Declining Slowly – I
Here follows an abbreviated testimonial from the United States, which hits many a nail on the head:—
The Society of St Pius X has been “rebranded,” and it is not the same as it was. As the original SSPX belonged to the Catholic Church, so the Newsociety belongs to the Newchurch. To those old enough to remember, it seems like Vatican II all over again, only worse, because this time there is no direct doctrinal attack, nor a major Council, instead the revolution is being spread by slow, almost imperceptible social transformation.
For while the appearances of Tradition are being maintained, the Traditionalist Movement is being slowly changed from within. Outwardly and materially things appear to be more successful than ever, with increasing amounts of money and buildings, but inwardly and spiritually there is decay, because the disease of modernism is imperceptibly infecting the ranks. A variety of symptoms indicate that the modernism is the same, for instance the new, young happy-faced Society priests who are just like the “peace priests” of the 60s and 70s, as the great Cardinal Mindszenty called them. But unlike the previous generation of priests they lack masculinity, and so do some of the Newsociety’s leading lay teachers.
Thus the Mass may still be Traditional, but the whole culture around it is Novus Ordo. Traditionalists want to preserve the Old Mass and the Sacraments, and some of the morals from the Catechism, but at the same time they want to have everything else the modern world has to offer. This makes many so-called Traditional Catholics, outside of the Mass and the Sacraments, largely indistinguishable from their counterparts in the rest of the modern world. The statistics are the same when it comes to divorce, annulment, “single mothers,” etc. If Traditionalists want to go with the modern world, they cannot stay with the true religion. It is one or the other.
As it is, the Traditionalist Movement is now opening up to the world, to become socially acceptable and normal. and the process of modernization is underway, slowly but surely. There is a new, young generation in charge and they are changing things. The old, quirky, embarrassing hardliners have been replaced, and Tradition has a new image, a young, happy, friendly face. The mainstream Church had its aggiornamento fifty years ago, the Society is being updated today. The old generation which fought so many battles to preserve things is now being replaced by a new generation which never knew the Novus Ordo, or how it came to be, and has never had to fight for anything. Today’s youngsters are liable to have grown up in a Traditional bubble, and have too little knowledge of yesterday’s war, background of today’s. Before the Council Bella Dodd testified to the Communist infiltration of the Church. Are we so sure that the same thing is not being done now to the Traditionalist Movement?
It was all too predictable. Being neither infallible nor indefectible, the Society is now going through what the Church went through fifty years ago – infiltration, compromise, disintegration and the same process of autodemolition. Archbishop Lefebvre would have noticed the radical change immediately, but a large number of the frogs in the Society pot have not even noticed how the water temperature is rising. The Archbishop”handed down what he received,” but how can the new generation hand down what it is no longer receiving? Therefore we now hear that the “inevitable reconciliation” is at hand. The SSPX will be accepted as part of the Newchurch, and conversely, it will have to accept the Newchurch. It will now be just one of many side-chapels in the Pantheon of the New World Order. And as for “reconciliation,” which side has given in to the other? Has the Conciliar Church become Catholic? Far from it!
See next week further examples from the same witness.
Kyrie eleison.
