Benedict and the TLM; the Pivot has come

Amici,

The "mild" Vatican II Reformer, Joseph Ratzinger, has now passed on to Judgment, and while we can and should pray for him, we cannot be presumptuous one way another or about that Judgment. Certain types of Protestants, and now no few "Catholics", seem to think one's eternal Salvation is "in the bag", not apparently realizing they're wallowing in the Sin of Presumption. The Anti-Pope Bergoglio has plainly said no one can really live up to God's Commandments anyway, so "chill out." Very Protestant, old Bergi is. Luther and Co. should welcome him, if that is how that his own judgment turns out.

Benedict's Greatest Deed

Focusing historically and theologically, however, on one issue, Benedict XVI has forever garnered a pivotal place in ecclesiastical history because of his "freeing" the Traditional Latin Mass. It was the major achievement of his reign and I have no doubt the cause of his downfall. So to note his passing, I would like to bring up what his Summorum Pontificum of July 2007 effected in the Church, or more precisely, what it began to recognize as the Holy Ghost's actions were already bringing about. For now that Ratzinger has died, a major turning point, a true pivot, has been reached.

Hindsight has to reveal to anyone not blinded by Modernist bias that, despite the Official Church doing what it could to suppress the TLM, the Holy Ghost wanted it back. For despite what the spiritually dead, the spiritually deaf, or simply the spiritually stupid insist upon, the record since 1970 shows God wants the Traditional Latin Mass restored. The Church of 2023 bears little resemblance to what it was before 1963. Bringing it back is the strongest – and certainly most Catholic – movement in the Church today. Whatever Pope Benny's true intent, whether he recognized the whole "Vatican II Shtick" was up (something John Paul II could not do), or whether he actually thought that the old Mass could live side-by-side in a happy, symbiotic relationship with the new, both "enriching" the other in a "mutual enrichment" for a goodly length of time – whatever he thought, Benedict certainly did God's will in freeing, or trying to free, the TLM from the clutches of the Modernist hierarchy.

That Modernist hierarchy was enraged, and they got rid of Pope Ratzinger. Fourteen years after Summorum Pontificum, they promulgated its opposite, Traditionis Custodes (best translated literally as "Jailers of Tradition") on 16 July 2021. And they've since worked to undo Summorum Pontificum in more ways with ever more rulings.

For an important article about what damage the Modernist Anti-Catholics have done to the TLM laity and the clergy, review this article at Rorate. The interviewee makes the interesting point that Bergoglio and Traditionis Custodes haven't laid a glove on the growing SSPX and have a spotty record harassing what had been the "Ecclesia Dei" communities (FSSP, ICKSP). What havoc and devastation it has produced are in the regular diocesan priests who have tried to learn and offer the TLM. A very interesting article.

And regarding Benedict and his TLM efforts, it is remarkable how the TLM took off in regular parishes. It would not stay "sidelined" in specialist shops wherein the Modernists clearly hoped to exile it. Average, everyday clergy and laity wanted it, do want it today, and no matter how hard Bergoglio and the Modernist unbelievers try now, all the Mass-closing antics are the detritus of impotent fools and knaves, the shouting of a mob about to be dispersed by God's will. We must prepare. Bergoglio will unleash all Hell on the Church now that Joseph Ratzinger is dead, from many directions, and no one can pretend Bergoglio has the best interests of the Church at heart. Yet when the storm has subsided, the TLM will be welcomed by Catholics as the standard of quiet, holy sanity in worship. It will be welcomed as the most Catholic form of worship. That's the significant pivot that will occur to the multitude of "Survivor Catholics". 

It is an incarnation of the Crucifixion: even as the Devil thought he had defeated Christ by casting down the ancient liturgy, even as he thought he had triumphed, it turned out to be the opposite of what he had thought. If crucifying Christ didn't work, crucifying His liturgy won't, either.

Pray, and hope.

  An Préachán

Psalm 146 of the Douay-Rheims: verse 9:

Who giveth to beasts their food: and to the young ravens that call upon Him.