Theology
Inter Mirifica: A Way to Evaluate the Chatterers
(As I think more about this, and as I told someone just a few hours ago, we have a structural problem here. Liberalism co-opts its enemies and it subverts the good intentions of those whose primary loyalty should be to their people, the Church, the Faith, and truth. This subversion happens through a combination of pride, greed, necessity which is all made possible without any realistic checks by the system of freedoms — free press, free speech, religious liberty. As the Church became like America due to the USA’s doctrinal warfare, the leadership is unable to deal with the problems this presents. The loss of the Index of Forbidden Books and the abandonment of the process of issuing Nihil Obstat’s as Peter Helland observed, has meant that truth is up for sale and such actions are perfectly consistent with an Americanized Church. So Inter Mirifica steps in to try and regulate the whole thing to give consumers and producers a set of criteria by which to act to insure truth is presented. Still, we have a structural problem that I suggest can be solved or at least addressed by all the Catholic chatterers signing a statement to support Inter Mirifica.)
The big uproar on social media and elsewhere regarding the latest actions of Pope Francis in connection with the Traditional Latin Mass is subsiding. I have been asked to weigh in, and I do so in summary form as I believe less is more.
Let’s summarize. Pope Francis issued a “Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the Whole World That Accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Data `Traditionis Custodes’” along with “Traditionis Custodes” (TC) on July 16, 2021. Francis in his letter noted that many people, including the young, had been drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) over the years especially since Benedict XVI issued “Summorum Pontificum” (SP) in July, 2007. Francis is apparently motivated, as he says in his Letter, by a fear that the TLM is the source of unity in opposing the validity of the Vatican II Council. He writes