TrapCast Express
TrapCast Express, it's Monday, August 2nd, 2021.
It's been over two weeks now since Francis dropped his nuclear bomb on the traditional Latin mass, Tradiciones Custodes.
And predictably, there quickly erupted a firestorm of outrage, disbelief, and defiance.
Of course, it didn't take long for the first self-appointed pundits to appear online telling everyone that this new Bergolian decree has no authority, is not binding, and should be ignored and resisted.
Now, these people consider themselves to be orthodox, traditional Catholics.
And yet, it does not occur to them that declaring a pope's universal disciplinary decision to be null and void is perhaps a little presumptuous and not something a layman, or even a bishop or a cardinal, has the power to do.
But, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
One man who could not wait to overrule his supposed pope was Dr. Peter Kwasniewski.
Writing for The Remnant,
On July 16th, the very day the Latin mass decree was released, Kwasniewski said this,
This is a declaration of total war, and must be courageously resisted every step of the way, anything else to the contrary notwithstanding.
The true guardians of tradition will be the clergy, religious, and laity who carry on with the traditional liturgy in the face of the infernal hatred directed against it.
It is too high a price to pay for obedience to a soul-crushing regime, whatever trappings of authority it claims to wear.
This new motu proprio is as bad as it seems only if we allow ourselves to think and act as if we are bound by it, as if its provisions are licit.
If, however, we recognize that it is inherently anti-canon,
and that no pope can rightfully trample on the members of the church and on her venerable rights as Francis is attempting to do,
then we will see it more as an external burden like a plague, a war, a famine, or an evil government to be overthrown or borne with until its demise.
Does the pope have the authority to issue such a diktat?
No.
It is worth even less than the paper on which.
It is written.
Unquote.
Thus speaketh Professor Peter Kwasniewski, whose authority in the Novus Ordo Church is exactly zero.
The following day, July 17th, a contribution by the same author appeared on the blog New Liturgical Movement.
In it, Kwasniewski repeated his thesis, saying, quote,
The New Apostolic Letter Tradizionist.
Yeah, openly contradicting and defying a papal decree and inciting others to follow suit is definitely the traditional Catholic thing to do, right?
Let's see.
Writing to the Archbishop of Paris in 1885, Pope Leo XIII taught that, quote,
If it should happen that those who have no right to do so should attribute authority to themselves, if they presume to become judges and teachers, if inferiors in the government of the universal church attempt or try to exert an influence different from that of the supreme authority, there follows a reversal of the true order.
Many minds are thrown into confusion and souls leave the right path.
Unquote.
And that is from the Apostolic Letter Epistola Tua of Pope Leo XIII.
Now, what Pope Leo condemns here is exactly what Peter Kwasniewski has done.
But I guess it won't matter to him since, you know, he's not bound by what a pope says, or so he thinks.
But then it gets worse.
See, it's not enough for Kwasniewski to reject the decree of someone he insists is the vicar of Christ.
No, he must also criticize those who do not defy the supposedly valid papal authority.
On July 16th, the professor appeared on Restoring the Faith's The Rundown program on YouTube to discuss Tradiciones Custodes.
And around 48 minutes into it, he started talking about how when Paul VI introduced his new mass in 1969,
almost no cardinal or bishop resisted him.
Because they were all into ultramontanism.
Listen to this.
The whole church being steeped in ultramontanism had completely caved in, right?
All that happened was, you know, Pope Paul VI said this is the new liturgy.
And even Cardinal Siri, of all people, right?
And Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
They just fell into line immediately, right?
They didn't even bat an eye.
It was like, oh, okay, well, this isn't my preference, but the pope said it.
I guess I have to do it.
Yeah.
I mean, how?
How dare they obey the pope, right?
Look, what utter trash, okay?
Kwasniewski is arguing that the reason why Paul VI was successful in imposing the new mass
is that not enough bishops and cardinals were resisting it.
And the reason why they weren't resisting it is that they were all steeped in ultramontanism,
by which Kwasniewski means an exaggerated notion of papal authority.
In other words, according to Kwasniewski, if only the bishops and cardinals had realized
that Catholic doctrine required them to show the pope who's boss and defy his imposition
of the new mass, instead of, you know, obediently following what was decreed by the Holy See,
then Paul VI couldn't have gotten away with it, and that would have been the proper Catholic
response.
That's what Kwasniewski is saying.
Ultramontanism is to blame.
But, as we've seen already from Pope Leo XIII, that actually turns Catholic doctrine on its
head and represents a reversal of the true order.
According to the traditional Catholic magisterium, according to what's on the books, so to speak,
and everyone can look this up for himself, it is for the pope, for the Holy See alone,
to regulate.
The sacred liturgy.
And it is for the cardinals, the bishops, priests, and laity to follow the directives
of the Holy See with filial submission.
Their job is not to resist, but precisely to fall straight in line.
Don't believe it?
Well, here's what Pope Pius XII taught about it in 1947.
Quote,
The sovereign pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and understand,
establish, any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites,
as also to modify those he judges to require modification.
Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance
of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship.
Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide
for themselves.
And these.
Holy and venerable matters involving, as they do, the religious life of Christian society,
along with the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ and worship of God, concerned
as they are with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity, the Word Incarnate and His Auguste
Mother and the other saints, and with the salvation of souls as well.
For the same reason, no private person has any authority to regulate external practices
of this country.
Which are intimately bound up with church discipline, and with the order, unity, and
concord of the mystical body, and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith
itself.
Unquote.
That was Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, paragraph 58.
So that is the traditional Roman Catholic teaching, and Kwasniewski is wrong to criticize
the cardinals and bishops.
He says,
That's how Catholicism works.
That's not an exaggeration of papal authority.
It is the orthodox view of papal authority.
it is the only correct view. You can call it ultramontanism if you want, yes, if you understand
the term in its proper sense, because then, as the old Catholic Encyclopedia published in 1912
confirms, it is simply nothing other than Catholicism. The entry in the Encyclopedia says,
quote, for Catholics it would be superfluous to ask whether ultramontanism and Catholicism
are the same thing. Assuredly, those who combat ultramontanism are in fact combating Catholicism,
even when they disclaim the desire to oppose it, unquote. And that is exactly what Kwasniewski is
doing. He's combating Catholic principles while claiming to uphold them. Look, to accuse a
Catholic of ultramontanism is to accuse him of Catholicism. Works for me. Now, Kwasniewski uses
the term ultramontanism to accuse him of Catholicism. Now, Kwasniewski uses the term
ultramontanism to mean an exaggeration of papal authority. But as we've seen, what he's really
opposing is simply the doctrine of the church. Pius XII, Leo XIII, and many others, of course.
I just want to quote them all here now. So, of course, we're not saying that the bishops and
cardinals who accepted the new mass did the right thing in embracing that awful Novosorto liturgy.
We're only saying that if you start from the premise that Paul VI is the true pope,
then accepting the new mass is the only legitimate way of acting. What the bishops and cardinals
should have done in 1969 is reject the new mass and Paul VI. Well, they really should have done
that at Vatican II already, but right now, let's stay focused on just the topic of the liturgy.
yes they should have rejected not just the new mass itself they should have also rejected the
man who imposed it because and this is the key to it all a true catholic pope is incapable of
instituting a right of mass that is evil harmful heretical sacrilegious and even at least in most
cases invalid now when we say that a pope is incapable of doing that we don't mean that he
can do it and then everyone has to resist it and declare it null and void we mean rather that god
will prevent him from doing it the pope would drop dead before he could put a signature on a document
like the constitution of paul vi promulgating the new mass called messale romanum
you
again don't believe it in the 16th century the council of trent proclaimed quote if anyone says
that the ceremony's vestments and outward signs which the catholic church uses in the celebration
of masses are incentives to impiety rather than the services of piety let him be anathema
unquote that's council of trent session 22 canon 6
you can find it in denzinger number 954 so if you believe that the ceremonies of the new mass
are incentives to impiety then the only way you can say that is if paul vi wasn't a true pope
otherwise you incur the anathema of trent see this is why sedevacantism matters
the whole traditionalist resistance to the vatican ii church stands or falls
with that question the the pope question it is the linchpin that provides the solid theological
foundation for refusing the novo sordo religion or consider pope his the 12th in his encyclical
letter mistechi corpores paragraph 66 he writes quote certainly the loving mother and here he's
talking about a holy mother church certainly the loving mother is sedevacantist and the holy mother
is the one who� i would like to grow the faith in Jesus who was born in the early 1860s and who is
and who is the most wonderful father a 100 years old and who has been the most tasteful and most
blessed of all his children and friends and so on and so forth and so forth and so on and so on and so forth and so on and so on
is spotless in the sacraments by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children, unquote.
Do the Semitrads believe that?
Do they believe the Vatican II Church is spotless in the new Mass?
You don't need to ask them.
You can just look at the meltdown they've had since Francis told them he's phasing out the traditional Latin Mass, right?
So, yeah, you can guess what they think about that spotless new Mass.
So, the clear Catholic doctrine is that the Pope alone judges concerning the sacred liturgy
and that God prevents the Pope from instituting a liturgical rite that contradicts the faith
or is impious or is harmful in any other way.
And it is for that reason, because they had that proper Catholic understanding,
that almost all the bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church
in 1969 loyally submitted to the new Mass of Paul VI.
Unlike what Peter Kwasniewski blasts out on the Internet then,
the problem wasn't ultramontanism.
The problem wasn't an exaggerated understanding of the papacy.
The problem was that the man who gave them the new Mass was not, in fact, the Pope.
He was an imposter.
Now, I know this is a bit of a long story, but I'm going to go through it.
This raises all kinds of questions about how could this happen and so on.
But for all intents and purposes, the fact remains that we know he wasn't the Pope.
That is a necessary conclusion.
But Kwasniewski does not want to go there.
He does not want to say that Paul VI was not a true Pope.
And so, instead, he tinkers with the Catholic teaching on the papacy
to the point where he asserts that a layman,
can say that a papal decree is null and void
and that others should hold it to be of no effect as well.
So, in other words, then, the Pope, according to him,
has no authority of himself at all.
It's just a matter of whether he does the right thing.
And what the right thing is,
that's determined by a bunch of academics,
journalists, lawyers, and bloggers.
Or something.
Yeah, that's traditional Catholicism, right?
And then,
people have to...
have to understand that there is real meaning
to the words Christ spoke to St. Peter
and Caesarea Philippi.
Quote,
That's Matthew 16, 19.
The Pope has genuine authority
to bind,
and loose.
It doesn't matter
if Peter Kwasniewski agrees with the decision or not.
Or the Reverend John Hunwick, for that matter,
the convert from Anglicanism
who's received two invalid priestly ordinations,
one in the Church of England,
the other in the Vatican II Church.
Just yesterday, he published a post on his blog
in which he quotes the modernist Karl Rahner
to help him justify his rejection
of faith.
He wrote a letter to Pope Francis Tradizionis Custodes.
Writing in 1965,
Rahner was considering the hypothetical case
of a Pope issuing a decree
that all the Eastern Catholic Churches
had to get rid of their venerable
Eastern liturgical traditions
and instead adopt and conform to
the Roman liturgy that prevails in the West.
Rahner says that such a decree
would be legally valid,
but it would be a mortal sin
for the Pope to do so.
to do that.
Okay.
Now, Hunwick takes this and runs with it,
but not without adding an idea of his own.
See, in the portion Hunwick quotes,
Rahner doesn't say anything about
resisting such a papal decree.
It is, after all, legally valid.
And that means binding, authoritative.
It is Hunwick who adds the idea that
because the decree was sinful for the Pope to issue,
therefore everyone gets to resist it.
But Rahner doesn't say that.
Nor does Hunwick prove his thesis
in any other way, shape, or form.
Instead, Mr. Hunwick says,
quote,
Rahner was right.
An action can be legally valid
and at the same time be totally wrong.
There is a something which can trump
mere legal validity,
and that something is holy tradition.
Unquote.
Yeah.
Except Rahner didn't say that either.
He said nothing about tradition trumping anything.
That's Hunwick playing Catholic theologian.
The blogging reverend continues,
quote,
I would simply say that such a Pope
and such a decree would lack all auctoritas,
meaning authority,
because they flout holy tradition.
Unquote.
Yeah.
And so Hunwick presumes to vitiate
a papal decree with the words,
I would simply say.
This is supposed to be traditional Catholicism.
It is madness.
But this shows the state of recognize
and resist traditionalism in our day.
These people have the audacity
to substitute their opinions
for the judgment and the laws of the Pope.
And yet they're surprised
that Francis is working to snuff out
their movement.
Think about this for a minute.
Why did Hunwick bother quoting Karl Rahner
in the first place?
Is he a Rahner fan?
Does he consider Rahner a theological authority
that he should be subject to?
Of course not.
No, Rahner simply came in handy.
He was helpful to his argument.
So he highlighted Rahner.
And there you can see
how semi-trads,
they start with a desired conclusion.
In this case,
the conclusion that Tradizioni's custodas is bad,
has no authority and must be rejected.
And then they look for evidence
that supports that conclusion.
It's bottoms up argumentation
when it really ought to be top down.
And so in Hunwick's case,
that means he knows right away
that he won't obey Tradizioni's custodas.
And then he brings in the argument,
and he begins by looking for justifications
not to obey.
And if he has to finagle a theology a bit
to make his case, so be it.
And then, in the end,
he presents this distorted theology
as traditional Catholicism
and as giving the reason
why Catholics may conclude
that Tradizioni's custodas
is null and void.
It is absurd.
Look, once you set down the principle
that the Pope,
the vicar of Christ
and head of the Catholic Church
can establish a liturgical law
and yet individual bloggers,
professors, journalists, priests,
even bishops or cardinals
can just kind of announce to the world
that the decree has no force
for whatever reason,
then the papacy is over.
And if the papacy is over,
then Catholicism is over.
No, I don't mean that Catholicism is over
when there is no Pope.
I mean that if you deny
that the Pope has supreme
and definitive authority,
then you have no papacy at all.
Then you've changed the dogma
on the papacy,
and then you no longer have Catholicism.
Then you have a different religion.
When in 1773,
Pope Clement XIV
abolished the Jesuits,
they were abolished.
Tradition or no tradition,
that's how it works.
The religion,
religious order of the Jesuits,
the Society of Jesus,
did not exist from 1773
until 1814
when Pope Pius VII reestablished it.
Even if you want to say
that Pope Clement sinned
by abolishing them,
and it was a very controversial move at the time,
and he certainly didn't do it with gusto,
but just felt it was the lesser evil
given the unjust political pressures
against the Church.
Even if Pope Clement sinned
in suppressing the Jesuits,
suppressed they were.
St. Alphonsus Liguri,
whose feast day is today,
and who was alive at the time,
he was grieved by Pope Clement's decision,
but he didn't pretend
that it wasn't valid,
and he didn't tell people to disobey.
The Pope,
any true Pope,
has genuine supreme
and final authority
over the entire Church.
His liturgical decrees,
his teachings,
his laws,
are authoritative
and binding on consciences.
Unlike the presumptuous,
uninformed,
dangerous,
and downright heretical musings
of John Hunwick
and Peter Kwasniewski.
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