No Church for Old Men?

Good news, if true:

The American Catholic Church is seeing a prolonged surge of conservative young priests, leaving the aging and far more liberal Vatican II generation with no replacements.

According to a nationally representative survey conducted by the Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America, of 3,500 priests ordained since 2020, “More than 80 percent of priests ordained since 2020 describe themselves as theologically ‘conservative/orthodox’ or ‘very conservative/orthodox.'” Foreign-born priests in the United States, a significant contingent due to the overall low number of ordinations in the U.S., were found to be significantly more liberal than their American counterparts.

However, perhaps most revealing, the study found that no priest ordained since 2020 described himself as “very progressive.” In addition, nearly all priests ordained in 2020 and afterward described themselves as politically moderate or conservative.

Is the fumigation of the RCC finally upon us? As I recall my pal Catacomb Joe saying back in the day, fumus sanctus!

An RCC that degenerates into just another piece of leftist cultural junk needs to be defunded and ignored.

Comments

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I have also read this report on the high percentage of new priests who regard themselves as “theologically ‘conservative/orthodox’ or ‘very conservative/orthodox,'” but I take very little solace from it. Surveys like this one operate under the unstated assumption that the beliefs of respondents will, as in a democratic state, lead, if not immediately then eventually, to changes in the established ideology and formalities of an institution. More specifically, the implication of these findings—one that is too readily accepted by the “conservative” Catholic media—is that the modernist assault to destroy traditional Roman Catholicism thought and practice, one which, whatever the momentarily successful orthodox counter-offensives of the past, has progressively advanced its theological, biblical, and liturgical program, will be halted or turned back. This is doubtful for several reasons. First, all of these young priests will become pastors or pastoral vicars in an institution that is exceedingly hierarchical and authoritarian, and whose commanding heights, from the papacy itself, to the cardinalate and episcopacy, is dominated either by men who are confirmed modernists of one stripe or another—on a spectrum from outright material and formal heretics to those who, whether through indifference, ignorance, or careerism, accept many of its theological and all of its liturgical distortions of tradition. Once scattered over a myriad of American parishes and under the surveillance of (most) bishops who follow the party line and (often) modernist (i.e. politically “liberal”) congregations, these young priests will find their room to maneuver very restricted. Their Sunday homilies many be orthodox (in a broad sense), but that would be about the extent of their freedom. They can never offer the Tridentine Mass, that is, the historic mode of worship of the Roman Catholic Church, which, beyond the use of ancient texts in Latin, that is, in a universal classical language, uncorrupted by the changes of meaning that affect every vernacular language, expresses a doctrinally precise understanding of this rite, from its sacrificial nature, to the Real Presence, to the role of the priest (Ottaviani Intervention http://www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/ottaviani.htm), that is effectively effaced by the Protestantized “Novus Ordo,” imposed by the arbitrary papal fiat of Pope Montini. Let’s have no confusion about this matter: to compromise on the form and substance of the Mass is to compromise on the very essence of Catholicism, so someone may consider himself “orthodox,” but the term is largely emptied of meaning if he adheres to the Novus Ordo. Moreover, these priests will find that anything that hints of the traditional and rightful worship of God, from the ad orientem celebration of the Mass, to the installation of altar rails, to the insistence that communion be taken by mouth and while kneeling, will meet with voracious opposition and episcopal censure. Likewise, they will be expected to raise money for all sorts of “Catholic charities,” some of which funnel funds to groups and causes that are inimical to Church teaching. Survival will depend on acquiescence. In the long run, many of these young men will be worn down and retreat, at best, into quietism or, at worst, more overt forms of conformism.

Vito

[Joe Odegaard]

Yes, the news is good, Brother Bill !

Hopefully we are seeing the swan song of the "progressive" RCC with stunts like this: Cardinal Blaise Cupich's invocation at the Democratic convention: (Called out by Harrison Butker in the link below).

https://www.dailywire.com/news/america-needs-more-jesus-not-less-chiefs-kicker-calls-out-chicago-cardinal-who-led-invocation-at-dnc-with-cross-hidden?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=16857

And strange it is, that you and I, Brother bill, who are smack in the middle of the generation of "progressives" who have done so much damage everywhere, will have none of it.

I remember in the days of the 1960s and 70s, that the leftists, from whom I usually hung back, would engage in mindless chanting at demonstrations. But they did chant this, which I now can support: " 2,4,6,8, Organize and Smash the State! "

Oh the irony.

Catacomb Joe

[BV]

Joe,

Do you remember when you came up with fumus sanctus, holy smoke? At the Tech, 1964-65, first year Latin? Old Fr. Joseph: "Boys, be neither an optimist nor a pessimist; be a realist!"

One day we were sitting outside on benches, eating our home-packed lunches. Richard Iredale, wanting to get past me with my feet up on a bench blocking his path: "Would you please remove your fetus?"

[BV]

Joe,

Thanks for the link. And yet the terrorist-supporting squadristi parade around in Congress and elsewhere with their Islamo-terrorist symbols and attire. Too many priests at present are pussy-homo-pseudo-priests. I remember the priests at STS as manly men in the main.

Yes, the hate-America Deep State needs smashing, which is why I have utter contempt for the loon-brained leftshits and the cuckservative NeverTrumperphuckers who won't support the one man who can save the republic.

[BV]

In Vito veritas! It occurred to me that the acid test, the criterion whether or not this report is just surface noise, is whether the Tridentine mass is made available again.

>>They can never offer the Tridentine Mass, that is, the historic mode of worship of the Roman Catholic Church, which, beyond the use of ancient texts in Latin, that is, in a universal classical language, uncorrupted by the changes of meaning that affect every vernacular language, expresses a doctrinally precise understanding of this rite, from its sacrificial nature, to the Real Presence, to the role of the priest (Ottaviani Intervention http://www.catholictradition.org/Eucharist/ottaviani.htm), that is effectively effaced by the Protestantized “Novus Ordo,” imposed by the arbitrary papal fiat of Pope Montini.<<

We shall see.

My attitude to the RCC is a subtle one. As a philosopher, I say that the hard-core doctrinal content of the trad RCC needs to be submitted to the scrutiny of Athens, since there is more to our great tradition than Jerusalem and Rome. But for the philosophers to have something fruitfully to challenge themselves with, and break their heads against, the ancient church must stand fast, a fastness immovable against the winds of time and change. Moving targets are hard to hit. Too much shape-shifting will issue in shapelessness.

But it is all very complicated: there is this thing called development of doctrine, no?

That one church in the temporal order should reliably and for all time house the eternal truth strains credulity -- as does the Incarnation.

A lot to chew on here. Too bad we have to die soon, just when we are getting our 'chops' in order. More time, Lord, I'm just getting started! And beside intellectual progress, there is a crapload of moral progress that needs to be made. Only possible here below? No such progress on the Far Side? I don't want to believe that! As for purgatory, it makes good sense. Why the hell do Protestants deny it?

More grist for the mill, blog fodder for the Bill.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Yes, “it is all very complicated,” and yes again, “there is a thing called development of doctrine.” As to doctrine, the question turns on what is an unforced, organic development, remaining faithful to both dogma and earlier doctrine, which is neither contradicted or overturned but rather more rigorously grasped or explicated. On this matter, one only has to compare the rigorous approach of Cardinal Newman’s “An Essay on the Development of Doctrine,” which seeks to establish rigorous rational criteria by which to distinguish a “true development” of doctrine—preservation of type, continuity of principles, assimilative power, logical sequence, anticipation of its future, conservative action on its past, and chronic vigor (https://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/)— from the “corruptions and perversions” that are characteristic of some of the, papally endorsed, doctrinal innovations of the last sixty years (for instance, Montini’s destruction of the Tridentine Mass) and, in particular, of this pontificate (the heterodox Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans, Traditionis Custodes).

One final word: My pessimism regarding the report on the “conservative” leanings of new American priests is prompted by a reading of the long-term history of the modernists. Like the secular Left, with which they share fundamental philosophic assumptions (progressivism, nominalism, relativism, historicism), they are driven by a hatred of traditional beliefs and institutions and work assiduously to destroy both. Nothing has arrested their progressive take-over of the RCC, not the definitive anathemas of Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) nor any of the restrictive actions of the pontiffs who followed him, from Pius XI through Pius XII. Rather, through a variety of stratagems, including the repeated use of subterfuge (from he “Third Way” of the early part of the 20th century to the formation of secret cabals to determine papal elections [Montini and Bergoglio or the for example]), along with repeated destabilizing compromises by “conservative” popes (ex. JP II at Assisi, his and Benedict’s appointments of unorthodox, morally dubious cardinals, including the vicious and vile Bergoglio). With Bergoglio, the culmination of the modernist destruction of the historic faith, evident in much of Europe before Vatican II, made universal through the progressive commandeering of the Council and the destructive work of Paul VI, and only ostensibly but not actually halted under JPII and Benedict, who attempted to walk an illusory middle path, one characterized by some “conservative” pronouncements, but a large acceptance of much that was inimical to the faith, is in the open; the damage of the last eleven years is so grave that it is hard to see how it will be undone and made right. I hope to God that I am wrong, but that is how I see it.

Vito

[BV]

Thanks for that follow-up, Vito. I confess to never having read the Newman work in question. Have you? Too bad it is 445 pages long. I should look for a summary.

And now this just over the transom from Tony Flood, which will get your goat:https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/33211/in-first-prayer-video-pope-stresses-interfaith-unity-we-are-all-children-of-god

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I have read the key sections of Part II, "Doctrinal Developments Viewed Relatively to Doctrinal Corruptions."

You are right, the link provided by Tony Flood got my goat. The seeds of Bergoglio's extreme indifferentism were planted at Vatican II and fertilized along the way by his two predecessors, JPII (ex. interfaith meeting in Assisi, the kissing of the Koran) and BXVI (ex. praying in the Blue Mosque). These heterodox actions, which break with the historic position of the saints, the previous popes, and the councils, are an implied or, in the case of Bergoglio, explicit relativization of the history shattering event of the God-Man.