Howdy compadre. I have been noticing your change in tone over the last few months, and it was making me almost glad, except that I was skeptical. This post has taken away my skepticism. God bless you!
I grew up in traditional Catholicism, and I am still a traditional Catholic... or, rather, I am now a traditional Catholic. As you said, the traditionalist crowd is often very ideological. It was only by the grace of God that I did not become an ideologue. I have made it a point over the last 5 years to get anyone insulting me on social media to buy or recommend a book that will make their arguments rather than insult me. That, along with simply “reading the enemy” in general, has really widened my mind, and helped me to understand so much. That can be very dangerous for those that are not solidly grounded in Truth, though.
Anyway, now you and I are definitely fellow travelers. I started reading in earnest about 5 years ago, and every year I read more. The more I read, the more I transform. I hit 80 books last year, and am over 20 this year. Some short.
This post makes me glad. I am so happy for you. I hope we can visit one day. I think we have at least one mutual real life friend, Fr. Shannon. Anyway, God bless you and your family.
Back before Vatican II and all, there was a sense of an Objective and Real to which we were all beholden and under which we all fell short. I say this, not because I lived then, but because I've tried to understand it through studying history, and mostly, through studying literary Catholics who all led wildly different sorts of lives, who all considered themselves Catholics, but didn't seem to feel the need to excommunicate others who lived differently.
Now, We Are The Church. So what's paramount is each person's Personal Journey. So when another person's Journey doesn't match our Journey, we feel it is in within our rights to challenge it. It doesn't matter if we are "left" or "right" - it's the spiritual landscape in which all of us under 70 have been formed. The objective is *gone* - so we are all operating within our own infallible cosmos, and we are all gatekeepers.
Sorry if this makes no sense. I started Holy Week off by drinking beer at a wildly violent Bob Odenkirk movie.
Thanks, Amy! Although my origin story lies in the murky world of BBS forums back in the 90s, it was on your blog in the early 2000s where I really started to find my voice. It's always good to hear from you.
I very much enjoyed this, and appreciate your candor and willingness to express what’s been on your heart. I’ve been coming out of a not entirely dissimilar, though not quite comparable, period of emotional and spiritual turmoil, though as a much younger man and a member of the Orthodox Church (dealing with our own uniquely frustrating problems!) When the things we’ve even burying deep down for years finally catch up with us and get our attention, it hurts. Especially when we aren’t able to put on the mask of total self-confidence and assurance anymore, and those around us don’t expect anything less. The saints and holy elders have been my continual comfort. God bless you Steve.
First of all, prayers for the grace to get through what you’re going through and grow and learn. Know that there are a lot of us in the same boat and finding each other is going to be key to weathering this storm! Strength in numbers.
I’ve been having a similar crisis of faith, though less slow burning and more acute. It started bubbling under the surface when Covid started, got a mega steroid shot with the entire election debacle, and now is pretty much at a fever pitch with the vaccine debate. More like screaming match, at least from one side.
I had a breakdown one day a few weeks back because i was so terrified I literally couldn’t function, and I went to a great priest friend of mine (who I believe is also a friend of yours, coincidentally) and said, “Look, give it to me straight. Is all this bad stuff really about to go down? Are we finished? Is America really China west? Is Bill Gates going to sterilize me with his fake vaccine??” Long story short, I left the rectory feeling like a new person, with new hope for the future, that I actually HAD a future, and my children do too, and a peace that I hadn’t experienced in months. He didn’t tell me everything was rosy and there was nothing to fret about, but just brought me back to a reality that I missed SO much.
However, there’s been a downside to this revelation, which is that I’ve realized that a “new creed” has emerged amongst many traditionalist groups. A new way of differentiating yourself as being truly, authentically Catholic. This new creed demands complete filial assent to the “truth” about Covid, about masks, about scientific data, medications, Trump prophecies, and the New World Order.
Not buying into all this stuff has causes a lot of tension and anxiety between me and my trad community. I basically feel like i have no home. No home in the Church, no home in politics, no home in society (because I’m still not a fan of masks and lockdowns like most of the secular world). At least my priest is on my side, and my husband. My circle has gotten smaller, but stronger.
Your description of the requirement of “filial assent” to whole laundry list of new “truths” which are really only prudential judgements about uncertain matters, and none of which are esssential core beliefs of our Faith, really resonates with me, another newly-homeless Catholic. For the love of all that is good and holy and true, Mariel, could you please tell us what your good priest said that helped you so much?
Mary, it’s hugely comforting just to know that there are others out there that are honestly seeking to know and love God the best they can and are feeling the weight of all this confusion bearing down on them. Really drains one of any motivation to even try!
The thing he said that has stuck with me the most was this: I can be a good, faithful, devout Catholic, die and go to heaven, all without even believing in the apparitions at Fatima! That really resonated with me because one of the things I have been struggling with is this obsessive fear that if i don’t believe that Bill Gates is trying to depopulate the world, or that covid is fake and a coverup for a stolen election, that somehow I’m a bad Catholic and when I die God will send me to His left hand with the other unfaithful goats because I didn’t “stand up and fight.” It’s caused me so much grief and anxiety. And for the record, I believe in Fatima, but just being reminded of what exactly is part of the core tenets of our faith, and what is extraneous, is a great centering exercise. When I get anxious I basically recite the Apostle’s Creed a bunch of times lol.
He also just came right out and said to stay away from QAnon and everything that flows from it because it’s a conspiracy theory, plain and simple. I had been feeling that for awhile but was so afraid to let go in case I was wrong and would be punished by God for it. And even those I am surrounded by that don’t come right out in support of Q, give it a wink and nod and repeat similar claims dressed up to not sound quite as outlandish. It’s very pernicious and dangerous. It is truly ascending to the status of a new religion right before our eyes, and every Catholic should be extremely wary.
We also had some really good laughs. The best medicine! After prayer.
This is very helpful! Thank you so much for the quick reply. I fear that many of my friendships will never be the same because I have not taken on all the new tenets of Catholic orthodoxy that you list. The thing is, I haven't changed my beliefs, but a large portion of Catholics have taken on a new set of beliefs that seem to have assumed a greater importance than the Creed, that I don't share. I feel like an outsider, even though I haven't moved. ...Sigh... Yes, let's refocus on that which is essential and absolute, and hope that others are able to see that their convictions are merely opinions about uncertain matters about which faithful Catholics can freely disagree, and that we can remain united with them in that which is essential.
I only recently started following you, although I've seen and appreciated some of your articles on 1P5 over the years. I'm glad I started following when I did, because the journey you are on now is one I have been on myself - a crisis of meaning, involving, partially (though to a lesser extent than you) my relationship with traditional Catholicism.
"I don’t have a full plan, not yet, but I’m feeling my way forward, looking for the path, and I’m getting closer to it." Right there with you.
Thanks Steve. I’ve been having difficulties with many of the same things. Whatever I understood the Catholic Church to be is being refined in my mind.. and painfully so. My wife has had to call me out for the anger I’ve been somewhat engrossed in towards the state of things. Yet, I still find it hard to let go of. Somehow I can’t seem to more permanently shift my focus and cares to more important, more local things that are closer to my ‘sphere of influence’. In many ways I feel betrayed I suppose, by the very institution that instilled the cares in me in the first place. How am I supposed to teach my sons how to understand the truth claims that are practically undermined everyday? There is no where else to go but how can my mind find peace here in an intellectual sense?
I’ve learned a lot from the “Trads” but I have always had difficulty with the busybody attitude most people have—it’s suffocating and only makes things worse.
"How am I supposed to teach my sons how to understand the truth claims that are practically undermined everyday? There is no where else to go but how can my mind find peace here in an intellectual sense?"
This is HUGE. What do we tell our kids? How do we hide from them the anger and even contempt we feel towards our leaders in the Church? How do we teach them to love God when we're angry with Him? I wrestle with this stuff a lot.
Steve, your journey is unique in many ways, of course, but common to us all in some of its basic characteristics. Many of us have experienced great disorientation in the past year, even more so than what the Francis Era has brought to our views of the Church. Now the whole world has become less comfortable, and more threatening, and challenges us in ways I could never have imagined five years ago. It will be a privilege to share your ideas and perhaps learn from them, as I have on “the other site.” Godspeed.
steve skojec, i understand your struggle with these present times in the church and the world. it is certainly exhausting to find a way to live our Catholic faith. if it helps, whenever i am angry or dissapointed with myself or with others, i focus on keeping and pulling out of my 'backpack', the daily mass whether onsite or online, the rosary, eucharistic adoration, and confession. and i also know that i must entrust fellow souls to God. i also wanted to respectfully encourage you to do Catholic film work, which you mentioned was of interest to you; there is much authentic work that you can do in this still new field, just as your did for us with 1p5. it would be great if you could present the singular lives of saints, whose struggles were as ours. may your guardian angel brightly shine the lamp of your 'camino'.
Steve, I keep composing comments and then deleting them. All I really want to say is don't be afraid. Keep your eyes focused on God Himself. And don't be afraid to leave the Church for a while. I'm praying for you.
It's one of the biggest paradoxes in all of this. In any relationship where there are problems, sometimes the parties need a break from each other. But Catholicism makes no such provision. To break the Sunday obligation is a grave sin, except in cases of illness, etc.
I've never seen anyone argue that a licit reason to take a break is a crisis of faith. They usually say you should go more. But that's like trying to force yourself to embrace someone you're really angry with. It can actually make things worse.
I took advantage of the dispensation so I could get some of this distance, and it was used against me. Is STILL being used against me by my critics. Frustrating as hell.
I could point out that Jesus said HE is the master of the sabbath (not the people who thought he wasn't punctilious enough). I could also say what you know already: that when the victim in an abusive relationship threatens to leave, the abuser's first reaction will be "you can't make it without me," whether that be financially, emotionally, or, as here, spiritually. Unhappily I do not have the authority to say any of this, even though it's true.
You need advice more reliable than mine.
I am well old enough to be your mother. At one time I was a 3rd Order Discalced Carmelite, a lay association. In that capacity I met a lot of Carmelite priests, and I was close friends with their Provincial. They tend to be good guys. Are there any Carmelite parishes in your neighborhood? Yes, they probably are not devotees of Latin, but don't let that stop you. I also know, well, an old friend who is now a retired Maryknoll priest. He's in Sun City, but unhappily I don't understand your geography well enough to know what that means. Scott is absolutely solid. If Scott told me to jump off a cliff I would do it at a run.
I'm going to try to reach him - he's careless about the telephone - and I'll let you know the results if any. Is there any priest - someone who is not a Super Traditionalist - that you trust? You've been knocking around the Church long enough that you must know dozens of priests. Someone needs to talk you out of the Rules Are Everything mindset.
The problem is that I've been a trad for so long, and moved around so much, that the only guys I trust are a handful of Augustinian canons 2300 miles away.
The other priests I knew and actually had good relationships with have almost all passed on.
Thank you, Steve. You and Millette are my two favorite people to read on 1P5 because you both seem so willing to be open about everything you're thinking. Honesty is in too short supply amidst this deafening crescendo of crisis.
Steve, so much to say; I think you know you're not alone. We tend to think we're on the side of rational people, and then we see some of 'our people' being weird and wonderful on the internet and it's a shock. In truth though, the entire internet is like that: just go and find the people in space forums who argue that the earth is flat, or the cat-lovers, or the PC gaming obsessives who live and breathe computer games. Etcetera. The internet is an amplifier; it feeds on bad news and clicks and it thrives on divisive arguments.
The problem I'm getting at is that 'radical traditionalism' on the internet is nothing like the one on the ground. There are a bunch of us who are relatively reasonable people trying to circumnavigate the waterfalls and rapids of life on the quiet. But our voice is lost because the internet favours the weird and wonderful, and the divisive and 'newsworthy'.
My wife and I have started calling ourselves 'tradismatics'; we don't belong to either but we have elements of both. We want to read the Bible (not the Douai, thanks but no thanks). I want to go to the pre-55 Holy Week but don't care about the broad stoles and triple candle or whatever. We read Benedict XVI and Archbishop Lefebvre, listen to different views, and so on. Not small 't' tradition for its own sake, big 'T' Tradition because it speaks to us as a living, breathing faith. I think this is a growing group and it's just beginning to get a voice. Maybe God's calling you to use your gift and platform for us?
"Not small 't' tradition for its own sake, big 'T' Tradition because it speaks to us as a living, breathing faith. I think this is a growing group and it's just beginning to get a voice. Maybe God's calling you to use your gift and platform for us?"
This is certainly a possibility. I'm still trying to figure out what the game is. I feel like I can't get any guidance from the Boss, and I'm floundering trying to do it on my own. But there's a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe He's putting me through this to re-shape me. 17 years in the trad ghetto was no longer spiritually profitable. So what else is in store?
The only thing I can promise is honest seeking. After that, all bets are off.
I appreciate your honesty and openness. You are insightful, talented, creative and funny.
One podcast that has been a great balm for me is Online Great Books. The two men who the discuss the books are such a wonderful model of open inquiry, and they are delightful personalities.
They have a separate venue for reading and discussing the Western Canon. On this podcast they discuss various books that are significant for a myriad of reasons. Go through the archives, pick a book you’re interested in, then sit back and enjoy!
As we set free from the fears of being judged by a roaring crowd, we slowly regain the hability to understand other people's arguments from their own perspective, and for that too we need the Church. As sensible, real human beings, we sometimes need to be able to give ourselves entirely to the person to whom we are talking -or to the idea with which we're duelling- and as long as we have a solid, unshakeable ground upon which we establish ourselves, then we are able to open our hearts and give ourselves to the next without fear of falling in error, for we know that no mather how convincing their perspective may sound, we're still bound by the one faith of the one church in which we believe, and nothing will take that away from us -not even death.
I appreciate you very much Steve. I can relate a lot to the way you write, and feel like we have a lot in common. That being said, I hope you can be set free from any kind of doubt you might have (i'm not saying you do) about the one true faith, and that you're able to live you life as father and writer the way Christ wants us to live it!
Howdy compadre. I have been noticing your change in tone over the last few months, and it was making me almost glad, except that I was skeptical. This post has taken away my skepticism. God bless you!
I grew up in traditional Catholicism, and I am still a traditional Catholic... or, rather, I am now a traditional Catholic. As you said, the traditionalist crowd is often very ideological. It was only by the grace of God that I did not become an ideologue. I have made it a point over the last 5 years to get anyone insulting me on social media to buy or recommend a book that will make their arguments rather than insult me. That, along with simply “reading the enemy” in general, has really widened my mind, and helped me to understand so much. That can be very dangerous for those that are not solidly grounded in Truth, though.
Anyway, now you and I are definitely fellow travelers. I started reading in earnest about 5 years ago, and every year I read more. The more I read, the more I transform. I hit 80 books last year, and am over 20 this year. Some short.
This post makes me glad. I am so happy for you. I hope we can visit one day. I think we have at least one mutual real life friend, Fr. Shannon. Anyway, God bless you and your family.
Back before Vatican II and all, there was a sense of an Objective and Real to which we were all beholden and under which we all fell short. I say this, not because I lived then, but because I've tried to understand it through studying history, and mostly, through studying literary Catholics who all led wildly different sorts of lives, who all considered themselves Catholics, but didn't seem to feel the need to excommunicate others who lived differently.
Now, We Are The Church. So what's paramount is each person's Personal Journey. So when another person's Journey doesn't match our Journey, we feel it is in within our rights to challenge it. It doesn't matter if we are "left" or "right" - it's the spiritual landscape in which all of us under 70 have been formed. The objective is *gone* - so we are all operating within our own infallible cosmos, and we are all gatekeepers.
Sorry if this makes no sense. I started Holy Week off by drinking beer at a wildly violent Bob Odenkirk movie.
Also, what I should have said at the beginning: Thank you Steve.
Thanks, Amy! Although my origin story lies in the murky world of BBS forums back in the 90s, it was on your blog in the early 2000s where I really started to find my voice. It's always good to hear from you.
I very much enjoyed this, and appreciate your candor and willingness to express what’s been on your heart. I’ve been coming out of a not entirely dissimilar, though not quite comparable, period of emotional and spiritual turmoil, though as a much younger man and a member of the Orthodox Church (dealing with our own uniquely frustrating problems!) When the things we’ve even burying deep down for years finally catch up with us and get our attention, it hurts. Especially when we aren’t able to put on the mask of total self-confidence and assurance anymore, and those around us don’t expect anything less. The saints and holy elders have been my continual comfort. God bless you Steve.
First of all, prayers for the grace to get through what you’re going through and grow and learn. Know that there are a lot of us in the same boat and finding each other is going to be key to weathering this storm! Strength in numbers.
I’ve been having a similar crisis of faith, though less slow burning and more acute. It started bubbling under the surface when Covid started, got a mega steroid shot with the entire election debacle, and now is pretty much at a fever pitch with the vaccine debate. More like screaming match, at least from one side.
I had a breakdown one day a few weeks back because i was so terrified I literally couldn’t function, and I went to a great priest friend of mine (who I believe is also a friend of yours, coincidentally) and said, “Look, give it to me straight. Is all this bad stuff really about to go down? Are we finished? Is America really China west? Is Bill Gates going to sterilize me with his fake vaccine??” Long story short, I left the rectory feeling like a new person, with new hope for the future, that I actually HAD a future, and my children do too, and a peace that I hadn’t experienced in months. He didn’t tell me everything was rosy and there was nothing to fret about, but just brought me back to a reality that I missed SO much.
However, there’s been a downside to this revelation, which is that I’ve realized that a “new creed” has emerged amongst many traditionalist groups. A new way of differentiating yourself as being truly, authentically Catholic. This new creed demands complete filial assent to the “truth” about Covid, about masks, about scientific data, medications, Trump prophecies, and the New World Order.
Not buying into all this stuff has causes a lot of tension and anxiety between me and my trad community. I basically feel like i have no home. No home in the Church, no home in politics, no home in society (because I’m still not a fan of masks and lockdowns like most of the secular world). At least my priest is on my side, and my husband. My circle has gotten smaller, but stronger.
God bless and keep up the good work.
That question about whether or not we even have a future is pretty much at the heart of the panic, I think.
Glad you've found some hope, and weirdly, also glad that you've begun identifying that new trad "creed" - so you can stay the hell away from it.
This is a place for people with no tribe to have a tribe. Welcome aboard.
Your description of the requirement of “filial assent” to whole laundry list of new “truths” which are really only prudential judgements about uncertain matters, and none of which are esssential core beliefs of our Faith, really resonates with me, another newly-homeless Catholic. For the love of all that is good and holy and true, Mariel, could you please tell us what your good priest said that helped you so much?
Mary, it’s hugely comforting just to know that there are others out there that are honestly seeking to know and love God the best they can and are feeling the weight of all this confusion bearing down on them. Really drains one of any motivation to even try!
The thing he said that has stuck with me the most was this: I can be a good, faithful, devout Catholic, die and go to heaven, all without even believing in the apparitions at Fatima! That really resonated with me because one of the things I have been struggling with is this obsessive fear that if i don’t believe that Bill Gates is trying to depopulate the world, or that covid is fake and a coverup for a stolen election, that somehow I’m a bad Catholic and when I die God will send me to His left hand with the other unfaithful goats because I didn’t “stand up and fight.” It’s caused me so much grief and anxiety. And for the record, I believe in Fatima, but just being reminded of what exactly is part of the core tenets of our faith, and what is extraneous, is a great centering exercise. When I get anxious I basically recite the Apostle’s Creed a bunch of times lol.
He also just came right out and said to stay away from QAnon and everything that flows from it because it’s a conspiracy theory, plain and simple. I had been feeling that for awhile but was so afraid to let go in case I was wrong and would be punished by God for it. And even those I am surrounded by that don’t come right out in support of Q, give it a wink and nod and repeat similar claims dressed up to not sound quite as outlandish. It’s very pernicious and dangerous. It is truly ascending to the status of a new religion right before our eyes, and every Catholic should be extremely wary.
We also had some really good laughs. The best medicine! After prayer.
This is very helpful! Thank you so much for the quick reply. I fear that many of my friendships will never be the same because I have not taken on all the new tenets of Catholic orthodoxy that you list. The thing is, I haven't changed my beliefs, but a large portion of Catholics have taken on a new set of beliefs that seem to have assumed a greater importance than the Creed, that I don't share. I feel like an outsider, even though I haven't moved. ...Sigh... Yes, let's refocus on that which is essential and absolute, and hope that others are able to see that their convictions are merely opinions about uncertain matters about which faithful Catholics can freely disagree, and that we can remain united with them in that which is essential.
I only recently started following you, although I've seen and appreciated some of your articles on 1P5 over the years. I'm glad I started following when I did, because the journey you are on now is one I have been on myself - a crisis of meaning, involving, partially (though to a lesser extent than you) my relationship with traditional Catholicism.
"I don’t have a full plan, not yet, but I’m feeling my way forward, looking for the path, and I’m getting closer to it." Right there with you.
Thank you for your candor.
Thanks Steve. I’ve been having difficulties with many of the same things. Whatever I understood the Catholic Church to be is being refined in my mind.. and painfully so. My wife has had to call me out for the anger I’ve been somewhat engrossed in towards the state of things. Yet, I still find it hard to let go of. Somehow I can’t seem to more permanently shift my focus and cares to more important, more local things that are closer to my ‘sphere of influence’. In many ways I feel betrayed I suppose, by the very institution that instilled the cares in me in the first place. How am I supposed to teach my sons how to understand the truth claims that are practically undermined everyday? There is no where else to go but how can my mind find peace here in an intellectual sense?
I’ve learned a lot from the “Trads” but I have always had difficulty with the busybody attitude most people have—it’s suffocating and only makes things worse.
"How am I supposed to teach my sons how to understand the truth claims that are practically undermined everyday? There is no where else to go but how can my mind find peace here in an intellectual sense?"
This is HUGE. What do we tell our kids? How do we hide from them the anger and even contempt we feel towards our leaders in the Church? How do we teach them to love God when we're angry with Him? I wrestle with this stuff a lot.
Steve, your journey is unique in many ways, of course, but common to us all in some of its basic characteristics. Many of us have experienced great disorientation in the past year, even more so than what the Francis Era has brought to our views of the Church. Now the whole world has become less comfortable, and more threatening, and challenges us in ways I could never have imagined five years ago. It will be a privilege to share your ideas and perhaps learn from them, as I have on “the other site.” Godspeed.
steve skojec, i understand your struggle with these present times in the church and the world. it is certainly exhausting to find a way to live our Catholic faith. if it helps, whenever i am angry or dissapointed with myself or with others, i focus on keeping and pulling out of my 'backpack', the daily mass whether onsite or online, the rosary, eucharistic adoration, and confession. and i also know that i must entrust fellow souls to God. i also wanted to respectfully encourage you to do Catholic film work, which you mentioned was of interest to you; there is much authentic work that you can do in this still new field, just as your did for us with 1p5. it would be great if you could present the singular lives of saints, whose struggles were as ours. may your guardian angel brightly shine the lamp of your 'camino'.
Steve, I keep composing comments and then deleting them. All I really want to say is don't be afraid. Keep your eyes focused on God Himself. And don't be afraid to leave the Church for a while. I'm praying for you.
It's one of the biggest paradoxes in all of this. In any relationship where there are problems, sometimes the parties need a break from each other. But Catholicism makes no such provision. To break the Sunday obligation is a grave sin, except in cases of illness, etc.
I've never seen anyone argue that a licit reason to take a break is a crisis of faith. They usually say you should go more. But that's like trying to force yourself to embrace someone you're really angry with. It can actually make things worse.
I took advantage of the dispensation so I could get some of this distance, and it was used against me. Is STILL being used against me by my critics. Frustrating as hell.
I could point out that Jesus said HE is the master of the sabbath (not the people who thought he wasn't punctilious enough). I could also say what you know already: that when the victim in an abusive relationship threatens to leave, the abuser's first reaction will be "you can't make it without me," whether that be financially, emotionally, or, as here, spiritually. Unhappily I do not have the authority to say any of this, even though it's true.
You need advice more reliable than mine.
I am well old enough to be your mother. At one time I was a 3rd Order Discalced Carmelite, a lay association. In that capacity I met a lot of Carmelite priests, and I was close friends with their Provincial. They tend to be good guys. Are there any Carmelite parishes in your neighborhood? Yes, they probably are not devotees of Latin, but don't let that stop you. I also know, well, an old friend who is now a retired Maryknoll priest. He's in Sun City, but unhappily I don't understand your geography well enough to know what that means. Scott is absolutely solid. If Scott told me to jump off a cliff I would do it at a run.
I'm going to try to reach him - he's careless about the telephone - and I'll let you know the results if any. Is there any priest - someone who is not a Super Traditionalist - that you trust? You've been knocking around the Church long enough that you must know dozens of priests. Someone needs to talk you out of the Rules Are Everything mindset.
I continue to pray for you and your family.
The problem is that I've been a trad for so long, and moved around so much, that the only guys I trust are a handful of Augustinian canons 2300 miles away.
The other priests I knew and actually had good relationships with have almost all passed on.
Thank you, Steve. You and Millette are my two favorite people to read on 1P5 because you both seem so willing to be open about everything you're thinking. Honesty is in too short supply amidst this deafening crescendo of crisis.
Steve, so much to say; I think you know you're not alone. We tend to think we're on the side of rational people, and then we see some of 'our people' being weird and wonderful on the internet and it's a shock. In truth though, the entire internet is like that: just go and find the people in space forums who argue that the earth is flat, or the cat-lovers, or the PC gaming obsessives who live and breathe computer games. Etcetera. The internet is an amplifier; it feeds on bad news and clicks and it thrives on divisive arguments.
The problem I'm getting at is that 'radical traditionalism' on the internet is nothing like the one on the ground. There are a bunch of us who are relatively reasonable people trying to circumnavigate the waterfalls and rapids of life on the quiet. But our voice is lost because the internet favours the weird and wonderful, and the divisive and 'newsworthy'.
My wife and I have started calling ourselves 'tradismatics'; we don't belong to either but we have elements of both. We want to read the Bible (not the Douai, thanks but no thanks). I want to go to the pre-55 Holy Week but don't care about the broad stoles and triple candle or whatever. We read Benedict XVI and Archbishop Lefebvre, listen to different views, and so on. Not small 't' tradition for its own sake, big 'T' Tradition because it speaks to us as a living, breathing faith. I think this is a growing group and it's just beginning to get a voice. Maybe God's calling you to use your gift and platform for us?
"Not small 't' tradition for its own sake, big 'T' Tradition because it speaks to us as a living, breathing faith. I think this is a growing group and it's just beginning to get a voice. Maybe God's calling you to use your gift and platform for us?"
This is certainly a possibility. I'm still trying to figure out what the game is. I feel like I can't get any guidance from the Boss, and I'm floundering trying to do it on my own. But there's a nagging thought in the back of my mind that maybe He's putting me through this to re-shape me. 17 years in the trad ghetto was no longer spiritually profitable. So what else is in store?
The only thing I can promise is honest seeking. After that, all bets are off.
"In truth though, the entire internet is like that"
Yes, I've come to realize this more and more.
I appreciate your honesty and openness. You are insightful, talented, creative and funny.
One podcast that has been a great balm for me is Online Great Books. The two men who the discuss the books are such a wonderful model of open inquiry, and they are delightful personalities.
They have a separate venue for reading and discussing the Western Canon. On this podcast they discuss various books that are significant for a myriad of reasons. Go through the archives, pick a book you’re interested in, then sit back and enjoy!
As we set free from the fears of being judged by a roaring crowd, we slowly regain the hability to understand other people's arguments from their own perspective, and for that too we need the Church. As sensible, real human beings, we sometimes need to be able to give ourselves entirely to the person to whom we are talking -or to the idea with which we're duelling- and as long as we have a solid, unshakeable ground upon which we establish ourselves, then we are able to open our hearts and give ourselves to the next without fear of falling in error, for we know that no mather how convincing their perspective may sound, we're still bound by the one faith of the one church in which we believe, and nothing will take that away from us -not even death.
I appreciate you very much Steve. I can relate a lot to the way you write, and feel like we have a lot in common. That being said, I hope you can be set free from any kind of doubt you might have (i'm not saying you do) about the one true faith, and that you're able to live you life as father and writer the way Christ wants us to live it!
...and thank you, Steve. I'd love to be a fellow traveller on this journey. God bless, protect and guide you.
Let’s go, brother!
It's good to hear from you, Steve. I feel much the same. Leaving Facebook has helped. It's removed some filters that were unhealthy, I think.