Per Gloria TV, and Anthony Stine commenting on it, the Vicar General of the FSSP recently blamed traditional Catholic bloggers and Youtubers (and other websites) for the past and forthcoming clampdown on the True Mass by the Vatican. It is not clear if the blame is the a) entire group, b) most of this group, or c) just certain websites/people. It seems more the former (a or b) since no websites were distinguished. It seems like a general statement.
Here is my response to this priest.
First, I believe ironically you yourself probably have, and still actively do, benefit from the traditional Catholic blogosphere. It, like the internet, has become a necessary evil, a necessary tool. Had the modernists not high-jacked the Council, the liturgy, or the Vatican (or created the internet in the first place, i.e. within the sphere of secular society) we wouldn't be in this situation. The hard fact is we are no longer in the 20th century. We are in the age of the internet. This is where people searching for Truth in all things look.
Second, I agree there is bad behavior and bad players across the traditional Catholic blogosphere. I hesitate to point fingers at a particular website, or point at the person on a personal level, but I agree there is bad behavior. But that is not the same as this medium of voicing the legitimate concerns and criticisms of lay Catholics (but also certain priests and bishops, who are active within this sphere).
This appears to be scapegoating, to take shame (which is projected onto the FSSP by the modernists) off the FSSP so it will not also end up persecuted when Traditionis Custodes 2.0 is rolled out. Show Rome that the shame is not with the FSSP, but instead a tiny group of men with keyboards, who you could fit in one living room. Blame this tiny groups of keyboard jockey's for Francis and his regime coming after us all. To appease the modernists, with the hope they will buy into that (they see through that too), blame the rad trad bloggers, and not clamp down on the FSSP.
By the way, I am not responding to the entire FSSP, or even all FSSP leadership, but to this one priest, at least to the degree that he personally, in his position, represents the current stance of the FSSP with regards to its current relations with Rome.
This approach appears to me to be, with all due respect, unjust. It comes across like narcissistic blame-shifting, in order to preserve the FSSP's existence. It comes across like spiritual and psychological abuse.
Hence this blog post.
If Pope Francis wants to shut down the FSSP, or force it to bridge over the the New Religion (which I think most FSSP priests, likely you yourself, in their heart of hearts believes really exists, just as the SSPX describes it), it is not because of us traditional Catholic bloggers.
That would be objectively diabolically unjust, to persecute an entire Society of Apostolic Life, and the laity attached to it, to suppress even more Catholic Tradition, because of a few men you could fit into one living room. However mad and rad they are (or not).
Does that mean Michael Matt, the editors of Rorate Coeli, or their few allies online, would be single-handedly causing persecution of the FSSP?
If we are doing grave evil, then you are free to point that out to me, as long as it is civil, and shows exactly what divine, ecclesiastical, or civil law is violated. This is my email: JosephOstermeir@gmail.com. Yet, I will engage any accusation and ask for sources, within the bounds of civility, seeking fellowship over personal polemical conflict.
The blame, Father, rests with one group, and that is the modernists. If bloggers are bringing about a clampdown or forthcoming persecution, then that amounts to a living room of men with keyboards causing further suppression of Catholic Tradition, which would be logically absurd.
I ask you to reconsider this accusation, and take it back, or at least modify it with distinctions.
Despite problems, we are a voice of the people, of the laity, who are about 99.999% of the Catholic Church. In fact, Pope Francis has made comments actually encouraging lay Catholics to write blogs, make podcasts, etc, even critical of abuses in the Church.
Catholic Tradition and the True Mass is more than a preference. It is the standard. It is an obligation. It must be publicly defended as such against the modernists, even in the Vatican.
Outside of the SSPX, this message is unfortunately, largely being spread wide and far by lay Catholic writers, when we need to hear more of this from the pulpit, including at FSSP Masses. That is the unfortunate, raw reality of where we are at.
Happy Fall weather.