The End ... Again?

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

Dear Readers,

It is with disappointment that I must announce to you another (and likely indefinite given our two recent failures at restarting this blog) hiatus announcement. We started the blog as a joint venture back in the summer of 2005. However, readers will have no doubt noticed that over that time the majority of posts have been written by myself. While I've enjoyed working with Mr. Trandem immensly, I do not have the ability to write as frequently as I have been and the "pipeline" of posts is once again dry. Therefore, we are suspending operations of Traditio in Radice at least for the summer.

My blogmate homes that we can restart in the fall, but I must confess that I personally have doubts given the history of this blog. I do not want to continue to frustrate our readers by restarting yet again only to shut down (yet again) six months down the road as has been our pattern.

All is not lost however. Nick Trandem will still be contributing to the Contrarians' Review and you can view his new posts there.

For myself, I shall now be working with Mr. Mark Amesse over at Durendal: http://rencesvals.blogspot.com/ - so if you enjoy my particular brand of curmudgeonly counterrevolution, please visit there where I shall continue to post on many of the topics favoured here in the past.

May God bless you all and thank for reading.

Posted on the XXth Anniversary of Operation Survival, a.D. MMVIII

The Crisis is Not Over IV

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words" and no more so than in catalogueing the disastrous crisis that has ravaged the Catholic Church for close to fifty years now. Therefore, in this installment of my series "the Crisis is not Over", I wish to compare one element of the crisis as it manifested itself in 1988 to today. I do this especially for the benefit of those who feel that things have changed substantially for the good in the last twenty years and that therefore the S.S.P.X is no longer justified in its position.

Here is an example of a Church in Winnipeg that was planned and designed in 1988 around the time of the S.S.P.X Episcopal Consecrations constructed between 1989 and 1990 (formally blessed by the archbishop on April 29, 1990).[1] It is Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church:

As you can see, it actually looks like a church. It even looks like reminiscient of a Catholic church inside with a crucifix and stained-glass window in the sanctuary and a linear arrangement with the sanctuary at one end (i.e. not circular). Of course, the crisis is evident from the communion table, the felt banners, and the tabernacle off to the side.

So this was the crisis manifested in architecture at the time of Archbishop Lefebvre's consecration of four bishops, at least in the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Fast-forward to the present, twenty years after "Operation Survival". Here is a new parish church, St. Gianna's, being constructed in the same archdiocese with the ground to be broken either this year or next. I note that both O.L.P.H. and St. Gianna's are in the same general part of town and would have as their parishioners people of similar demographics.

For the full 3D tour of the facility, go here: http://stgianna.ca/images/stories/videos/new_building.flv

This looks like a star port or alien embassy from a science fiction movie, not a church. The interior is massive and impressive, but has nothing to do with the worship of God. With its "in the round" layout, trees, and chairs, it would make a very nice convention centre. But a house of God? At least in the 1980s there was some sensus Catholicus left in people and a new church was commissioned to still look somewhat like a church. That they are builing things like the above is yet more evidence that the crisis is far from over.

In perusing the bulletins for St. Gianna's, one finds more evidence of the crisis in something that has effected every [Novus Ordo] parish in Winnipeg: Archbishop Weisgerber's new liturgical directives (which have been introduced in stages starting in September 2006)[2] that include:

1) Parishioners are asked to attend a 10 minute "Gathering Rite" before every Mass wherein "the assembly is greeted in a spirit of hospitality, introduced to the ritual music for the day’s liturgy, made aware of any current events in the parish and finally given an opportunity to acknowledge fellow worshippers."

2) Everyone must adopt the "orans posture" during the Our Father.

3) Everyone must remain standing after recieving the Eucharist in order to "break through the temptation to remain individual" by kneeling for their thanksgiving. Apparently "communal hospitality" is more important in today's Church than honouring God.

4) People are asked to bow while the person ahead of them is recieving the Eucharist as an act of "personal reverence and readiness".[3]

If the situation has changed in the last twenty years, it has changed for the worst, and the false "spirit of the Council" has become deeply entrenched in the minds and sensibilities of Catholics.

Posted on the Feast of The Nativity of St. John the Baptist, a.D. MMVIII

[1] “The History of Our Parish”. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church. <http://www.olphwinnipeg.ca/page7.php>
[2] “Liturgical Renewal”. The Archdiocese of Winnipeg. <http://www.archwinnipeg.ca/liturgical_renewal.php>
[3] 11 May 2008 Parish Bulletin. St. Gianna Roman Catholic Parish. <http://stgianna.ca/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,72>

A Counterrevolutionary's Response to a Gentleman's Response

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

I've been having an polite disagreement with an old acquantance, Mr. J.D. Carriere, over at his blog. I feel the matter is important, but it is also a good example of the difference between a conservative (Mr. Carriere) and a counterrevolutionary (myself).

The matter started with a post entitled, A Gentleman's Response, wherein Mr. Carriere states that:

The etiquette books of yesteryear, but for whimsy and interest, are of scarce use to the gentleman of today ... He has little use for a dinner suit, will never tie a bow tie, and if he rises when a lady does, she is likely to misunderstand and may try to race him to the toilet.

I then asked Mr. Carriere in his comments box why should we abandon such dress and decorum simply because the those around his have? His response was long-ish so I'll only reproduce it in part:

But some standards derive from truths, ... These are timeless and to be maintained ... Others ... are of no purpose now that they have fallen from usage.
... the only remaining uses for these conventions that I can think of is to make oneself feel big or to make others feel small.

This attacks the heart of etiquette which has as it's primary purpose the comfort of all parties in any situation.

Thus, should you find yourself at some event where the other guests are burping and farting loudly, with gusto and abandon, you do better to join in than to sit there aloof and disproving.

It is not good etiquette but rather quite rude to stick to standards with no practical accomplishment but to make others uncomfortable or confused.

Now, while agreeing with some of his premises (i.e. that we should endeavour to make those around us comfortable), I respectfully disagree with his conclusion. I do not accept the conservative position that we can only conserve that which the Revolutionaries have left us as of a few years ago. It is a position where there are no absolutes and the etiquette required of a gentleman is, therefore, a constantly moving target. If things like dinner suits and rising for a lady (or clergy) are "obsolete", it is because we continuously retreat. If we refuse to retreat, customs can be retained or revived. This refusal to retreat is the essence of counterrevolution. The practice advocated by Mr. Carriere, while laudable, is ultimately is to make constant retreats (in the name not to make anyone around us uncomfortable, which is also good but not the ultimate good). If we follow Mr. Carriere's course, twenty years from now we shall be as uncultured as the worst slob of today and will only feel that we are respecting others because we haven't yet dropped as low as our contemporaries.

But moreover, it is possible to dress and behave like a civilized human being without making others feel uncomfortable. Refraining from partaking in crass practices need not be done in an "aloof and disapproving way". It takes work, but I think we can hold ourselves to high standards and make those around us feel comfortable at the same time.

The British royals, for all that they may be accused of, are very good at this. I had the opportunity to meet Prince Charles once and spoke with him for about a minute. He definitely had a way about him to make everyone feel at ease yet he also displayed excellent decorum. Recent newspaper reports say the same about Prince Edward who recently visited Canada while unfashionably dressed in a suit when meeting Canadians.

On the other hand, if people feel uncomfortable or confused because another person is dressed nicely or behaving like a civilized human being rather than an animal, it's because they know at some level that they are underdressed (or in many cases today, especially in warm weather, mostly undressed) or behaving shamefully -- i.e. their conscience is being pricked. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I do not agree with Mr. Carriere that it is necessary to affirm the modern man in his vices in order to be a gentleman. In other words, we should make him feel at ease by our friendly demeanour rather than by abandoning worthy etiquette from bygone days.

Finally, all etiquette has a practical purpose, but is not always as obvious as opening doors for ladies. All of it helps a man train himself to self-discipline. Training in self-discipline helps one to combat sin in the spiritual life. Older forms of etiquette certainly help to combat sloth whereas modern norms (when there are any) promote it. Furthermore, modern customs are directed towards false principles such as egalitariansim. Fighting against such things is worthy. The Revolution did not happen over night and I would suggest that the attack on etiquette came before the more ostentatious attacks. Anything, I submit, at odds with the Revolution is, in and of itself, a good thing.

Posted on the Feast of St. Silverius, Pope and Martyr, a.D. MMVIII

Tradition on the March XIII

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

We're not generally a news blog, but I don't think anyone in the traditionalist Catholic "blogosphere" can let this week's news pass without some commentary. This week, Tradition really was "on the march" and in a big way. I don't think anything this drastic has happened since the Novus Ordo was imposed on the Church:

Latin Mass to return to England and Wales and apparently the Traditional Mass for 'all the parishes', no less.

This news is nothing less than astounding to me and makes that faint spark of hope that we saw when Pope Benedict XVI was elected and then when Summorum Pontificum was issued, grow. The prospect of a Traditional Latin Mass just down the street from me rather than across the city (assuming this might spread to other countries after England and Wales) fills me with excitement.

However, when I sit back and reflect soberly on this turn of events, I am forced to say that as shocking and good as this announcement is, I don't think we can take it as an unmixed blessing. As long as heresy and/or meaningless saccarine-sweet mush is being preached from the pulpit, the crisis in the Church will endure. We need not just the Mass but an overhaul of the seminaries and the extirpation of all the [material] heretics from the episcopate.

There have been no moves to work on the Doctrinal aspect because, frankly, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is doctrinally liberal even if he likes the smells and bells of the Tridentine Mass. This move almost seems calculated to draw attention away from doctrinal issues and placate the traditionalists by giving them the Mass. Perhaps I am just a bitter and cynical traditionalist. But remember, they had the Mass in the 1950s yet the 1950s gave us Vatican II and the ensuing crisis.

Posted on the Feast of St. Antidius, Bishop and Martyr, a.D. MMVIII

RadTrad Parenting II: Time

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

Take time with children. Love – when it comes to loving children, love is spelt T-I-M-E and this stuff about “quality time” are typical modern weasel words. Children couldn’t care less about “quality time” – they will judge how much they are cared for by how much time is spent on them.

Sermon given by His Lordship Bishop Richard Williamson at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary on 10 March, 2002

Many children today suffer from a sort of benign neglect from their parents. In today’s economy, often both parents are out of the home working long hours. Even in the traditionalist family, women are sometimes forced to work outside the home or the men must work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Yet children need as much contact with their parents as possible, I contend, in order to learn, in order to know that they are loved, and therefore to better understand and accept that which they are taught. I think that this is something fairly self-evident, so rather than arguing why we should spend more time with our children, I’m going to offer some of my ideas on how to make that time:

Plan Ahead

Thinking ahead, and planning from a young age (high school at the latest) is of capital importance, and in my view such long-term thinking is not promoted enough. Young men should not be spending their school years just marking time and “enjoying” childhood, they should be preparing for life. One aspect of this is discerning their vocation and then taking necessary the steps to fulfil their duties in that vocation.

For the young man who’s discerned that he will be a family man, this includes not only working towards a job that pays well enough to support a family without the wife having to work, and holding off courting until he’s attained same – it means working towards a job that will allow him to spend time with his family and fulfil his religious duties. Too many men do not think about such things and find themselves wage slaves to jobs with bad hours (incl. shift work, lots of travel, working on Sundays) and unable to get out of the situation because they have mouths to feed.

It’s important to note that a man must plan for a career that will facilitate his duties as husband as father – not simply something he “enjoys” or finds “fulfilling”. Of course, planning will not guarantee a career that gives the necessarily flexibility and income. But it will certainly help. Lack of planning and foresight will almost certainly be detrimental.

For many of us, it’s too late to employ this principle, but there are others.

Start Early, Leave Early, Don’t Take Breaks

Many jobs today allow for an earlier start time and then and then an earlier end time. I like to get to work around 8:00 so that I can leave around 4. I’m trying to work my way back to a 7:30 start time to so I can leave around 3:30 and beat rush hour both ways saving even more time. The earlier you can get off work, the more time you’ll spend with your children especially once they’re in school as its unlikely they’ll have time before school for you to spend time with them.

Related to the above, most workplaces today also allow you to take your breaks at the end of the day. I always eat my lunch at my desk and take no coffee breaks. Notionally this means I could leave even earlier, around 2:30 pm, but the nature of my work requires that I spend the time saved at my desk so I don’t have to come in on the weekend.

Change Jobs

If your current occupation does not allow for the flexibility to do either of the two above-noted suggestions, start looking for other work. It may take many months or years, but if you aren’t even looking, a new and better job will not fall into your lap.

Toss out the T.V.

Television is the #1 time-waster I’ve encountered. I’ve yet to find a situation where a person’s time was better spent planted in front of the television rather than doing something else. Get rid of it or at least disconnect it from the outside world. I guarantee your children will appreciate you talking with them, reading to them, or playing with them to watching television “with” them. Bishop Williamson said, in the same sermon I quoted above, that “when [children] see dad spending so much time watching miserable sport on that miserable machine, and so little time with them, what do you think they conclude? ‘I’m unimportant. Sport is important and I’m unimportant – to my father’.”

Posted on the Feast of St. Basil the Great, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor, a.D. MMVIII

The Crisis is Not Over III

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

In a 9 June 2008 interview with "Terrasanta.net"[1], Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, discussed new guidelines on interreligious dialogue that were discussed during his council's plenary meeting last week.

Yes, the people are obsessed by Islam. For example I'm going to India next month and I want to give this message that all religions are equal. Sometimes there are priorities because of particular situations, but we mustn't get the impression there are first class religions and second class religions.

Now, it seems that what he means is that all religions are equal in that they deserve the equal attention of his commission. It's still a far from edifying statement even so. He then goes on to sum up what the Vatican’s current understanding of “interreligious dialogue” is; a definition that I note is much different than what “conservative” apologists who claim nothing has changed since Pope Pius XII’s time would have us believe:

The purpose of interreligious dialogue is to know the other better in order to understand the content of his faith, and of course the Holy Father is insisting on freedom of religion, freedom to have a religion and not to have one, and the freedom to change religion. This is something also stated in international law, and of course for the Muslims, it's not the same.

He does not say that the purpose of this dialogue is to bring anyone to Christ. Just to understand one another. He also reiterates Pope Benedict's adherence to a proposition condemned by Bl. Pope Pius IX.[2] Readers should note well that Cardinal Tauran is not some hold-over from the Pope John Paul II era that Pope Benedict has been desirous but unable to remove. Pope Benedict VXI appointed Cardinal Tauran to his current position on June 25, 2007. Previously he had been Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church.[3]

It’s time to stop making excuses (i.e. “what His Eminence REALLY meant was …”). This is blatant heresy that is being spoken here by Cardinal Tauran, a man hand-picked by Pope Benedict XVI. How can anyone claim that the crisis is not over, or that things have significantly improved since 1988? The Crisis is, if anything, advancing, and this is yet more proof.

And a highly ironic quote at the end of the interview:

… formation is important because you cannot dialogue with another religion on the basis of ambiguity. If you don't have a clear idea of what and who you believe in and how to orientate your life according to your belief, it doesn't work.

Posted on the Feast of St. John of San Facundo, Confessor, a.D. MMVIII

[1] Pentin, Edward. “Cardinal Tauran: Islam Mustn't Demand All Our Attention”. Terrasanta.net. 10 June 2008. <http://www.theholylandreview.net/holyland/att_det.jsp?wi_number=950&wi_codseq=>
[2]Condemned Proposition #15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. -- Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862; Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851
[3] Palmo, Rocco. “Tauran Around the City”. Whispers in the Loggia. 25 June 2007. <http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html>

Canary in a Coal Mine?

By Nicholas Wansbutter, Esq.

At the outset of this post, I'd like to state for the record that I am against taking kids from their parents because their parents are teaching them something outside the mainstream liberalism -- even when that "something" is as equally antagonistic to the Catholic Faith as liberalism (be they Mormons, Nazis, or Mohammedans).

Apparently this weekend, Child and Family Services agents seized two young children from a home in the city I live. Their justification was that the parents were "filling their heads ... with messages of hate". In documents filed with the Court, they stated that "The children may be at risk due to the parents' behaviour and associates. The parents might endanger the emotional well-being of the children,". Here is the link to the story: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/story/4184003p-4773955c.html

I noticed this story on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press as I was walking to work today. I of course do not support Nazism in any way, but the implications of this case could be of potential interest to traditionalist Catholics (in Canada, at least). Today they are seizing the children of neo-Nazis for "polluting children's minds" ... it seems to me that if they are successful with this it may help pave the way for future seizures of children who are being taught things contrary to "maintream" beliefs regarding certain sins that cry to heaven for vengeance (i.e. children of traditionalist Catholic families) under the auspices that this will "harm" the childrens' "emotional well-being".

I find it interesting to note in the article that is there is nothing that the police could find that could result in criminal charges. Keep in mind that Canada does have "hate crime laws". Yet the police had no evidence with which to charge these parents under said provisions. So they called in C.F.S. who has (in my view) an inordinate amount of power and no right to a fair hearing. They deal out their punishment (seizing your children with long-term damage to them) and later you get your "day in court". Of course, if we use a little more prudence than the Neo Nazi parents and don't send our children into public schools with "Vive Christus Rex" written on them, we may have better luck at staying "under the radar". I don't want to give too much significance to this event, but I shall try to follow the progress of this case -- the Judge's reasons for going one way or another could be significant.

Again, I do not support Nazism at all. I recognize it as an evil thing and I do not condone the parents' actions of indoctrinating their children with such ideology nor drawing swastikas on them in pen. That said, I find this new ground for seizing children (on top of seizure because of "abuse", i.e. corporal discpline) troubling. It is concerning to me that the government can start taking chilren because what their parents teach does not perfectly mesh with the prevailing "wisdom".

And I don't think this is a purely Canadian issue. Witness the experience of the Mormons down in Texas (cf. http://therule.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/400-children-taken-from-homes/; http://therule.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/sad-for-what-we-have-done/; and http://therule.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/flds-sarah-a-hoax/). I see the two situations as analogous.

Posted on the Feast of Sts. Primus & Felician, Martyrs, MMVIII