by Louis Epstein
(Carmel, New York)
on July 27, 2021

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Pope John XXIII said “I have to be Pope for those with their foot on the gas and those with their foot on the brake.“

The Pope who canonized him would rather pick one group and then try to keep that group all together — furthermore invoking his office to put everyone’s foot on the pedal he has chosen.

I am reminded of the action of President Mobutu of the country he renamed from ‘Democratic Republic of the Congo‘ to ‘Zaire‘, who shut down a constitutional convention he had convoked when it voted to return the nation’s name, flag, and anthem to what they had been before he changed them. He considered this vital to his legacy vital. (He has since died and the country’s name has been changed back to DR Congo with only pre-Zaire flag designs used since he left power).

Pope Francis is of a Catholic generation that sees the Second Vatican Council as its crowning achievement, its contribution to history. As such, it is not to be reconsidered or seen negatively. The directions in which it pointed are the only ones he, i.e., Francis, sees as progress.

He is also the first Pope since that Council to have played no part in it, but was of impressionable age at the time, as opposed to having the historical distance to see it as flawed as so many past Ecumenical Councils have proved to have been.

It appears that to Francis the ‘Thou-Shalt-Nots‘ of doctrine exist primarily to provide opportunities to hierarchs to conspicuously display magnanimity by waiving them … thus his ‘who am I to judge?‘ to a world that looks to him for judgement, his scolding of bishops who look to make ‘teaching moments‘ when politicians who advocate against church policies seek Communion.

It was said of the efforts to reshape the church after the Council that they were ‘dogmatic about nothing except the need not to be dogmatic‘ … even though the Council declared itself merely ‘pastoral‘ rather than dogmatic in nature, its ‘dogmatic constitution of the church‘, Lumen Gentium, is pointed to by some on the right-fringe as having taken the church into heresy by its wording not seeking to exclude all outside the institutional church from being Christianity.

Those who prefer the forms of worship actually used at the Council to those construed by their writers as inspired by the Council (which as a rule merely sought to permit new options that have since been presented as required) are seen by advocates of the latter as mired in the past and having an obligation to ‘get with the program‘, as Francis pretty close to declared in ‘Traditionis Custodes‘.

The fundamental issue of the definition of a religion is:
a) Is it a fixed set of beliefs and whichever persons are adhering to those beliefs, or

b) A self-declared set of people and whatever beliefs those people happen to hold?

Though not an adherent of any religion myself, I consider the former characterization as a matter of sincerity and seriousness, while the latter begs the question of why one needs to belong to the religion in the first place.

The broad and lenient approach lets more people feel they are not under pressure, and in Germany is key to keeping people inclined to stay enrolled and pay their government-collected church tax … hence its embrace by the hierarchs there.

But unfortunately for Francis and those of like mind, it is those who take doctrines really seriously who are minded to stick with a church no matter what (examples being those who stick with one when its ‘end-of-the-world‘ dates pass with the world unended), and while he thinks his invocation of “I’m the only Pope you’ve got and this is the only way” will bring them to heel, the ways he presses are designed for those who do not take things as seriously.

The steady growth of old-style Masses embarrasses those who want them seen as a fading historical relic, but those adhering to a vision of a necessary and fixed church are far likelier to think it worth becoming clergy with all the sacrifices involved. The mile-wide-and-inch-deep want to drain the inch-but-widening-wide and mile-deep trenches.

So Francis has sought to root out pockets of organized traditionalism under his obedience, from the Knights of Malta to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate to the Community of the Holy Apostles in Belgium and make them ‘get with the program‘.

He is also concerned about deviation to the farther left, such as with the Germans, but since left is the way he leans he would prefer that it be the right that openly breaks with his authority … so he has been on the one hand open to the Society of St. Pius X, which is not under his obedience, by granting recognition to their sacraments, and now on the other provocatively harsh with the clergy and congregants who seek out the older Mass within his dioceses … he is greasing the path for them to leave the RC Church for the SSPX if they won’t modernize their practices. If they continue to stay in the RC Church while the left leaves he would be embarrassed by their being a proportionally greater part of the remaining church and still intent on heading in directions he is trying to abandon. So,the bludgeon to protect his legacy and intimidate its opponents to the best of his ability.

There are already groups stepping too hard on the gas (e.g., Roman Catholic Womenpriests-USA (RCWP)), or too hard on the brake  (e.g., ‘Fathers‘ of ‘Traditio‘ whose ‘opiate‘ is the gleeful repetition that anyone even a trice to the left of them is a heretic who can only be saved from hell fire by following their advice).

None of these groups, on either side, should have stayed on the lurching bus of the RC Church proper. Many of them don’t recognize each other as belonging to the church they all claim to personify in superior form. Those still on the bus such as the epicurean traveller John Zuhlsdorf of WDTPRS may grip hard onto their seats and wait for Francis to be gone from the scene … or some may leave into new or existing splinters. (I should note that some have given up on being traditionalist Catholics and entered Eastern Orthodoxy, such as Rod Dreher, while others at least ponder leaving the Latin Rite for an Eastern Catholic rite if it seems more change-proof which some are not).

But various iterations of 1962 and pre-1962 Latin liturgies (the Society of St. Pius V started because the Society of St. Pius X felt too newfangled to them with the 1962 version) seem guaranteed to continue with or without the blessing of Pope Francis.

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P.S., A bishop who can expect no promotion from Francis confronts Traditionis Custodes.

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