Collective Punishment: Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics – Part I
“Are you not trying to be Catholics in a church which doesn’t want you?”
To our dear friends attending “approved Latin Masses”, and suffering at the hands of those implementing Traditionis Custodes:
We know your “stories”, and we know your pain.
At some point in your religious lives, you found that pearl of great price – the Roman liturgy. Perhaps immediately, perhaps gradually, you cleaved to it with love and gratitude.
Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics
Part I – Collective Punishment
Part II – “An ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”
Part III – The Judgment of Solomon
Perhaps you are one of those who, as Benedict XVI said, “discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.”1
Perhaps you suffered for the Roman Liturgy and tradition in your parish.
Perhaps, like the man in the parable, you sold your belongings and bought a field wherein this pearl lay.
But along with the pearl that is traditional Roman liturgy, you found more: you found the traditional Catholic faith in its integrity.
There, at the Mass, you found the truth of the maxim lex orandi, lex credendi – and the liturgy worked its quiet influence on your intellect and will.
Perhaps some of you even gave your lives for it and entered the seminary.
Perhaps some of you found in it the fitting setting and community for raising your children. The Roman Mass, with its gestures, chant and so on, became the object of play and imitation for the little souls put in your charge by Almighty God.
But now, some of you are facing the unenviable task of explaining to your little ones why this is to be no more.
You may soon feel that you have to expose yourselves and your children to the worst of the Novus Ordo establishment. You will then have to explain why the proverbial Father Bob is facing you and not God, why his sermons are wrong, why the music is so different, why Mrs Susan is giving people Holy Communion, why people are taking their God in their hands, and nonchalantly eating holy Body like a potato crisp.
You may soon be told by Father Bob that you should not kneel when you receive your God, because “it breaks the unity of the worshipping community.”
We could multiply the horrible crises of conscience ahead.
The position in which you find yourselves is substantially the same as those in the 1960s, who endured the reforms of Paul VI, which progressively removed the Roman liturgy from parish life.
Many of us have already walked this same path that lies ahead of you now.
I am sorry for the pain that you are suffering, and will suffer.
I want to help make sense of the situation, by explaining one of the reasons Francis has given for his actions.
The Truths of Traditionis Custodes
Within the letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes, we find these words:
“I am nonetheless saddened that the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’. […]
“A final reason for my decision is this: Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true Church.’”2 (emphases added)
Many of you attending (or even offering) the traditional Mass might be mystified by this statement. Such an idea may never have even occurred to you, and it may horrify you when you read it.
But Francis’ observation is correct. There is indeed a close connection between adhering to the Roman liturgy and rejecting the so-called “Conciliar Church.” This idea is present amongst the older school of traditionalists (both priests and faithful) of all stripes.
This distinction was a constant theme for Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for example. The term “Conciliar Church” is indeed common amongst those who attend Masses “unapproved” by your supposed shepherds, although it is not only found there.
This phrase may mean different things to different people, but the basic meaning is this: there is some sort of distinction between the one, holy, catholic, apostolic and Roman Church, and the organisation headed by Francis.
Those of us who hold to this idea do indeed deny that the body headed by Francis and his recent predecessors is the true Church of Christ – at least taken as a whole, without significant qualifications.
Now, it does not seem likely that traditionalist opinions on this matter (especially those outside of the mainstream settings) are really the reason for Traditionis Custodes. This appears to be more of a convenient excuse for what would be happening sooner or later anyway.
But for our purposes here, it doesn’t matter. The open rejection by traditionalists of the “Conciliar Church” – however this term is understood – is one of the reasons stated in the document.
And in fact, the charge is true. You may not be “guilty” of it, but we are. It refers to us – those whom some insultingly call “radical traditionalists“.
And herein lies the cruelty of Traditionis Custodes and the immorality of those who defend it.
Collective Punishment
There are many “innocent” Catholics who are not engaged in these debates, and who are not interested at all in these issues. All you want is to be and worship as Catholics. They are like non-combatants or civilians during a war.
Traditionis Custodes is being openly presented, by its architects, as collective punishment of you, your children, and many other innocents, for our “crime.”
Even if we were to accept the idea that we are guilty of a crime (which we do not), let’s take a step back and consider the situation.
Every instinct of a normal, decent person, with any sense of individual responsibility, finds this kind of collective punishment of the innocent and the “guilty” to be abusive and abhorrent. Even the Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations and other treaties of international law prohibit collective punishment in war.3
It could be objected that collective punishment is legitimate, because of the examples of the many consequences of Original Sin, and the Church’s practice of putting whole areas under interdict.
However, this is to overlook some key distinctions.
Objections
Holy Scripture says that “[t]he son shall not bear the iniquity of the father” (Ezek. 18.20), but this must be understood correctly. St Thomas explains that a son is not punished for the sins of their father “unless he share in his guilt,” and that the guilt of original sin “is transmitted by the way of origin from father to son, even as actual sin is transmitted through being imitated.”4
Why is this so for the human race and Adam? St Thomas explains further:
“[A]ll men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they have one common nature, which they receive from their first parents; even as in civil matters, all who are members of one community are reputed as one body, and the whole community as one man. […] Accordingly the multitude of men born of Adam, are as so many members of one body.”5
St Thomas goes on to explain in details how this relationship affects the guilt of original sin, and those interested may find it below.6
The text above also explains why it is that a community – which is a “reputed as one body, and the whole community as one man” may be justly punished together with measures like an interdict (or economic sanctions, etc.) for crimes committed by the nation as a whole or by its leaders.
In brief, there can be no collective punishment without collective responsibility, which can be incurred by the head of a body, or by the members when their act (or number) is such as to constitute an act of the body as a whole.
This is quite different from the sort of reprisals to which international law was probably responding, and which we have in view here. In the absence of a proper conspiracy, “the people on my street” do not constitute a moral body, such that if one or two persons committed a crime, another person (or the whole street) would be liable for punishment.
We could also call to mind the various massacres of civilians committed by occupying powers as reprisals for resistance activity. Such acts of tyranny and violence may be used by God for our good, and we may well owe a debt of suffering for our own personal sins – but in themselves, they are unjust.
To return to our case, while “Latin Mass Catholics” are concrete enough to be discussed as a class, they are not a really a community or moral body in the sense to justify such collective punishment. They also have no moral head to incur guilt on their behalf. There are, therefore, no just grounds for punishing the various “non-combatants” at a diocesan Latin Mass on behalf of the alleged guilt of harder-line traditionalists.
Nor is it comparable to an interdict, which simply deprives the faithful of certain holy things: Traditionis Custodes is an open attempt to corral the faithful into the new religion of Vatican II.
It is all the more perverse when we realise that many of those who are the “cause” of this collective punishment do not even attend diocesan-approved Masses at all, and so remain untouched by the direct measures of the motu proprio.
But there seems to be no shortage of those who think that this kind of collective punishment is justifiable when it comes to suppressing the Roman liturgy – and such enablers can even be found among would-be “conservative” Catholics.
The enablers
These gaslighting apologists – by which we mean those who try to convince us that the problems since Vatican II are “all in our heads” – are enablers of this abusive collective punishment, or perhaps even genuine collaborators in it.
In other words, they think that collective punishment is justified in your case. They believe that you and your children should be blamed for our actions and positions, and that you should be deprived of our shared heritage because of us.
They openly claim that, if we traditionalists had “behaved ourselves”, then Francis would not need to collectively punish you, your family and your children with us.
They even have the audacity to associate themselves with traditionalists, as if they were somehow on our side, saying things like Mr Michael Lofton said a few months before Traditionis Custodes:
“We did it to ourselves. It’s because we’ve proved Pope Francis right, that’s what this boils down to. We had an opportunity to prove him wrong and we didn’t do it. We failed.
“I’m not saying that everybody failed here, obviously there are some people who promoted the Missal of ’62, who do not that this kind of public dissent against the hierarchy in the Church, right? I mean, look, there are some good people but unfortunately – and I do think it’s unfortunate – their voices are drowned out by a larger group that promotes the ’62 Missal that is very much opposed to the hierarchy and is explicit that they will absolutely disobey the hierarchy on matters touching on what Missal is going to be used, among other issues.
“So again, I know people don’t want to hear it, but if this document is true, we did it to ourselves. We have nothing [and] no-one else to blame except ourselves.”7
But what have the conclusions of some traditionalists to do with these “non-combatants”?
The “influencers” and enablers make this claim as if it was reasonable, rather than despicable.
So much for their moral credibility.
But we have too many important things to discuss in these articles to waste any further time on them. As Cardinal Newman said of Charles Kingsley in his Apologia pro vita sua:
“Now I am in a train of thought higher and more serene than any which slanders can disturb. Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into space. Your name shall occur again as little as I can help, in the course of these pages. I shall henceforth occupy myself not with you, but with your charges.”8
Stockholm Syndrome – divide and rule
Some may be tempted to believe the gaslighting, and side with your abusers, their enablers and their collaborators. You may be tempted to condemn us for “going too far”, and thus depriving you of your pearl of great price.
One of the many intentions of collective punishment is to “divide and rule”, and this is indeed one of the effects in this case. The measures justified by Traditionis Custodes will create divisions amongst your own congregations; between those who wish to obey the suppressions, and those who cannot.
It will create divisions amongst the “unapproved” groups, to whom many of you are already flocking. Many of you assume that the only difference between the “unapproved” groups and your former orders is one of canonical standing, rather than of doctrine. But as Archbishop Lefebvre said:
“The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II, and the more one analyzes their interpretation by the authorities of the Church, the more one realizes that what is at stake is not merely superficial errors, a few mistakes, ecumenism, religious liberty, collegiality, a certain Liberalism, but rather a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism.”9
This is rather more than a mere canonical difference. To that, we could add a whole host of other points around sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and so on.
And yet some of the more over-confident “refugees” are already lecturing others for their adherence to long-standing traditionalist principles! Refugees from Traditionis Custodes will certainly be welcome wherever they go, but they must go with their eyes wide open and with some basic social sense.
Indeed, it will also create division in these groups, if men ordained in the reformed rites begin administering the sacraments without being conditionally ordained. It doesn’t really matter who is right here, about the validity of Novus Ordo ordinations: the point is that this will cause crises of conscience for both priests and laity.
Most importantly for this article: the situation has the capacity to create more general divisions between us all.
But rather than aligning yourselves with your oppressors and abusers – and rather than resenting us – consider what sort of persons we are talking about here.
The reality and the challenge
We are talking about those taking away the Roman Rite from you and your children, because of our actions, words and conclusions.
The deed is truly monstrous, the explanation is monstrous, and those enforcing it are monsters, even if they think that they are in good faith.
So why would you side with such monsters, why would you believe their claimed motives? Should you not, in fact, side with us more closely than ever before?
Our answer to that might surprise you. It is this: No, you shouldn’t side with us – not if we are wrong, and if we are rejecting the Church.
But are we wrong? Is it actually the Church that we are rejecting?
That will be the subject of future parts of this open letter, in which we will consider other difficult truths expressed in the context of Traditionis Custodes.
In the meantime, I’d like to invite you to think carefully about the situation, and, as a young Mr Frederick Faber said soon after his conversion, “act as a man would act who cares for nothing else but his soul.”10
Do not be browbeaten by the purveyors of weaponised orthodoxy, weaponised spirituality or weaponised humility. Consider the various players on the stage, and consider their own, openly-stated motives.
And finally, consider the following questions:
Are you trying to live the liturgical, devotional and spiritual life of a Catholic, against the will of your supposed shepherds or superiors?
Are you trying to hold the Catholic faith in a church which wants to teach you something different?
Are you trying to find pious explanations to defend an anti-Catholic church?
Are you trying to be Catholics in a church which doesn’t want you to be Catholic – and in fact, doesn’t want you at all?
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Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics
Part I – Collective Punishment
Part II – “An ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”
Part III – The Judgment of Solomon
Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops on the occasion of the publication of Summorum Pontificum, 2007. Available at https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi.html
Francis, Letter to the Bishops accompanying Traditionis Custodes, 2021. Available at https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2021/documents/20210716-lettera-vescovi-liturgia.html
ICRC, Customary IHL Database, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule103, accessed 5 Aug 2022
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II Q. 81.1. Second and Revised Edition, 1920, Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province.
Ibid.
St Thomas continues:
“Now the action of one member of the body, of the hand for instance, is voluntary not by the will of that hand, but by the will of the soul, the first mover of the members. Wherefore a murder which the hand commits would not be imputed as a sin to the hand, considered by itself as apart from the body, but is imputed to it as something belonging to man and moved by man’s first moving principle.
“In this way, then, the disorder which is in this man born of Adam, is voluntary, not by his will, but by the will of his first parent, who, by the movement of generation, moves all who originate from him, even as the soul’s will moves all the members to their actions.
“Hence the sin which is thus transmitted by the first parent to his descendants is called ‘original,’ just as the sin which flows from the soul into the bodily members is called ‘actual.’ And just as the actual sin that is committed by a member of the body, is not the sin of that member, except inasmuch as that member is a part of the man, for which reason it is called a ‘human sin’; so original sin is not the sin of this person, except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from his first parent, for which reason it is called the “sin of nature,” according to Ephesians 2:3: ‘We . . . were by nature children of wrath.'” (Ibid.)
The whole of Q81 is worth reading for this issue and contains many other useful points.
St Alphonsus explains further both a) the common-sense way in which descendants can be said to suffer the consequences of the forefathers’ deeds, and b) the special case of Adam being the “Head” of the human race.
“[W]ith regard to the punishment of origianl sin, God justly chastises the children of Adam by depriving them of the advantages of original justice, as a king in punishment of. the inflidelity of a vassal, justly deprives him and his progeny of the possessions and honours which had been bestowed on him.
“With regard to the guilt, that we are said to have sinned in Adam inasmuch as Adam contained in his fecundity the entire human race, and inasmuch as the choice of his will implied the happy or unhappy state of human nature: and therefore, by committing sin he caused his entire species to be born with the stain and with the deordination by his sin.
“Thus the personal stain of Adam contaminated his nature, but in us the stain of nature produces personal contamination.”
St Alphonsus Liguori, An Exposition and Defence of All the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, pp 57-8. Trans. by “A Catholic Clergyman”. James Duffy, Dublin, 1846.
Regarding this latter point, it is also interesting to see St Thomas discussing why it is that original sin is transmitted to us from Adam, but not his other sins nor the sins of our more recent ancestors (providing, as mentioned, that we do not share also the guilt of these sins) in A.2 of the same question already mentioned (available here).
Michael Lofton, ‘New Latin Mass Suppression Document?’ on Reason and Theology, 21 January 2021. 12 min. 37.
John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, (and for UK readers) Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, London, 1913, p 83.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ‘Two years after the consecrations’, Interview given 6 September 1990. Available online.
Frederick William Faber, Grounds for Remaining in The Anglican Communion, James Toovey, London, 1846, p 4.