Sunday, April 24, 2011

What We Definitely Don't Stand For

My warning before you post a comment on the blog threatens to hold up crazy posts as examples of "what we don't stand for." I've done this at least once before. But today there were three posts, by apparently the same poster, that are ridiculously crazy. I had to delete one, though I'll quote it here. One wonders if the person in question was being serious, except the thought given to the final response indicates that they are (or else an incredibly good parodist who knows the ins-and-outs of current Catholic issues).

First, on a rather old post of mine, I found this horrible comment waiting for me when I came home this evening. This is the one I had to delete:

FUCK THE ORTHODOX!! GO TO FCKIN HELL!!!
LONG LIVE THE POPE!
I make no lie. I pray the Orthodox, and Prods die.
Wow. Someone didn't take their meds today. And on Easter of all things. It's a real shame this sort of hatred exists in the world.

Next, on my post about the ridiculous over-reaction and calls for censorship regarding that new pope movie, I found in response to my rhetorical question, "Just what sort of theocratic regime do these people want to live under?" this comment:

What sort of theocratic regime do I want to live under?
A world where the Pope is ABSOLUTE MONARCH!!! Please please please...(And I'm not even joking)
Uh-huh, good luck with that.

Finally, the more thoughtful response, which I found on my post about the Holy Week liturgies I attended (in which I critiqued the Reform of the Reform as just lipstick on a pig):


Why reform of the reform? Because no matter what the NO is here to stay. The EF will never gain acceptance among the great majority of Catholics (unfortunately) and a papal command will just be ignored.
Therefore our best hope for reaching out and converting the masses of so-called Catholics will be in celebrating the Novus Ordo - but in the Benedictine manner.
The EF mass will not save the Church (unless you see the Church as comprised of a few million - me, I want a Church that is strong, powerful - in worldly terms - and numerically vast which allows her to establish her triumphant rule over the whole world and crush the forces of secularism and liberal Christianity). The EF has too much baggage to do that unfortunately. But the reform of the reform could. It's our last great hope.
(Plus, I could never bear to hear the SSPX going...SEE WE WERE RIGHT TO OPPOSE THE POPE...after all...I'm an ultramontanist true and true... :P)
I responded to this in the comments and will repeat my reply here because I think it's worth repeating in case anyone else come across such arguments:

You may be right that the great majority of Catholics wouldn't accept the EF (as it currently stands)...but it's not the text itself that they particularly care about. The elements they object to are the very elements that groups like that try to put into the OF (Latin, old-timey music, baroque aesthetics, ad orientem, etc).
The people don't care one way or the other about the textual differences between OF and EF, the new calendar, the 3-year lectionary, etc. What they care about (and "would never accept") are the very elements the Reform of the Reform tries to force onto the Novus Ordo. Hence why I call it "worst of both worlds."
A vernacular Old Rite with more Gothic aesthetics (and more "sing-songy" settings of the music)...would, on the other hand, I think be the "best of both worlds."
It's interesting that their stated motives include both the notion that "the N.O. is here to stay" (but combined with a naïve belief that people would accept it mixed with the very elements that alienate them in the Old Rite!) and the sort of "helping the Church save face"/authority-fetish dynamics (in this case, relative to the SSPX) that I theorized about in my post. It's also hilariously fascinating that such an unabashed nut-job with dreams of ultramontanist theocracy thinks the Old Rite has "too much baggage" to be accepted by the modern world. You will note, whoever this was, it wasn't even a trad. It was some sort of papalatrous neocon type. Yuck.

3 comments:

Stohn said...

I love the variety in your posts (theorizing, satirizing, ranting [in a good way], sharing, lamenting, etc). Keep it up!

Unknown said...

Who exactly is the "we" mentioned in the title? Every post I've seen is by "A Sinner."

A Sinner said...

Haha. I have plenty of readers/followers, though, who share my attitudes, comment here, are my friends in real life and online through email and such. This blog is mine, no doubt, but it's about being a voice for and networking with the "renegade trads" of the world.