John Allen uncages His Colours and opens Fire

John Allen of the liberal National Catholic Reporter usually tries to keep above the fray, often earning him the scorn of his fellows at NCR for being too conservative, but in yet another departure, he perhaps underscores the increasing desperation of the modernist editorial slant of NCR and their increasing desperation about Benedict's reforms which are increasingly showing their liturgical and doctrinal modernism in a bad light. We noted earlier the soft-ball interview he gave to Cardinal George, which didn't really ask any tough questions, venerating the seamless garment as it were.

National Catholic Reporter’s
John Allen
Makes Case for Secularism

by Edwin Faust
November 12, 2009



A wise man once remarked that logic and liberalism cannot co-exist in the same head. Illustrating this truth yet again is National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen, who chose to write Nov. 6 of Pope Benedict XVI’s supposed “lenience” for what Allen calls “cafeteria Catholicism” on the right.

The phrase has usually been applied to those who accept certain Catholic teachings and reject others, especially in the domain of marriage and sexual morality. The usual and more accurate term for such people is “heretics” or “Protestants.” Catholics come in only one flavor: traditional. There is no defined doctrine or immemorial custom that is optional for a Catholic.

Yet, Allen includes in his new category of cafeteria Catholics two disparate groups: The Society of St. Pius X and Anglicans wishing to return to the Church. His implication is that the SSPX remains outside the Church, despite magisterial pronouncements to the contrary. He equates the talks in Rome between representatives of the Pope and the SSPX with those between Rome and members of the Church of England: “...it’s not clear how many Lefebvrites or Anglicans will walk through the doors Rome has tried to open ...”

Precisely what defined doctrines the SSPX is supposed to have rejected are not specified. And, of course, such specification is impossible because the SSPX fully accepts every defined doctrine of the Catholic Faith. It is their unwavering orthodoxy that has caused their difficulties. The doctrinal talks in Rome are not about the SSPX’s dissent from articles of the faith, but about the post-Vatican II novelties of ecumenism, religious liberty and the New Mass, as the official communiqué from Rome following the initial talk has acknowledged.

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