Hope Lies Not in Some Future Pope

'[W]hat is the point of a religion that changes from time to time depending on who is pope?' Not much at all. We might as well be Mormons where 'doctrine' can change according to the last 'revelation' to the 'Prophet, Seer, & Revelator'.

From OnePeter Five

By Raymond Kowalski, BA, JD

I get little solace from the idea that some future pope will come along and undo the Francis papacy.  Not that I don’t think it could happen.  But what is the point of a religion that changes from time to time depending on who is pope?

What got me to this point is the scandal of Traditionis Custodes.

First, let me clarify what I mean by “scandal.”  I am not talking about tabloid “scandal.”  I am talking about theological “scandal,” which St. Thomas Aquinas describes as a word or action evil in itself, which occasions another’s spiritual ruin.  The essence of scandal is the harmful effect of one person’s evil actions upon another person.

In Summorum Pontificum, issued July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI restored the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which had fallen into disuse after the Second Vatican Council, despite that Council’s affirmation of the use of Latin in the Latin rites. Pope Benedict’s transmittal letter to the world’s bishops, of the same date as Summorum Pontificum, gives us the pope’s reasoning: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

It turned out, however, that the Traditional Latin Mass could be all of a sudden considered harmful by the very next pope.  In his own document, Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis on July 16, 2021, proclaimed that the new Mass is “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman rite.”  Pope Benedict’s actions were repudiated and cancelled: “Art. 8. Previous norms, instructions, permissions, and customs that do not conform to the provisions of the present Motu Proprio are abrogated.”  This was done while Benedict was alive, dressing in papal white, and residing in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City.

I cannot imagine a greater affront to a living pope; to the man, Joseph Ratzinger; or to the faithful.  Therein lies the scandal.  On that score alone, the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes was an evil act.  One pope came along and publicly rebuked his living predecessor.  The damage done to the Church by that action is incalculable.

Perhaps there was a segment of the faithful that had been waiting and praying for fourteen years for Benedict’s aberration to be rectified.  I might charitably chalk that up to vincible ignorance.  But the point is, they got the religion they wanted with the arrival of a new pope.

Now steadfast — not to say “traditional” — Catholics are in their position.  What if we get the religion we want when some new pope arrives?  What would it matter?  And for how long?  This is not how Catholicism works.

Let us be clear: the debate over the Novus Ordo Mass versus the Vetus Ordo Mass is not about “liturgical preference.”  It is about the fact that, as alluded to in Traditionis Custodes, the lex orandi is the lex credendi.  How you worship reflects what you believe.  The new Mass represents modern notions, insinuated into the Church over the past sixty years, whereas the Tridentine Mass represents the deposit of faith that has been curated by the Church for over two thousand years.

Picture an ornate room, filled with art works, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, great books and treasures of every description.  You are in the room, but at first you have only a single candle by which to discern your surroundings.  Nonetheless, they are a marvel to behold.  Over time your lighting improves and as it does, you illuminate more and more of the contents of the room.  They were always there, but now their full grandeur has become more clear.  Whoever created and filled this room knew a thing or two about unchanging truth and beauty.  And there is more still to be discerned.  Tradition is like this.  The Usus Antiquior is like this.

Now picture another room.  The room is brightly lit.  You can see everything it contains.  It too is filled with things.  Nice things.  Attractive things.  Useful things.  Familiar things.  They are things that you put in there.  Try not to notice that someone in a corner of the room, dressed in white, is replacing some of your things with things of his own.  This room knows no permanence.  Modernism is like this.  As its very name tells you, the Novus Ordo Mass is like this.

The Church today subsists in the modern room.  You can pray for a different pope to put your choice of things in the room, but it will still be the modern room, where the contents are changed, not revealed.  This is not a fit location for the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that was founded upon Peter and exists in perpetuity for the salvation of souls.

The solution is obvious.  The means to achieve it is not.

Pictured: Old St Peter's Basilica, Rome