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Recently we published a large critique of the Trad movement from Fr. Michael Brownson, a diocesan priest who is very sympathetic with our movement, but has some concerns. The motive for publishing this, of course, is to sharpen our movement so that it can be more effective in achieving its goals for the sake of the Church.
If any of my Traditionalist brethren took offence to my editorial decision in this regard, please forgive me, a sinner.
Fr. Ripperger once gave a talk about “10 Problems in the Traditional Catholic Movement.” I believe that priests who love Trads and our movement love it enough to critique it, so we can make it better. That’s the spirit in which Fr. Brownson wrote, and the spirit with which I published it.
Untangling Clericalism
Having said that, I’d like to make a few brief remarks in response to Fr. Brownson. I have already conceded Fr. Brownson’s primary criticism, as I understand it, using the term “Neo-Jansenism” in this article on the Dubia of Vatican One. This is nothing different than what Fr. Ripperger says in the aforementioned talk.
I think all Trads need to recognise this and concede this point, which helps us win over hearts to our movement and our concerns, not to mention, first, correcting ourselves and our own sins.
But since we want to really lift the veil on the issues with our epoch, we have tried to emphasise at OnePeterFive the importance of seeing the roots of our crisis in various 19th century movements, including Ultramontanism along with clericalism against the Two Swords doctrine (“What is the False Spirit of Vatican One?”).
When we fail to see these roots, Catholics end up using these Modern (19th century) clericalist ways of thinking in order to try to understand the crisis. One bad fruit of this is that clergy and laity end up in conflict, which is wrong, since it is responding a problem (clericalism) with another problem (anti-clericalism).
An anti-clericalist attitude might make some of our readers respond negatively to Fr. Brownson’s critique. However, it’s not very Catholic to assume an antagonistic attitude toward any priest, especially a priest who is attempting to act as our spiritual father, with fatherly concerns, like Padre Brownson. So that’s the first, important point. It is a traditional attitude to listen with reverence to a priest like Fr. Brownson. So if you haven’t already, go read his critique.
Of course, this does not mean that everything Fr. Brownson says is correct, or that we need to agree with everything. Therefore having said what is most important – that we need to be humble with the good Padre – I will just make a few brief remarks in response to Fr. Brownson, attempting to highlight the difference of clergy and laity in regards to the Trad movement.
Clergy Should not Identify as “Trad”
As Fr. Brownson says in his first part, his presupposition, indeed his very identity on the deepest level, is to be as a pastor of souls. Since the salvation of souls is the highest law of the Church, this makes the consideration of clerics and Traditionalism vastly different than lay people and their considerations.
Fr. Brownson says his identity causes him to consider the souls of “traditional Catholics, conservative Catholics, charismatic Catholics, private revelation Catholics, cultural Catholics, liberal Catholics, and modernist Catholics (almost like the seven churches of Asia).”
So first, unless a priest (or bishop) is the shepherd of only traditionalists, it is rather inappropriate for him to identify himself as a “Trad priest,” even if he would privately agree with many Trad concerns, as indeed Fr. Brownson does to a great degree. Why? Because using that label for himself immediately alienates all the souls under his care who do not think that way. Why would a pastor of souls lay any stumbling block between him and any soul? It seems to me that no pastor of souls who truly cares about salvation would do that.
So we need to understand that Fr. Brownson does not identify himself as a traditionalist, and should not do so, for the good of souls. And this presupposition is going to colour his whole approach to our movement, and hence his fatherly concern.
Second, there is something unfitting, even not traditional, about a priest saying “I am a Traditionalist priest.” Why? We have Franciscan priests, we have Jesuit priests, we have Dominican priests. Bishop Schneider is an Augustinian priest. But these are all traditional orders within the Church which have been peacefully integrated into the whole. If we consider the whole history of Catholicism, “Traditionalism” is a movement that began “yesterday” in the life of the Church. Yes, I know – it’s the way all our grandfathers and grandmothers lived their faith. Yes, I get that. But the movement has not become an integrated order of the Church like the aforementioned groups. Even a traditional order of the Church is an extrinsic identity to a priest, whose first name is “Catholic Priest” in the mystery of his Sacramental, eternal and ontological being. If the traditional order is extrinsic, how much more the brand new movement that happened yesterday?
Because of these things, I understand why Fr. Brownson has his concerns. I will concede a large part of them myself, as a Trad, simply on the basis that a cleric will come to very different conclusions than me, as a lay husband and father – and that’s the way it should be in the first place.
Further, my vocation has a different end than his – he is trying to save as many souls as possible – whether “Trad” Catholics or other Catholics and indeed, all souls whomsoever they may be.
Obviously I, too, want to save as many souls as possible. But I am not a pastor of souls. That is not the goal of my vocation, and nor is it the goal of all the lay leaders in our movement since the 1960s. Our goal – the animating heartbeat of our movement is this:
- that God may receive the glory due to Him in the most perfect liturgy of our forefathers and
- that our children may receive the liturgy and Faith of our forefathers for their salvation.
We fight for the souls that are under our care. Unlike priests who are fathers over souls, we as lay people are not only parents but monarchs over our children. We govern their souls in a much more immediate and direct way than any priest governs any parish. And it is our duty before Almighty God to keep their souls safe.
As such, laity can and should identify themselves as “Trad” and raise their children as “Trad,” for all these ends. There is nothing wrong with this as long as we keep the bond of charity with all Catholics and submit to the Pope and bishops with obsequium religiosum.
But because we call ourselves “Trads” and we are monarchs over our children, we will come to vastly different conclusions about these matters than any priest, and especially a diocesan priest like Brownson. And that does not necessarily mean that he is wrong and we are right. It might just mean that for some things, Brownson is right in his context and vocation, and we are right in ours. That is not a contradition, but a contextualisation. However, there are other questions which are more acute.
The SSPX Issue is a “Clerical Question”
Fr. Brownson says “At the heart of the priesthood is obedience after the example of Jesus Christ who became obedient to death, even death on a Cross (Ph 2:8).” Aye, as it should be!
But that means that different priests will have differing conclusions about “the SSPX question” and I respect them for that. I respect any priest who is giving his whole heart to be the Divine Priest inside of him and save souls. But priests who are all doing that will come to differing conclusions about the SSPX. As I said, I respect them all.
But as a layman, I know that priests and PhDs in canon law have been debating the SSPX for the past few decades. Frankly, this is way above my expertise to understand. Further, it is the clerics themselves who must resolve the SSPX question.
I do not concern myself with “clerical questions” like whether the SSPX has supplied jurisdiction or not; or if Archbishop Lefebvre’s excommunication was valid or not. Those are for the clerics to work out. That’s “above my pay grade” as we say in the States.
If you are a Catholic priest, celebrating a Catholic rite, in communion with Pope Francis and the local bishop, and you are preaching the Catholic Faith, I will commune at your Mass and avoid the Mass nearby which is desecrating the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament and teaching my children to do the same.
The SSPX has those things, so I will commune with them. In fact, because of those things, every Catholic already communes with them at their own Mass, of whatever rite. They are Catholic, whether you like it or not.
Why make it any more complicated than that? As a layman, that’s all there is to it. But I respect a priest who conscientiously objects.
Brownson’s concerns about Kwasniewski
Now again, coming from his perspective as a cleric, Fr. Brownson says: “Dr. Kwasniewski runs into the danger of overemphasizing the externals of the rite.” What the good Padre means, as I understand him, is that the Sacrament itself is infinitely more valuable than the rite itself, even though Brownson concedes all the critiques of Kwasniewski and the general Trad concerns about the New Mass.
Fair enough.
But in justice we must point out that Fr. Brownson does not provide any citation proving that Kwasniewski denies that the Sacrifice of Christ – Sacramentally present in the New Mass – not only confers the divine grace of His Presence, but also infinitely surpassing the metaphysical reality of every rite which surrounds His Presence.
Kwasniewski would not be the good Thomist that he is if he made a simple metaphysical error like that. One thing is a Sacrament – indeed, Christ Himself – the other thing is not Christ Himself and is rather an Apostolic, ecclesiastical tradition about Christ and surrounding Him.
But again, think about why Kwasniewski, as a layman, would emphasise these things so much? And why would Brownson have a concern as a pastor of souls? I think that both would be concerned in their own context with those particular things especially.
But both sides of that question also need each other, so as not to be pushed to either extreme. A lay person can become completely obsessed with the inferior things of the rite, but a priest should not dismiss them either. But thankfully neither Kwasniewski nor Brownson are guilty of such extremes.
I think that Brownson is conceding, with respect, Kwasniewski’s main points. He is simply expressing a fatherly concern – as is his right, as a spiritual father – over our souls, that we do not absolutise the thing about the liturgy which is objectively inferior to the Person Whom the liturgy offers to the Father.
I agree with Brownson that this can be a problem for some Trad souls. If we, as Trads, take pride in our perfect Latin Mass, and begin to pray with ourselves like the Pharisee with the Publican, then even a perfectly reverent Latin Mass will be a stench in the nostrils of the Lord (Isaiah 1).
I agree that this should cause us to examine our conscience. But I would hazard to guess that most Trads – the vast majority of whom are too busy doing penance to be on social media – are simply in awe of the Lord as He arrives in the awesome Latin Mass, that they forget themselves and only yearn to the know the Lord, in this rite, and pray here, like they forefathers did.
T. S. Flanders
Editor
St. Agatha