This is the question that looms for the devoted Catholic of a certain age, the sort (like me) who dutifully and even gratefully held the line in the Novus Ordo with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, even while some of their actions caused dismay.
We trusted, we followed, we spoke up; but we also thought that if we bided our time we would be rewarded with a "mutually enriched" and "reformed" Reform.
It is with the utmost trepidation that during this pontificate (not starting this summer but going back pretty far) some of us launched ourselves out into the seas of resistance. I myself wrote an essay (found in this book - affiliate link) explaining how adherence to the 10 Commandments takes precedence over submission to the false teaching of Amoris Laetitia.
Peter Kwasniewski writes in his article Are Traditionalists Guilty of “Private Judgment” Over the Popes? to answer the charge that it's just Lutheranism to resist the latest assault. Taken together with his previous post, his explanations and sources for his conclusions should hearten the man in the pew with a new resolve to be faithful to his conscience. Above all, we must cleave to the principle of non-contradiction, the ground of all reasoning, which is the first of all the precepts to which we must assent and never abandon.
Some excerpts:
I find it frankly astonishing that anyone would confuse the traditionalist position with Luther’s. Luther quickly moved from opposing papal vices to opposing the papacy as such, then a bunch of ecumenical councils, then many Fathers and Doctors of the Church. He called reason a whore, and heaped contempt on the scholastics, especially St. Thomas Aquinas (rather different from a trained Thomist who follows the master’s principles, makes frequent use of his reasoning, and looks to his life as exemplary)...
Remember, the ones who are praising Luther and toying with his ideas are the progressives led by Francis. The campaign against the historic worship of the Latin-rite Church is nominalist and voluntarist to the core. For Bugnini and Montini, and now for Bergoglio and Roche, the Roman Rite is whatever we say it is, regardless of reality...
If Pope Francis is right, then all of his predecessors are wrong—and so, for that matter, are the Old and New Testaments, as interpreted by the Fathers and Doctors. But if all that is right, then Pope Francis is, quite simply, wrong. Now, which is easier to believe possible? Which of the alternatives is less destructive to the Catholic Faith?...
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