Fathers,
With the new Motu Proprio, you are being put to the test. We all are being put to the test. This new situation is very much like the 1970’s, needing to choose between Church authority imposing error and sin, in the form of Catholic Modernism, vs. keeping the Faith.
I’ve been maligned for as long as I can remember by certain family members, so-called friends, acquaintances, priests even, coworkers, managers, etc for particular aspects of me living out my traditional Catholic Faith and morals, for refusing to genuflect to false obedience, materialism, the world, pop culture, avarice, worldly rejection of Catholic, Christian Truth, for living a Christian life, for being a Catholic man doing his duty according to the vocation of marriage, for refusing to participate in immoral and even illegal practices in my profession. God knows. Had I made a habit of compromising even in seemingly small ways on these essentials I would certainly be a richer, more successful, more popular man than I am.
But given the choice to do it over again, I still would not have genuflected to those evils knowing the consequences to my life. I’m half way through my life, so a few more decades of being maligned and suffering socially or economically, for adhering the best I can to my Catholic Faith, so be it, death is near for all of us, and we will be judged.
So Fathers, when you chose to reject secularism and all false religions, to embrace instead the Catholic Faith, and then to answer your priestly vocation, when you made the choice at some point to embrace Tradition and the Latin Mass, you certainly suffered too mistreatment and marginalization in countless ways. You’ve suffered for your Faith, often from your own fellow diocesan priests and likely even from your bishop.
So why on Earth stop there, Fathers? If you were willing to forsake wife and children, to enter a vocation seen by many as one of effeminate men who can’t hack it in the world, to suffer the marginalization that comes with your state, then why, in the end, would you refuse to do your Catholic duty in all things, in order to preserve your pension? For good favor from the diocese? So you don’t offend your family or friends?
When we made our oath at our Confirmation, every one of us, it was an absolute commitment to everything necessary according to our Catholic Faith, regardless of how we will be treated. Even if you lose your position as a diocesan priest, pension, or good standing.
Therefore, good Fathers, do your duty. As every Catholic must do his duty according to his state, to resist the false conciliar religion, and in turn this culture of anti-Christ.
Refuse to directly participate in any evil period, including a dishonest total acceptance of Vatican II/Novus Ordo, imposed on you by the bishops more forcefully than ever before.
Just do your duty and let the chips fall where they may, regardless what others will say about you, or do to you. Teach your flock from the pulpit about the errors of Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Missae. Stop saying the Novus Ordo, period. Prepare for suspension. Don’t waste your time with appeals.
Then discard that invalid suspension, and carry on providing the True Mass and sacraments, this being a state of necessity in the Church, start a Gofundme, raise money to build a Chapel and rectory in the country outside the city. Start a YouTube channel live streaming daily Mass, sermons, conferences. Ask the SSPX for their help, if you choose not to join them formally. Get a job teaching English online, deliver pizzas, update your resume, whatever, but forget about your pension or standing. Trust in God. Hunker down at your Chapel until you die.
And if anyone rejects or maligns you for taking the route that hundreds of other faithful traditional Catholic priests have taken in the past, in the 1970's and 1980's in particular, then so be it.
But never again compromise on the traditional Catholic Faith, or the traditional Catholic Priesthood. This isn't a subjective preference for Latin and incense; it's an adherence to the true Mass, that teaches in its canon what the Mass truly is, and therefore what the Catholic Faith really is.
This is the direction the Traditional Latin Movement must now be prepared to take.
Questions, comments, or to say hello, email me at:
JosephOstermeir@gmail.com