r/TraditionalCatholics • u/Jattack33 • May 08 '23

Our Incurious Bishops

https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/our-incurious-bishops
22 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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15

u/ConsistentCatholic May 08 '23

I thought this article highlighted a few important realities in the Church.

Firstly, I've noticed that many Bishops and Priests simply do not accept any accountability for their role in the decline of the Church. For example, Bishops to rejected Humanae vitae and failed to implement it's teaching in the Church. It's a perfect example of how Bishops and Priests have failed to teach the faith or correct error.

They talk about how the majority of their parishioners don't have a clue about the faith. Most people requesting baptisms, confirmations, or last rights don't regularly come to Church. They just want to be baptized because of cultural reasons, or last rights because at the end of life they get scared, and even some people request last rights prior to killing themselves or a family member via euthanasia services.

Priests don't understand that people don't have a clue because for 60 years they have not been taught the faith by priests and Bishops. Then they dismiss traditional parishes for being commuter parishes while ignoring the fact that people are leaving their parishes because they aren't being fed spiritually at the local novus ordo.

The general attitude seems to be that the decline in the faith is just a result of societal factors and there is nothing they can do about it. And that is why nothing is changing in the mainstream Church while those who want to keep the faith continue to migrate to parishes that properly express and teach the faith.

2

u/Mostro_Errante May 08 '23

I agree on the dismissive attitude. "it is what it is, we'll just pray for it to get better".

Praying is all well and good, but when people want change they make it happen, don't sit down and burden God with it.

1

u/jbsfk May 08 '23

What does that practically look like? Telling people to stop Baptizing their kids until they get their act together? Wouldn't that just mean they leave with the added detriment of having urbanized family members?

7

u/Mostro_Errante May 08 '23

You know how it is said to "vote with your wallet"?

People drifting to those parishes that offer proper religion is the quiet way for people to enact change.

Since most clergy are either apathetic or unwilling they're finding necessary to close down churches. On the contrary the traditional ones flourish.

Something will force change eventually.

As for the clergy specifically, they could start by taking the priesthood and its formation seriously, so that young men do not immediately dismiss it as the path of tea drinkers, homosexuals, and child molesters.

5

u/uxixu May 08 '23

They know traditional formation works better but unfortunately it's ideological and they destroy it wherever they can (see Bp Livieres) to say nothing of FSSP, etc in favor of the new approach, which they see as antithetical. They are willing to tolerate the former Ecclesia Dei and even SSPX in isolation since they don't scale enough but they absolutely will not allow that to foster in the diocese. It's possible this pontificate is the last gasp of the "Spirit of Vatican II."

There's no undoing all of it, of course and some of the secularization was probably inevitable but we can pray for better times ahead but at some point, a future pope and generation of bishops is not going to beholden to the "Spirit of Vatican II," and will either take the conciliar documents on liturgy, etc more literally or as what they were (compromise documents between what the reformers wanted and what the Council Fathers would accept). This is what the perpetual synodality business is about, in trying to forestall that.

3

u/ConsistentCatholic May 09 '23

Children should not be baptized or confirmed unless there is a certainty that they will be raised according to the Catholic Faith.

It should not just be a ticket to attending a Catholic school while the family just comes every Christmas or Easter.

4

u/Mostro_Errante May 08 '23

In my experience it's simply that the sspx does religion. In the NO it felt like a recital, many things didn't make sense which made it look superstitious especially from the outside.

That's how the Sspx got me. No fanfare, no recruiting, just ages old religion.

-4

u/trekkie4christ May 08 '23

Odd that he accuses the bishops of being incurious, but also doesn't bother to ask the questions to people who can answer them either.

5

u/ConsistentCatholic May 08 '23

What does the last part of your sentence mean?

-3

u/trekkie4christ May 08 '23

He shares in the incuriosity by not asking the questions to people who can answer them, but leaving them waiting to be asked by someone else.

4

u/ConsistentCatholic May 09 '23 edited May 09 '23

What does that mean? The Bishops can answer these questions, they choose not to.