindedness

The three men in the furnace (Dn 3),
in the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome

In a new Americanist manifesto, George Weigel forges ahead against his favorite scapegoat:

"For the challenge now is to give America a new birth of freedom ... . This challenge will not be met by Catholic Lite. ... The challenge also won’t be met by Catholic traditionalists retreating into auto-constructed catacombs."

Now, it is almost "adorable" to watch men like Weigel seeing their life's work of a "new" kind of "Catholicism" (let us call it pseudo-Wojtylianism) dead and buried -- and so trying to ingratiate themselves with the new Roman order. In the new order of things, like roaches hit by insecticide, they do not know what to do, or where to go, or whom to ask for help. The easiest way out for them, of course, is to attack "Catholic traditionalists".

Weigel usually attacks us for our "Constantinian", "Triumphalist", heritage. Now, he also attacks us for "retreating into auto-constructed catacombs" -- catacombs being the epitome of the pre-Constantinian Church. For Weigel, cursed if you do, cursed if you don't, as long as you are a Traditionalist.

What Weigel sees as insults, though, we consider integral parts of our heritage. The image of "auto-constructed" as applied to a catacomb certainly sounded better and clearer in Weigel's mind than when printed out, as so much of what appears under his prolific but careless authorship. Yet we are joyful of being Catacombs and Constantinian, Medieval and Renaissance, Tridentine and Ultramontane: throw them at us, and we will accept them, because this is what being a Traditional Catholic means, that is, to love and to live the fruitful organic growth of our Catholic patrimony. 

We are not "to the right" of Weigel as he presumes in order to dwell in his own imagined "via media", but we remain above such concerns and epithets. We invite men like Weigel to stand back from the smallness and pettiness of the present moment and view with awe the greatness of the edifice that is the Catholic Church, that has outlasted and will outlast all worldly empires, including America, as incredible as it may seem. Yes, it is ironic that Weigel, of all people, accuses us of small-mindedness...

All parts of our Traditional heritage are precious to us, we do not disregard them because we cannot do so, bathed as they are in the apostolic rivers flowing directly from the Living Heart of the Lord. In the catacombs, our Dead who bequeathed us the treasures of Tradition await the resurrection, and so shall we, when all fads and politicking of the present time will give way to the Everlasting Jerusalem, under the sempiternal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Happy Sunday of Christ the King!

Neo-Triumphalism: George Weigel's Offenses Against Pious Ears

The latest article by Mr. Weigel in First Things is yet another in a series of articles wherein he touts the "triumphs" of Vatican II over the previous magisterium. This time, he does so by making fun of the former head of the Holy Office during the years before, during, and after the Council, His Eminence Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani.

And to what purpose? Mr. Weigel implicitly embraces a hermeneutic of rupture by suggesting that Dignitatis humanae deviates from the Church's long-standing teaching that error should not be allowed to flourish in society; indeed, his writing suggests the embracing of the modernist doctrines condemned by Pius IX, those doctrines of latitudinarianism and pluralism in society.

His argument could be expressed like this: a pre-conciliar ultra-conservative got utterly silenced during the Council on the issue of religious freedom. Having silenced the bad guy, allegedly the Church now claims that the state has no competence in restricting or promoting truth in religion (against the teaching of the entire tradition), and so therefore, there is a new theology of religious tolerance of persons, wherein one cannot be discriminated because of their abhorrent religious ideas, even if that means they believe, for instance, in mass suicides or terrorism in the name of religion-- they should still be respected and tolerated in society, because, well, we believe in tolerance.

The real purpose of the article is revealed when he tries to show the secularists taking up the "old teaching" of the Church, and in the name of secularism use a "no tolerance" policy to discriminate against religious groups. This is convenient for Weigel, because it shows that the old theology was in fact very bad, and vindicates the new theology for being so egalitarian.

However, there are not a few errors in Weigel's argument.

First, Weigel knows that the actual doctrinal teaching of the document is one of the most disputed of the Council, and a definitive interpretation has yet to be given. He therefore claims a particular interpretation, his interpretation, unsurprisingly one of rupture with the past, in order to demonstrate his point; namely, that Ottaviani, representative of tradition and the evil pre-conciliar days, paved the way for the persecution of the Church by the modern state that took up his outdated doctrines.

Further, he knows that the false interpretation of this document was one of the greatest catalysts in the Abp. Lefebvre affair, and so Mr. Weigel uses his column to claim a sort of triumphalism of the Spirit of Vatican II over those who would remain firmly attached to tradition or at least the "reform in continuity" as the hermeneutic for interpreting the documents of the Council -- including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. What he fails to do, however, is give the other side of the story, and that is that this program following a false interpretation of the Council has done nothing but diminish the Church's voice in the public sphere, resulting in an entire loss of Catholic identity, while at the same time not at all preventing the great persecutions of Catholics in the post-Conciliar age, including in our own days.

Finally, and this is perhaps the most truly grievous error, Mr. Weigel makes the mistake of placing on a similar level the teaching authority of the Church, who cannot err when teaching on matters of faith or morals, with the fallible judgments of those leaders in civil society (for instance, the promotion of Secularism). In doing so, his statements implicitly diminish the authority of the Church, and likens the claim that the Church has over the fullness of the truth to that of a modern, subjective State -- one whose "truth" is one among many, rooted in an arbitrary positivism or personal conviction of what one thinks is right or wrong, and without reference to an objective truth rooted in divine and natural law. Surely, more respect can be given for the authority of the Church, if not for one of her Princes.

In the future, it may help Mr. Weigel for him to begin with theology in order to correctly summarize events of the life of the Church in light of the truth of the matter, rather than in the light of political spectrums and intrigues, which, while perhaps may make for good journalism and great laughs, have no bearing on God's divine truth.

Herein lies the greatest difficulty of the neo-conservative position-- the true fruit of the nouvelle theologie of the mid-20th century: in the embracing of modern philosophies, one is no longer able to know anything with real certainty anymore. The faith becomes an entirely personal conviction devoid of an ecclesial dimension, and the law of non-contradiction becomes more of a guideline, rather than a logical premise. And people like Weigel, who think that they are holding a Catholic position and building up the faith by championing a program of modernizing the Church, in fact only succeed in leading people to error and confusion.

[Dominicus is a new contributor to Rorate Caeli, with posts of a more theological bent.]

[Image: Cardinal Ottaviani celebrates Mass on December 10, 1963, in the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto, Rome, for the Roman Union of Bakers - source: Biblioteche di Roma - Cinecittà Luce archives.]