Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s I was heavily into British TV. The usual suspects, Monty Python’s Flying circus, Faultly towers, Master piece theatre, Keeping up appearances, As time goes by, you name it, if it had a british accent I drank it up.
One of my favorites at the time was the Irish Catholic comedian Dave Allen and his show Dave Allen at large. Dave was a little irreverent but a talented funny man. He had this wonderful skit on confession that I still laugh at today. I remember he said he thought that God was British because he said who else could stand there wearing a bollar hat, 3 piece suit, carrying an umbrella standing in front of the gates of heaven saying, “I’m so sorry you can’t come in”.
Today with a total collapse of Catholicism in the Catholic church, the church right now is in a state of chaos and has been since Vatican 2 (there is that word again!). It was so much easier when I was growing up. All the priest’s and religious were on the same page. They all subscribed to the same doctrine. When in doubt, just ask father. Not so today. To make matters worse Laymen have joined the frey and have become arm chair theologians and canon lawyers. I only wish they would worry about their own souls and let the rest of us take care of ours. No, to them is way to easy to find the spec in their brothers eye but fail to see the plank in their own.
This morning while enjoying my coffee I was looking out the window noticing the squirrels scrounging for food. It reminds me of us remaining Catholics who still want to remain Catholic. We have to scrounge for those crumbs of genuine Catholicism where ever we can find them. Some crumbs are the SSPX, some the Ecclesia dei , some sedevacantist. My mother always said let your conscience be your guide. Even though this good women has been dead for over 2 decades she still seems to grow wiser with time, or am I just maturing.
Right now in the church we are in the every man for himself mode. As far as Rome goes Catholicism has left the building. This Lent I am reading the Fr. Cekeda book “Work of human hands” where Father critiques the mass of Paul VI. What? What do I hear coming from the back row? Oh, he’s Sedevacantist so he is going to hell. Hmmmm, don’t be too sure of that, again its ever man for himself. The much misused phrase vow of obedience applies to obedience to the Catholic faith, not to a cheap politician from Chicago who now calls himself pope.
Father prefaces his book by saying he is now a Sedevantist but the book is not about Sedevantism its all about the flaws in the new mass of Paul VI which I guess is not so new anymore but still every bit as disgusting and destructive as it was when first designed. When the mass was first introduced in the 1960s Cekeda was an altar boy serving that mass and from the start he said he felt in his gut something was wrong. He then went on to join a traditional Novus ordo monestary that was still infested with the flaws of Vatican II, then on to the SSPX where he was ordained a priest, even taught in their American seminary and before his death, serving at the Sedevacantist parish of St. Gertrude the great. I am sure many of us can identify with his journey. I know I can. Constantly looking for the real Catholic church.
Father explains that all the brew ha ha from Vatican II actually started with the “New Liturgical Movement” which was started at first started to develop more devotion and meaning to the liturgy. It then became corrupted in the 20th century when the modernist hijacked it. The goal was to remove any devotion or belief in transubstantiation and the divine presence. It now became the living word, a commemoration of the last supper and not the unbloody sacrifice on Calvary. Paul VI was a follower of the movements key figures Josef Jungmann and Louis Bouyer so the stage was set for liturgical revolution. In 1948, about 14 years before the disaster known as Vatican II Annibale Bugnini was appointed to a Vatican commission on liturgical reform. Bugnini immediately revised Holy week liturgy and later assembled 6 protestant ministers to redesign the new mass making sure it would not offend protestants. What puzzles me was this was during the reign of Pius XII. I am mystified how he could appoint such a man who, with the help of 6 protestant ministers, removed any remnant of the Catholic faith from the mass. Paul VI did allow the revised Latin mass of the 1962 missal but it was just a hollow token. The mass was already gutted the only difference was this version was in Latin.
I am sure some part time Catholic lay theologist will claim I am hell bound because I not only refuse to attend a Novus ordo mass, but also do not accept it as a Catholic mass. To them I would say “Lex orandi/lex credendi. I pray the Latin Mass because I believe in the Catholic faith. Not this hybrid Protestantism Leo has going. Recognize and resist never made any sense to me. Its like a personal sense of lukewarmness, and what did Christ say about a Lukewarm faith? He said he would spit you right out of his mouth. That is good enough for me!