Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

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Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Progressivists Promote Anti-Clericalism in the Church
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

History has shown on a world wide scale that whenever and wherever anti-clericalism arrives on the scene, by its nature it cannot remain peaceful. Priests have always been persecuted by the enemies of the Catholic Faith simply for being priests; now they are being denounced and punished by their own Catholic leaders for being too Catholic. This is where the term “Clericalism” applies in the context of the “new theology” of Vatican II.

Progressivists ridicule the words of Pope St. Pius X

If a priest is declared guilty of “Clericalism” by virtue of his immutable characteristics and fidelity to Tradition, he can never, in the eyes of the progressivists, plead innocence. His adherence to the Catholic Faith as it was formulated at the Council of Trent is enough to damn him in the judgment of the neo-Modernists who have been working to change the essentially sacrificial role of the priest and turn him into one who presides over the assembly.

Proof of this is amply supplied in the following opinions expressed by prominent members of the Liberal Establishment which display two major features. First, what strikes us in these quotes is that the traditional Catholic priest, i.e. one who opposes the progressive agenda of the reformers, is always singled out for prejudicial treatment – as a “toxic”, “evil”, “destructive”, “sinful”, “misogynist” and “oppressive” influence in the Church.

Second, we cannot fail to notice that the theme of class domination runs through all these accusations like a Marxist leitmotif, leading to calls for structural change in the Church to root out clerical “elitism” and give free rein to the laity. Some examples will illustrate the point.


Fr. Donal O’Sullivan CSSp

In 1988, Fr. Donal O’Sullivan, an Irish Spiritan, who was once Assistant to the General Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Africa from 1968-1974, (1) published a tirade against “Clericalism” entitled ‘The Clergy-Laity Problem.’ The main thrust of the article was an attack on the hierarchical structure of the Church, and was expressed in harsh, even vituperative tones, of which this excerpt is an example:

“The passivity of the laity is the product of the clerical structure of the Church. The laity who are numerically much the greater part of the Church are in fact a minor element in it. Their status is one of dependence on the clergy … The clergy dominate the consciences of the laity … priests who overemphasize the moral law and interpret it rigidly. Priests can cramp people’s moral judgement and violate the autonomy of their consciences.” (2)

Holy Ghost Fr. O'Sullivan deplores the Order's sound missionary work with the Igbo tribe in Nigeria

So there we have the catalyst for all Marxist-inspired revolutions: the masses are oppressed by a few power-holders and need to break free from their shackles of dependence. Their “passivity” in this respect is equivalent to Marx’s “opium of the people”.

Fr O’Sullivan was a loyal supporter of Vatican II reforms, particularly its new theology of the Missions. In 2007, he published a book with the revelatory title: Converting the Converter: African Spirituality Inspires an Irish Missionary. (3) In the Introduction, he shows how Vatican II helped him rethink his faith in 1965 when it told missionaries to respect the ancestral religions of those whom they sought to evangelise.

In particular, he deplores the missionary activities of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Nigeria among the Igbo tribe for attempting to instruct them in tradition Catholic doctrine:

“In attempting to teach the Igbos that there was only one God who gave life to all the tribes and nations of the earth, we missionaries altered their faith relationship with that God…it contradicted the core element of their beliefs”. (4)

Like all anti-clerical revolutionaries, Fr O’Sullivan disparaged the priesthood in order to incite outrage and revolt against it. According to the Generalate Register of his Order, he left the Congregation in 2000.


Dr. Paul Lakeland, ex-Jesuit

Dr. Lakeland, of Fairfield University in Connecticut, who left the priesthood to marry, claimed that the Catholic laity are the victims of “structural oppression” (5) caused by collective clericalism operating within the “power pyramid” system.

Ex-Jesuit Lakeland: 'The baptismal priesthood is the default position'

He shared the Modernist belief that the “baptismal priesthood is the default position” and the “ministerial priesthood is distinguished by the charism of leadership more than by the power of orders.”

He believed that any lay person can perform the leadership role of an ordained priest. To make his point more explicit, Lakeland ridiculed the doctrine that an indelible character is conferred on a priest at the moment of ordination, charging that this “theology is not helpful and lies at the heart of the ills of clericalism.” (6)


Fr. Paul Philibert OP

Fr. Philibert, a noted Dominican theologian and follower of Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar, wrote that the Church must combat “the clericalizing tendencies of the ministerial elites.” (7) The irony of this statement must not be overlooked. While Vatican II rejected any association with the “Church Militant,” it clearly fostered a combative approach among the reformers to changing institutional structures.


Fr. Thomas Doyle

Fr. Doyle spoke in similar vein when he mentioned the existence of “a clerical aristocracy” in the Church which, he said, needed to be challenged:

“We all know what clericalism is. It is a disease. It is a virus the Catholic Church has, which means the clergy and the clerical way of life, and its values, come before anything. (8)

Fr Doyle: 'We must challenge the clerical aristocracy in the Church'

Fr Doyle achieved public sympathy for his defence of victims of clerical abuse, but his work in this area was a cover for his radical aim to destroy the institutional structures of the Church. His CV (available online) contains the whole panoply of his anti-Catholic activities and shows the Marxist-Leninist nature of his academic dissertations: ‘Vladimir Lenin’s Theory of Social Revolution’ and ‘Liberation Theology in the Context of Social Needs in South America.’

Fr. Doyle also wrote Comrades in Revolution: Christian-Marxist Dialogue, (9) in which he argues for a “revolution from below” against “institutionalized” Christianity.


Fr. Donald Cozzens

Fr. Cozzens, a theology professor at John Carroll University, describes clericalism as “an attitude found in many clergy who put their status as priests and bishops above their status as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Fr. Cozzens  accuses priests of mental disturbance due to thier sense of  'privilege & entitlement'

For those who may be puzzled by the meaning of this statement – unheard of before Vatican II – it is a common trope among theological neo-Modernists who prioritize Baptism over Ordination as the source of governing power in the Church.

Fr Cozzens revealed that his analysis of the priesthood was derived from the “perspective of Freudian and Jungian psychology,” (10) and came to the conclusion that priests who hold their ordination in high regard are psychologically unbalanced:

“In doing so, a sense of privilege and entitlement emerges in their individual and collective psyche. This, in turn, breeds a corps of ecclesiastical elites who think they’re unlike the rest of the faithful.” (11)

But their “privilege and entitlement” are objectively grounded in the powers of the priesthood conferred on them at ordination. Nor is it a matter of inflated ego: The Church has always taught that priests are “essentially different” from the laity, therefore in respect of their ordination they are “unlike the rest of the faithful.”


Fr. Robert Duggan

Fr. Robert Duggan, parish priest and organizer of workshops for liturgy planners, expressed similar sentiments:

“Clericalism is a sin that betrays the unity of the Church intended by Jesus by creating the illusion that priests and people are on two separate levels – with the clergy, of course, being presented as superior to the laity. This lie betrays the true mystery of the Church.” (12)

Fr Duggins: The Church as a 'society of unequals' must disappear

In this passage, Fr Duggan denounces the “unequal” two-tier system mentioned by Pope Pius X as the model for the hierarchical structure of the Church. This was in keeping with Vatican II, and was forcefully echoed by the Pope’s right-hand man, Cardinal Maradiaga, in a speech he delivered in 2013:

“Within the people, there is not a dual classification of Christians – laity and clergy, essentially different. The Church as a ‘society of unequals’ disappears: There is, therefore, in Christ and in the Church no inequality (Lumen Gentium 12, 32).” (13)

Let us not overlook the sleight of hand practised by the reformers who replace the traditional classification with another unequal two-tier system in which Baptism is more important than Ordination, lay ministry than the sacramental priesthood. It is none other than the tired old cliché of the “inverted triangle.”

As for that other slogan mentioned by Fr Duggan, the “Mystery of the Church,” we need to keep in mind that this was the title of the first section of Lumen gentium. It has an interesting history, having been used by the progressive reformers during the pre-Vatican II debates on the Constitution of the Church to replace the title of the original schema which was “The Church Militant.”

To be continued


1. The Superior General was Fr Joseph Lécuyer who was elected in 1968.
2. D. Vincent O’Sullivan CSSp, ‘The Clergy-Laity Problem,’ The Furrow, Vol. 39, No. 1, January 1988, p. 33
Dublin: Pigeonhouse Books, 2007
3. Ibid., p. 6
4. Paul Lakeland, The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church, New York: Continuum, 2003, p. 194
5. Paul Lakeland, ‘What might ‘Praedicate Evangelium’ have started?’ Commonweal, 6 May 2022
6. Paul Philibert OP, The Priesthood of the Faithful: Key to a Living Church, Liturgical Press, 2005, p. 16
7. Sarah Mac Donald, ‘Canon lawyer 'terrified' by young conservative seminarians’, The Tablet, 3 February 2022
Dayton: Pflaume Press, 1969
8. Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2000, p. vii
9. Donald Cozzens, ‘Don’t Put Priests on a Pedestal’, US Catholic, October 2015, 33–35
10. Fr Robert D. Duggan, ‘From Your Pastor’, (Letter of 6 June 2002 to the parishioners of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Gaithersburg, Maryland), In the Vineyard, July 2004, Vol. 3, Issue 7
11. Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga SDB, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, from his speech given at the University of Dallas Ministry Conference on 25 October 2013

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Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
More on Anti-Clericalism in the Church
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Let us continue to look at examples of clergy who are demanding structural change in the Church to root out clerical “elitism” and give free rein to the laity.


Fr Kevin Clinton

The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests (AUSCP) is one of the many agencies of the liberal theological consensus in the United States, vigorously promoting a reform of the priesthood to enhance the status of the laity, particularly women, in Church structures. Having reached the dizzy heights of being President of its Leadership Team in 2019, Fr. Kevin Clinton evidently felt that he was in a position to promulgate his own “Encyclical” to all the Bishops of the United States, instructing them to eradicate “Clericalism”:

Priests ‒ all dressed like laymen ‒ gather for morning prayer at a AUSCP meeting

“We are in crisis. We need change. Please engage all of God’s People in bringing about the needed change. Clericalism most especially must be eradicated, and women must be integrated.” (1)

The implication of this passage is that “Clericalism is the enemy” especially where women are concerned, preventing them from having full access to all ministries in the Church. Although it is not specifically mentioned, we can take it as read that this includes admission to the ordained priesthood.

As for the required changes, Fr. Clinton drew up a handy checklist of “evils” to be eradicated:

• The hierarchical and patriarchal structure of the Church;
  
• Papal allegiance;
  
• An ordination said to confer an ontological change;
  
• Special and separate education and training;
  
• Celibacy requirements;
  
• Clothing and dress ‒ especially liturgical dress;
  
• Special privileges concerning income and lifestyle not available to the laity. (2)
  

Let us have no illusions about the progressivists’ intentions. It is clear that the proposed changes in these areas constitute a wholesale attack on the Church. If implemented, they would devastate her institutional structure, together with the ontological essence of the sacramental priesthood and its outward expression – all under the guise of combating “Clericalism.”


Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Sydney

The former Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, who resigned in 2004 because he could not accept Catholic doctrine on many issues ‒ among them celibacy, homosexuality, contraception, divorce and women’s ordination ‒ had been, with impunity, a public dissenter from Catholic Faith and Morals even before he became a bishop. He attributed the clergy abuse crisis to the traditional teaching on priestly identity:

Bishop Robinson: ‘no difference between priests & laymen’

“One of the saddest sights in the Church today is that of some young, newly ordained priests insisting that there is an ‘ontological difference’ between them and laypersons, and enthusiastically embracing the mystique of a superior priesthood. Whenever I see young priests doing this I feel a sense of despair, and I wonder whether we have learned anything at all from the revelations of abuse.” (3)

But this makes no Catholic sense, for it is precisely the “ontological difference” – actually not ontological but a sacramental difference in which the priest is ordained while the layman is not – that marks the ordained priesthood as superior to the lay state and requires a higher degree of holiness in the priest who is configured to Christ. If accepted with faith, it is thus a barrier against clerical abuse, which is more likely to be committed by those who neglect or reject the “ontological distinction.”


Fr. George Wilson, S.J.

Fr. Wilson’s agenda in eradicating “Clericalism” could not be more radical. In Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood, he calls upon the laity to bring about the “declericalization of the Church of the future” and to “overcome the destructive superior-inferior mindset which bedevils us in all our relationships” including “the relationship of the laity to their pastors.” (4) It contains all the basic ideas of the “inverted triangle” ecclesiology promoted by Vatican II that are still current in theological discourse, as evidenced by the comments and speeches of Pope Francis.

Fr. Wilson openly proclaims the death of the priesthood

In order to understand what motivated Fr. Wilson’s criticism of so-called “Clericalism,” we need to know something of his ideological background. He worked for over 30 years as an organizational consultant at Management Design Inc. (MDI) of Cincinnati, an institute that specialized in creative business, leadership techniques and problem-solving skills in organizations.

Although the MDI had no competence in Church matters, Fr. Wilson used its services in 1980 in an attempt to solve a problem in the Diocese of Baton Rouge which was under the authority of Bishop Joseph Sullivan.

The Bishop, a strong supporter of Humanae Vitae, was facing serious opposition from some dissident priests who rejected it, and Fr. Wilson saw an opportunity for his firm to intervene and undermine the Bishop’s authority in his Diocese. As expected, Fr. Wilson (and MDI) not only took the side of the dissenters, but used the publicity generated by the dispute to call on Bishop Sullivan to resign over the issue. (5)


Bishop Thomas Zinkula of Davenport

Bishop Zinkula offered the following hackneyed definition of “Clericalism” in 2018:

“Clericalism is an exaggeration of the role of the clergy to the detriment of the laity. In a culture of clericalism, clerics are put on a pedestal and the laity are overly deferential and submissive to them.” (6)

Bishop Zinkula, in forefront, in a ‘pastoral visit to the peripheries’

No one can fail to notice the hostility expressed by the Bishop – and he is not alone – towards the hieratic distinction between the priest and the people as reflective of the divinely-willed order of the Church. The great reverence towards the priest that characterized the Church of all ages is now ridiculed not only as an “exaggeration” but also, incredibly, as detrimental to the laity.

Let us contrast this with the injunctions of the Council of Trent which ordered “due reverence toward the clergy, parish priests and the higher orders” from “the Emperor, Kings, States, Princes … and all their own subjects.” (7) This clearly places the clerical estate on a higher plane than all social categories, no matter how exalted.

It naturally follows that special reverence is due to the clergy because of the sacred “character” conferred at Ordination and the consequent authority with which they are endowed. But for Bishop Zinkula and the progressivists he represents, this is part of the dreaded “culture of clericalism” which must be uprooted from the hearts of the faithful.

What is really to the detriment of the laity is that the reformers have uprooted a precious virtue from the hearts of the faithful – the humility to recognize their dependence on a higher authority placed over them by divine ordinance.

As all acts of deference towards the clergy are outward signs of humility before God, they can hardly be “excessive”; and by describing them as such, Bishop Zinkula discourages the laity from doing homage to God in their relationship with His ordained ministers. It was not “Clericalism” but Vatican II’s exaltation of the laity that encouraged this drift away from personal holiness.


Cardinal Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago

In his article from the July 10, 2019, Chicago Catholic, Card. Blase Cupich went on the offensive against the traditional concept of the priesthood which, since Vatican II, was commonly – and falsely – described as “Clericalism.” To achieve his objective, he enlisted the help of the Archdiocesan Women’s Committee to pass judgement on the so-called “patriarchal culture” of the Church. He said:

Card. Cupich: ‘Francis is giving new life to Vatican II reforms’

“Last year, I asked the Archdiocesan Women’s Committee, which is part of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, to offer their insights, after consulting with women in their parishes, about how they experience clericalism. … Their insights helped me to prepare a talk that I gave to a group of priests last month in St. Louis. … I challenged priests to take the lead in combating any form of elitism in their ranks, first of all by being in touch with their baptism.”(8)

It is obvious that he had set up a Kangaroo court consisting of women to declare the male priesthood guilty of “Clericalism.” The verdict, of course, was already predetermined, and only needed to be rubber-stamped by the Cardinal in his summing up. Justice, it seemed would only be done for women by “empowering their long-ignored voices,” and by “ending the treatment of clergy as a privileged caste” on the grounds that they are only “fallible men who share our human condition” – in other words, essentially no different from anyone else. Not even their Ordination had any higher significance than the “priesthood of all the baptized.”(9)


Bishop Charles Drennan of Palmerston North

Bishop Drennan, who was General Secretary of the New Zealand Bishops’ Conference, weighed into the debate with comments that could be described as abusive:

“Clericalism is the appropriation by a clerical caste of what is proper to all the baptized. More simply put, it’s a club mentality that renders the baptized subservient to preening priests. I loathe clericalism. It makes me shudder. It’s a hangover from tribal forms of priesthood ‒ where castes were set aside for temple service ‒ found in the Old Testament, and which morphed into a culture of ‘superiority’ or entitlement, or as Jesus himself put it: ‘lording it over others’. (Matt 20:25; 1 Pet 5:3)” (10)

Bishop Drennan: ‘I loathe clericalism’

In his Commentary on the Gospels, St. Thomas Aquinas, quoting from the Church Fathers, explained the true meaning of “lording it over others”: it was an admonition against those who “seek after precedence,” as with the “rulers of the Gentiles,” for reasons of vain-glory:

“Let not him that is chief be puffed up by his dignity, lest he fall away from the blessedness of humility.”(11)

The Gospel passage in question shows that inequality existed between higher and lower strata in the early Christian community, and that it was approved by Our Lord – provided that the superior authority was exercised with the virtue of humility. (12)

The next part of Bishop Drennan’s diatribe against “Clericalism” took the form of a string of derogatory labels ‒ “misogyny, sexism, bullying, racism, paternalism” and especially “misogyny parading as theological orthodoxy.”

By applying these to traditional methods of Church leadership, he was setting the stage for a total upheaval of the Church’s constitution in which governance would no longer be the preserve of the Hierarchy: “So much ordinary leadership as well as formal governance in the Church has been tied to ordination and thus to priests and Bishops. … Fresh theological study of baptism as a source of or, better put, call to leadership is already underway. We do not need to wait for its conclusions before we bring about change.” (13)

He quoted Pope Francis as a supporter of these views.

To be continued

1. Kevin Clinton, Letter to the US Bishops, June 4, 2019.
2. K. Clinton and Donna Doucette, Confronting the Systemic Dysfunction of Clericalism, a paper presented at the AUSCP in June 2019.
3. G. Robinson, For Christ’s Sake: End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church ... For Good, Melbourne: John Garratt Publishing, 2013, pp. 83-84.
4. George B. Wilson, Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2008, p. 145.
5. Thomas J. Barbarie, “MDI leader was Curran ally in Humanae Vitae dissent,” The Catholic Commentator (the official newspaper for the Diocese of Baton Rouge), vol. 18, n. 7, February 13, 1980. Fr. Wilson was one of hundreds of priests, including the moral theologian, Fr. Charles Curran, who had signed a 1968 statement of opposition to Humanae Vitae.
6. Thomas Zinkula, “Bishop Addresses Issue of Clericalism,” The Catholic Messenger, the newspaper of the Diocese of Davenport, September 20, 2018.
7. Council of Trent, Session XXV, Chapter XX, On Reformation.
8. Blase Cupich, “Clericalism: an Infection that Can Be Cured,” July 10, 2019.
9. Blase Cupich, “Archdiocesan Women’s Committee responds to the issue of clericalism,” ibid., September 4, 2019.
10. Charles Drennan, “Clericalism & Governance,” Diocese of Palmerston North website.
11. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, Commentary on the Gospels, St. Luke, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers, Oxford and London: James Parker & Co., 1874, vol. 2, p. 710.
12. Ironically, Bishop Drennan himself was not averse to a spot of “lording it over others,” which led to his undoing in the Diocese. In October 2019, he resigned after an accusation of “inappropriate behavior” of a sexual nature with a young woman. Card. John Dew, the Metropolitan Archbishop of New Zealand, made a statement to the Media to the effect that, after an official investigation into the affair, Bishop Drennan was suspended by the Vatican from his pastoral duties as a bishop and required to move out of the Diocese, but that, to the Cardinal’s surprise, he was allowed to retain his title. It transpires that it was not the only allegation against Bishop Drennan of misconduct in office involving a young woman. (New Zealand Herald, October 5, 2019)
13. C. Drennan, “Clericalism & Governance,” ibid.

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Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The Assaults of Francis against ‘Clericalism’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The evidence that we have just examined, taken from among representatives of a broad swathe of Catholic Church leaders, reveals that a war has been declared against “Clericalism” by those who want to eliminate Tradition, and is still going on around us. Their aim was to demean the grandeur of the ordained priesthood in the sense of making it seem not only less important in the Church – and, therefore, undeserving of the deference and respect due to it – but also positively harmful to the rights of the laity – and, therefore, a foe to be strenuously fought against.

Their anti-clerical narrative had been bubbling away for decades after Vatican II in various parts of the world before Pope Francis turned up the heat by embellishing the narrative, as we shall see, with high profile contributions of his own. The result was to cause the lid to come off the simmering pot, spreading a wave of anti-clerical sentiment that gained a momentum and scale beyond anything seen in the time of his immediate predecessors.

It may seem more than a trifle ironic that this highly biased narrative was engendered and spread by progressivist Catholic priests and bishops who, for reasons of their own, were habitually disposed to think ill of their own priesthood. But it is surely the height of paradox that, by promoting anti-clericalism, they were damaging fundamental Catholic values and exposing the faithful to unprotected attack by the enemies of the Faith.

Progressivists are inspired by Protestant reformers in their attacks against the clergy

The obvious conclusion is that, since Vatican II, the neo-modernist clergy are continuing the narrative begun in the 16th century. To prove the concordance of anti-clerical sentiments between then and the present day, we can consult an overview of the situation written by the Fr. Charles Augustus Whittuck, Anglican Vicar of St. Mary’s parish, Oxford, at the turn of the 20th century. He provides a plethora of historical citations from Protestant churchmen against “Clericalism” wherever it is found, whether in the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church.

To take a few examples, these include references to “Clericalism” as

• The “exclusive ascendancy of the clerical order”;
  
• A “spiritual despotism exercised by a sacerdotal caste”;
  
• The “self-aggrandizing tendency of the clerical class”;
  
• Its “assumption of superiority”;
  
• Its “separatist tendency” and “estrangement from the community”;
  
• Its promotion of “the exclusive interests of the clergy at the expense of the laity”;
  
• Its “unsympathetic and unconciliatory tone” (which is now termed “rigidity”);
  
• Its “blindness to the signs of the times”;
  
• Its rejection of the “pure Word of God,” i.e., the Gospel (Luther’s thesis);
  
• A slow “poison” and a “moral disease.” (1)
  

If we do a quick comparison between these hostile comments and the criticisms expressed by the post-Vatican II Liberal Establishment in the previous articles, an interesting parallel emerges: The attack on the Catholic priesthood was expressed with exactly the same words and in exactly the same spirit as 16th-century Protestant polemicists and their heirs. The only difference was that the term “Clericalism,” which was a later invention, was not used by the early reformers, but it had its historical counterpart in the Protestant use of the nouns “priestcraft,” “sacerdotalism” and “popery,” together with the adjectives “monkish” and “Romish.”

Not just individual words, but whole anti-clerical themes, originating from 16th-century Protestant reformers and perpetuated by their heirs, were appropriated and exploited by progressivist Catholic reformers. It is obvious to all that these themes correspond so closely with the sentiments expressed in the above list, that they are indistinguishable from them.

Indeed, when Pope Francis takes up the same themes, one could be forgiven for thinking that it is a rather fanatical Protestant speaking or else a Catholic neo-modernist, which amounts to the same thing. For, as we shall see, these anti-Catholic themes were first introduced into the Church by the foremost proponent of Modernism at the turn of the 20th century, Fr. George Tyrrell, SJ.

They were suppressed by Pope Pius X, resurrected by the “new theologians” of the mid-20th century, and filtered through the documents of Vatican II, from where they were disgorged onto the Catholic population around the world by the Popes of the Council.


Francis throws in his lot with the Neo-Modernists

From the beginning of his Pontificate, Pope Francis has been pandering to the prevailing narrative about “Clericalism” coming mainly from clerics with an openly expressed aversion to pre-Conciliar Catholicism in all its manifestations – doctrinal, liturgical, constitutional and sartorial. Not only has Pope Francis enabled the doctored narrative to spread without challenge, but he has facilitated its spread by putting rocket fuel behind it in the form of his personal endorsement.

Fr. George Tyrrell, S.J.

We will now look at some examples of how Pope Francis uses the expression “Clericalism,” noting the exact convergence of his ideas with those of the Protestant, Modernist and current Progressivist views of the Catholic Priesthood which were the subject-matter of the previous articles (here, here, here, and here). We will also note the convergence of these views with those of Fr. George Tyrrell.

For convenience, we can group Pope Francis’s ideas into three main categories:

• “Domination,”
  
• “Superiority,”
  
• “Rigidity.”
  

To govern or to serve?

Near the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis set out his view of the governing authority of the Bishop in the most negative light, i.e., from the point of view of those who sought power over others and precedence in the Church. He stated:

“It is sad when we see a man who seeks this office and does all he can to get it and when he gets it does not serve, instead struts around and lives only for his vanity.” (2)

That is true as far as it goes, but hardly needs saying, for St. Thomas Aquinas had already expounded the Church’s constant teaching on this matter in more charitable terms:

“[H]e who enters the episcopal state is raised up in order to watch over others, and no man should seek to be raised thus, according to Hebrews (5:4): Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God; and Chrysostom says: ‘To desire supremacy in the Church is neither just nor useful.’”(3)

But, as always with Pope Francis, his meaning is dependent on the context of his message which, in this instance, favored Collegiality over the individual exercise of a Bishop’s authority in his own Diocese. He stated:

A melodramatic Francis attacks traditional priests as promoters of clericalism

“Bishops, with the Pope, express this collegiality and always seek to be better servants to the faithful, better servants in the Church.” (4)

The implication of the message was that the authority of the Bishop must be collegial, not personal and individual – a key point of Vatican II that contradicts the traditional teaching of the Church. And intertwined in this message is the assertion that the Bishop should not rule over, i.e., dominate the faithful, but be their servants.

Again, Pope Francis insists:

“Clericalism arises from an elitist and exclusivist vision of vocation that interprets the ministry received as a power to be exercised rather than as a free and generous service to be given. This leads us to believe that we belong to a group that has all the answers and no longer needs to listen or learn anything. Clericalism is a perversion and is the root of many evils in the Church: We must humbly ask forgiveness for this and above all create the conditions so that it is not repeated. (5)”  


None-too-subtle Jesuitical subtleties

No prizes for guessing which members of the Church are being explicitly targeted as holding an “elitist and exclusivist vision of vocation.” They have been many times pilloried by the progressivists, and can be unmistakably identified as the traditionally-formed clergy and those in sympathy with them. Here, they are singled out by Pope Francis for public criticism and denounced as power mongers as well as self-sufficient know-it-alls lacking in any pastoral concern for their flocks.


To be continued


1. C.A. Whittuck, ‘Clericalism and Anti-Clericalism’, ed. James Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics: vol. 3, 1928, pp. 690-692.
2. Francis, General Audience of 5 November 2014 § 2.
3. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 185, a.1.
4. Francis, General Audience of 5 November 2014 § 3.
5. Francis, ‘Address to the Synod Fathers at the Opening of Synod 2018 on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment.’[/b]

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Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
‘People Infallibility’ versus Papal Infallibility
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Papal supremacy was the chief target of Modernist criticism, hence the many calls for decentralization of the papacy and recognition of the laity as the supreme, infallible, collective guarantor of the Faith. For Fr. George Tyrrell, the Pope was “merely the witness to and the representative of the collective mind and will of the Universal Church,” and his ex cathedra pronouncements are valid “only when it is manifestly the whole body that speaks to us through that particular organ.” (1) And he summed up the role of the Pope in this way:

“His office is to investigate, declare and impose with official authority on each that truth which under the guidance of the Holy Spirit has been elaborated in the minds of all collectively as by its sole adequate organ.” (2)

In other words, the Pope is subservient to the people and can only teach what they have already decided to believe.

The Syllabus Lamentabili sane § 6 of Pope Pius X, however, had condemned under pain of excommunication the notion that the function of the Church is to ratify the conclusions arrived at by the people at large.

Tyrrell’s position thus stands revealed as the forerunner of Pope Francis’s “Synodal Way,” itself derived from the Neo-Modernist thinking of Vatican II.


Fr. Tyrrell’s ‘formless Church’

Fr. Tyrrell’s prolific output of published works acted as a sort of engine house for the spread of Modernism in the 20th century and up to our day. His ideas are still the inspirational model for all who believe that the old two-tier system of hierarchical government was unjust and oppressive, and who today advocate a “Church without walls/frontiers.” He wrote, for instance, about a “pre-constitutional formless Church” of early Christian times which, in his view, must be distinguished from the “governmental form,” the latter being purely an artificially created construct. (3)

He would even make this formless church the rule of faith, based on nothing other than the “collective conscience” of the multitude of believers:

“Authority is something inherent in, and inalienable from, that multitude itself; it is the moral coerciveness of the Divine Spirit of Truth and Righteousness immanent in the whole, dominant over its several parts and members; it is the imperativeness of the collective conscience.” (4)

This amounts to the whole body governed by the general mind and will, (5) which is a form of government modeled on Rousseau’s Social Contract. There is no place, therefore, for a monarchical ruler like the Pope. Like all Modernists of the time, Fr. Tyrrell believed that “all spiritual and moral power is inherent in the people and derives from the people.” (6) As Fr. Tyrrell further elaborated;

“What Christ founded was not the hierarchic Church but the little body of missionary brethren, which subsequently, under the guidance of Christ’s Spirit, organized itself into the Catholic Church; that he did not directly commission some of them to teach and rule over the rest; but commissioned all of them equally to go and teach all nations and prepare them by the baptism of repentance and by a new life for the instant coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth.”(7)

There is no doubt that this is exactly what progressivists, both clerical and lay, believe, and that they are supported in their errors by high-ranking officials in the Church.


Francis misquotes Scripture to make a ‘democratic’ point

Now we have had Pope Francis echoing these sentiments. On October 17, 2015 during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, he stated:

“After stating that the people of God is comprised of all the baptized who are called to ‘be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood,’ the Second Vatican Council went on to say that ‘the whole body of the faithful, who have an anointing which comes from the Holy One (cf. 1 Jn 2:20, 27), cannot err in matters of belief. This characteristic is shown in the supernatural sense of the faith (sensus fidei) of the whole people of God, when ‘from the bishops to the last of the faithful’ it manifests a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals.’ These are the famous words infallible ‘in credendo.’”

The problem with this passage is that it contains, to say the least, a number of seriously misleading statements, including a misuse of the First Epistle of St. John, drawn from Lumen gentium §12 to bolster the novel teaching of Vatican II. The Pope’s reference to the “universal consensus of all the baptized” is meaningless, for not every baptized Christian – including, alas, modern Popes and Bishops – has always remained faithful to the teaching of the Apostles.

Such infallibility, as pre-Vatican II Catholics always knew, can only apply within the unity of the Catholic Faith to those who command with authority (the Hierarchy) and those who obey with docility (the laity). In other words, as Fr. George Leo Haydock (8) explained in his commentary that accurately expresses the Church’s traditional interpretation of 1 John 2:20, only the “true children of God’s Church, remaining in unity, under the guidance of their lawful pastors, partake of the grace of the Holy Ghost, promised to the Church and her pastors.” (9)

Fr. George Leo Haydock

That was the true meaning of 1 John 2:20 which Pope Francis misrepresents because, like all progressivists influenced by Modernism, he does not wish to acknowledge that the members of the Hierarchy, as Successors of the Apostles, are the Ecclesia Docens whose duty is to guard the Deposit of the Faith and ensure unity in doctrine.

Ironically, the First Epistle of St. John was written precisely as a warning about the dangers of “false prophets” who seduce the faithful with theories that lead them into error. In it, St. John reminds them that they have in the Church all necessary knowledge and instruction, so as to have no need to seek it elsewhere, since it can be only found in that society of which they are members. It is a statement about the “perfect society” of the Church ‒ which progressivists Church leaders reject ‒ not an acknowledgement of personal infallibility of all the baptized.

Similarly, in regard to 1 John 2:27, also misconstrued by Pope Francis, the “anointing” (which St. John calls “unction”) signifies the true doctrine that the faithful have received from the Holy Ghost through the teaching of the Apostles. Whereas St. John was telling the faithful to avoid teachers of false doctrines, Pope Francis has encouraged a proliferation of them together with their doctrinal novelties which cannot be reconciled with Tradition.

To take liberties with passages of Scripture and the Church Fathers in order to justify one’s own ideas is a sure way of giving license to all the Modernist errors condemned by previous Popes.


Vatican II (and Pope Francis) misquote St. Augustine

It should also be mentioned that St. Augustine’s words “from the Bishops to the last of the faithful” quoted from Lumen gentium have been wrenched from their original context and made to serve a different purpose. These words, taken from St. Augustine’s book On Predestination, had a specific point – to refute the errors of the Pelagians and to show that the Book of Wisdom is endowed with the authority of canonical Scripture. It is for this reason that St. Augustine said regarding Wisdom:

“[It] deserves to be heard by all Christians, from Bishops downwards, even to the lowest lay believers, penitents and catechumens, with the veneration paid to divine authority.” (10)

It follows, naturally, that the faithful in every age who accept it on that basis are infallibly justified in doing so, not because they are infallible in themselves (as Lumen gentium leads us to believe), but because of the inerrancy of Scripture and Tradition which have been faithfully guarded and passed on to them by the Church’s Hierarchy.

St. Augustine of Hippo is misquoted to justify the supposed infallibility of the people

Very different is the approach of Lumen gentium §12 which uses St. Augustine’s phrase, but without his reference to “divine authority” mediated through the Hierarchy as the basis for infallibility in believing. Instead, it promoted what is generally perceived as a “charismatic Church” in which individual Christians receive special spiritual gifts (charismata) directly from God “to undertake the various tasks and offices that contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church.”

The inflated rhetoric of Lumen gentium §12 with its pretentious vision – so typical of the Vatican II documents – is simply a form of doublespeak that disguises a progressivist agenda detrimental to the Ecclesia Docens. The task of guarding the Faith is now understood as the responsibility of the whole Church, collaborating in the office of teaching, rather than as the sole possession of the Magisterium.

But this untenable position – that “the ‘Church learning’ and the ‘Church teaching’ collaborate in such a way in defining truths that it only remains for the ‘Church teaching’ to sanction the opinions of the ‘Church learning’” – had been condemned in 1907 by Pope Pius X (Lamentabili sane § 6) as heretical. As a result, the teaching of Vatican II is bereft of authoritative force. It is significant that this democratic model of the Church, built on the liberation of the “People of God” from “clericalist” control, bears an uncanny resemblance to that proposed by Fr. Tyrrell.

The situation of the post-Vatican II Church begs the question as to who, then, needs a Pope to guarantee infallibility of doctrine, if all that is needed is to consult one’s inner Martin Luther or leaf through the works of Fr. Tyrrell.


To be continued


1. George Tyrrell, Medievalism, a Reply to Cardinal Mercier, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, p. 43.
2. G. Tyrrell, The Church and the Future, London: Priory Press, 1910, p. 100.
3. G. Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis or, The old theology and the new, Longmans, Green, 1907, p. 49.
4. Ibid., p. 370.
5. G. Tyrell, The Church and the Future, p. 133.
6. G. Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis, p. 355.
7. G. Tyrrell, Medievalism, pp. 138-139.
8. Fr. George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), a descendant an old English Catholic recusant family, spent much of his life serving in Catholic missions in rural England. He was related to Blessed George Haydock who was martyred for the Faith at Tyburn in 1584.
9. See Haydock’s Catholic Bible Commentary (Edward Dunigan and Brother, 1859). Based on the Douay-Rheims Bible, and containing many contributions from the Church Fathers, it was highly regarded as an authoritative commentary on the Old and New Testaments. Before Vatican II, it enjoyed popularity throughout the English-speaking world, but was supplanted by a host of modernized versions e.g. the Confraternity Bible (1941) and the New American Bible (1970).
10. St. Augustine, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum (On the Predestination of the Saints), Opera Omnia. Patrologia Latina, vol. 44, Paris: Garnier, 1879, Chapter 14, § 27, p. 980.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The ‘Listening Church’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The reason for all this confusion is that the lines between the Ecclesia Docens (the teaching Church) – represented by the Hierarchy – and the Ecclesia Discens (the learning Church) – represented by the faithful – have been deliberately blurred to inculcate a new paradigm into the minds of the faithful – the “Listening Church.”

Denying this distinction was one of the chief concerns of the early Modernists, and Fr. Tyrrell openly denied that any such distinction existed among the first Christians:

“At the beginning there was not a teaching Church and a learning Church, but a teaching Church and a learning world. … Every Christian in virtue of his baptism was a teacher and apostle. And to each and all of these apostles he communicates his own authority; his own Spirit; his own mission: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; as the Father hath sent me so send I you.’”(1)

Card. Herbet Vaughan

He took up the cudgels shortly after Card. Herbert Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster – in whose Diocese he lived – issued his Joint Pastoral Letter (2) of January 29, 1900, signed by the Bishops of England and Wales. It is important to know that Card. Vaughan’s initiative was a courageous attempt to combat the growing threat of Liberal Catholicism, which favored the emancipation of the laity from the authority of the Hierarchy. Without mentioning Tyrrell by name, the Cardinal reprimanded those who “substitute the principle of private judgment for the principle of obedience to religious authority,” and who try “to persuade the people that they are the ultimate judge of what is true and proper in conduct and religion.”

Most galling for Fr. Tyrrell and his fellow Modernists was the Cardinal’s reminder that “the doctrines of the faith … have been entrusted, as a Divine deposit, to the teaching Church, and to her alone,”(3) and that the faithful must accept the doctrine and interpretation of Scripture handed down by Tradition on the authority of the Hierarchy.

But Fr. Tyrrell, in one of his typically irrational outbursts – he once adopted the nickname “furia irlandaise” (4) – could not contain his irascible temper, flew into a rage and rejected this teaching out of hand. In a letter of March 2, 1901, signed “A Conservative Catholic,” which he sent to a newspaper called The Pilot, he criticized the Pastoral Letter severely, accusing it of potentially causing grave harm to the Church. Without supplying any rational arguments, he fulminated:

“It would cleave the Church into two bodies, the one all active, the other all passive, related literally as sheep and shepherds ‒ as beings of a different order with conflicting interests; it would destroy the organic unity of the Church by putting the Pope (or the Ecclesia Docens) outside and over the Church, not a part of her, but her partner, spouse, and Lord, in a sense proper to Christ alone; it would shear the bishops of their inherent prerogatives while restoring to them a tenfold power as the delegates and plenipotentiaries of the infallible and unlimited authority claimed for the Pope.” (5)

The whole passage is riddled with non sequiturs, hyperbole and militancy against the real meaning of the Church as the one, indivisible Body of Christ, Head and members, composed of Shepherds and sheep, as Pope Pius X, in keeping with Tradition, had explained.

Tyrrell’s view – that the two-tier system of the Constitution shattered the essential unity of the Church – is unsustainable. It foreshadowed the same narrative adopted and repeated by post-Vatican II progressivists who are influenced by the Council’s exaltation of the laity to a “prophetic” status in the Church. The corollary of this novel position is that the Hierarchy must listen to and accept the insights of lay people supposedly inspired by the Holy Ghost to reveal new doctrines to the Church.

The Heresy of ‘Vital Immanence’

Lay people, claimed Pope Francis, possess “an instinctive ability to discern the new ways that the Lord is revealing to the Church.”(6) This is one of the many occasions when Francis reveals himself as a master of duplicitous speech that exploited ambiguities of language to give the impression of being true in some sense, but also conveniently capable of being misread in another.

If we take the word “revealing,” the implication is that Revelation is ongoing and discernable by means of changing, subjective feelings of the Christian community – a key tenet of Modernism. But the Church had always taught that Revelation had ended with the last of the Apostles; so the “new ways” supposedly revealed by God and intuited by the laity are not part of any “universal consensus” received by the Church from the beginning, and are therefore not covered by infallibility. Rather, the novel teaching is reminiscent of the heresy of “vital immanence” – which posits that knowledge of the truth originates and develops from human experience – espoused by Fr. Tyrrell and the early Modernists.

The evidence shows that Pope Francis is simply echoing the idea of the “general consensus” proposed by Fr. Tyrrell who put it this way:

“God’s highest and fullest manifestation is given, not in the clouds, or in the stars, but in the spirit of man, and therefore most completely in that completest expression of man’s spirit which is obtained in the widest available consensus, and is the fruit of the widest collective experience of the deepest collective reflection.” (7)

Is not this the very essence of Pope Francis’s “Synodal Way,” which is based on a garnering of all the “faith experiences” of the people? It is certainly in line with Tyrrell’s by-passing and rejection of the Ecclesia Docens:

“The true Teacher of the Church is the Holy Spirit, acting immediately in and through the whole body of the faithful ‒ lay and cleric; the teaching of the episcopate consists in dispensing; in gathering from all and distributing to each, with the authority, and in name of the whole Divine Society.”

Fr. George Tyrrell, S.J.

Fr. Tyrrell’s apostasy (and that of his Vatican II followers) is evident from his rejection of orthodox teaching on Christ as the Founder and formal principle of the Church:

“What Christ founded was not the hierarchic Church but the little body of missionary brethren, which subsequently, under the guidance of Christ’s Spirit, organised itself into the Catholic Church; that He did not directly commission some of them to teach and rule over the rest; but commissioned all of them equally to go and teach all nations.” (9)

It would be impossible to deny the close parallel that exists between Fr. Tyrrell’s teaching and the current insistence on the “co-responsibility of the People of God” for the governance of the Church, itself derived from Vatican II.

Pope Francis, who was always uncomfortable with the hierarchical structure of the Church and her teaching authority, expressed similar sentiments in his pre-Synodal address when he complained about “a certain resistance to moving beyond the image of a Church rigidly divided into leaders and followers, those who teach and those who are taught.” To reinforce his belief that this constitutional arrangement was not willed by God, he added:

“We forget that God likes to overturn things: As Mary said, ‘he has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly’ (Lk 1:52).” (10)

Reading between the lines, we can see how the Pope has twisted this scriptural quotation to justify “inverting the pyramid,” leading the “lowly” faithful to believe that Christ the King (represented by the Pope at the apex) would be cast down from His throne, never more to rule over them.

At least, this explains why Pope Francis, instead of fulfilling his principal role of confirming the brethren in the Faith and teaching sound moral doctrine, sees his mission in “Synodal” (“Collegial”) terms, as that of confirming the corporate “faith experiences” of all the baptized ‒ always, of course, excluding those of a traditionalist persuasion. That, apparently, is his idea of how to serve the People of God.

As for Fr. Tyrrell, who was one of the earliest promoters of these ideas in the Church, we must keep in mind that he was a member of an organization called the Synthetic Society which existed between 1896 and 1910; it was co-founded by Wilfrid Ward (Catholic Editor of the Dublin Review and biographer of Card. Newman) to find a new synthesis among all religions. According to Tyrrell’s main biographer, Maude Petre, Ward introduced Tyrrell to the Synthetic Society in 1899. (11)

The conclusion is inescapable that, by adopting the same ideological outlook as George Tyrrell, Pope Francis is trying to achieve a synthetic one-world religion through “a universal consensus in matters of faith and morals” based on heterodox beliefs, as per Amoris laetitia, for example. As this situation could only have come about by suspending the role of the Ecclesia Docens, the post-Conciliar Church finds itself estranged from Tradition, insofar as it is no longer eager to preserve and defend the Catholic Faith by the divinely-ordained means at its disposal.

To be continued


1. George Tyrrell, Medievalism, a Reply to Cardinal Mercier, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, p. 62-63.
2. The Bishops of England and Wales, A Joint Pastoral Letter on the Church and Liberal Catholicism, The Tablet, January 5, 1901.
3. In the aftermath of the modernist crisis, Pope Pius XII reiterated the same teaching: “This deposit of faith our Divine Redeemer has given for authentic interpretation not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the Teaching Authority of the Church”. (Humani generis, August 12, 1950, § 21)
4. “Irish Fury” – a pseudonym with which he signed a letter to his fellow Jesuit and modernist, Henri Bremond, after he was dismissed from the Jesuit Order. Apud Nicholas Sagovsky, On God’s Side: A Life of George Tyrrell, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 203.
5. G. Tyrrell and Maude Petre, George Tyrrell’s Letters, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920, p. 154.
6. Pope Francis, Address on the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015.
7. G. Tyrrell, Through Scylla and Charybdis, p. 355.
8. G. Tyrrell, The Church and the Future, London: Priory Press, 1910, p. 101, (privately printed 1903).
9. G. Tyrrell, Medievalism, pp. 138-139.
10. On September 18, 2021, Pope Francis addressed about 1000 representatives from the Diocese of Rome on the subject of the upcoming International Synod.
11. G. Tyrrell and Maude Petre, Autobiography and life of George Tyrrell, London: E. Arnold, vol. 2, 1912, p. 98.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Jesuits Tyrrell & Francis Debase the Papacy
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

In a previous era, it would have been scarcely believable that any member of the Jesuit Order – the only religious order with a solemn vow of obedience to the Pope – would work to undermine the juridical nature of his office as Vicar of Christ and reject his supreme authority in doctrine and morality. When St. Ignatius Loyola inaugurated the Society of Jesus, he included in its Constitutions a requirement for absolute obedience to the Pope and to the Hierarchy under the rubric of “perinde ac cadaver” (like a corpse) i.e., each member of the Order must be as as if he had died to pride, recalcitrance and self-will.

Tyrrell was excommunicated for rejecting St. Pius X's teaching on Modernism

This did not suit Fr. George Tyrrell’s antinomian character (why he joined such an Order in the first place has never been fully explained), and it is not surprising that he was expelled from it in 1906 for insubordination in refusing to recant his heterodox views. (He was later excommunicated from the Church for his publicly expressed opposition to Pius X’s Pascendi). After Vatican II had adopted Fr. Tyrrell’s positions on Religious Liberty, Ecumenism and Collegiality, we now have a Jesuit Pope who carries on Tyrrell’s work of undermining the Papacy, legislating from the apex of the “triangle” that he pretends has been turned upside down.

It is not without significance for our topic that, under the influence of Vatican II’s “opening to the world,” the Jesuit Order redefined itself in alignment with worldly causes, including Left-wing socialist and Marxist regimes, especially in Latin America. (1) In short, this overriding concern for “action” within the community meant a complete sea-change in the worldwide Jesuit Order. Instead of the original commitment to spiritual warfare on which the Order was founded, a common characteristic among its members was a preoccupation with “class struggle” in the form of combating socio-economic inequalities and all marks of “superiority” and “privilege.”


A Threat to the Constitution of the Church

To locate the source of this form of Liberation Theology – from which Pope Francis has drawn plentifully in his encyclicals and speeches – we must go back to Fr. Tyrrell and the nascent Modernist Movement of the early 20th century. It would be helpful to keep in mind that the liberation sought was not from the clutches of Satan, but from the authority of the Hierarchy which alone possesses the juridical power to loose and bind, and to teach the Faith received from the Apostles.

As we have seen previously, (here and here) for Fr. Tyrrell as well as for all progressivists of our day, the Church’s teaching authority rests with the entire People of God, not with the ordained clergy. Progressivist folklore has it that the pre-Vatican II clergy were guilty of tyrannizing the laity with the imposition of an iron rule. And so they were routinely defamed as “oppressors” simply for exercising their divinely-appointed role as spiritual rulers of the faithful. It is now openly admitted that the desire to liberate the faithful from the constraints of externally imposed authority in matters pertaining to Faith and Morals was the overarching principle of Vatican II. As a result of the Council’s teaching on Religious Liberty, there has been a noticeable shift from concentration on the objective truth contained in the Deposit of the Faith to a subjective search for truth pursued in common with people of all faiths and none.

Freedom to plough one’s own furrow independently of hierarchical authority was advocated by Fr. Tyrrell as a paradigm of modern democracy. It has also been adopted by Pope Francis as the mainspring of his “Synodal Way” in which everything is open to discussion.


Tyrrell & Francis demean the title Vicar of Christ

Like all modernists of the time, Fr. Tyrrell denied the doctrine of papal supremacy in the sense that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter to whom was given the ultimate authority to teach and govern the Church on earth. Instead, he believed that the Hierarchy receives its mandate to govern not from the Pope but from the people to whom it is alone responsible. From there he argued in words that suggested that the power conferred on the priest at ordination is essentially the same as that exercised by the whole community:

“Assuming that the magical conception of priestly power is of the past, I feel that the true repository and source of the power of sacred order is the whole community, which acts through and in its appointed organs; that the difference between, say, a Wesleyan minister and myself is that in him it is the Wesleyan, in me it is the Roman, communion which acts and teaches, and blesses.” (2)

This erroneous view would, incidentally, become the basis for Vatican II’s Collegiality.

Fr. Tyrrell worked strenuously to create and spread what he called “a democratic as opposed to a monarchic conception of the Church’s teaching and ruling authority.” (3) In his view, this meant that “the Pope as Czar and absolute theocratic Monarch by divine right” must “reconcile his headship with the fundamentally democratic character of the Church”; and he must, above all, recognize “the entire Christian people as the true and immediate Vicarius Christi, the only adequate organ of religious development, as that orbis terrarum whose sure verdict is the supreme norm of Faith.” (4)

Now we have Pope Francis taking up the Tyrrell baton, presenting arguments for his “Synodal Way” that lead to the same conclusion: an understanding of the Church as run collectively by the People of God. After reading Fr. Tyrrell’s statement that the people, not the Pope, are the true Vicar of Christ, which makes the Pope only their spokesman, we can understand the underlying meaning of Pope Francis’s famous rhetorical question: “Who am I to judge?” It indicates an abdication of authority and a tacit denial of his universal supremacy insofar as he is avoiding his duty to speak with the authoritative voice of Christ. In other words, he has simply sloughed off the responsibilities of the Pontifical Magisterium in matters of Faith and Morals.


The Title Vicar of Christ: now, literally, a footnote in History

Evidence that Pope Francis demonstrated his desire to distance himself from this title – and to renounce his official office as the Vicar of Christ – can be found in the Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook), an official Directory or Who’s Who in the worldwide Catholic Church. When the 2020 edition came out, it contained a breach of long-standing Vatican protocol in the form of a significant change on the page dedicated to the reigning Pontiff. This page traditionally began with the title Vicar of Jesus Christ, followed by some of his other customary titles, (5) before mentioning his birth name and brief biographical details. In March 2020, however, the same page had the secular name JORGE MARIO BERGOGLIO blazoned across the top of the page in large capital letters as the first item of information, followed by the usual potted biography.

A common overcoat, no Pectoral Cross, no visible cassock: Pope Francis dressing as a layman

But what about the mystery of the disappearing titles, especially the chief one, Vicar of Christ, which had the weightiest doctrinal significance? It would not be accurate to say that the latter was dropped in the same way as Pope Benedict had, for “ecumenical” reasons, struck the papal title “Patriarch of the West” from the Vatican Yearbook in 2006. They remained – with the exception of the latter – but were labelled “historic titles,” and were relegated to a footnote separated by a line from the rest of the page. It was as if they had no longer any relevance to the present day and Pope Francis did not want his name to be personally associated with them. (From the beginning of his Pontificate, Francis only ever wanted to be known as the Bishop of Rome) (6)

If we do a brief linguistic analysis of the vocabulary used in this page of the official Directory and in the words of Pope Francis himself, we see how easily people can be misled by the use of ambiguous keywords. Of course, the term “historic titles” does not necessarily signify discontinuity; but in the post-Vatican II context of radical revision of all things traditional, many will automatically assume that these “historic” titles belong firmly in the past and will not be sorry for their loss. Furthermore, with that mindset, the assumption will be made that these titles no longer have any doctrinal significance. When this point is reached, the victory of the modernists has been achieved and the Faith frittered away.

Regarding the term “Bishop of Rome,” it is true that all the historic titles are subsumed in this one phrase and cannot, in reality, be detached from it. But to use the former while visually separating it from the latter gives the impression that the Pope is just another Bishop, albeit it with extras or embellishments. Above all, no emphasis is given to the title Vicar of Christ that implies his supreme and universal primacy, both of honor and jurisdiction, over all other Bishops and every member of the Church. This sidelining process fits perfectly with the progressivist doctrine of Collegiality invented at Vatican II which places so much emphasis on a democratic reinterpretation of the Pope’s role that, in practice, the traditional understanding of the Petrine Ministry is lost from view.


For Tyrrell & Francis, the monarchical papacy must be brought down

Fr. Tyrrell called the spiritual authority of the papacy a “deadly enemy” (7) of humanity, and stated that “the papacy must either be radically transformed or absolutely sterilized.” (8) Having described himself as “too democratic even to enjoy the ‘superiority’ of sacerdotal dignity,” he registered his undying hatred of Rome with the words:

“A Roman collar always chokes me, though I wear it still for propriety’s sake.” (9)

Who can deny that this attitude has reached epidemic proportions among the progressivist clergy since Vatican II? They have in large numbers cast aside the Roman collar as a relic of what they term the old “Clericalism” inherited from the Tridentine era. Fr. Tyrrell revealed what lies behind this anti-Roman gesture in 1908, with his customary outspokenness:

“Needless to say that I entirely deny the ecumenical authority of the exclusively Western Councils of Trent and the Vatican and the whole medieval development of the Papacy so far as claiming more than a primacy of honor for the Bishop of Rome.” (10)

We can safely infer from the writings, sermons and actions of a broad swathe of Novus Ordo clergy that this essentially Protestant denial still prevails, even though not expressed in such explicit terms. The doctrinal orthodoxy guaranteed by Trent and Vatican I is now in disarray; and not a single one of the Tiara-tossing Popes from Vatican II onwards has been willing to uphold the monarchical status of the Papacy.


To be continued


1. It is well known that Jesuits, for example Fr. Fernando Cardenal, participated in the communist-backed Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
2. George Tyrrell, ‘To Bishop Vernon Herford’, April 14, 1907, George Tyrrell and Maude Petre, George Tyrrell’s Letters, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920, p. 112.
3. Ibid., p. 100.
4. G. Tyrrell, The Church and the Future, London: Priory Press, 1910, p. 103
5. “Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Rome. Sovereign of Vatican City State, Servant of the Servants of God”
6. This was evident from the moment he steeped on the balcony after his election on March 13, 2013. His first words to the public were: “Brothers and sisters, good evening. You all know that the duty of the conclave was to give a Bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the earth to get him ... but here we are”.
7. G. Tyrrell, Medievalism, a Reply to Cardinal Mercier, London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1908, p. 135.
8. G. Tyrrell, ‘To Monsieur J. Augustin Leger’, November 8, 1908, George Tyrrell’s Letters, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1920, p. 97.
9. ‘To Wilfrid Ward Esq.’, April 8, 1906, op. cit., p.102.
10. G. Tyrrell, ‘Letter to Herzog’, November 4, 1908, Autobiography and Life Of George Tyrrell, Vol. 2, 1912, p. 383.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Remaking the Church in the Image & Likeness of the World
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

We have already seen how the monarchical structure of the Church’s Constitution was overturned at Vatican II. Fr. Tyrrell spearheaded the revolution and Pope Francis was instrumental in bringing it to full fruition. A key component of their work was the undermining of papal supremacy and its replacement by a system of democratic power-sharing.

Francis, of course, continues the work of the early Modernists and his Conciliar predecessors in deflating the stature of the Papacy to a democratic level; he stated, for example, that he is “in the Church as one baptized” among the baptized, and “in the College of Bishops as a Bishop among Bishops.” (1) He also claims no more than “a primacy of honor for the Bishop of Rome.” (How many today know that this designation was favored by Fr. Tyrrell?) It is, however, only a courtesy title and is commonly understood as the “first among equals,” such as that enjoyed by political leaders in a democratic country. It applies, for instance, to the British Prime Minister who is leader of a Cabinet rather than holding an office that is superior to that of his Ministers. This redefinition of the Petrine Ministry has long been acceptable to Protestants and Schismatics. But any mention of the Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy immediately raises hackles as an obstacle to ecumenical “dialogue.”

Democracy’s Pope

Both Tyrrell and Francis are united in thinking that for the Church to become a democratic society, it must be decentralized, with executive power given to the people. Fr. Tyrrell stated:

“Active co-operation in, and responsibility for, the corporate life are what constitute personality and citizenship. Of such responsibility and co-operation, the laity, then the lower clergy, finally the Bishops themselves, have been deprived by a system of centralisation that leaves the Pope the sole and only responsible personality in the Church ‒ or rather, outside and above it. The fruit is that utter decay of interest in the welfare of the body on the part of its passive and irresponsible members.” (2)

Progressivist reformers decry the “passivity” of the laity and demand the participation of all the faithful in the mission of the Church, as a consequence of the neo-modernist teaching of Vatican II. Subsequently, the Conciliar Popes – who have a moral duty to uphold Tradition and show the neo-modernists that their heresies will be fought and defeated – have been appeasing the anti-clericalist mobs.


Tyrrell & Francis debase the priesthood

Here the influence of Fr. Tyrrell is paramount:

“The abuse known as “sacerdotalism” rises from the attribution to officials of a certain spiritual superiority merely in virtue of their office, as though the value of those acts they perform, merely in the name and through the power of the whole Church, derived from some inherent quality of their souls raising them above the laity in spiritual dignity.” (3)

This kind of thinking has heavily impacted on the current identity crisis of the Catholic priesthood since Vatican II, and is in no small part the result of the progressivist denial of a fundamental “character” impressed on the soul of a priest at his ordination. Evidence abounds to demonstrate that this understanding of priestly identity is no longer generally acknowledged. What Fr. Tyrrell and all modernists refused to believe is that the effect of the Sacrament of Ordination – namely, to configure the priest to Christ the Head of the Church – ipso facto raises him in spiritual dignity above the laity. In Evangelii gaudium Pope Francis joined in the chorus of modernist denial:

“The configuration of the priest to Christ the head – namely, as the principal source of grace – does not imply an exaltation which would set him above others. In the Church, functions do not favor the superiority of some vis-à-vis the others.” (4)

The priest is sacred & divinely ordained

The fundamental error in this passage lies in not acknowledging the supernatural nature, of the priesthood, and in reducing it to a merely human and functional level, as representing one role – and emphatically not a superior one – among many in the Church.

This was exactly Tyrrell’s approach, and was further endorsed by Francis in the same paragraph:

“The ministerial priesthood is [only] one means employed by Jesus for the service of his people, yet our great dignity derives from Baptism, which is accessible to all.”

Tellingly, no mention is made of the infinitely greater dignity of the priest which comes from the power he has received in the Sacrament of Ordination to effect Transubstantiation, as well as his power to forgive sins.

In the new paradigm of the priesthood, the unique status of the priest as a representative of Christ the High Priest is placed on a par with the multifarious “ministries” performed by lay people. That is how the ministerial priesthood since Vatican II has been sidelined as deserving of no special reverence and swallowed up within a generic “great dignity” attached to all the baptized.

Francis takes up the same theme as Tyrrell:

“In virtue of their Baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the Faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients.” (5)

Francis expressed his opinion loud and clear that lay people have been denied access to executive roles in the Church because “room has not been made for them to speak and to act, due to an excessive clericalism which keeps them away from decision-making.” (6)

This is an obvious attack on the Church’s bi-millennial tradition, prescribed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, that the ecclesiastical offices and power of governance were reserved “only to clerics.” (Canon 118)

A hierarchy going back thousands of years

As a result of Vatican II’s rejection of this tradition which, it is now believed, is an injustice to the rights of the laity, Fr. Tyrrell’s vision of the Church as “one self-teaching, self-governing organism” (7) is being realized before our eyes. Pope Francis takes up the same theme, investing it with an emotionally-charged narrative about lay victimhood at the hands of an exploiting clergy:

“There is that spirit of clericalism in the Church, that we feel: clerics feel superior; clerics distance themselves from the people. Clerics always say: ‘this should be done like this, like this, like this, and you – go away!’ It happens when the cleric doesn’t have time to listen to those who are suffering, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned: the evil of clericalism is a really awful thing; it is a new edition of this ancient evil [of the religious authorities lording it over others]. But the victim is the same: the poor and humble people, who await the Lord.” (8)

It is patently obvious from the Marxist-inspired tenor of this anti-clerical caricature that Francis is undermining the foundation of his own Papacy, which rests on the authority he has received to rule the Church.


To be continued


1. Francis, Discourse at the Commemoration of 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015.
2. G. Tyrrell, Medievalism, p. 102.
3. Tyrrell, The Church and the Future, pp. 133-134.
4. Francis, Evangelii gaudium, 2013, § 104.
5. Ibid., § 120
6. Ibid., § 102.
7. G. Tyrrell, “Lord Halifax Demurs,” The Weekly Register, n. 2680, May 3, 1901, p. 550, apud David Wells, The Prophetic Theology of George Tyrrell, Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1979, p. 49.
8. Francis, “People Discarded,” Homily in Casa Santa Maria, December 13, 2016.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Authority Supplanted by ‘Service’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Decades before Vatican II, Tyrrell’s recasting of the meaning of authority and its reduction to “service” entered the Church via the Liturgical Movement in the work of Fr. Romano Guardini, now acclaimed by progressivist reformers as one of the main leaders of liturgical “renewal.” Fr. Guardini, it must be added, exerted a significant influence on the documents of Vatican II as well as on the post-Conciliar Popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.

Guardini: ‘Her authority is the authority of service’

This is what Guardini said about ecclesiastical authority:

“This authority is not one of domination, so the individual is subject to it, but the Church is the great servant of the individuals, and becomes by this service that which she really is. Her authority is the authority of service.” (1)

Guardini was among the first of the 20th-century theologians to take up and develop the idea of clerical authority as a generalized, amorphous “service” in which the ordained priest is no longer seen as a mediator of the authority of God, but as the servant of the people. The implication of his words quoted above is that the faithful are not subject to the Church’s authority invested in the Hierarchy, but only directly to God and to their own conscience – a classical Lutheran position. This explains why Guardini regarded the exercise of clerical power, especially where it requires obedience from its subjects, binding under pain of sin, as a form of “domination” (in the pejorative sense).

As for the subject of the papacy as a monarchy, Guardini made his opinion known in the following roundabout way:

“At the Council, when Pope Paul VI laid aside the Tiara with its triple crown upon the altar so that it might be sold and its price might be used to feed the hungry, he intended this act as a symbol and a multiple lesson.” (2)

Paul VI sets aside the papal Tiara, a sign of his rejection of the monarchical structure of the Church

The intended symbol of this action by Paul VI, endorsed by all succeeding Popes, was that the monarchical structure of the Church, with the Pope at the apex, should become taboo, and that the doctrine of papal supremacy should be silenced. And the intended lesson to be learnt from laying aside the papal Tiara is that the universal rule of Christ the King (whose Vice-regent on earth is the Pope) is no longer to be acknowledged as supreme, either in the Church (where the distinction between ruler and subject has been blurred), or in society (where Vatican II has admitted Religious Liberty to all).

In fact, the term Christ the King is not mentioned even once in any of the Vatican II documents, despite the fact that Pope Pius XI had, earlier in the same century, instituted a Feast to celebrate the Kingship of Christ. The abandonment of the Tiara in the context of feeding the poor gives a clear message that the entirely supernatural goal of the papacy has been degraded and debased to make way for purely naturalistic, humanitarian and secular considerations.


‘We don't rule over your Faith, we serve your joy’

To anyone familiar with post-Vatican II rhetoric, this subtitle may sound as if it had been written by Pope Francis. But it was, in fact, the motto that Benedict XVI, looking back over his long ecclesiastical career, said he had chosen to have printed on the invitation cards to the first Mass he celebrated after his priestly ordination in 1951.

Ratzinger, fourth from the left, at his first Mass, already states that he has a different view of authority

The year is noteworthy as it shows that the young Fr. Ratzinger had already adopted this revolutionary slogan before the sacred oil had dried on his hands; it also raises questions as to what influences had been brought to bear on his mind during his seminary training.

The notion of substituting ruling for serving has long been the leitmotif of most progressivist thinkers who aimed to subvert the Church’s Constitution, starting with early modernists such as George Tyrrell and key players in the Liturgical Movement such as Romano Guardini.

In his autobiography-by-interview with journalist Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict explained that his youthful motto was “part of a contemporary understanding of the priesthood.” (3) But the motto does not represent the theological orthodoxy that prevailed in the mid-1950s. On the contrary, before Vatican II it would have been unintelligible to all but a certain group of rebellious theologians – a revolutionary vanguard –who eventually succeeded in changing the way the modern Church regards the priesthood.

Even in his twilight years, Pope Benedict XVI still clung on to the view that was de rigueur among progressivists that the traditional teaching of the Church on the munus regendi was a form of “Clericalism”:

“Not only were we conscious that clericalism is wrong and the priest is always a servant, but we also made great inward efforts not to put ourselves up on a high pedestal.” (4)

Even if this statement is not intended to be an example of virtue-signalling, it carries the distasteful implication that modern priests are superior to their forebears in the virtue of humility. The basic assumption that priests have put themselves up on a high pedestal is a slur on the priesthood; it fails to recognize that priests have been called and ordained to a higher destiny as mediators between God and man for the salvation of souls.

Still reminiscing on the progressivist formation he received in his seminary days, which induced him to view the ordained priesthood as something not to be looked up to, Pope Benedict XVI stated:

“I would not even have dared to introduce myself as ‘the Reverend.’ To be aware that we are not lords, but rather servants, was for me something not only reassuring, but also personally important as the basis on which I could receive ordination at all.” (5)

Paul VI, Benedict XVI & Francis - all shared the same progressivist view of authority

This statement seems to owe more to the ideological prejudice against the higher status of the priesthood that had always been a bone of contention among progressivists. It is in line with the thinking of Fr. Tyrrell who, as we have seen, described himself as “too democratic even to enjoy the ‘superiority’ of sacerdotal dignity.” (6)

Regrettably, Tyrrell’s modern day heirs, who also reject the higher-lower dichotomy, overthrow what the Church has taught with the greatest certainty and accuracy: that man is subject to the sovereignty of God who is the goal of all creation, and that the faithful are subordinate to the Hierarchy who represents Christ, the Head of the Church.

Moreover, a key feature of the pre-Vatican II revolutionaries is that they did not source their ideas from Catholic Tradition but from their own personal opinions. Benedict XVI, for instance, admitted that the motto printed on his invitation card expressing his view of the priesthood (to serve and not to rule) was inspired by his own private interpretation of the Bible:

“So the statement on the invitation expressed a central motivation for me. This was a motive I found in various texts in the lessons and readings of Holy Scripture, and which expressed something very important to me.” (7)

While there are numerous references in the Scriptures to the necessity of humility among rulers, there is nothing that substitutes “service” for “rule,” as the motto seems to imply. Here Benedict XVI inadvertently revealed the baseless nature of the accusation of “Clericalism” launched against the traditional Hierarchy.

But if the grounds for the accusation cannot be found in either Scripture or Tradition, we must conclude that the taunt of “Clericalism” is simply an artificial construct, an invention of the progressivists. Otherwise, why should the concept of ruling over the faithful have become such a neuralgic issue in the Church since Vatican II? Even Popes are reluctant to mention it, and insist on redefining it under the disarming titles of “service,” “gift” and “love.”

‘When priesthood, episcopacy & papacy are understood in terms of rule, things are wrong’

After Vatican II, in his previous role as Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope presented this new outlook as follows:

“The category that corresponds to the priesthood is not that of rule … When priesthood, episcopacy and papacy are understood essentially in terms of rule, then things are essentially wrong and distorted.” (8)

Here Ratzinger showed himself a master of the dark art of obfuscation and double-speak. One could easily infer from these words that ruling does not belong to the essence of the priesthood. But this conflicts with the orthodox teaching that the munus regendi is one of the sacred powers conferred on the priest at his ordination: The priest is a ruler in the supernatural sense.

Whatever he meant is not exactly clear. All we know is that his idea did not come directly from Catholic Tradition, for he described the new teaching (which, significantly, no traditional Catholic had asked for) as “an important, different way of looking at things.” (9)

Being one of the progressivist theologians of his day, Ratzinger felt uncomfortable with the idea of a Hierarchy with the right to rule, in the sense of exercising power or sovereign authority over other members of the Church. So, he constructed a plausible account of the Greek origin of the word hierarchy with the obvious intention of diverting the attention of the faithful away from its true meaning as understood in Tradition.

Hierarchy – from the Greek hieros (sacred) and archon (ruler or lord) (10) was always understood in the Church as government by ecclesiastical rulers who had received their priestly powers through Ordination. But this concept was too unpalatable for progressivists who wanted to demolish the monarchical structure of the Church and replace it with a democratic model based on Baptism alone. So, Ratzinger performed a sleight of hand by pointing to an ambiguity in the Greek word archē, (11) which can mean both origin and rule, and chose the former meaning over the latter as the correct translation. (12)

This act of misdirection provided a ready excuse for progressivists to ditch the traditional interpretation of hierarchy, while making it virtually impossible for anyone without knowledge of Greek etymology to judge the reliability of his translation.

The people’s Pope, a new concept of papacy

As it turned out, Ratzinger was unable to provide any grounds for believing that origin was a more appropriate translation than rule,(13) which was the fundamental point of his argument.

To sum up, his theological position on the Hierarchy, faithful to Vatican II, was no different from that of Fr. Tyrrell and all progressivists of neo-modernist persuasion. It can be summed up in his statement:

“Jesus’ way of governing was not through dominion, but in the humble and loving service of the washing of the feet.” (14)

All the ingredients of the modernist anti-clerical outlook are contained therein: Clerics should serve the people rather than rule over them – the message encapsulated in the Ratzinger motto.

After Pope John XXIII’s opening speech at the Council, in which he recommended the “medicine of mercy,” a new approach to governing the Church was conceived. It would be free from “inquisitorial” practices such as heresy-hunting, censorship and punitive laws, with less emphasis on the imposition of penances, fasting and abstinence, commands and sanctions, and much more on the freedom of the individual.

If Benedict still talked about ruling and governing the Church, it was only in the sense of “guiding,” “instructing,” “inspiring” and “sustaining” the “People of God”; (15) in other words with emasculated authority structures compatible with Vatican II’s “New Evangelization.”


To be continued


1.Romano Guardini, The Church of the Lord: On the Nature and Mission of the Church, Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1966, p. 105.
2. Ibid., p. 107.
3. Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald, Last Testament: In His Own Words, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016, p. 87.
4. Ibid., p. 87.
5. Ibid., p. 88.
6. G. Tyrrell, ‘To Wilfrid Ward Esq.’, April 8, 1906, apud Maude Petrie (ed.), George Tyrrell’s Letters,  London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1920, p. 102.
7. Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald, op. cit., p. 88.
8. Joseph Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the End of the Millennium, An Interview with Peter Seewald, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997, p. 191.
9. Ibid.
10. The archon (ἄρχων) was the title of the chief magistrates in ancient Greek states.
11. Archē (αρχη) originally had the meaning of something that was in the beginning, designating the source, origin or root of things that exist. By extension, it came to mean power, sovereignty and domination derived from a first principle.
12. Ratzinger, ibid., p. 190.
13. Ratzinger concentrated solely on the “sacred origin” aspect of the word hierarchy, and omitted its meaning of “sacred rule.” He clouded the issue in circumlocution, stating that the power of the sacred origin is “the ever-new beginning of every generation in the Church.” This gives the impression of a return to the sources to re-apply the original principles to each new generation to suit the outlook of contemporary man. But this digression is not an argument ad rem. It does nothing to prove that the traditional concept of the hierarchy is “essentially wrong and distorted.”
14. Benedict, ‘Authority and hierarchy in the Church: Service lived in pure giving’, Address given in St Peter’s Square, May 26, 2010
15. This approach features very clearly in his above-mentioned May 2010 speech.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Pope Francis’s Hermeneutic of ‘Rigidity’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The preceding articles have provided abundant and irrefutable evidence that the accusation of “Clericalism” has become an ideological cause, onto which many of the progressivists’ prejudices against Tradition have been projected. Having started as a visceral objection to rule by clerics, the charge has itself become the ruling ideology in the Vatican II Church, one that has been initiated, nurtured and maintained by clerics.

Maude Petre, a Catholic nun involved in the modernist controversy

Chief among these was, of course, Fr. George Tyrrell, about whom his friend and protector, Maude Petre, stated that “many, many are the things openly said by Catholics, priests or laymen, that could never have been safely said had men like Tyrrell not first said them, and been decapitated for so doing.”(1) Now even Popes are saying what Tyrrell said, and it is traditionalists who have been decapitated.


‘Rigidity’ & the ‘New Morality’

Of all the jeering slogans in Francis’s arsenal of insults against traditionalists, the accusation of “rigidity” is the weapon of choice most associated with his pontificate. Even a cursory glance through the Vatican website reveals that the word “rigidity,” like his many criticisms of the “Doctors of the Law,” is a recurring refrain of his speeches and writings – so much so that it has become associated with his name.

It may come as a surprise, therefore, to find that “rigidity” as a term of abuse launched by progressivists against Catholics who uphold Catholic Morals has a long history, stretching back to Fr. Tyrrell and the early Modernist Movement.

Pope Pius XII, in his 1952 Radio Message, alerted Catholic educators that promoters of what he termed the “New Morality” (otherwise known as Situation Ethics) were accusing the Church of preaching “almost exclusively and with excessive rigidity (excessive rigidità), on the firmness and the intransigence of Christian moral laws … instead of fostering the law of human liberty and of love, and of insisting on it as a worthy dynamic of the moral life.” (2) The Pope reminded the faithful that “the accusation of oppressive rigidity made against the Church by the ‘new morality’ in reality attacks, in the first place, the adorable Person of Christ Himself.”(3)

In a speech later in the same year, (4) Pius XII considered it vital that all the faithful understand the Divine foundation on which Catholic Morality is established and the goal towards which it aims – the salvation of souls. In particular, he noted the prevailing trend among liberal Catholics to consider those who unbendingly try to follow the Law of God as being guilty of “l’hypocrisie d'une fidélité pharisaïque aux leis” (the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who meticulously observe the laws.)

It will be helpful to keep these points in mind when we come to examine some of the frequent occasions when the term “rigidity” has been used by Francis in the sense reprobated by Pius XII.


Francis, ‘Rigidity’ & the ‘New Morality’

In the hands of Pope Francis, rigidity is a word that cannot be pinned down to a clear definition. Its elusiveness is precisely what makes it valuable as a propaganda term. It can mean whatever he wishes it to mean in whatever circumstances he chooses. Typically, he uses it to convey a sense of fury (cue Tyrrell) against Tradition. Here we will see how he uses it as a catch-all insult for just about everything that irks him about traditionalists.

Pius XII condemned the New Morality

His brief is fixed and immutable, based on intolerance towards anyone who questioned the Vatican II reforms. In fact, one can hardly think of anything more rigid – or unmerciful – than his own implacable opposition to traditional Catholicism. He has now openly endorsed the eradication of Tradition altogether by ordering the world’s Bishops to limit the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass with a view to its extinction, and to forbid the use of pre-Vatican II Sacraments.

From this we gather that, for Pope Francis, not all “rigidities” are equal: Some, apparently, are more equal than others.


The Unacceptable Rigidities

When we examine the instances in which Francis uses the adjective “rigid” as a term of abuse, we cannot fail to notice that it is always directed against Catholics who refuse to abandon the Faith of their spiritual ancestors. There is no gainsaying the deep antipathy with which he views these faithful members of the Church: They are, in his eyes, to be condemned for the following “clericalist” crimes:

• Clinging to Tradition for “security”;
  
• Standing firm on principles that are non-negotiable;
  
• Upholding the Sixth Commandment;
  
• Uncompromisingly defending the Faith;
  
• Maintaining high standards of discipline in seminaries;
  
• Wearing the cassock and certain items of ecclesiastical headgear.
  

For Francis it is fine to be rigid against what he calls ‘the rigid traditionalists’ – a curious concept of justice

The openly revolutionary and deeply philistine nature of this position is undeniable. It is in keeping with the proponents of “Cancel Culture” who love to shame the virtuous and promote immorality as normal. It is as if Francis were encouraging the faithful to love sin and hate what is good.

In this article and the next, we will see how Pope Francis continues to show himself to be malevolently disposed towards those who try to uphold the doctrines and precepts taught by the Church. By persistently deviating from what has always been regarded as normal, Francis has brought about the perverse outcome that trouncing the Faith of all the Christian centuries is now identified with virtue. Indeed, anyone listening to his frequent attacks on “rigidity” could easily gain the impression that the road to Hell is paved with moral fervor.


Who are the Intolerable ‘Rigid Types’ of whom Francis Speaks?

The short answer is anyone who opposes his progressivist agenda. The longer one, fleshed out by Francis himself, homes in on the usual suspects – those who refuse to go along with the Revolution and display the following characteristics:

“Hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – ‘traditionalists’ and also of the intellectuals.” (5)

From the beginning of his pontificate (the above words were written in 2014), Francis has been creating negative stereotypes about “rigid” Catholics, i.e., those who stand firm on principles that are non-negotiable. Here, he corrals them into a group so that they can be collectively tarred as extremist, closed-minded, hard-hearted, psychologically impaired and unable to keep up with the times. He confessed to wanting to throw a banana skin in front of them as a remedy for their alleged pride and “rigidity,” “so that they will take a good fall, and feel shame that they are sinners.”(6)

We can be sure that the banana skin joke was not meant in a good-natured way, for ever since then, Francis has been waging a relentless war against traditionalists; he has persistently stigmatized, marginalized and made access to the traditional rites difficult for them. In short, he has set the stage for the rejection and persecution of traditional Catholics.


No Time for Young ‘Rigid’ Traditionalists

Francis has expressed incredulity at the popularity of the traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments with the rising generation of young people today, over half a century since the imposition of the Novus Ordo Missae:

The progressivists ignore the great attraction the youth have for the Traditional Mass

“I ask myself about this. For example, I always try to understand what’s behind the people who are too young to have lived the pre-Conciliar liturgy but who want it. Sometimes I’ve found myself in front of people who are too strict, who have a rigid attitude. And I wonder: How come such rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something: insecurity, sometimes even more… Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.” (7)

Young people being attracted to the traditional Mass is a phenomenon which is hard to fathom by those who had confidently predicted the demise of the ancient rites and their replacement by what they term “vibrant,” creative liturgies thought to be more appealing to the youth. Not only was this aim delusional, but the evidence shows that a key feature of most celebrations of the New Mass is the dearth of young people in the congregation.

A pertinent point that suggests itself in Francis’s words is that he is not, after all, as close to the people as he claimed to be; otherwise he would have understood, and not harshly judged, the growing numbers of young people around the world who are attracted to the traditional Mass for its truth, goodness and beauty. This is not difficult to grasp if we consider the following axiomatic points.

On the one hand, heterodox theology and modern liturgy complement each other, and the combination of both encourages immoral behavior; while, on the other, orthodox theology is supported by traditional forms of worship and produces not only holiness but also plentiful vocations to the priesthood. Put simply – for those who may still be mystified – many young people today treasure their spiritual patrimony and wish to preserve it because it is the authentic expression of the Church’s age-old lex credendi, lex orandi and lex vivendi.


To be continued


1. Maude Petre, My Way of Faith, London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1937, p. 208.
2. Pius XII, “De Conscientia Christiana in Iuvenibus Recte Efformanda” (On the correct formation of a Christian conscience in young people), Radio Message on the Occasion of ‘Family Day,’ March 23, 1952, AAS, 44, 1952, p. 274.
3.Ibid., p. 275.
4. “Discours du Pape Pie XII aux Participants au Congrès de la Fédération Mondiale des Jeunesses Féminines Catholiques” (Address of Pope Pius XII to the Congress of the World Federation of Young Catholic Women), April 18, 1952, AAS 44, 1952, p. 416.
5. Francis, Address at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, October 18, 2014.
Francis, “Rigidity is a sign of a weak heart,” Vatican Radio Archive, The Voice of the Pope and the Church in Dialogue with the World, December 15, 2014.
6. Francis, Interview with Fr Antonio Spadaro, SJ, November 18, 2016.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The Fallacy of ‘Guilt by Association’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

A favorite ploy of Pope Francis is to sully the reputation of traditionalists – particularly clerics – by accusing them of “rigidity” and placing them in the category of those condemned by Our Lord in the Gospels, i.e., Pharisees and hypocrites. Unfortunately, he does not distinguish between the rigidity of those who have a strong and unwavering loyalty to the doctrine and discipline of the Church (these are specifically condemned), and the rigidity of the Pharisees who put observance of man-made laws before charity, trusting in their own self-righteousness, and despising others.

Francis: ‘Rigid people are sick people’

Instead, he issues a blanket condemnation of all those who “observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past,” and accuses them of “self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagianism” because they “ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others.”1

But this is simply an ad hominem attack based on uncharitable speculation; it sees traditional Catholics in the worst possible light, and does nothing to explain why it is right and proper to value Catholic Tradition and to remain “intransigently faithful” to it.

Francis piles on the unjust criticism, directing his barbs against those who have kept faithful to orthodox Catholic doctrine:

“A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism.”

This is, of course, only another variation on the old “clericalist” cliché of “lording it” over the faithful. He has nothing but contempt for traditional catechesis which he caricatures in this way:

“Instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”

Francis detests the traditional catechism taught in classes of old as well as the disciplined ambience

The subtle undertones of scorn in this accusation may not be apparent to all, but it will certainly resonate with neo-modernists, i.e., the Catholic biblical scholars, philosophers and theologians, both clerical and lay, who demand freedom from all regulations imposed by ecclesiastical authority.

By openly taking their side, Francis has shown himself to be in sympathy with all the revolutionaries who prevailed at Vatican II, which is why he refuses to act as the authoritative voice of Christ in matters of Faith and Morals.

As for his complaint about people being subject to “inspecting and verifying,” these activities were strenuously opposed by liberals of all stripes, yet they were the indispensable means used by the Church down the centuries to look into (which is what the word Inquisition means) attempts to subvert the Faith through their preaching and their books.

Francis welcomes Spanish speaking youth on their level, without an attempt to convert

Pope Pius V, for example, was an Inquisitor who worked for the salvation of souls by counteracting the spread of heretical ideas during the Protestant Reformation. Pope Pius X, in his 1910 motu proprio, urged the world’s Bishops to root out any sign of Modernism in their Dioceses, cautioning them never to relax their vigilance and severity (i.e., their “rigidity”).2

In the new progressivist regime, by contrast, everyone is allowed to promote his own innovations and opinions in doctrine, and there is widespread tolerance for grave moral evils connected with the Sixth Commandment, under the guise of “mercy” and “inclusiveness.” In this area, Francis himself has encouraged some to consider themselves justified in receiving Holy Communion without repentance or purpose of amendment.


The Rigidity of the Sixth Commandment

This brings us to Francis’s cavalier treatment of the sins of the flesh which he dismissed, in a talk to his fellow Jesuits, as among the “least serious” of sins. Here his line of reasoning is faulty.

Sins never mentioned by Francis & progressivists

Just because sins of the flesh, including lust, are classified by St. Thomas Aquinas as less serious than those of the intellect, such as pride, it does not follow that they are the least serious of all. Yet Francis used this non sequitur to trivialize sins against the Sixth Commandment, thus flying in the face of the whole biblical tradition and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.3 He went on to accuse moralizing clergy of obsessively overemphasizing such sins:

“One dimension of clericalism is the exclusive moral fixation on the sixth commandment… We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”4

But this is entirely untrue, and can be easily refuted by the evidence around us. Most Bishops adopt a stance of silence or ambiguity (which suggests disbelief) about the Sixth Commandment. Virtually no Novus Ordo priests would dare to mention sins of impurity in their sermons or criticize the immodest fashions worn by women even in church.

Bishops rock at a WYD to please the youth, not correct them

Ever since Vatican II, the Church has been awash with “social justice” and “environmental” issues, while slander, gossip and lies are freely circulated against traditionalists including, as we have seen, by Francis himself.

Given his long track record of accusing traditionalist priests of “clericalism,” we can conclude that his comments were directed against them. But even here he would be wrong, for priests who were trained in today’s traditional seminaries and are guided by the pre-Vatican II manuals and textbooks of Moral Theology are known to display an even-handed approach to all moral questions. To accuse them of having an “exclusive moral fixation on the Sixth Commandment” is both false and calumnious.

To understand where Francis is coming from in this particular accusation, we must keep in mind his predilection for repeating progressivist slogans and for adopting modernist and left-wing opinions that are injurious to the Church. His above-mentioned comment fits exactly the paradigm of criticism routinely levelled at the Church since the rise of Liberation Theology in the mid-20th century.

It was then (and still is) asserted by radical revolutionaries bent on changing the doctrines and structures of the Church that too many priests and religious put emphasis almost exclusively on sins against the Sixth Commandment, while remaining blind to the most elementary demands of “social justice” and “social solidarity.” This was the basic message of most liberation theologians of the 1960s 5 to the present day, and is heartily embraced by Francis.

Furthermore, Francis gives the impression of underestimating the double malice of adultery. He seems to forget that it is not only a sin of lust contrary to the Natural Law, but also against “social justice” insofar as it destroys the family, damages the welfare of innocent children, and works against the good of society intended by God. We must also keep in mind the effects of sins of impurity on public morals that are now swamped in a morass of venereal pleasure, and on education where the obsession with sex has corrupted the minds of children even in the infant school.

A truly “pastoral” Pope would uphold the moral law with rigidity – as instructed in the Gospels (Matt. 5:18) where Our Lord, Who came not to abolish but to fulfil the Law, said that, “not one iota” must be removed from the moral and spiritual principles. But this is unacceptable for progressivists because they do not accept the immutability of Catholic Faith and Morals. They believe that the Church should adapt her teaching to the demands of each passing generation, stop condemning theological error, allow freedom from restrictions in moral issues, and be more open to the influence of worldly values – all in the interests of becoming more “humane.”

Francis makes it easier for Catholics to get annulments & divorces

Disastrously for the Church and society, Francis has given the impression in Amoris laetitia that grave violations of the Moral Law can meet with the Church’s approval in cases of presumed subjective sincerity and individual conscience.

Instead of roundly condemning the rampant immorality in evident display around us ‒ resulting in the collapse of marriage and birth rates, legalized abortion and euthanasia, the “silent apostasy” from Christianity and the collapse of Western Civilization – he prefers to attack those who uphold the rigid morals that the Catholic Church has been preaching from its foundation up to Vatican II. In so doing, he has broken down the most effective barrier against the current tide of immorality in our society.

When we consider the consequences of abandoning the rigidity of Catholic Morals, it becomes clear that, contrary to Francis’s assertion, it is not the Church of Catholic Tradition that “needs a profound conversion in this area,” but Francis himself and the kind of Church that Vatican II has brought into being.


The Rigidity of ‘Black-and-White’

Modernists despise clear expositions of Catholic doctrine – Francis sees them as an obstacle to the “New Evangelization” – on the grounds of the old adage that not every situation is either black or white; some areas are grey, and there is no right or wrong in an absolute sense. In 2016, Francis adopted this approach as a counterweight to “rigidity” when talking to a group of Jesuit priests on the subject of giving counsel in the confessional.

“Many people leave the confessional disappointed,” he complained, because “rigid” priests lay down the law and tell them “'you must do this, you must not do that.” 6 He reiterated this notion shortly afterwards when he told the community of the Pontifical Major Seminary in Rome that “rigidity basically means taking a whip in hand with the People of God: you cannot do this, you cannot do that.” And thus, “many people approach, seeking a bit of consolation, a little understanding,” but instead they are “distanced by this rigidity.” 7

Francis scolds the traditional rigid confessions

But this misses the fundamental point of the Gospels, in which Our Lord gave us a choice in very rigid, black-and-white terms with eternal consequences: Heaven or Hell; the “narrow gate” or the “broad way”; the path of Life or of Death; the sheep or the goats; “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who gathereth not with Me scattereth. (Matt. 12:30) And, incidentally, He did take a whip in hand to drive the money-changers out of the Temple.

Catholics have always understood this stark dichotomy as an immutable part of the Faith. The oldest catechism (the Didache), produced in the early years of Christianity, gives as its first point of doctrine:

“There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between these two ways.”

This teaching held sway in the Church until the proponents of the “New Morality” relativized the Commandments, allowing the faithful to imagine that they could escape the judgement of God and adapt the Moral Law according to the way each person subjectively sees best.

The problem with Francis’s approach is that his judgement on moral questions was based on a human rather than a Divine perspective, and on a Protestant rather than a Catholic angle. Significantly, Pius XII had already explained how the “New Morality” came “from outside the Faith and Catholic principles,” deriving initially from Existentialism that treated God as an abstraction, or denied His existence altogether.8

To this we can add the contributions of various contemporary Protestant theologians who were immensely influential in mid-20th century progressivist circles, and were readily adopted inside the Church with the blessing of Vatican II.9


To be continued


1. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 2013, § 94
2. Pius X, Antistitum sacrorum, (The Oath against Modernism), 1910: “Hisce ausibus contra evangelicam doctrinam et ecclesiasticam traditionem nunquam satis opponetur vigilantiae aut severitatis nimium ab iis quibus commissa est sacri huius depositi custodia fidelis.” (There can never be enough vigilance and firmness from those entrusted with the faithful safe-keeping of the sacred deposit of evangelical doctrine and ecclesiastical tradition, in combating these bold attacks against them).
3. In contradiction to Pope Francis, the eminent Doctor of the Church, St Alphonsus Liguori, considered by Pope Pius XII to be the Patron of moral theologians, said that through these sins “most souls fall into Hell”, and that “all reprobates are condemned by them, or at least not without them.” (Theologia Moralis, lib. III, tract. IV, c. II)
4. Antonio Spadaro, ‘The Sovereignty of the People of God: The Pontiff meets the Jesuits of Mozambique and Madagascar,’ La Civiltà Cattolica, September 26, 2019.
5. Cf. Louis Monden SJ, Sin, Liberty and the Law. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965, pp. 112-115.
6. Francis, ‘Q&A session with Polish Jesuits at a private meeting during World Youth Day in Krakow,’ July 30, 2016, published in Rome on August 26, 2016 in the Jesuit Journal, La Civiltà Cattolica, by its Editor, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, who was present at the meeting.
7. Francis, ‘Mediators or intermediaries,’ Address to the community of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary, Morning Meditation in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, December 9, 2016.
8. Pius XII, op. cit., April 18, 1952.
9. For example, the works of the following Protestant theologians: Swiss Reformed Church Pastor Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative (1941), Evangelical Pastor Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: a Study of Ethics and Politics (1932), Baptist Minister Harvey Cox, The Secular City (1965), Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (1949), John A. T. Robinson, Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, Honest to God (1963) and Episcopalian priest-turned-atheist Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (1966).