Dimes Square is back in the news! This emerging outpost of bohemianism – yet with a traditionalist Catholic  flavor –  is the subject of a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor. 1) “Dimes Square” is a downtown area bordering Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The author of this piece, Leonardo Bevilacqua, describes this scene and some of its main personalities:

The Dimes Square scene began to include a number of artists with more conservative and religious visions. Writers, filmmakers, and fashion designers have been dabbling in pre-Vatican II Catholicism. They play the church organ rather than DJ at nightclubs. Instead of free love and polyamory, they espouse commitment and monogamy. And the flip phone is a favorite accessory – a statement against the herd and its iPhones. 2)

The nonconformists of Dimes Square are distancing themselves not just from the “establishment” but from the “official” counterculture, symbolized by “Brooklyn”: 

“I certainly don’t need to tell you that this place is also, emphatically, not in Brooklyn,” wrote the leftist Substack blogger Mike Crumplar in 2022, with a bit of snark. “You already know how Brooklyn is too political, too woke, too soft, too soy, too consumed by cancel culture…. 3)

And one focus of this movement is the traditional Mass:

“Leftists see greatness, and they see beauty, and they’re threatened by it, and they want to destroy it,” says Salomé, who says the Tridentine Mass is “the greatest work of art” for its superior musical composition. 4)

But is this link between “bohemianism” and Catholic tradition all that strange? Hadn’t Joris-Karl Huysmans established the connection as long ago as the 1880’s? A link that was maintained by a long succession of writers and thinkers in France and elsewhere.  

Inevitably, the renewed interest in Catholicism among the downtown bohemians is decidedly for traditional Catholicism. For is not the present Catholic Church establishment itself the incarnation of “bourgeois” conformism and philistinism? Didn’t Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose countercultural and anti-establishment credentials are impeccable, describe the mission of the Catholic Church, confronted (and subjugated)by the “modern world” and its ideology, in the following stark terms? 

Maybe the end of the Church has already been sealed by the “treason” of millions and millions of the faithful (particularly the peasants who have converted to secularism and consumerist hedonism). Maybe the end has been sealed by the “decision” of the rulers who are meanwhile certain of getting in their clutches the ex-believers – given the affluent conditions and an ideology that has been imposed on the masses. An ideology, moreover, that does not even feel it to be necessary any more to act as such. That may be. But one thing is sure: the Church has certainly committed many awful mistakes in the long history of its regime, but she would commit the worst of all if she passively stood by while she was liquidated by a power that mocks the Gospel. In the context of a radical, possibly utopian or – here one really has to say it- eschatological perspective, it’s clear what the Church has to do to avoid an inglorious end. She has to go into opposition. 5)

Now Salomé, quoted above in the Christian Science Monitor article, plays the organ at Most Holy Redeemer Church, the grand building that until 2019 was the center of the Redemptorist Order in New York City.  The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny was instrumental in returning Catholic tradition to Most Holy Redeemer after many decades. Such as by sponsoring Solemn vespers with Bishop Athanasius Schneider in 2013. Or subsequently,  Solemn Masses on St. Nicholas’s feast day (2019) (with a visit from Krampus!) and Epiphany (2020) 6)

I wrote the following in 2023 on the occasion of a splendid concert of the music of William Byrd:

Since 2011 we at St. Hugh of Cluny have often covered events at the grand Church of Most Holy Redeemer, formerly Redemptorist, formerly German. Indeed, this Society has sponsored some of them. Today a young priest of the archdiocese leads this parish in the midst of what some might consider one of the city’s more inhospitable surroundings – half party land, half “underprivileged” neighborhood. Yet, under Fr. Sean Connolly, the church looks better than ever before, and the parish is sponsoring an ambitious program of musical performances. 7)

For within the limits of Traditionis Custodes, Most Holy Redeemer parish after 2020 celebrated the TLM on a regular basis. A brief search of this site will demonstrate that.  And repairs were made on the building itself after decades of neglect – most recently the tower was restored. The tower now has a functioning clock, carillon and lights (the color of which can be changed for the liturgical season). 8) Thus, this parish had entered a period of restoration – in the liturgy, in the restored splendor of the building, in the attention paid to musical excellence. 

Now the young pastor of Most Holy Redeemer has been transferred to bigger, if not better, things in the Bronx.  The pastor of Immaculate Conception parish has been appointed the administrator of Most Holy Redeemer and St. Brigid. He is also now the administrator of Most Precious Blood shrine/church in Little Italy. And this territory includes that of three other parishes that have been completely erased since 2010: St. Emeric, Nativity and Mary Help of Christians. That is a lot to cover! 9)

Will the renewed stirrings of the traditional faith at Most Holy Redeemer and ”Dimes Square” continue to develop? Some are wondering:

However, it’s unclear whether (the pastor of Immaculate Conception – SC)will continue traditional Latin Masses at Holy Redeemer…  10)

But I certainly hope and believe the religious and cultural momentum can be sustained. After all, shouldn’t an essential characteristic of tradition be its independence from the personalities of those who preserve and celebrate it?  In the recent past, moreover, the St. Hugh of Cluny Society has also repeatedly sponsored traditional masses at Immaculate Conception parish (and at Most Precious Blood as well). 11)  As in the past, the St. Hugh of Cluny Society is ready to offer whatever help we can give. 

(Above and below) the interior of Most Holy Redeemer church one recent afternoon. (Photo 8/22/2024). Surrounding the church are still, for the time being at least, the buildings of the former Redemptorist center.

1. Bevilacqua, Leonardo, “Rebels with a religious cause: Meet New York’s avant-garde conservatives,” The Christian Science Monitor ( 6/24/2024) (accessed 8/27/2024). I have to confess I had no idea The Christian Science Monitor was still in existence – if nowadays primarily online.
2. Id.
3. Id. 
4. Id.
5. Quoted in Lorenzer, Alfred, Das Konzil der Buchhalter at 180 (Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main, 1981). Lorenzer’s work is a vehement attack on the liturgy and culture of the Second Vatican Council from a non-religious perspective. See my review “The Council of the Bookkeepers”(1/26/2017)
6.  The Society of St. Hugh Of Cluny,   Vespers at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, New York (1/13/2013); Solemn Mass of St Nicholas at Most Holy Redeemer Church,  (12/6/2019);  Epiphany Solemn Mass at Most Holy Redeemer Church (1/7/2020).
7.  The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny,  Byrd Fest,  (9/17/2023)
8.  Joy, Stacie, “Purple reign: Marking Holy Week at Most Holy Redeemer, ” East Village Grieve (3/24/2024) (accessed 8/29/2024) (with links to earlier posts describing and illustrating the restoration process)
9.  Joy, Stacie, “Father Seán is leaving the East Village,” East Village Grieve(6/17/2024) (accesssed 8/29/2024)
10. Reinholz, Mary, “Rev. Sean Connolly’s transfer from Most Holy Redeemer leaves ‘a void,’” The Village Sun (8/5/2024) ( This piece, while enthusiastic, contains a number of factual errors) (accessed 8/29/2024)
11. E.g., The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny,  “High Mass at the new Chapel of Immaculate Conception parish,”  (2/1/2015)

I recently heard that erstwhile Catholic writer Michael Warren Davis has joined the Orthodox Church. Now over the years I have had to take issue with articles by Davis that touched on Catholic traditionalism. I disputed Davis’s self-identification as a reactionary, even a “trad.”   For in these writings Davis took aim at Catholics of the past and present ( Triumph magazine, Joe Sobran, ordinary traditionalists in the pews) while displaying great understanding for secular and ecclesiastical  establishments (National Review, Archbishop Gregory,  Pope Francis).  1)

I also had a mixed reaction to Davis’s very latest article, a review of a book on the Jesuits.   Davis there takes some clever shots at the Jesuit order and the current papal regime. Yet he leads off with a serious misinterpretation of Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and his review features several startling errors (the latter,  of course, not necessarily Davis’s fault). A more substantial problem for the reader is the difficulty of separating Davis’s own views from those of the author of the book being reviewed. 2)

On YouTube Davis is now claiming he came to Catholicism from “theistic Luciferian Satanism.” And after Latin Rite Catholicism. he seems to have joined briefly the Melkite Catholic community before finally turning to Orthodoxy. Obviously, Davis is a man who unfortunately has experienced significant vicissitudes in his spiritual life. I hope he can find a degree of peace in Orthodoxy. On YouTube he does read a statement which makes a presentation of Orthodoxy more positive than those of some other Orthodox converts from Catholicism. 3)

Of course, Orthodoxy is not without its own issues. Certain representatives of major Orthodox churches in the United States, for example,  want to import into Orthodoxy features of Vatican II Catholicism and even of modern secular society. Outside the United States,  political issues wrack the Orthodoxy world(e.g., the ongoing ecclesiastical conflict in Ukraine).  Davis, however, seems to be well aware of those problems.4)

Is the conversion of Davis not another example of the crackup of conservative Catholicism? For despite his “trad” pretensions,  Davis really represented the conservative tendency within Catholicism: advocating aspects of traditional Catholic morality, faith and liturgy while simultaneously showing reverence for the hierarchy and the papacy. Under the current pope,  this balancing act became increasingly unsustainable. As the old song goes: ”Something’s got to give.”   

Undoubtedly,  many more Catholics are considering the step Michael Warren Davis has now taken.   The “fault” for this, however,  resides squarely with the pope, the Catholic hierarchy and the clergy. It is their outrageous and scandalous conduct that motivates some faithful to seek in Orthodoxy respect for Christian tradition, a reverent and beautiful liturgy and, above all, a focus on the spiritual, on the union of the individual and the community with God.  The Eastern Orthodox Church, which Davis has joined,  is not necessarily the answer  – much more should be said on this subject, pro and con. Orthodoxy will always remain an attraction for a minority. Yet,  at some point, on some issue and in some way we all may be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth. And it is the leadership of Roman Catholic Church which has created such a situation  – making distinctly possible for everyone a previously unimaginable choice.

1. See, in sthughofcluny.org, , “Sobranistas without Sobran” (2/21/18); Sediziose Voci (6/14/21): Papal without a Pope: Recent Manifestations of Conservative Catholicism (10/21/22).
2. Davis, Michael Warren, “Jesuit Plots” at 55 The American Conservative (July/August 2024).
3. Barrel Aged Faith,  “Satanist to Orthodox Christian” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnYUkfgSmk (accessed 7/12/2024);“Why this Catholic Writer became Orthodox” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jdGZH1HRQ (accessed 7/12/2024). For a book by another convert to the Eastern Church see “Orthodoxy?” at sthughofcluny.org (2/28/23)
4. Davis, Michael Warren, “The CIA’s Man in Constantinople” (The American Conservative, 4/23/24).

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend services several times at the Church of Saint-Eugène, Paris. This is a diocesan parish. Here the Traditional Mass is celebrated and a splendid musical culture is cultivated led by several noteworthy musicians. The Traditional Sunday Mass (the main Mass of the day) was thronged by an overflowing congregation of all ages – a rarity in France! The music, although in a style somewhat unfamilar to me, was of course most impressive. The Novus Ordo is also celebrated but in a manner extremely traditional. Even the parish bulletin grappled fearlessly with major issues of the day.

It was here that the late Nicholas Krasno – a long-standing member of this Society – sang in the schola. Indeed, it was the opportunity, after Summorum Pontificum, to attend and sing in such a church that inspired him to join the Roman Catholic Church. For it was after Summorum Pontificum that a Catholic could, at least in some places, regularly experience the fullness of the traditional liturgy in ceremony and music.

And perhaps for Nicholas Krasno there were additional factors that explained his attachment to this church. For does not Saint-Eugène in several respects resemble Krasno’s former beloved Anglican parish of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City? Both are 19th century recreations of the style of the high French Gothic. Both used innovative construction methods, the earlier Saint-Eugène was built around an iron framework, while Saint Mary the Virgin was the first steel-framed church.

(St. Mary the Virgin) is in fact the earliest ecclesiastical use of constructional steel – a technique that had been first tried for office buildings in Chicago only 4 years previous. 1)

Both churches feature beautiful windows and decoration. In both the musical culture was fostered:

The musical program of St. Mary’s expressed an unabashed preference for works of the great musicians of the Roman Church: favorite composers included Beethoven,Haydn and Weber, and most of the French romantic school – Gounod, Franck. Faure and Guilmant. 2)

And both were despised by modernist taste – only to experience a reassessment in more recent years.

1. Krasno, Nicholas, A Guide to the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, New York City at 17( 2nd edition revised, New York, 1999). The architects, Napoleon and Pierre Le Brun, were Roman Catholic. For Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile#History.

2. Krasno, op. cit. at 63- 65. Of course, in the Roman Catholic Church these works later fell victim (in the US) to the strictures of Pius X.

Sacred Heart Cultural Center in Augusta, Georgia, was the Jesuit church of the Sacred Heart, built between 1898 and !900. It formerly was a center of Catholic faith, life and education in what was once a not-very-Catholic part of the United States. The church was closed and abandoned in 1971. For years the buildings lay vacant and were repeatedly vandalized. In 1987 the buildings were purchased and reopened as the Sacred Heart Cultural Center. Over the years, great efforts have been made to restore the bulding and windows. It now functions as a cultural center and as an “event venue,” especially for weddings.

(Above and Below) Sacred Heart. The very elaborate exterior brickwork reminds me of a somewhat earlier (1880’s) church in New York City, Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Hell’s Kitchen.

The church – now the “Great Hall” – is grandly dimensioned. It has been nicely restored and painted , except for the communion rail, visible in old photographs – but that may have already disappeared before 1971.

The pulpit with its sounding board or tester. The original pulpit in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, had a similar feature.

The Center is particularly proud of the stained glass windows, most of which were creations of the firm of Mayer, Munich. The windows were installed at the time of the building of the church or shortly thereafter. Mayer provided windows to inumerable Catholic churches in the United States especially from the 1890’s to World War I. Indeed, Mosy Holy Trinity, the (still functioning) Catholic parish in downtown Augusta, also has a set of Mayer windows which it is currently restoring. The design of the windows of Sacred Heart closely resembles that of certain windows that can be found in, for example, Holy Innocents parish (installed twenty-five years or more after completion of the church), or Holy Name of Jesus parish (both New York City). The artists of the Mayer windows, however, while often relying on a common repertoire of designs or patterns, seem to have taken care to vary the details for each commission.

When the Jesuits left Sacred Heart in 1971 all this was left behind – good riddance, they undoubtedly thought. Nowadays, as church after church is closed in New York City and elsewhere, the windows, altars, stations of the cross, etc. are usually salvaged for disposition to other churches seeking to upgrade their modernistic buildings. The parish of St. Theresa, not too far from Augusta, is a very good example of this recycling.

In the former baptistery a small museum of Catholicism has been set up. It explains to visitors what once was done within these walls. Similar Catholic museums exist in Victoria, British Columbia and in Zurich. The materials published by the Sacred Heart Center that I have seen do treat the practices of those who used to worship here with respect.

(Above) This is a sanctuary lamp. (Below) The final sign for Sacred Heart Church. Note it is “post-conciliar” ( A Vigil Mass on Saturday is scheduled).

We applaud the Sacred Heart Center for the care and respect they have shown to this church, abandoned by its original spiritual leaders and congregation. It’s impressive to encounter this degree of appreciation for these old Catholic churches, which are still scorned by the clergy, at least in the Northeast. Yet we weep to see the art of the Catholic faith turned from its purpose and treated as a relic of some distant past. In this respect, the secular management of this Center is completely aligned with, for example, the New York Archdiocese, which has often described its architectural heritage as “museums.” Finally, we firmly hope that a recovering Traditionalism, made stronger through persecution, will continue as part of its mission the revitalizaion of the splended Catholic churches of the past. For after all, as Proust wrote of the French cathedrals, these grand old buildings were created for one purpose: the celebration of the Traditional Mass.

By George A. Kendall

(“The liturgy from Hell,” Chronicles Magazine, 38-40 (February 2024))

George A. Kendall settles accounts with the Novus Ordo regime in a blazing article – and suggests a path going forward. It’s a forceful response to the increasingly rabid attacks on traditionalists in Catholic media in Europe and the United States. 1)

The Chronicles editor comments:

George Kendall tells us that for much of his life he has been a conservative Novus Ordo Catholic but says traditionalist arguments have recently convinced him.  He writes: “I am deeply indebted to Peter Kwasniewski…..for helping me to clarify my thinking on the Church’s need to restore her ancient liturgy.”

I would add that George Kendall wrote regularly for The Wanderer. For those of us familiar with that publication in the past (I don’t think I have read it since the mid 1990’s) Kendall’s change of position is almost unimaginable. For The Wanderer, one of the original “Conservative Catholic” publications, used to define itself by opposition to Catholic traditionalism and uncritical exaltation of the papacy.  Not that it did them any good, in my experience, in their relationship with most of the clergy!

Let me give you some excerpts from Kendall’s article.

53 years ago, in 1969, a terrible act of vandalism was committed against the Catholic Church, an assault, not only on the Catholic faithful but on the very heart of the Church, the Eucharist, hence an attack on Christ himself. That crime consisted in the scrapping, on orders from the pope, of the Traditional Latin Mass, not only getting rid of the Latin language but butchering many of the texts of the liturgy, carving it up into a liturgy different in kind from the traditional one. 

…..

Then, in July 2021, Pope Francis issued his infamous document on the liturgy, titled Traditionis Custodes (“Guardians of Tradition”), which was, in fact, a wholesale attack on tradition. The new document takes away the hope of correcting Pope Paul’s mistake ( the Novus Ordo- SC),  seeking to suppress the old Mass by regulating it to death, contradicting Summorum Pontificum which stated that no one in the Church had the authority to do such a thing.

….

Kendall squarely addresses the question of authority:

Does anyone have the authority to do what Pope Francis has tried to do in Traditionis Custodes?…..  I find it hard to imagine that the Holy Spirit guided the development and continuation of the Latin Mass for so many centuries, then suddenly decided to make a U-turn, guiding the Church to adopt a wholly different and incompatible liturgy. The Traditional Latin Mass has the authority of the Holy Spirit behind it. The Novus Ordo does not. Just as clearly, neither the Novus Ordo itself nor Traditionis Custodes has legitimate authority behind it, and we are not obliged in conscience to obey either.

…..

The strategy of the Catholic faithful should be to forget about Vatican politics and to work at the local level (the diocese and the parish) to establish as many Latin mass communities as possible. Ideally they should exist under the authority of the local Bishop, where that is possible. Where it is not, we’ll have to go underground, operating in secrecy,  perhaps celebrating the mass at one another’s homes, using canceled priests. ….

Kendall recognizes that this goes against authority but:

When the Pope or Bishop tells us we must comply with Traditionis Custodes, which is an attack on Christ and on his Church, we can and must disobey.

…

Kendall sees two advantages to this course of action:

First, as the number of Latin mass communities grows throughout the world, the number of Latin Mass Catholics in the world will increase. 

Second, the number of Novus Ordo Catholics will continue to decline, as it has for the last 50 year. Novus Ordo Catholics have a problem reproducing themselves because they typically have small families, while traditional Catholics who still adhere to the prohibition against birth control affirmed in Paul VI’s  encyclical Humanae Vitae have bigger families. This is also because the children of Novus Ordo Catholics tend to abandon the faith.  I am constantly meeting young people who tell me they were brought up Novus Ordo Catholic but “don’t go anymore.” 

……

Kendall’s article is eloquent witness to the unheard-of stress on the Church created by the Francis papacy.

ADDENDUM: In another article in the same issue of Chronicles, Anthony Esolen has this to say:

But even if all the traditionalists were kindly and reserved, and even after they have amassed all the historical evidence for their liturgical claims and argued cogently about both the beauty and the spiritual effectiveness of the Tridentine rite – and I speak here as someone who does not attend that rite – it would not matter. They are opposed not because the rite in question is ugly but because it is beautiful, and the opponents sense it. They are opposed not because they are all hypocrites when they kneel but because most of them are not hypocrites; they are opposed not because they pretend to believe but because they believe too ardently. They’re the last people a priest whose faith has shriveled up wants to be near.

Esolen, Anthony, “Culture War, whether we like it or not,” at 17 (Chronicles Magazine, February 2024)

1. We will address some of these attacks in subsequent posts.

The “Declaration” Fiducia Supplicans authorizes “ordained ministers” to give blessings to couples in “irregular situations” and same-sex couples. By issuing Fiducia Supplicans Pope Francis returns directly to the project of transforming Church teaching on issues touching on sexual morality – a mission set aside temporarily in 2021 in favor of the war against liturgical traditionalism. But over the last two years these questions continued to be agitated, with the Pope’s approval, by the Synodal Path in Germany, hierarchies and individual bishops in Western Europe and finally by the Synod on Synodality worldwide. Fiducia Supplicans (“FS”) rivals Amoris Laetitia and Traditionis Custodes as Pope Francis’s most radical act.

The ”Presentation” to FS reveals the fundamental assumptions underlying the document. First, FS confirms Pope Francis as the source of Catholic teaching on morality, in line with the extreme understanding of papal power that had emerged by the time of Pius XII. FS is based on Francis’s “pastoral vision”; his statements are a “decisive element” for the work on this document – the curia is, after all “primarily an instrument at the service of the successor of Peter.” 20 of the 31 footnotes reference documents of Francis. Of the rest, the oldest reference is to the 1985 edition of Pope Paul VI’s “Divine office.” So, the entire history of Catholic tradition and magisterium on these issues is ignored, along with the directly relevant passages of Scripture. 

Second, the Presentation to FS, as well as the text, presents a “modernist” celebration of progress, creativity, spontaneity, evolution, expansion, and development. FS offers a “specific and innovative contribution,”  “permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings.”  FS “implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church.” All this, while claiming to remain firm on what it calls the “traditional doctrine” of the Church regarding marriage.  

Indeed,  in this choice of words, can we not detect a distancing from the doctrine and discipline of marriage with their “fixed nature,” which FS claims to preserve intact? Is there not a sense that the “informal” “non-liturgical blessings” it introduces may be superior to merely liturgical provisions? For do not informal blessings “inhabit a realm of greater spontaneity and freedom” compared to the “impoverishment” produced by “ritualization?” This is entirely in line with the previous statements of Pope Francis, and for that matter the philosophy of the post-conciliar liturgy, with its love of freedom from “rigid” rules and spontaneity. 

FS claims to do all this by invoking the magic word “pastoral.”  By qualifying its provisions as pastoral,  FS claims to be able to avoid any discussion of the traditional understanding of marriage or of the liturgy. “The Church, moreover, must shy away from resting its pastoral praxis on the fixed nature of certain doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to ‘a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism.’” But isn’t this radical distinction between the pastoral, on the one hand, and doctrine or discipline, on the other, unsustainable? Because the “praxis” – the “doing” – and doctrine and Church law must be in harmony. Didn’t Christ call the divergence of practice from the precepts of God’s law “hypocrisy?“

For, in substance, the praxis advocated by FS directly contradicts the consistent prior teaching of the Church. Regarding same sex-couples,  did not the immediate predecessor to Cardinal Victor Fernandez, the author of FS, explicitly reject the possibility of such blessings as recently as 2021? Does not the giving of blessings to couples as couples endorse their relationship as free from moral censure? Certainly, a reading of FS using the ordinary sense of the words would lead one to think so.  Picking up an argument from Amoris Laetitia, FS quotes:  “Pastoral charity requires us not to treat simply as ‘sinners’ those whose guilt or responsibility may be attenuated by various factors affecting subjective imputability.” Thus, in the situation of the “irregular relationships” treated by FS there really is no “objectively immoral” situations that can be discerned the ordained minister. Moreover, “Pope Francis proposed a description of this kind of blessing that is offered to all without requiring anything.” Thus, the couples in irregular relationships do not have to repent, let alone change their lifestyle. 

Similarly, FS emphasizes the ”non-liturgical” nature of the blessings it introduces as a key to distinguish such blessing from the sacrament of matrimony. According to FS, a non-liturgical blessing – aside from its other claimed advantages cited above – is free from any association with the liturgical blessings associated with matrimony. But this reasoning is totally specious. For FS in fact spells out a set of ritual or “semi-liturgical” rules of its own. The “spontaneous” blessings in FS are public acts with the participation of an “ordained minister.” 

“This is a blessing that, although not included in any liturgical rite, unites intercessory prayer with the invocation of God’s help by those who humbly turn to him.”

 “These non-ritualized blessings (should) never cease being simple gestures.”

“In a brief prayer preceding this spontaneous blessing, the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance—but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely.”

“Such a blessing may instead find its place in other contexts, such as a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer recited in a group, or during a pilgrimage.”

FS further states it would be wrong to “expect the same moral conditions for receiving a simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the sacraments,” yet Pope Francis himself insisted in Amoris Laetitia that the Sacrament of the Eucharist could indeed be received in spite of the recipient’s lack of “perfection.”  Thus, the Pope himself has blurred this allegedly significant distinction between “simple” blessings and sacraments. 

By reiterating the need to avoid “scandal,” FS itself confirms that it will inevitably be the occasion of such scandals. For FS was issued in a specific historical context. Regarding same-sex marriages, for years massive agitation for the rights within the Church of same-sex couples has been taking place in the secular media. And the overwhelming majority of Catholics – including, I understand, of the bishops as well  – get their information on the Church from the secular media.  The whole world knows by now that the German Synodal Path has been fighting for same sex marriages or blessings. Various bishops and bishops’ conferences in Europe have implemented rituals for such blessings. So, almost everyone, within and outside of the Church, understands that FS as a total reversal of the Church’s position in response to these pressures. I understand that President Biden, for example, has welcomed FS.

What will be the consequences of FS? In Europe the forces advocating for the relaxation or the abolition of the church’s rules on sexual morality are celebrating. They will now move on to the next issue: married priests, women priests and deacons, lay participation in the election of bishops, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, etc. As to the rituals for same sex marriages they already have in place,  FS will undoubtedly incentivize the European bishops not only to retain them but to expand their use. Regardless of FS’s supposed restrictions on “rituals” similar to marriage, why should they back down now after such a great triumph?

The reaction of other bishops’ conferences (like that of the US) has been much more restrained, even cold – they have seized on the language in FS to assert that nothing has happened and thus avoid the issue. Of course, that was the intent of the casuistry of FS in the first place! The big news is that several episcopal conferences outside of Western Europe and the United States have publicly distanced themselves from FS. Thus, we may be seeing the beginning of an “Anglican” situation developing in the Catholic Church, where the believers on the outskirts of the Church adhere to the principles they have been taught( or nurtured under persecution), while the unbelieving leadership of the Church in Western Europe, the United States and much of Latin America pursues further accommodation with the world.

As for the clergy, I fear that what is set out in FS as a possibility will soon be compulsory. In Western Europe, episcopal conferences and individual diocese have already issued rituals for the marriages of same sex couples. There have already been statements of European bishops  that no priest can refuse to give the blessings authorized by FS. The conflict of conscience for those who cannot accept FS will be immediate and drastic. In the US, however, I anticipate the following scenario developing very shortly. Couples in “irregular” situations or same-sex couples will seek out priests who they know would be reluctant to give such blessings –  for example, at parishes that still celebrate the traditional mass, priests of the Ecclesia Dei institutes or of Opus Dei etc. – and present themselves for a blessing. If this is refused they will immediately turn to the New York Times, the Vatican or the just the local bishop. In both Europe and the United States, assuming Francis remains in office, a new persecution similar to that of the traditionalists under Traditionis Custodes but even broader in scope may arise. 

For the laity the long-term results will be disastrous. Just like the progressives, they will assume that in the case of restrictions on actual conduct imposed by the Church, every conflict between the Church and the secular world will ultimately be resolved by capitulation by the Church.  This will affect not just contributions but every aspect of Catholic life. The level of compliance with Church’s moral teachings will sink yet further. And how could a man commit to the diocesan priesthood in the knowledge that, based on the evidence of FS, he not only will have to follow its rules, but the priesthood itself might well be radically changed? Thus, depending on how long Francis lives (and the nature of his successor) a truly horrific scenario of conflict will materialize. This possibility alone should motivate the bishops to take a more forceful stance.

By now, the increasingly erratic and despotic acts and pronouncements of Pope Francis and his entourage are attracting greater and greater attention among Catholics. Even such stalwarts of the progressive Catholic establishment such as Robert Mickens, Massimo Faggioli, and media outlets such as katholisch.de and La Croix are now acknowledging these issues. 1) At the same time, there is a perception that we are in the last stages or the “endgame” of the Bergoglian papacy.  It’s appropriate to revisit a topic we had addressed a year and a half ago – in its broadest sense, the constitution and culture of the Roman Catholic Church. This consists of two elements.  First, ultramontanism: the centralized power,  teaching authority and jurisdiction of the Pope. Second, Vatican II’s call to openness (really deference) to the world and renewal (really, revolution) within the Church.

In recent attempts to come to grips with the phenomenon Francis, critical commentators turn to terms such as Peronism or dictatorship. These concepts are inadequate:  they represent an unacknowledged attempt to divorce the phenomenon of Francis from the culture of the Church as a whole, reducing it to a personal quirk of the current incumbent of the see of Saint Peter. Francis did not elect himself Pope. He rose to power based on support centered in Western Europe. Furthermore, these comparisons are politically inaccurate.  In no way, for example, is Francis a figure like Mussolini, the early Hitler or, of course, Juan Peron: a charismatic mob leader rising to power on the strength of a popular movement. The Francis phenomenon is totally different.

Similarly, it is misleading to focus on Francis’s “Argentinian” culture. Undeniably, the personal heritage of each Pope directly influences his style of government: Paul VI was an Italian curial functionary;  John Paul II shared the thespian gifts of his countrymen; and Pope Benedict always remained a German academic bureaucrat. But these native influences hardly offer a complete interpretive key to their reigns. 

Let review the main features of Catholic institutional culture today to better understand this. I hope the reader accepts these critical remarks as earlier generations regarded Antonio Rosmini’s On the Five Wounds of the Church or even the much more forceful diatribes of the medieval writers on the defects of the clergy.

Centralized and Unlimited Papal Authority. The Church is centralized in all respects. Pope Francis makes decisions without consultation with anyone beyond his close associates and without giving notice. He directly intervenes at any level from the College of Cardinals to the ordinary parish. He has assumed the direct leadership of numerous functions, like the Diocese of Rome or the Dicastery for Evangelization. The rule of Francis is detached from any institutions within the Church. All Vatican functions have been remade into mouthpieces for Francis.  Even the College of Cardinals no longer serves any real advisory role for Francis, but functions only as a means for rewarding friends and stacking the vote the vote at the next conclave.  Recently the Pope has made the claim that the temporal power is of divine origin – a claim last asserted before Vatican I. 

“Formless Despotism.” 2 ) The  culture of the Church of Francis is lawless and amorphous. Only the will of Francis counts.  Francis expresses his will in forms ranging from offhand remarks to an endless series of  interviews with the media to formal legislative decrees. He endorses decisions made by the Vatican offices reporting to him, and then disregards or rejects them himself. In areas like foreign policy or media relations the Pope works both through the official Vatican institutions having responsibility for these matters but also on the side through his trusted associates. Under Francis, tradition, canon law, custom, and even the words of the scriptures themselves have only relative value. Francis generally does not repudiate these authorities, but simply disregards them or renders them irrelevant. Legal procedures are either rendered meaningless or become totally chaotic (like the current Vatican trials of the perpetrators of failed financial investments). Most recently,  in the area of theology, Francis has even formalized these characteristics (Ad Theologiam Promovendam). 3)

Bureaucracy.  The bishops, priests and lay employees of the Church have been assimilated into one bureaucracy. The Church had been reduced to this bureaucracy well before Francis, but the status of each member of the bureaucracy now potentially depends on his personal relationship with Francis, not on any official position or title. Loyalty to Francis is the defining criterion of a good cleric or even a good Catholic. Bishops  – there have been several very recent examples –  are installed or removed in a completely arbitrary manner without any explanation or legal procedure. Moreover, a whole population of bishops exists who serve only at the discretion of the Pope: some have handed in their resignation and are waiting a papal decision on it; many others have surpassed the official age limits.

A Papal Cult of Personality.  A clique of sycophants – and a vast publicity apparatus –  praise the Pope’s every act and word. Francis is described as a reformer, a champion of the poor, a humble man, even as an existential philosopher. An already endless list of books by Francis or those lauding Francis continues to grow: Francis is now working on his autobiography. And the books are joined by cartoons, films, videos, and television programs. Francis is the center of gigantic Catholic events like World Youth Day. This campaign is not confined to the Vatican or to the official Catholic media. The Pope’s portrait is found in most churches – sometimes, as in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, provided with a fake halo. In many parish bulletins we encounter the face of Francis or a weekly message from Francis; his thought is constantly cited in Catholic academia and local diocesan events.  Indeed, the Vatican media have expressed the wish that Francis and his message should be brought into the private home of every Catholic. 

A Climate of Fear.  Especially among those in the clerical ranks a climate of fear has taken hold.  In Rome and at the Vatican, courtiers dread attracting the attention of Francis or his watchdogs either because their opposition to him would be discovered or, paradoxically, that they might attract his favorable attention. For the favor of Francis tends to be fleeting! But the climate of fear is not limited to the pope’s immediate entourage. The entire Church is ever more strongly divided into friends and enemies of Francis. The latter are mocked, disciplined and excluded from Church life. In the traditionalist world, for example, institutions, individuals, and parishes do not want reports written or photographs published lest they attract the notice of the local nuncio or the Vatican itself. Catholic traditionalists who have seen their masses abolished or transferred to gymnasiums can testify to the reach of Francis and his nuncios. 

Systemic Dishonesty.  Dishonesty dominates the discourse of the Catholic Church in all areas and at all levels. We saw this in the papal manipulation of synods ln preparation of Amoris Laetitia and in the management of the (never disclosed) survey supposedly supporting Traditionis Custodes.  We see this today in the manipulated synodal discussions up to and including the ongoing “Synod on Synodality” where the real objectives remain disguised and the main problems facing the Catholic Church are studiously avoided. The Pope himself sets a personal example, routinely saying one thing and doing another – such as in his financial reform initiatives,  his policies against clerical sexual abuse, his war on “clericalism,” his advocacy of “synodal” governance – the list is endless. Once again, the culture of dishonesty is by no means limited to the highest levels of leadership in the Church – throughout the world the official Catholic media are its leading practitioners and purveyors. In any given diocese anyone can verify this by comparing the public record of closed or merged school and parishes, declining ordinations, dissolving and declining religious orders and never-ending financial and sexual scandals with the optimistic narrative to be found in the local Catholic media. 

Ideology.  This entire system, however, is not the mere underpinning of a personal dictatorship but serves an ideology – that of Vatican II, reduced to a few basic beliefs. This ideology’s principles are clear, however crudely Francis expresses them:  Vatican II and the accompanying liturgical changes are the will of the Holy Spirit, so those who oppose or even question them are opposing God. One cannot go back but must go go forward. All are welcome in the Church “as they are.” Indeed, Aldo Maria Valli and Aurelio Porfiri have written an entire book on the platitudes of the Pope and the Catholic Church:

Dialogue

Pastoral

Synodality

Bridges

Autoreferential

Fragility

Mercy

Ecumenism

Discernment

Peripheries 

Often this double speak has a meaning totally different from its normal sense in the language. 4)

Remoteness from Reality. The Church leadership inhabits a world distant from the lives of ordinary lay Catholics (and of much of the lower clergy as well). Just as in the case of the current “Synod on Synodality,” the papacy, episcopacy and Church bureaucracy seem to lack any contact with historical, political, or sociological reality.  This isolation is evident in recent news reports of the views of cardinals allegedly “papabile”  in the next conclave. Moreover, a pervasive lack of accountably applies within the Church. Only where the mainstream secular media become involved – such as in issues involving sexual abuse – do the higher clergy face any consequences for their bad judgment of even criminality.  

The regime I have described above is no mere autocracy or dictatorship. It is a genuine form of totalitarianism, a culture which informs the entire body of the Church. The most obvious comparison in the recent past was the Soviet Union. The constant repetition of meaningless official cliches, the systemic dishonesty and a certain element of fear are indeed reminiscent of the last decades of the life of the Soviet Union and its satellites.

Even though that specific regime has disappeared, a more recent secular role model has emerged: the United States, Western Europe and their dependencies in their current “woke” phase. Here, in the last 15 years or so, a unity among news media, government, think tanks, universities,  businesses and even the internal security forces has consolidated its power under the banner of the woke ideology. The Roman Catholic Church of the last decades has been assimilating more and more closely to the secular world about it. Indeed, in many respects the Roman Catholic Church resembles the subordinate educational institutions of the secular establishment, like universities and school districts. Here too we find the same mix of exploding bureaucracy, restricted speech and thought, ideological conformity, fear, and, similar to the Catholic Church,  an ongoing and increasing failure to achieve the stated purposes of the institution. (Such secular educational “fiefdoms” typically lack, however,  a “pope” – an omnipotent leader exercising centralized charismatic rule)

The Sources

What are the origins of the current system? We have previously treated the ultramontane doctrines of Vatican I,  relentlessly expanded over subsequent decades.5) But equally important is Vatican II. For it was Vatican II that introduced into the Church a fierce ideological element. For the first time the Church bureaucracy, up to the 1960’s overwhelmingly the clergy and religious, were inspired to repudiate Catholic tradition in liturgy, theology, and morality in favor of, in the best case, a somewhat uncertain core of Catholicism. Vatican II gave the ultramontane system a purpose and direction beyond that of merely defending the institution against adversaries and maintaining tight clerical control.

The best evidence of the importance of both Councils is the role of the Jesuit order. Jesuits were of decisive importance in the birth of ultramontanism in the years leading up leading up to 1870 (e.g., the editors of Civilta Cattolica, Joseph Kleutgen,  SJ). The Jesuit order, of course, also advanced the most aggressive interpretations of Vatican II from the very beginning of that council. Pope Francis is a product of this order. Today, he relies on the Society of Jesus and publicly favors it and its institutions. He has appointed many of his confreres to leading positions in the Church. In turn, Jesuits play a key role as advocates of the agenda of Francis. 

Yet two other influences within the Church need to be considered. First, the transformation of the Church into a bureaucracy after 1870 would have far-reaching effects on the faith. The attitude of a bureaucrat, especially a government bureaucrat, is decisively different from that of an apostle. As the church approximated more and more to a secular bureaucracy its leaders, consciously or not adopted attitudes and limitations resembling those of functionaries in the various governmental, academic, and economic bureaucracies of the modern age. Indeed, the basic division in the Church is no longer between clergy and laity, but between the Church bureaucracy (including, bishops, clergy religious, and lay employees, both men and women) – and everyone else. This bureaucracy has supported the progressive agenda with remarkable unanimity since the 1960’s. It is currently spearheading the “Synodal Path” in Germany (where it is strongest and best financed ) and, more generally,  the “Synod on Synodality” throughout the  Catholic world. 

Second, the novel Catholic institution of the “movement” emerged, starting even before the Second World war. Despite their bewildering diversity in membership requirements, organization  and objectives (compare two early examples: Opus Dei and the Catholic Worker!), the movements all rested on similar foundations: irrational loyalty and absolute obedience to a “visionary” founder, a degree of separation from mainstream Catholic life, formulas for addressing alleged economic and spiritual failures of the Church and, usually,  a blurring of the traditional roles of clergy and laity. Often the movement would establish a direct relationship with the Vatican.

What had been a fringe phenomenon before Vatican II subsequently acquired a growing influence over the Church, especially under Pope John Paul II.  The number of movements grew even though their absolute membership remained small. They departed from, or even challenged,  the ordinary Catholic life of the clergy and laity, yet reinforced both the centralized absolute  papacy and Vatican II( e.g., devotion and obedience to a charismatic leader having absolute authority,  an emotional and irrational culture and, often,  arbitrary liturgical and devotional practices). Pope Francis generally has not shared Pope John Paul II’s enthusiasm for the movements – except for certain communities aligned with his objectives, like Sant’ Egidio or, at least until recently, the Neocatechumenal Way.  But the Pope’s leadership style with its accompanying cult of personality is very much like that of a movement founder.  

The Limits of Totalitarian Ultramontanism.

We have labeled the current culture of the Catholic Church as totalitarian. Yet the limits to ecclesiastical totalitarianism are great indeed. These divergences from the secular model mean that the Roman Catholic Church is totalitarian only in an analogous, or qualified, sense. It is a “soft totalitarianism.”

Above all, Pope Francis depends on the goodwill of the secular world and its media.  This is the key to his entire regime. It was a series of conflicts with the media that motivated forces within the Church to work for Pope Benedict’s departure and replacement with someone more accommodating to the world. Now, in the person of Pope Francis, the media obtained a Pope who has worked to implement within the Church their vision of the world. And the media have here succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. For Francis has in large part transformed the Catholic Church from an obstacle or even an adversary to the secular agenda, to an active cooperator with the Western establishment. At each stage of his papacy, Francis has enjoyed the support of the media, either by their adulation of the reformer, the humble man, the visionary, – or by suppression of adverse news. Let’s not forget that the overwhelming majority of the laity – and of the clergy as well – derive their knowledge of Church affairs from the mainstream secular media. The media’s (both secular and Catholic) attitude has been described for us with remarkable frankness by John Allen. He has written previously of the role of the media in building up “progressive” heroes (referring specifically to Cardinal McCarrick) and, more recently, has pointed out that many journalists today see Francis “as a moral hero, a champion of the underdog.” 6)

Now this relationship has not been necessarily untroubled  – at times Francis has strayed from the party line. Witness his initial reluctance to attack Russia in the Ukrainian crisis, or to express unqualified support for Israel, or his clumsy attempt to rehabilitate Fr. Marko Rupnik, SJ. In these cases, Francis and the Vatican either capitulated or “clarified “ their language quickly after the media called them on the carpet. 

Francis’s dependence on the clerical bureaucracy is equally strong.  By 2023 the “clerical” bureaucracy in chanceries, schools, and universities, of course, consists mainly of lay employees. They tend to be imbued with the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. Their loyalty is thus not primarily to Francis personally,  but to the progressive values they share with him. Francis has been very careful to avoid a confrontation with these forces  – his handling of the German synodal path is evidence of that. At times he has felt the need to restrain them. But the Germans are by no means willing to defer to Francis and “go slow” with their agenda.  This is particularly so because the warnings of the Pope and various Vatican functionaries are obviously only tactical in nature. 

There is also the resistance of those bishops who are not at all active participants in the Francis regime. This is not because of any deep ideological convictions, but because they dread being forced into confrontations with organizations, such as those of the traditionalists, or more generally with their own laity.  It’s clear that, because of this silent resistance, the major policy initiatives of Francis, such as divorce, LGBT acceptance in the Church, and the war on traditionalism, have only been imperfectly transformed into action. Going beyond the mere dragging of feet, there has undoubtedly been more active, behind the scenes opposition to France’s policies.

Finally, outside of this entire clerical, bureaucratic structure is the realm of  the laity – those of the laity not in the employ of the Church, that is. Theologically speaking, of course, they form part of the Church, indeed,  overwhelmingly the largest part. In most places the majority has ceased practicing the faith;  those that remain are largely silent. The laity  provides continuing financial support for the Church – paying taxes in Germany, making donations in the United States. They serve as extras at Church functions and events (like World Youth Days or Eucharistic conferences).  Yet they have no role in the governance of the Church. They may see their parishes and schools summarily closed or merged without warning.  In the case of the Traditionalists, they even will be banished from churches and publicly denounced by the Pope and the bishops. Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, for example, recently denied to the laity the capacity of coming to any informed opinion about the liturgy. 7) Incoming Archbishop Coyne of Hartford,  Connecticut, placed the blame for the decline of Catholic life in the Archdiocese squarely on the laity. 8)

To summarize,  many bishops,  an even greater percentage of the lower clergy and a percentage of the laity greater still, while by no stretch of the imagination being active opponents of the Bergoglian regime, are also not actively advancing it. Francis thus by no means has obtained that total freedom from any control, including that of his own party and ideology, that was achieved by Stalin or Hitler. This reflects the declining influence of the papacy. Pope Francis may assert the boldest ultramontane claims, but in fact he no longer can draw on the absolute obedience and indeed the willingness to go beyond the letter of the law that characterized the implementation of the “spirit of Vatican II”  by Paul VI the 1960s.

Further reflections

Throughout the last ten years the level of practice and knowledge of the faith among the laity, the number of vocations , and the number of Catholic institutions (schools, parishes et.)  have dramatically declined. The Catholic laity is a “resource” that steadily diminishes each year. In that regard, the submission of the Church to the COVID restrictions were utterly disastrous in accelerating this decline in the active presence of the lay faithful in the Church. The Church establishment regards these facts with indifference. If we consider that the main objectives of the currently ruling Catholic establishment are the retention of power over the Church and conformity to the world’s ideology of progress and change this is understandable – whether anything remains in the Church other than the rulers themselves is irrelevant to them.  

But this, viewed in purely secular terms, is the Achilles heel of the institutional Church. The entire continued existence of the Catholic Church depends on the freely chosen faith of the laity. Without it there are no more congregations, no vocations  – and no money. Nowhere in the Catholic Church, not even in Poland, can major secular benefits be obtained by practicing the Catholic faith. There are no significant positions or benefices available to those seeking a professional career in the Church. Thus, the steady diminution in the practice of the faith among the laity inevitably will lead to a crisis of the institution. 

What of the conservatives? Bergoglio’s war ultimately is directed not just against liturgical traditionalists but the entirety of Catholic tradition in liturgy, theology, philosophy and morality. The only exception is what can be tolerated as folklore, like certain Marian cults. In the past, the conservative Catholics were the most vocal defenders of papal authority  – now they find themselves with a Pope not only not a leader but a real adversary. Generally speaking,  these forces tend to fall silent on the subject of the papacy.  

Some conservative institutions such as the IHE at Catholic University or its counterpart at Notre Dame, continue to talk of the intellectual heritage of Catholicism and how it can save the world. According to them,  Catholicism has given rise to ideas and insights that, if implemented, would make possible a healthier secular society. The same can be said for the integralist movement (which is otherwise viewed as an adversary by most of the conservatives).  But the best evidence of Catholicism is not what was written or preached in the past about distributism, subsidiarity, or justice. It is not past philosophical reflection on the relationship of church and state. It is the actual practice of Catholicism at this moment, the culture of the Catholic Church that is lived every day.  And the governing culture of the Catholic Church today – which I have sought to outline above – in no way can serve as a model for the secular world.

Let’s remember that it was under the medieval papacy that the whole concept of the rule of law was resurrected in the West.  That universities were established,  that natural science experienced its beginnings. In the Middle Ages, parliamentary or representative government and the nation state had their origins. The current state of the Catholic Church forms a terrible contrast with those prior ages.

Catholics in the United States, when confronted with dire problems, always ask what can be done.  Examining the perfection of the ultramontane system, an impartial observer’s frank reaction would be nothing. A Catholic should not be so pessimistic.  But he should be prepared to admit the need to revise the definitions of papal power to clarify that it always must be exercised within the tradition of the Church. This would return the papacy to its role as the defender of the tradition and doctrine of the Catholic faith, not as their creator. That would also allow authentic dialogue with the Orthodox, the form of ecumenism that really makes sense. The Orthodox have retained elements of tradition – such as their liturgy, art and the priority accorded contemplative spirituality – which should be of critical importance to a recovery of the Western Church.

Is this possible? Indeed it is – but only with the aid of some event or situation that would shake up the current regime of the Catholic Church and redirect the attentions of the clergy from worldly goals to the defense and propagation of their own faith. Before that occurs,  prayer and the dedication to the totality of Catholic tradition – in liturgy, theology and morality – are required of each individual Catholic.  At the time of Vatican II did not various thinkers speculate about an apocalyptic collapse of the institutional Church that would lead to the rebirth of some kind of smaller, purer institution? 9) Can it be that this will in fact occur  – but it in a way that those progressives could not have imagined? For are not the “purer” forces, alive and active in the Church today, the traditionalists and the conservatives?

1. E.g., Juchem, Roland,  Papst Franziskus: Die Unruhe im Auge des Sturms, katholisch.de 12/12/2023
2. A concept of Oswald Spengler.
3. See the essay by John Lamont, The Significance of Pope Francis for the Church, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 3/21/2023.
4. Valli, Aldo Maria and Porfiri, Aurelio, Decadenza: Le Parole d’ordine della Chiesa Postconciliare, (Chorabooks, Hong Kong 2020)
5. See Ultramontanism: Its life and Death Part I, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 12/20/2021.
6. Allen, John L., Pope Francis and the Sharron Angle Strategy of Media relations, Crux 11/5/2023.
7. For a discussion see Cardinal Gregory Explains, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 12/10/2023.
8. Payne, Daniel, Connecticut archbishop calls for female deacons, moving Vatican out of Rome, Catholic News Agency, 11/22/2023
9. See, e.g., “Is it really a Phoenix?” Ida Görres and the Collapse of German Catholicism Part II, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 3/30/2020

For the September issue of Chronicles Magazine James Kalb has written an important article on the state of the Church today. (hint: it is not good). The entire September issue of that magazine, by the way, is dedicated to “America’s Great Apostasy” In his article, Kalb shows a historical sense rare among Catholics.

The State of Catholicism

The basic problem is the relation between the Church and the modern world. The Second Vatican Council was intended to revitalize the Church and her witness under new and challenging conditions. It dreamed of bringing Christ into the world by eliminating barriers and entering fully into its life. But instead it brought the world into the Church.

In what Catholics call her human element, the Church had evidently bitten off more than she could chew. The Council said that she “carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.” Catholic functionaries responded by seeing a movement of the Holy Spirit in every secular trend. That was the path of least resistance, since it let them ingratiate themselves with secular powers while wrapping themselves in the flattering mantle of prophecy. So they took it.

But the problem was not only human weakness. the question raised by the failure of the post-Vatican II opening to the modern world is whether aspects of that world, for example the emphasis on technological ways of thinking, are fundamentally at odds with Catholicism. The concrete issue is whether the Chuch should become basically a component of the all-embracing technocratic order that now seems to be emerging globally as the endpoint of modernity, or insist instead on her independence, authority and vision, as she did in antiquity and the Middle Ages.

The essence of Kalb’s characterization of the current regime in the Church is entirely accurate:

(Pope Francis) is inclined to align with power, and look for ways to join with those who dominate the emerging world order.

That is in fact what is going on the Church today.

Yet what is to be done? Kalb does indulge in a bit of wishful thinking, historically speaking: Anything(=the Church) so enduring must be well founded, so it seems likely after current adversities she will once agan return to type. More concrete proposals? “There is a limit to what laymen can do in a hierarchical Church.” (actually, in the governance of an Ultramontane Church, they can do nothing.). What they can do “includes prayer and the sacraments, keeping the Faith, living rightly, supporting whatever trends and initiatives seem positive and doing everything we can to oppose obvious falsehood and stupidity, in the Church as elewhere.”

Kalb believes that “the future belongs to those who show up.” “So a winnowing (in favor of conservatives and traditionalists) seems likely as the indifferent drop out and the committed stay.” This is not at all only the fond hope of traditionalists, but a real fear of the Catholic Church establishment. 1) It has motivated the actions of Francis from the beginning of his papacy. The ongoing confrontation of these forces of Catholic reform with the progressive Vatican, Church institutions and hierarchy will shape the Church in the next decades. What will be the outcome, in my opinion? The use of brute force and administrative repression alone have rarely, if ever, eliminated a spiritual opponent.

Kalb himself concludes his article with these words:

Catholics are assured by their faith that the Church will ultimately prevail and that in the meantime all things will work together for those who love God. That confidence has often kept Catholics going in discouraging times. For a sufficient number it is likely to do so again today.

1. See, e.g., Christoph Paul Hartmann, “Autor: Durch Austritte werden Traditionalisten einflussreicher” (One author: Traditionalists are becoming more influential because of people leaving the Church), Interview with Thomas Schmidinger, Katholisch.de (9/4/2023)

I have aleady written of the sombre, little-known funerary chapels of Paris. They commemorate the victims of political crimes and tragic accidents between 1789 and 1896. To these I must add Notre-Dame-des-Otages, dedicated to the memory of the hostages massacred by the Communards (the Commune was a proto-Communist movement) in 1871. Unlike the other chapels, however, the current church was built in the twentieth century and completed in 1938. It later became a fully functioning parish church.

Notre-Dame-des-Otages is situated in the Belleville district, far from the Parisian centers of business and tourism. Traditionally a poor area, I am told it has recently been “enjoying” gentrification. The church is located in the Rue Haxo, where most of the executions took place on May 26, 1871. The current structure replced a series of prior chapels dating back to 1889.

Located on a nondescript street, the facade does not make a very strong impression. The interior is one of the few attempts to employ the Art Deco style in ecclesiastical architecture. Although pleasant and interesting, I regret to say it reminded me somewhat of a subway station. An inscription encircles the main altar:

Sanguis Martyrum Semen Christianorum

This, and references on two plaques commemorating the dead of the wo world wars, are strangely enough the only allusions I could find to the rather unusual dedication of this church.

I gather the commemoration of these martyrs later became somewhat of a political embarrassment for the Church. After all, hadn’t thousands of Communards been massacred by the government in crushing their uprising? And aren’t communists some of the best Christians, as Dorothy Day and later Pope Francis have claimed? In any case it was only in this year 2023 that five of the martyrs were beatified, on Saturday, April 22nd in the church of Saint Sulpice (which is currently functioning as the Cathedral of Paris). Henri Planchat, Ladislas Radigue, Polycarpe Tuffier, Marcellin Rouchouze et Frézial Tardieu will be commemorated on May 26. But there were many more martyrs under the Commune between May 24 and 27 in 1871 – the most prominent of all being Archbishop Georges Darboy of Paris. He had been a resolute opponent of Ultramontanism – does this still count against him?

( Dr. John Lamont has kindly sent us the text of the lecture he gave on Thursday, March 16 in Greenwich, Connecticut)

The Significance of Pope Francis for the Church

By John Lamont

Jorge Maria Bergoglio was elected Pope in 2013, and is now 86. He is in poor health. Most of his pontificate is behind him, and we are in a position to draw some general conclusions about the nature and significance of the man and his tenure of the papal office.

One conclusion that can be drawn is that a dominating goal of Pope Francis’s pontificate has been the destruction of the work of his two predecessors. This work must be understood in the context of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). During this council and its aftermath, every aspect of Catholic faith and practice was attacked by powerful forces within the Church. These attacks were described by their initiators as being the implementation of that council, and they were largely successful, producing a transformation of the Catholic Church, a deep crisis, and a catastrophic decline that began in the 1960s and continues unabated to the present day. Neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI opposed these attacks on a broad front and as a whole. Instead, each of them concentrated on preserving and promoting a particular feature of Catholic teaching and tradition, hoping that their favoured element of tradition would provide the solution to the crisis in the Church.

John Paul II upheld and defended Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy, the impossibility of ordaining women to the priesthood, marriage, sexual morality, and the existence of moral absolutes. Benedict XVI’s initiative was to attempt to free the traditional Latin liturgy of the Church and make it accessible to all Catholics. Neither of these projects reversed the decline of the Church, but both of them had some success. Francis is ideologically committed to the total attack on Catholic faith and practice. He has accordingly made it his aim to defeat the counter-attacks of his two predecessors.

Pope Francis’s attack on the legacy of John Paul II was a major effort that involved calling a synod of the bishops of the Church. His strategy was to verbally affirm the indissolubility of marriage, but to insist that persons in a valid Catholic marriage who were civilly married to someone else could receive the Eucharist. The Catholic Church has always refused the Eucharist to such persons, on the ground that they were publicly living in an adulterous relationship. John Paul II had firmly upheld this refusal. The strategy was largely successful. Pope Francis understood that his doctrinal opponents were weak and afraid of a direct confrontation with him. A small number of Catholic scholars and ecclesiastics denounced him for attacking the faith, but no cardinals and almost no bishops put up any real opposition to his initiative. This initiative effectively denied the existence of marriage. It did not accept that one can cease to be married to one person and can then marry someone else, as is the case with Protestant and Jewish teaching and the civil law of marriage. Such a concept of dissoluble marriage at least stipulates that one has an exclusive relationship to a spouse when a marriage exists, and certain duties towards that person alone that follow from the relationship; and that this relationship must cease to exist, via divorce, before one can enter into another relationship of that sort with a different person. Pope Francis’s position, on the other hand, permits simply walking away from a marriage that continues to exist, and taking up with someone else. This empties the notion of marriage of content.

Pope Francis’s attack on the legacy of Benedict XVI has focused on the traditional Latin liturgy. Some historical background is needed to understand this attack. In the twentieth century, two movements concerned with the liturgy arose within the Roman Catholic Church. The first of these saw the traditional liturgy as a neglected treasure that needed to be better known and practiced by Catholics, both lay and clerical. According to this movement, unfortunate historical and intellectual developments had led Catholics to turn away from the liturgy as a source of salvation and sanctification. The influence of the Jesuits, whose approach to the spiritual life centred on individual prayer rather than the liturgy, was considered to be one of these developments. This thesis was advanced by the Benedictines Dom Lambert Beaudoin and Dom Maurice Festugière in the first half of the 20th century, and opposed by the Jesuits Jean-Jacques Navatel and Louis Peeters. The Benedictines argued for the priority of the public liturgy of the Church in the spiritual life, whereas the Jesuits argued for the priority of personal prayer. The Italian priest Romano Guardini took the Benedictine side, and his book The Spirit of the Liturgy was a formative influence on the young Joseph Ratzinger. The liturgy here was understood to be the traditional Latin liturgy that took its substantive form under Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604). It included not only the ceremonies for the Mass, but the rites of the other sacraments, the Divine Office (the public prayer of the Church said by monks and priests), and the various blessings and other prayers reserved to the clergy. Substantial initiatives of this first liturgical movement were the publication of missals containing both the liturgy of the Mass in Latin and a facing page translation in the vernacular, and an effort to restore sung masses with Gregorian chant as the normal form of worship.

The second movement was concerned not with reviving the Latin liturgy, but with replacing it. The Latin liturgy of the Church was seen as obsolete and inadequate not just in its use of the Latin language, but in its theology, ceremony, music and architecture. In a sense this movement accepted the Jesuit idea of the primacy of personal prayer, and sought to implement it by changing the liturgy to suit the personal preferences of its adherents. This second movement had the goals of eliminating the use of Latin in Catholic worship, changing the dogmatic content of Catholic liturgy, and replacing traditional Catholic music, art, and architecture with modern forms. These goals were presented as necessary to make Catholic worship accessible and attractive to modern man, and as a means of attracting Protestants to the Church, but this presentation was largely a sales tactic. In fact the members of this movement hated the old Catholic liturgy and the dogmas it embodied, and sought their destruction as an end in itself.

The new Catholic liturgy introduced by Pope Paul VI in 1970 carried out the programme of this second movement. This liturgy was not a translation of the old Latin liturgy into vernacular languages, but a new production. Only 13% of the old prayers of the mass were preserved in a substantially
expanded liturgy. The composition of the new ritual was entrusted to mediocrities, whose lack of talent gave a free field of operation to their ideological zeal. References to divine punishment, hell, the devil, dependence on divine grace, salvation of the soul, reliance on the merits and intercessions of the saints, and the sacrificial character of the Mass were purged from prayers and Bible readings. Scriptural texts containing these unwelcome elements were bowdlerized or removed entirely (Psalms 57, 82, and 108, for example, have been excised). The traditional architecture and music of Catholic worship, one of the great cultural treasures of the human race, was rejected – in a process often involving vandalism and destruction – and replaced by modern design and pop music of the most banal and talentless kind.

The importance of this liturgical change has sometimes been acknowledged by sociologists, but is not generally realized. The destruction of Catholic worship was one of the most important and damaging events of the 20 th century. It abolished the religious culture of the Roman Catholic countries of Europe and Central and South America, and of the substantial Roman Catholic minorities in other countries. In Europe, the traditional Catholic culture was not replaced by a different religious culture that could be made to serve as the basis for a society, as happened when Islam replaced Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa. It was replaced by unbelief. In the first five years after the liturgical changes of Paul VI, a large percentage of priests, religious, and lay Catholics walked out of the Church. This decline has continued, slowing down at times but never ceasing. The Catholic Church in Western Europe is facing extinction. The formerly Catholic cultures of Europe, having lost their spiritual and cultural foundation, are threatened with the same fate. Even the secular and anti-clerical currents in European society have been mortally wounded by this change. Having lost their Catholic competition, they have no inducement to keep up their own intellectual and cultural standards, and have declined into imbecility.

Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, saw that this change was a disaster, and attacked it as an abuse of papal authority: “The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and, thereby, the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and he is thereby able to oppose those people who, for their part, want to do whatever comes into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile. … What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.” 1)

After his election to the papacy, Benedict XVI acted on this conviction. He issued a decree, Summorum Pontificum, acknowledging the right of priests to celebrate the traditional Latin liturgy, and obliging bishops to provide this liturgy to lay groups who requested it. The decree produced or expanded traditionalist communities all over the world, whose congregations were characterized by large families, low average age, and doctrinal orthodoxy. Traditionalist communities also produced vocations to the priesthood and religious life out of all proportion to their numbers.

This was an extraordinary result. Anyone looking at the preservation of the Latin language inthe Catholic Church prior to 1965, when it quickly began to be abandoned, would have seen the civilizational connections of that language as an essential part of the case for using it. Latin was the language of civilization for Western Europe from the establishment of the Roman Empire up until the 13th century. The use of Latin in the Roman Catholic Church meant that the Catholic Church preserved that heritage of civilization. Keeping Latin meant not just keeping alive the Catholic theology and worship that was bound up with that heritage, but keeping alive the heritage itself, and extending it beyond Europe to people who would benefit from it.

This was a good argument prior to 1965, but by the time Benedict XVI restored the Latin mass, it had become obsolete. Cultural links to the Latin civilization of Europe had been largely obliterated. The traditional communities that sprung into being after his restoration were almost entirely composed of Catholics to whom the heritage of Latin literature, culture and history were unknown. In Europe and North America, the culture, if it can be called that, in which these communities were born was a complete negation of the cultural basis of the Latin mass. The success of these communities has few parallels in religious history. Africans and Native Americans had adopted the Latin liturgy with enthusiasm when exposed to it by missionaries in the 16th to the 19th centuries, but this adoption could be seen as benefiting from the prestige and power of the European states from which the missionaries had come. There is now no prestige attached to the Latin mass, which is still often celebrated in school gyms and the chapels attached to funeral homes. Its growth can only be reasonably explained by a purely religious power inherent in the traditional liturgy.

Pope Francis moved against the Latin mass in July 2021, after addressing the legacy of John Paul II. This was no doubt partly due to a prudent policy of dealing with one enemy at a time. He issued a decree, Traditionis Custodes, which imposed severe restrictions on the celebration of the Latin mass, that were designed to lead to its eventual extinction. Prior to issuing the decree, he sent a questionnaire to all the Roman Catholics bishops of the world inquiring about the use of the Latin Mass in their dioceses. Reliable leaks of the responses to the questionnaire indicate that the majority of the bishops reported favourably on the Latin mass and the communities attached to it, which would explain why these responses were not made public by the Vatican. In his public letter accompanying the decree, Francis announced that ‘the responses reveal a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene’; this need not be taken to be a lie, since he would consider a favourable attitude of the bishops towards the Latin mass to be extremely undesirable. In a typical maneouvre, he has used one of his creatures, Cardinal Arthur Roche, to enforce the programme of the destruction of the traditional liturgy set forth in Traditionis Custodes. Roche, a mediocrity who is nothing without Francis, is to attract the blame and opprobrium for doing his master’s will.

There is a sense in which Francis has failed in destroying the legacies of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and a sense in which he has succeeded. He has failed in suppressing belief in the religious and moral truths that John Paul II insisted on, and in suppressing the traditional Latin mass that Benedict XVI restored. He has succeeded in destroying the projects of harmonisation that accompanied both those legacies. John Paul II’s project was the harmonisation of the Second Vatican Council with the Catholic truths he chose to uphold, and Benedict XVI’s project was some sort of fusion of the traditional Latin mass and the Novus Ordo – with the former being dominant – rather than a simple scrapping of the ritual of Paul VI and a return to the old mass. Benedict XVI included both these projects of harmonisation under the term of ‘hermeneutic of reform’, which he opposed to the ‘hermeneutic of rupture’. The latter hermeuneutic was the understanding of the Second Vatican Council as a rejection of Catholicism, and the attack on the faith that implemented this understanding. The projects were the personal initiatives of these popes, who did not manage to impose them in a way that would survive after their pontificates. Pope Francis rejects both of them, and thanks to him they are now dead.

Pope Francis has not restricted himself to a reactive policy of destroying the work of his predecessors. He has taken positive steps to advance the programme of eradicating the faith. One of these steps is the adoption of a theme from that pontificate of John Paul II. John Paul II made a number of gestures and statements that could be seen as favouring the idea that all religions are paths to salvation. The best known is his interfaith meeting at Assisi in 1986, where Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus and an assortment of other religious believers all prayed, sacrificed or performed other rituals together. His kissing the Koran and praying together with Togolese animists are other examples. (Animism is the African ancestor of Haitian Voodoo, and furnished Voodoo with some of its gods; it is largely concerned with detecting and eliminating witches and placating malign spirits.) Implicit in these actions of John Paul II was the idea that all religions are ways to God, with Christianity being simply the best developed of these ways. Pope Francis has explicitly endorsed this idea and participated in a number of activities that embody it. These activities include presence at an idol-worshipping ceremony in the Vatican gardens and the signing in Abu Dhabi of a syncretistic document, the Declaration of Human Fraternity, together with the imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Pope Francis’s other positive initiative is a personal one. It is an attack on the legal and institutional structure of the Church. By ‘institutional structure’ is meant the actual personnel that compose the Church leadership, and the agreed practices and traditions outside of canon law itself that determine the way the Church is governed. These include administrative practices and the criteria and practice concerning the selection of men to fill ecclesiastical offices.

Francis does not follow canon law, and he prefers not to use it as an instrument to enforce his will. His policy on marriage and the Eucharist contradicts canon law, but he does not deal with this contradiction by changing the law; he leaves it on the books and ignores its existence. He has consistently shielded sexual abusers from ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Of course the usual practice in the Church is for bishops and religious superiors to protect sexual criminals and conceal their crimes. But the goal of this policy is to prevent these criminals being caught. Once they are caught, the policy is to say that no-one knew anything about them. Francis’s approach is different. He protects and even promotes such men after they have been caught as well as before. This can be seen in the cases of Fr. Julio Grassi, Fr. Mauro Inzoli, Fr. Marko Rupnik, and Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta. He seems to consider that having been caught for such acts gives a priest a title to respect.

When confronted with a task or a subject matter to be examined and pronounced upon, Francis generally does not make use of the responsible curial office. He uses other advisors, and often makes his bypassing of the responsible office obvious, in order to demonstrate its impotence and establish that his untrammelled will decides everything. He does not show loyalty to his subordinates, official or unofficial, and eventually turns on them after having made use of them. As far as possible he only appoints bishops and cardinals who agree with his agenda, and he has no standards of education or experience that his appointees must meet.

Francis’s policy, especially when it comes to appointments that carry real power with them, is to choose individuals who are compromised in some way; either by committing crimes, or by covering them up, or both. His approach to American appointments is worthy of note. Francis is a Latin American leftist and as such detests the United States. He detests the American Catholic Church in particular for its support of John Paul II’s role in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. He appears to have made a special effort to appoint leaders of the American church who will cause the most possible discredit.

Francis’s approach to governance is a tried and tested one. It has been well described by one of its more talented practitioners:

If you really want to do something new, the good won’t help you with it. They are self-satisfied, lazy, they have their God and their own pig-headedness – you can’t do it with them. ‘Let me have men about me that are fat.’ An anointed king can say that, but not a leader that has made himself. Let me have men about me that are arrant knaves. The wicked, who have something on their consciences, are obliging, quick to hear threats, because they know how it’s done, and for booty. You can offer them things, because they will take them. Because they have no hesitations. You can hang them if they get out of step. Let me have men about me that are utter villains – provided that I have the power, absolute power over life and death. The sole and absolute leader, whom no-one can interfere with. What do you know of the possibilities in evil! Why do you write books and make philosophy when you only know about virtue and how to acquire it, whereas the world is fundamentally moved by something quite different? 2)

This policy was known in influential circles before his election to the papacy, and helped his rise to that office. Cardinal McCarrick before his disgrace boasted of how he helped to secure Bergoglio’s election. McCarrick had addressed the General Congregation before the conclave that elected Francis, and urged upon the assembled cardinals the desirability of choosing a Latin American pope. No influential cardinal supports a papal candidate without first informing himself about that candidate and about what the candidate has to offer him. McCarrick knew that Francis was his man and that he was Francis’s, because he knew that Francis’s method of government relied on men like himself.

What is the significance of Pope Francis? I think the answer to this question is suggested by Johann Chapoutot, the brilliant French scholar of Nazism. In 2018 Chapoutot and Christian Ingrao published a biography of Adolf Hitler that sought to understand Hitler’s significance. In a talk presenting the biography, Chapoutot gave this account of their thesis:

One of the most common explanations for Nazism, without explaining it in relation to one’s self, and in the end evacuating it of significance, is to say that Hitler was a madman and that all those Nazis were caught up in a sort of St. Vitus’s dance, morbid and macabre, that carried away Europe and their era in a whirlwind of suffering and horror. This is an explanation that does not explain. It is far too convenient; one can see how it provides psychological reassurance, but it is not accurate. Hitler poses a problem for us not because he is a madman, but because he is a monster. He is a monster. What is a monster? A monster is an individual that we find difficult to explain today – today, and for let us say perhaps two hundred years. A monster is a thing, a phenomenon, that several centuries ago had a meaning and made sense. Consider the etymology of ‘monster’; it comes from ‘monstrare’ in Latin, which means to indicate, to show, to give a sign of something, to be a sign of something. And in fact, in a world saturated with the divine, saturated with transcendence, saturated with magic perhaps, the monster, the one who is an extreme departure from normality, who is extreme by his evil acts for example, is the sign ofsomething; a sign of the anger of God, of the divine vengeance that is striking us. 3)

Chapoutot and Ingrao’s discussion of Hitler has merits and defects that do not concern us here. What does concern us is their explication of of the concept of a monster. This concept provides the interpretive key for an understanding of Francis and his papacy. Francis is a monster. He has been described and explained as a Peronist, a modernist heretic, a Jesuit who exhibits the worst failings that characterize members of that order. These descriptions are not wrong, but they do not get to the important truth about him. The extremity of his evil acts identifies him as outside the normal order of things, as a phenomenon that does not belong to the natural or supernatural structure of human life.

What is he a sign of? Francis, in his personality, actions, and beliefs, is a sign of the true nature of the transformation of the Church that occurred during and after the Second Vatican Council. The arrogance, hatred, criminality and love of destruction that he manifests so clearly were the motive forces for this transformation and its leaders. He is a sign of the failure and the fundamental dishonesty of the projects of ‘harmonization’ undertaken by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He is also a sign of the corruption of the Catholic priesthood and episcopate. With very few exceptions, Catholic priests and bishops have either supported his destructive acts or kept quiet about them. There have been other manifestations of this corruption. The offence of criminal sexual abuse is widespread among Catholic priests and religious. The persons who are best informed about these offences are other Catholic priests and bishops. The offenders are however absolutely never denounced by their fellow clerics. These offences are kept secret as far as possible by the criminals, but Pope Francis’s crimes are public knowledge. The silence of priests and bishops in the face of his crimes reveals their baseness and treachery in an unmistakable way.

When the topic of the sins of priests is raised, one often encounters this quotation from St. Anthony Mary Claret:
…. when His just indignation reaches its climax, He sends the last and most atrocious of His punishments by allowing unfaithful ministers, stained priests, scandalous shepherds to appear among men. Then it happens that the abominations of the people are the cause of the bad priests, and the bad priests are the greatest punishment with which God chastises the people.

This quotation is often used to support the fallacious inference that since God sends bad priests to punish a bad people, if priests are bad it is because the people have sinned. The responsibility for a corrupt priesthood is thus handily shifted from the priests to the laity. There is no evidence that this shifting is justified when it comes to Francis and the progressive, ‘conciliar’ cause that he champions. In 1960, the Catholic laity around the world were not notably corrupt, certainly not in comparison to many other historical epochs. Fr. Bryan Houghton asserts that the opposite was the case:

This issue was that the new reforms in general and of the liturgy in particular were based on the assumption that the Catholic laity were a set of ignorant fools. They practised out of tribal custom; their veneration of the Cross and the Mass was totem-worship; they were motivated by nothing more than the fear of hell; their piety was superstition and their loyalty, habit. But the most gratuitous insult of all was that most Catholics had a Sunday religion which in no way affected their weekly behaviour. This monstrous falsehood was—and still is—maintained by bishops and priests who, for the most part, have never been adult laymen. Every day the Catholic workman had to put up with the jeers of his colleagues, as the more educated with their sneers. Every night they took their religion to bed with them. … I am not in a position to judge other priests’ parishioners. I am, however, in a position to judge what were my own. No words are adequate for me to express my admiration for the conscious faith and piety of my flock, both in Slough and in Bury. This is where the trouble lay. The reforms were based on criticism; I was unwilling to take any action which might make me appear to criticise the wonderful people whom I was ordained to serve. I was perfectly conscious that I learned more about God from them than they were likely to learn from me. 4)

The significance of Pope Francis is that Catholic priests and bishops as a body have betrayed Our Lord and the Catholic faithful, and that they must repent, make atonement for their sins, and work to undo the harm they have done.

1. Ratzinger, Joseph, Preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, OSB (Ignatius Press, 2005), 2nd ed.
2. Hermann Goering, quoted in Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich; Portraits in Nazi Leadership, tr. Michael Bullock (Ace Books: New York, N.Y., 1970), p. 124-125.
3. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEQvVDGVWNE , voir jusqu’au 12:55] The original text of Johann Chapoutot’s remarks is as follows: Hitler est un paravent commode pour nous tous. C’est celui que nous identifions au nazisme, au mal absolu, et qui au fond fait écran et nous empêche de penser un phenomene, le nazisme, dont nous participons nous aussi, puisque ce phénomène est né culturellement et pratiquementet s’est deployé en Allemagne, c’est a dire en Europe, c’est-a-dire en occident. Et jusqu’à preuvedu contraire nous sommes aussi des européens et des occidentaux. Mais avoir affiché – voyez le couverture [c-à-d du livre, montré sur un ecran derrière les auteurs] – le paravent Hitler, cet écran-la – nous détourne de ce questionnement-là, puisque nous attribuons beaucoup de choses à ce personnage et a son entourage avec une réduction personnelle, personnalisante, psychologique, psychologisante, qui nous empêche encore une fois de penser le phenomene. Et une des explication les plus courantes pour expliquer le nazisme, sans en expliquer vis-à-vis de soi-meme, et au fond de l’évacuer, c’est de dire que Hitler était fou et que tous ces gens-la étaient saisis d’une forme de danse de saint-guy sadique, morbide, macabre, qui a emporté l’Europe et cette époque dans un tourbillon de malheur et d’horreur. C’est une explication qui n’en est pas une, elle est beaucoup trop commode, on en voit le, comment le dire, le confort psychologique, celui qu’on en retire, mais elle n’est pas exacte. Hitler de fait nous pose problème, non pas parce qu’il serait fou, mais parce qu’il est un monstre. Il est un monstre. Qu’est que c’est qu’un monstre? Un monstre c’est un individu dont on a du mal a rendre raison ou a se rendre raison aujourd’hui – aujourd’hui, disons, depuis peut-être deux cents ans. Un monstre, c’est quelquechose, c’est un phénomène qui il y a quelques siècles était porteur de sens. Voyez l’etymologie du terme monstre; ca vient de monstrare en latin, qui veut dire faire signe vers, envoyer une signe, etre une signe de quelquechose. Et de fait, dans un monde saturé du divin, saturé de transcendance, saturé de magie peut-etre, le monstre, celui qui est exorbitant à la normalité, celui qui est exorbitant par ses actes maléfiques par exemple, est le signe de quelquechose; de la colère de Dieu, de la vengeance de la divinité qui s’abat sur nous. Le monstre a un sens; il a un signification. Dans un monde désenchanté, désenchanté au sens positif du terme, dont l’enchantement, dont la magie a disparu, eh bien l’aubépine qui fleurit dans l’hiver n’a plus de sens, de la même manière que le monstre n’a plus de sens; d’où notre fascination médusé devant les grands criminels, devant les tuers en série, qui font l’object de series et d’émissions a repetition, de romans. Nous nous interrogeons sur ces personnages. Eh bien, nous avons voulu prendre le monstre au sens etymologique au pied de la lettre, Christian Ingrao et moi, et nous avons voulu le lire comme un signe. Ce personnage-là est un monstre que nous avons voulu relire comme un signe; sans l’apparat de transcendence, sans l’appareil de transcendance, mais tout simplement en historien.
4. (Houghton, Fr. Bryan, Unwanted Priest, p. 81).