More Traddie Sniping

I agree with Boniface 100%. I've been watching the 'circular firing squad' without getting involved, but I agree it needs to stop. We are only hurting ourselves.

From Unam Sanctam Catholicam

There's a lot of snark and calumny going around on blogs and social media recently with Trads sniping each other. The so-called "circular firing squad" strikes again. I would have assumed that with the liberal coterie in the Church in full ascendancy, traditional Catholics would be forming alliances and finding new unity in a common effort.

Nope. If anything, the opposite seems to have happened. Traditionalist outlets and commentators are descending into mutual accusation and recrimination of each other. The reasons for this are varied, and some are bigger offenders than others. "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them" (Deut. 28:25). This curse seems to have befallen us, as we not only flee seven ways but make sure to take pot-shots at our brethren while we do so.

Yes, there are always rationales. "I'm just defending my reputation"; "So-and-so is leading people astray"; "All Catholics have an obligation to speak out against X"; "They started the battle, not me." And so on.

Personally, I love Rorate Caeli. I love 1P5; I count Steve Skojec as a friend of mine and have always enjoyed my banter with him. I also respect Michael Voris and Church Militant. I love The Remnant. I love Vox Cantoris. I chuckle when I read Mundabor. I love Ryan Grant. I love Fr. Zuhlsdorf. And there's a whole slew of other traditional blogs, media outlets, and individuals whom I respect and count as allies. I don't find liking anyone of them precludes me from liking any other, nor does 

Do I agree with them all? Of course not. But that's okay. We are really in uncharted waters here, and everybody is pursuing the course they think best. Everybody is just trying to make sense of our situation. I've taken my fair share of sniping as well; one of the outlets mentioned above once said I was "doing the devil's work" and unlinked me because I disagreed with them on an extraordinarily minute issue that was entirely prudential. And I myself have doled it out in the past as well.

But I don't think now is the time for it. Now more than ever we need to set aside petty squabbling; not to say all disagreements are "petty"—a person who is insisting that Francis is not the Roman pontiff is making an extremely serious accusation. But to be honest, most of this sniping is petty. It's about people preserving their "turf" and maintaining their street-cred as traddie luminaries. I guess a charitable explanation would be that the developments in the Church have everybody on edge and are making us overly sensitive and irritable, like how people get when on a long car ride and someone takes a wrong turn and gets lost and everybody becomes cranky because of the situation. 

A less charitable explanation would be that some traditionalist outlets have begun to think of themselves as a "Trad Magisterium", veritable thought leaders and opinion setters who equate their own positions with orthodoxy itself. I spoke about this some time ago in a post called "No Trad Magisterium" (Feb. 2015), the central thesis of which was that "there is no one website or blog, no organization, no one author, no one order or society, no one publication, no one prelate, no one individual who authoritatively speaks for Catholic traditionalists, and whom to disagree with is to risk ostracism. There is no trad Magisterium." But if you want to read a more eloquent explanation of this, I recommend the essay "Faithful Catholics and Theological Positions -- A Difference Which Must be Overlooked" (Dec. 2014) on Eponymous Flower by guest contributor Victor Clemens Oldendorf.

People have often challenged me publicly in my 10+ years of blogging; often someone with the attitude of "Boniface, I debunked you on this very long post (**includes link**); how will you answer? Debate me!" My response is usually to yawn, congratulate them on such a witty rebuttal, and move on without answering or sometimes even reading the article. I don't personally care. Perhaps I should care more. Perhaps I'm just a bad blogger. 

Well, whatever. People are gonna do what they're gonna do. Let's just not take ourselves too seriously. We ought to always take the Faith seriously while maintaining a certain amount of levity about ourselves.

God bless all my fellow bloggers.