Trads Try to Distinguish

Announcing the latest book from Os Justi Press, our most impressive title to date, an anthology of 50 essays by 26 prominent and respected authors:

“Ultramontanism and Tradition: The Role of Papal Authority in the Catholic Faith”https://t.co/bS6GMPbFts pic.twitter.com/WABNXRNhcO

— Peter Kwasniewski (@DrKwasniewski) February 7, 2024

Latin and Dominican

Needed to check in with the boss today… couldn’t get an appointment with his Successor, so I settled for some prayer time with Primo. pic.twitter.com/dOkr5amIst

— Fr. Thomas Petri, OP (@PetriOP) December 6, 2023

Who Will Finish Whom?

From the declaration of infallibility at Vatican I, a doctrinal ultramontanism has led many Catholics to equate the papacy with Catholicism.https://t.co/EeemlM5SeQ

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) September 28, 2023

Canonists on Vos Estis

Vos Estis: Two Years Later - hear from Canonists Fr. John Beal, Dr. Susan Mulheron and ⁦@TutelaMinorum ⁩’s Mons. Robert Oliver May 26th ℹ️ ⬇️ 👇 brought to you by #safeguarding partners ⁦@CatholicProj⁩ at ⁦@CatholicUniv⁩ https://t.co/S2PEQYYGDb

— TutelaMinorum (@TutelaMinorum) May 25, 2021

Will any of them dissent and say that it was bad legislation?

The Worst Sort of Ultramontanism

Taking everything written by a reigning Roman pontiff as having value, merely because he wrote it.

+++ Read on La Civiltà Cattolica - English edition a previously unpublished text by fr. Jorge Mario #Bergoglio (1987-88) about the interpretation of reality and how obsolete categories are eventually superseded by reality. Full text: https://t.co/j9hBiBJ0WN

— Antonio Spadaro (@antoniospadaro) April 5, 2021

A Latin and Dominican View of Things

Much is up for grabs in today's election. But not everything. pic.twitter.com/BU9VazhOgg

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) November 3, 2020

Institutional Clericalism is Opposed to Humility

Despite his denunciation of clericalism, Francis embodies it as much as his opponents, real or imaginary.

On not whining https://t.co/FbY8a4VSXH

— The Lamp (@thelampmagazine) October 22, 2020

The Lamp

Conservative Ultramontanist Latins Busy Popesplaining

On @Where_Peter_is, seminary professor @FastiggiR and I put Pope Francis's comments about same-sex civil unions in theological and historical perspective: https://t.co/lgYW36XWpN. They're not the radical departure from previous teaching that some claim.

— Dawn Eden Goldstein: Wear a Mask/Stop the Spread (@DawnofMercy) October 22, 2020

Have Dominicans Ever Not Been Ultramontanes

First, I don’t think Pope Francis’ position on the death penalty is indefensible just as I never thought St. John Paul II’s was.

Second, I’m a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and I respect the Holy Father’s prudential judgment. https://t.co/LLN5SeTy33

— Fr. Thomas Petri, OP (@PetriOP) October 7, 2020

CNA spoke to @PetriOP about #FratelliTutti and the death penalty. He said Pope Francis' development of Church teaching was "definitely in the line of what previous popes have taught.” https://t.co/amDVvm5H6K

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) October 6, 2020

The Roman Position

The liberal left and right find it difficult to submit to the social teaching of the Church

The former refuses to obey Her teaching in matters of sexuality and the right to life.

The latter refuses to obey in matters of economic policy.

Nevertheless, she is Mother and Teacher. pic.twitter.com/fT291akkZS

— Leonine Institute (@leoinstituteCST) September 17, 2020

Wojtyła's The Catholic Social Ethic

CLJ: Everything You Know About John Paul II's Early Lectures on CST Is Wrong by Paweł Rojek

Everything You Know About John Paul II's Early Lectures on CST Is Wrong https://t.co/anjjkhsb5s
#ThankYouJohnPaul2 #JP2

— Church Life Journal (@ChurchLifeND) May 18, 2020

Ultramontanists will differ on the authority of the text depending on whether they agree with it or not. That's the folly of being an ultramontanist -- his lectures should be evaluated as moral theology, one theologian's private opinions, and nothing more than that.

Related:

The Polish Romantic Messianism of Saint John Paul II https://t.co/3PcRXWglqi
#ThankYouJohnPaul2 #JP2

— Church Life Journal (@ChurchLifeND) May 18, 2020

What Will Be Left of the Patriarchate of Rome in 100 Years?

CWR Dispatch: The next hundred years of St. John Paul II’s legacy by Jonah McKeown for CNA

Will ultramontanism still be around then?

Pinkoski's Response to James Patterson on Latin Integralism

Law and Liberty: How Not to Challenge the Integralists by Nathan Pinkoski

A response to @McGillPatterson on integralism, its origins and ideas. https://t.co/Rcy2Cx6AuR

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) April 30, 2020

And one recommendation for the above by Michael Brendan Dougherty: Is Integralism Just Catholic Fascism?

The swift refutation of James Patterson’s smear tactics is *almost* enough to make me believe in the marketplace of ideas https://t.co/ZhnxS8xsHW

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) April 30, 2020

The author gives a history of the development of Latin integralist thought, starting with the Roman Catholic anti-liberals (not all of whom were strict monarchists, by the way). 

Although its theological claims go back further, Catholic integralism owes its politics to post-revolutionary Europe. The basic presupposition of integralism is that theology is prior to politics and must order politics. As Émile Perreau-Saussine observed in Catholicism and Democracy, this requires a strong demarcation between the spiritual power of the Church and the temporal power of the state. That demarcation was not visible in the Ancien Régime, as the monarch anointed at Reims mixed temporal and spiritual power. The cruel exposure of that demarcation came as the French Revolution’s newly secular state violently attempted to assert its temporal power over the spiritual power of the Church. Since Catholics could no longer rely on their monarch—a Christian head of a Christian state—to protect the Church’s liberties, early 19th century Catholic political thinkers sought a deeper understanding of the principles of authority. They looked to the Papacy—to spiritual power—as the ultimate guarantor of Catholic liberties. Hence Perreau-Saussine argues that integralism is post-revolutionary. Ultramontanist thinkers, such as Joseph de Maistre, helped develop the demarcation between Church and State. In distinguishing temporal authority from spiritual authority, spurning Bonapartist Concordats to revive the Gallican Church, and granting that the Pope was the ultimate authority, these thinkers sought to free the Church from the grip of the post-Revolutionary secular state and campaigned for regimes that would get the Church-State relationship right.

And Latin bishops today act with this sort of mindset, that they have a "spiritual authority" that enables them to lecture the state, even if the state does not recognize their authority. Integralism is a logical consequence to certain Roman claims concerning the authority of the bishop of Rome, and here is its first major weakness. Latin integralists will call their political theory "Catholic" as Latins are apt to label everything part of their ecclesial tradition, but it is particular to them alone, at least so far. Byzantine theory of symphonia may be reconcilable with some looser form of Latin integralism, but it will differ with Latin integralism in all forms in so far as integralism is tied to ultramontanism or a maximalist conception of the papacy. While symphonia developed within the context of empire, on the face of it I cannot see why a version of it cannot be harmonized with republican forms of government.

The rest of the essay is worth reading as the author discusses the relation of integralism to political movements in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is not a thorough history nor does he mention all of the Latin counter-revolutionary/anti-liberal thinkers, but hopefully Patterson will read it.

Recent Synods of the Patriarch of Rome

The “Historic” Amazonian Synod, Revisited by George Weigl

Also published at CWR.

Weigel's purpose is to protect the true legacy of Vatican II and of the popes of Vatican II, and so he compares the Amazon Synod to previous synods called by the patriarch of Rome. We see the same pattern over and over ago, attempts at top-down reform using existing institutional practices, which are mostly bureaucratic in nature. I'll just comment upon a few of these synods that Weigel considers to be more "historic" than the Amazon Synod.

The 1974 Synod on evangelization was a donnybrook, reflecting the turbulence in the Church a decade after the Second Vatican Council. The synod fathers couldn’t agree on a final report, so they handed the synod’s materials to Pope Paul VI with the request that he do something. Pope Paul responded with the great apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (Announcing the Gospel). It was Paul VI’s last pastoral testament to the Church and the first summons to what John Paul II would call the “New Evangelization”: the grand strategy that animates the living parts of the world Church today.

This is the same pope that failed to give any sort of modicum of leadership at a time when papal authority still carried some weight with bishops. This is also the same pope who created the turbulence with a disastrous liturgical reform. A pope who was wrongly canonized for the sake of institutional reasons. How can there be a "evangelization" by Christian peoples who cannot give credible witness with respect to their private lives, non-existent parish lives, and liturgical worship? The bishops failed to focus on the basics; if they had done so, they wouldn't need a document from Paul VI about evangelization.

The 1990 Synod debated priestly formation and seminary reform. The propositions adopted by the synod fathers helped shape John Paul II’s 1992 apostolic exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Shall Give You Shepherds). Where it was taken seriously (as in the United States), that exhortation helped apply the brakes to the silly season in seminaries and laid the foundation for the reformed seminaries of today.

Assuming that seminaries, during a time of contracting local churches and budgets, would remain a viable option for educating future deacons and bishops was a mistake. Weigel's assessment of the current state of American seminaries, like his judgment of many other aspects of the patriarchate of Rome, is excessively positive. How many of these seminaries have implemented a program of scripture study even close to something like Pius X wanted? (What is the typical Latin seminarian's knowledge of Greek and Hebrew like?) How could Latins come to a new appreciation of the fundamental Kerygma without returning to the language of scripture, away from the jargon of neo-scholasticism?

And then there was the special Synod of 1985, which met on the 20th anniversary of Vatican II’s fourth and final session to explore what had gone right, and what had gone not-so-right, in implementing the Council. Its final report’s description of the Church as a communion of disciples in mission provided the thread that wove the 16 documents of Vatican II into a coherent, compelling tapestry of Catholic faith. Like Evangelii Nuntiandi, the special Synod of 1985 was a crucial moment in the journey from Vatican II—the council Pope John XXIII called to give the Church new missionary energy—to the New Evangelization.

Second Extraordinary General Assembly - The Twentieth Anniversary of the Conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (24 November-8 December 1985)

Vatican II remains the paradigmatic example of the use of an ecumenical council Latin synod to try to reform the patriarchate of Rome with respect to its theological outlook. (Even if one were to assume that the Ressourcement approach to theology and liturgy was the correct one, and this Latin traditionalists will still dispute.) It was the wrong instrument to accomplish this task, and could only fail. A Latin could argue that Vatican II was merely following Trent as a council of reform, but the Tridentine fathers had certain reforms in mind, which could be readily ascertained as to whether they were implemented or not. There was no questioning of the Latin ecclesial tradition at that time, but just a clarification of dogma in response to the Protestants (but really a solidification of scholastic theology as dogma), and how to reform the institutions of the Latin churches so that this dogma could be promoted. With respect to Vatican II, in contrast, a renewal of Latin theology and spirituality (which would necessarily involve an integration of the two), by its paradoxical combination of simplicity and complexity, could not simply be legislated into existence. It requires a true paradosis, and churches not acting as institutions but on a humane scale. Knowing the Gospel or Kerygma, witness, and the Christian life -- all touched upon in the synods after Vatican II, which did nothing permanent to arrest the decline of the Latin churches, as the same institutional practices remain in place.

Glorifying the Institution

CNA/CWR: Pope Francis creates foundation to promote John Paul I’s teachings





A pope who reigned for only 33 days... according to those who knew him, a gentle man. How many writings are there from his pontificate? Take a look.

According to a note signed by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the foundation’s purpose “is to promote and disseminate awareness of the thought, works, and example of Pope John Paul I.”

Will the foundation also promote what he wrote and said as a bishop or as a theologian with private opinions? (Such writings must be evaluated according to their merits, and not elevated merely because the one who wrote them would later become pope, as if the Holy Spirit somehow guaranteed by his election that all of his previous writings were exemplary and free from error.) Why would it be necessary to promote the writings of an individual pope, except because of a maximalist view of the Roman papacy? All too often the private opinions of the man who was pope are confused with the "papal magisterium" and held to be on the same level.

There is one of his homilies as pope, in which he uses a proof-text from St. Ephrerm in support of Rome's claims about the scope of authority of the bishop of Rome: HOLY MASS FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE PETRINE MINISTRY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME

Of course, the same sort of criticisms could be made about the establishment of a foundation for Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger, even if Ratzinger's theological legacy is arguably greater than that of Albino Luciani.

Related:
Who was Albino Luciani, the 'smiling Pope'?
John Paul I: The September pope
The Unpublished Albino Luciani – Pope John Paul I, ‘the Smiling Pope’: Part I and Part II

The Hermeneutic of Discontinuity at Work

Latin Damage Control

Full episode.

Related:
Bishop Schneider discusses how the Church should handle a heretical pope
The limits of papal authority and the fate of a heretical pope: an exclusive interview with Bishop Schneider
Professor De Mattei Comments on Bishop Schneider's "Heretical Pope" Text

Something Non-Latin Apostolic Christians Can Agree With?

Fr. Hunwicke: Father Aidan Nichols on Hyperultrapapalism

What Would He Say About the Modern Roman Canonization Process?

John Henry Newman, conversion, and the papacy by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille

A Latin Critique of Ultramontanism

Church Life: A Quasi-Defense of Gallicanism by Shaun Blanchard