I liked poor old St. Pope Paul VI! I felt bad for him. Mike Lewis, incredibly unschooled in what life was like in the Church during the reign of the poor, depressed pope, wrote today at his infamous and somewhat heterodox blog “Where Peter Is” the following:
Disliked by progressives for his encyclical Humanae Vitae — which reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against contraception — and reviled by traditionalists for his liturgical reforms, Paul VI was nevertheless raised to the altars in 2018, when Pope Francis canonized him a saint.
I must inform Mike Lewis that it was just the opposite. Progressives by 1968 reviled Pope Paul! And by 1976, they were praying for his death, not conservative Catholics who respected the papacy and Pope Paul VI even if they were concerned, as he was, about progressives destroying the Mass by their liturgical abuses and how they promoted dissent in the Church from Pope Paul, especially his upholding of sexual morality, celibacy, and the ordination of men only to Holy Orders.
Conservative Catholics then, did not revile Pope Paul VI. They, unlike the progressives, were faithful Catholics! They were concerned, though, that through his major depression over the death of his best friend, murdered by Italian terrorists and his lamentations about all the bad things progressives were doing through their dissent, that he wasn’t strong enough to do anything to that dastardly group of heterodox Catholics on the left. There were no threats of excommunication or excommunication for people like Hans Kung and Charles Curran and a host of other famous heterodox progressive theologians of that time.
Pope Paul VI died on August 6, 1978 while I was in my first parish placement for the summer at Saint Joseph Church in Macon. I had completed my second year of theology and I had a great summer at St. Joseph Church in Macon. I would become the pastor there, succeeding the pastor who was my supervisor that summer, in 2004! He was pastor there for 35 years!
As you know, I was in a very progressive to heterodox left seminary in Baltimore.
By 1976 when I entered St. Mary’s the progressives despised Pope Paul VI, not just for Humanae Vitae, which disappointed them to the core as they had praised Paul VI for continuing Vatican II and they hoped that he would create a different Church. But they soon realized he wasn’t as progressive as they thought he was.
He wanted the proper interpretation of Vatican II in continuity with the pre-Vatican II Church. He wanted the new Mass, which he approved, celebrated properly and with dignity and reverence. He wanted traditional Catholic sexual morality and held the line on the proper celebration of all the Sacraments.
He was horrified by what the heterodox left was doing to Vatican II, the Mass and to the Church, horrified. But he couldn’t stop them. He was depressed on so many levels.
I can’t remember if it was my first year in the seminary or my second year, but around 1977 or 78 Pope Paul VI reiterated that only men could be ordained priests as Christ only chose men to be His apostles.
I mean to tell you that faculty and seminarians at my seminary went ballistic! They protested Pope Paul VI and prayed for his death and a new pope that would fulfill all their hopes that their deformed spirit of Vatican II gave them.
Did I say they hated Pope Paul VI and prayed for his death, the progressive left?
On my drive back to Baltimore in late August of 1978, as I was on the interstate, white smoke spewed forth from the Sistine Chapel. Pope John Paul I was elected pope.
My seminary was overjoyed. Their prayers had been answered, the death of Paul VI and the election of a new pope!
A month later Pope John Paul I died suddenly.
By October of 1978, St. Pope John Paul II was elected. The progressives didn’t give him much time before they turned on him and hated him more than St. Paul VI. They prayed for his death too! But he lived until 2005 thanks be to God. The Most Holy Trinity does have a sense of humor you know!
16 comments:
I doubt things would have gotten this out of hand if St. John XXIII, who promulgated Sapientia Veterum, had not died.
"As you know, I was in a very progressive to heterodox left seminary in Baltimore."
Yes, and you remind us of it here often...
It’s a badge of honor for me! Just like your pre-Vatican II seminary is for you!
K, this will sadden you:
"The Trump administration advanced its goal to eliminate taxpayer-funded abortion this week when it proposed ditching a Biden administration-era rule that forced taxpayers to subsidize veterans’ abortions." I guess you are a Biden kind of "Catholic."
Well prior to progressives having waged war in 1968 A.D. against Pope Saint Paul VI, the Traditional Catholic Movement had launched an offensive against said holy Pope.
Example: October 19,1967 A.D.
CALEDONIA. NY. P(NC) - Bishop Blaize Kurz. O.F.M , the exiled Apostolic Prefect of Yungchow. China, and the acknowledged "patron" of Rev. Gommar DePauw's Catholic Traditionally Movement, has denied any responsibility for Father DePauw's recent ultimatum concerning a Latin Rite lo Pope Paul VI.
" In a letter to conservative writer Hugo Maria Kellner, the Bishop also said, "I don't agree with the letter in most of the points "
"Father DePauw in August wrote Pope Paul VI and asked that a distinct Latin me in which Latin, rather than the vernacular, would he the liturgical language be established, and that Bishop Kurz be placed at Its head.
"He gave the Pope one month to comply with his demands, or the Traditionalist who. DePauw says, number 156 priests and several thousand laymen would withdraw from the Church."
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The New York Times, September 1,1967 A.D.
-- Father DePauw Threatens a Break With Vatican; Traditionalists' Leader Warns Pope on Liberalism, Saying He Will Set Up Church
Pax.
Mark Thomas
With Father McDonald's permission:
A blast from the past...
https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=ca19671019-01.2.3&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN--------
From: The Catholic Advocate
Liturgical Inertia Criticized
WASHINGTON (NC) - The natiooal Liturgical Conference. a 7,000 member organisation devoted to the liturgical apoatolale of the Catholic Church, made public a state mcnl sent to the nation's Bishops praising liturgical reforms and experimentation.
The statement was issued by the conference president. Rev Joseph Connolly of Haiti more, in the name of the 36-member board of directors THE STATEMENT crili cued those who have not accepted or cooperated with changes made ui Catholic worship since the Second Vatican Council "It is not too harsh to re mark that some pastors of souls, though consistently contradicted in their altitudes by official Church action over the past five years, have still not learned the lesspn of change." the statement added. "Their attitudes seldom if ever come under censure, while their people pay the price of their recalcitrant behavior." Thu situation was contrasted. the statement said, to the fact that those who |o| low the Church's reforms of-
ten are censured by Church official*. "One of the ironic* of the present liiurgiral situation is that dedicated and obedient parish communities, headed by zealous and obedient priest*, are quickly and sometime* harshly censured if thry step one inch beyond the pre* ent discipline Too often thi* happens if they merely follow usages widely arrepled in the Church." the statement continued No reference wa* made in the statement to any partiru lar group or experiment which has been censured. A Liturgical Conference spokesman said that the statement was meant to be general and to apply to the whole nation AT LEANT two US dmeese*. in Oklahoma and Atlanta. Ga.. have officially ap proved experimental parish grouping* that are not formed
along the usual territorial lines. The local Bishops have assigned priest* to work with these small communities The liturgical Conference statement praised thi* development "We would not pretend to guess at future devetopments." the statement said, "hut we plead for openness and we have nothing but praise for the dioceses where these developments have been encouraged " REFERRING to its major point of criticism against foot draggers. the statement said that "It is a paradox that the gravest threat to the territorial parish comes not from ibo»e who have an excess of liturgical zeal but from those parishes where UturgVcs) celebration it inept and inert." The statement also said that a "happier paradox" la that "in the experimental parishes or communities without fixed territory the liturgy seems to be in fart as well as In theory a cohesive force " The ronference statement also praised programs of neighborhood Masses, meet ing* of smaller groups of peo pie tor the celebration of Mas* in a home or other informal placrs
Pax.
Mark Thomas
In the name of Christ, Father, I beg of you to stop using the terms "convervative Catholic" and "liberal Catholic." This reduces the Deposit of the Faith which Christ entrusted to His Church to a political ideology, and the Deposit of the Faith is anything but. As Cardinal Ejik recently observed in praising Cardinal Burke, the terms "conservative" and "liberal" have no place in the Church. Using them reflects (in many cases unintentionally) a worldly view of the Church. Certainly, there are worldly elements in the Church, but when it comes to the Faith, you are either Catholic in your profession or you are not. Who would say that the answer to the question of whether "2+2=4" revolves around whether you are "conservative" or "liberal"? It doesn't. It's a matter of truth or falsehood. Same with those who adhere to the magisterium and those who don't. Say what you want about Pope Francis, but at no time whatsoever did he ever explicitly undermine the faith, because as Vicar of Christ he *could not.* This entire reduction of things like contraception, women's ordination, and even abortion to "policy" reflects a worldly view, if the Vicar of Christ is at liberty to change them. He isn't. Christ acts through Him, and Christ promised always to remain with His Church, to guide in the Deposit of the Faith he gave to Her at Pentecost.
So please--enough with this "conservative" vs "liberal." You are either Catholic or you are not. If you have been baptized Catholic but you embrace heresy/hetrodoxy, you aren't a "liberal," you are a "bad Catholic," plain and simple. Enough of this worldly outlook on Holy Mother Church.
Peter Kwasniewski declared that "traditional" Catholics, in particular, have a good reason to denounce Pope Saint Paul VI.
Peter Kwasniewski: "Why, specifically, do traditional Catholics object to the canonization of Paul VI?"
Pope Saint Paul VI persecuted "traditional" Catholics, according to Mister Kwasniewski. Said Pope's "harshness of his dealings with traditional Catholics was shameful," according to Kwasniewski.
Peter Kwasniewski claimed that said persecution dated to the 1960s.
That claim corresponded to Mike Lewis' stance that a lengthy history of tension existed between said Pope and "traditionalists" — Lewis blamed that upon trads...Kwasniewski, in turn, blamed Pope Saint Paul VI.
If we believe Peter Kwasniewski, then Pope Saint Paul VI persecuted Archbishop Lefebvre "as if he (Archbishop Lefebvre) were worse than Martin Luther."
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Peter Kwasniewski, via the following vile article, delineated numerous reasons — reasons that are far beyond the issue of liturgy — why "traditional" Catholics should denounce Pope Saint Paul VI.
-- Why We Need Not (and Should Not) Call Paul VI ‘Saint’
https://onepeterfive.com/paul-vi-not-saint/
Pax.
Mark Thomas
MT, the traditional movement today is not the movement during Pope Paul’s time. Traditional Catholics obeyed the pope even if they didn’t like what he did to the Mass. They wanted the Mass that Paul VI created to be celebrated with reverence and without liturgical abuses just as Paul VI did. Today’s Traditional Catholics are different and like the heterodox left of the 60’s they dissent in the same ugly ways but with a different ideology. The left heterodox of the Paul VI, JPII time were and are much larger than the orthodox of Paul’s time and are also today larger too and a greater threat to the orthodoxy of the Church.
DePaw by the way lived in Baltimore when I was in the seminary and he had a radio ministry for the TLM. He was the leader of a very small group of people.
Father McDonald,
You are painting with too broad a brush. Traditional Catholics of Paul VI's time did push back, ever hear of Michael Davies' and the Latin Mass Society? The Agatha Christie indult? As for today, do you consider Catholics like Cardinal Burke and Archbishop Cordileone and their lay followers heterodox and ugly with a different ideology?
This is what the Church should be focused on, condemning and excommunicating faux Catholics like Nancy Pelosi if the Church wants to restore its credibility with rank and file, still practicing Catholics:
"Nancy Pelosi was recently speaking to a reporter who asked her a question about trans issues and she doubled down in support, mentioning that she supports ‘gender affirming care’ for ‘trans kids.’"
Again, TJM, my point is more about Paul VI after 1968 and Humanae Vitae, not before that. He changed and changed dramatically because he, like Joseph Ratzinger, around the same time, 1968, saw what the misrepresentation of VAtican II by the heterodox dissenting left was doing to the Church. There were a lot of things, but liturgical abuse was the face of their diabolical dissent. By 1972, Paul VI was decrying the dissenting left as the smoke of Satan entering the cracks of the Church—he wasn’t decrying orthodox Catholics, but the heterodox left! By 1976, women’s ordination was on the agenda of the heterodox left as well as married clergy—he slammed the door shut. But after the murder of his friend by terrorists (he even wanted to exchange himself for the life of his friend) he became old and feeble, and I think clinically depressed by what he could not change or his inability to lead the Church out of the Pandora’s Box VAtican II caused.
At it concerns Michael Davies, he is a case in point to support what I am writing and what Laura Cameron also comments on in another post. This is from Wikipedia: Davies was a Baptist who converted to Catholicism while still a student in the 1950s.[5][6] While initially a supporter of the Second Vatican Council,[7] Davies became critical of the liturgical changes that followed in its wake, which he argued were a result of distortions and misreadings of the Council's mandates for liturgical reform.[8] Davies later supported the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), writing a three-volume series titled Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre in which he defended Lefebvre against accusations of disobedience and schism for refusing to celebrate the Mass of Paul VI.[9] Although Davies opposed Lefebvre's canonically-illicit consecration of four SSPX bishops in 1988 against the wishes of Pope John Paul II, he continued to support Lefebvre's defence of the Tridentine Mass and traditional Church teachings publicly.
In other words, just like Pope Benedict, Davies supported the TLM and traditional Church teachings. De facto, Davies and Benedict and YOU are in the same camp. Most bishops of Lefebre's time were not fit to tie his sandlestraps. Although disobedient he ultimately saved the TLM. There are a myriad of examples where a courageous cleric defied a weak or corrupt pope to preserve the deposit of Faith. I would point out that Lefebre voted "placet" with regard to Sacrosanctum Concilium. If we had had a stronger more decisive pope, the liturgical reform might have not gotten out of hand. I suspect a John XXIII or a John Paul I or John Paul II would have excommunicated those bishops and clergy who pushed the liturgical perversions that were foisted upon us and hence they would have stopped. Most of those types prefer clean sheets and three-square meals a day more than anything else.
I think it was wrong for Paul VI to ban the older form of the Mass. He should have allowed both to coexist. But that wasn’t the mindset back then and we can’t change history. My point, supported by Davies, is that initially conservatives, as they were called then, supported Sacrosanctum Concilium and the reverent celebration of the Mass. By 1975’s Holy Year, Pope Paul, lamenting, as he lamented everything that he caused, the loss of Latin in the new Mass came up with the booklet “Jubilatio Deo” with the Kyrie in Greek, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin. He encouraged Latin in the New Mass, but too late. Davies initially supported the renewal of the Mass but then experience the horrible things progressives were doing to it and thought it was hopeless cause. Yes, Pope Benedict’s allowance of the TLM as was JPII’s more limited indult, was to woo people away from the SSPX, but that is a later development in the history of the liturgy wars. First it focused on abuses and trying to fix those but then that seem to be a hopeless cause. The abuses today aren’t as bad but are now more institutionalized and many simply don’t like the New Mass when they compare it to the old that they had renewed access to celebrate.
Father McDonald,
Well said. THERE WAS ZERO demand by the overwhelming majority of the Faithful for the "reforms" which was a vanity project for bored clerics and the Susans from the Parish Council types. If the TLM had been left to co-exist with the reformed Mass, I doubt the reformed Mass would have gained much traction. I still think it was a cruel joke to canonize the man.
Bishop Elliott of Melbourne just died. He was a strong supporter of the TLM. Here is what he had to say about Traditiones Custodes:
“It might be argued”, Bishop Elliott wrote “that key points in the decree are plainly untrue, and that the document is so incompetently drafted as to be moot anyway. The pastoral effects of [this] dictat are: confusion, anger and hurt.” The Bishop continued: "Having received copies of a flood of anguished letters, protesting about the severe papal ruling, I hear not only their pain but moving arguments explaining their love for the stately old rite, its attractive silence and engaging spirituality. Young people and young families wrote many of these sad letters. They are certainly not divisive extremists, aggressive cranks or nostalgic old folk.”
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