Friday 20 March 2015

Give Away Lines (2): From the Traditionalist Camp

From here and then circulated elsewhere (with my italics added):
My deepest fear is that if Pope Francis continues to push the Church toward heresy that we may experience a war among the faithful that would make Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s opposition after Vatican II appear like a simple objection!
So it is taken as read that Pope Francis is pushing the Church towards heresy? There really isn't a glimmer of truth in that assertion.

But the "give away" is not so much that something is being said about Pope Francis that isn't true. The "give away" is about how it comes to be that such a point of view has any traction at all amongst those who self identify as traditionalists (or as "faithful Catholics" or "loyal Catholics").

If you keep saying it, and saying it, and saying it again, ..... within your own self-referential circle ..... well, you end up believing it. And you end up convincing yourselves that you are on shaky ground and without any certainties of faith any more. And you all buy in to a fear that should not have been aroused in the first place. WYSIWYG - what you say is what you get. You end up needing to "mind the gap" between your own little world and the real one....

Those who blog and re-blog, and tweet and re-tweet, need to recognise their share in the responsibility for this .....

Those who find excuse to, oh ever so reasonably (not), attack Pope Francis time and time again need to recognise their share in the responsibility for this too, perhaps particularly those who have a certain discretion about it but nevertheless help to create the aetherial environment in which ideas gain traction that are not worthy of credibility .....

I suspect that Pope Francis' word for much of this would be "gossip" - and his scathing comment on the harm that it does to all involved is very much on the record.

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