Pope Francis and the Temptation of Traditionalists

 

By Roberto de Mattei*

A dialectical relationship has emerged between Pope Francis and the world of tradition that can have dangerous consequences.

 That the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes of July 16, 2021, which supplements the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Benedict XVI.  disassembled, should not mislead.  Pope Francis does not reject the traditional Roman Rite per se, but he detests those who are faithful to that rite, or rather the caricatured image he has formed of traditionalists over the years.  The reference to "grandmother's lace" in his June 17 address to the Sicilian clergy is significant in this regard.

“Grandmother's lace" exists only in the imagination of a few progressive ideologues.  The reality of the Sicilian clergy is not that of lace, but consists, as everywhere, of priests who walk around in shirts and sandals and celebrate the new Mass in a sloppy and irreverent way.  They justify themselves by saying that form is not substance, but their very aversion to old forms shows that for many of them form comes before substance.

Pope Francis is not sensitive to the issue of liturgy, but in general he is not interested in the doctrinal debate that pitted conservatives against progressives during Vatican II and in the years that followed.  "Reality is more important than the idea" is one of the postulates of the encyclical Evangelii Gaudium (EG, 217-237).  What really counts are "not ideas" but "discernment,” he affirmed on May 19 at the headquarters of the Civiltà Cattolica before the editors of the European cultural magazine of the Society of Jesus.  “If you venture alone into the world of ideas and distance yourself from reality, you end up ridiculous.” He ascribes the ridiculous to the nonexistent traditionalist peaks, while failing to see it in the ramshackle liturgies of the progressive clergy.

When insight separates itself from ideas, it becomes personalism.  Francis tends to personalize any subject, setting aside the customs, ideas, and institutions of the Church.  In the realm of governance, personalism leads to “exceptionalism”, but extraordinary decisions, as Vaticanist Andrea Gagliarducci notes, are just extraordinary decisions, they do not create an objective and universal norm.  His relations with the Sovereign Order of Malta bear witness to this.  The Pope does not shy away from breaking the rules or changing canon law when necessary, precisely because each of his actions is a personal and therefore “extraordinary” matter.

However, Francis' opponents, the "restorers" as he calls them, run the risk of personalizing their opposition to his pontificate, forgetting that he is not only human, but also the successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ.

To some traditionalists it seems inconceivable that Pope Francis could be a legitimate pontiff, and even if they accept this in words, they deny it on the level of deeds, like him, passing practice in the name of personal insight  put the theory.  The use of calling him Bergoglio rather than Francis demonstrates this personalization tendency, which reaches its climax when he is contemptuously called "the man from Santa Marta" or "the Argentine".  A shrewd Argentine observer of the affairs of the Church has pointed out that “radicalization leads to all reality being read sub specie bergoglii.  In this way, paradoxically, our adherence to the Catholic faith is no longer based on affirmation of the faith of the apostles, but on opposition to everything that Francis does”.

The personalization of problems leads not only to the primacy of praxis, but also to the primacy of ideas over feelings.  Love and hate emancipate themselves from the two Augustinian cities in which they should be anchored, the Civitas Dei and the Civitas diaboli, and personalize themselves.  This phenomenon emerged in the context of neomodernism in the 1960s.  One has only to read the pages of Father (later Cardinal) Yves Congar's diary to feel the bitter taste of hatred of the Church's tradition spilling out of every line.  But this hatred has unfortunately infected some traditionalists who hate Pope Francis from the bottom of their hearts, with no love for the papacy: they hate the Catholics who don't think like them, with no love for the Church.  In 2016, a respectful and balanced Correctio Filialis on the errors of Pope Francis was published.  Today, criticism has lost substance and respect, and the language tends to become divisive and aggressive.

But the foundation of the Catholic religion is love.  There is a bond of perfection, says St. Paul, and that bond is love of neighbor (Colossians 3:14), by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and love ourselves and our neighbor for God's sake.  Charity has nothing to do with philanthropy or sentimentality, but Christianity without love is not Christianity.  Love of what is far away hides hatred of one's neighbor, but hatred of one's neighbor reveals the lack of love for God.  Of course, love of God in itself is superior to love of neighbor, but when both love of God and love of neighbor are considered together, love of God, according to theologians, is superior to love of God alone, because the former includes both what is known of  the latter cannot necessarily say.  Moreover, the love of God, which also extends to the neighbor, is more perfect, since He commanded that those who love God should also love their neighbor (Antonio Royo Marin op. p., Teologia della perfezione cristiana, ed. by Edizioni Paoline,  Rome 1965, p. 622).

For love of God, of the Church, and of our neighbors, beginning with those closest to us spiritually, we must be resolute and unshakable in our struggle in defense of the truth.  Every fragmentation and division comes from the devil, the splitter par excellence.  Love unites, and union creates true social and individual peace, which is based on the submission of mind and heart to the highest plans of the divine will.

 *Roberto de Mattei, historian, father of five children, professor of modern history and history of Christianity at the European University of Rome, President of the Lepanto Foundation, author of numerous books, most recently in German translation: Defense of Tradition: The Insurmountable Truth of Christ, with  a foreword by Martin Mosebach, Altötting 2017 and The Second Vatican Council.  A Hitherto Unwritten Story, 2nd ext.  Edition, Bobingen 2011.

Books by Prof. Roberto de Mattei in German (and English) and translation and books by Martin Mosebach are available from our partner bookshop.

 Translation: Giuseppe Nardi

 Image: Corrispondenza Romana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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