I don’t care what your opinion is of Traditionis Custodes, or how faithful and holy you have deemed yourself to be, it is indirect blasphemy to treat any Pope with malice, hatred, contempt and ridicule. The Pope is the Vicar of Christ. If the leader of a nation abuses the ambassador from another nation, it is an act of war; it is an indirect insult against the leader that the ambassador represents. The hatred that has poured out of a certain subculture in the Church over the last 8 years, and most recently due to the decision of Jesus Christ, through the Pope, to issue restrictions on the TLM, is inexcusable. You can disagree with non-infallible teachings/decisions of the Pope. But the extreme contempt directed at the Vicar of Christ is an insult to Christ himself. It is literally a type of blasphemy.
And when you stand before God at the particular judgment, He will not care who was right about TC and the TLM. Being right (and when you disagree with the Pope, the odds of you being right are slim) is no excuse for acting with hatred, malice, contempt and ridicule. These things are not of the Spirit of God.
Recently, I saw an article about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a Catholic website. That intrinsically evil act of mass murder against two cities was compared to the document Traditionis Custodes from Pope Francis. Why? because the Pope is restricting the TLM and might at some point take it away entirely (though I doubt that will be the result). Comparing restrictions on the TLM to mass murder by nuclear bombs shows the idolatry that some Catholics have developed for the Traditional Latin Mass. It has become their Pachamama. Can you idolize something holy and sacred, like the TLM? Yes.
{1:11} For it has been indicated to me, about you, my brothers, by those who are with Chloes, that there are contentions among you.
{1:12} Now I say this because each of you is saying: “Certainly, I am of Paul;” “But I am of Apollo;” “Truly, I am of Cephas;” as well as: “I am of Christ.”
{1:13} Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
What should be done with the Pachamama? they threw it into the Tiber, because they thought it was an idol. Well, the TLM has become an idol for many Catholics, so the Pope is taking it away from them, rightly so. What you idolize, the Church has the right and duty to deprive you of. Comparing the decision of the Roman Pontiff on the sacred liturgy (choosing the novus ordo over the TLM) to mass murder is blasphemous. The Church is indefectible (Mt 16:18) by our Lord’s own words. And the Pope has the charism of never failing faith. So he cannot possibly have erred so gravely that his decision should be compared to the mass murder of two cities’ populations by nuclear bomb.
I want to have some sympathy for those who prefer the TLM. It is sacred and holy; the problem is not with the Mass. The problem is people who have decided that they are above the Popes and Councils, to judge, correct, and condemn whatever they like. They have absolutely no obedience to the Church, no faith in the Church’s teachings or decisions, and no love for the Pope and the body of Bishops. They are idolaters and blasphemers. So they deserve to have what is holy taken away from them.
{7:6} Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not cast your pearls before swine, lest perhaps they may trample them under their feet, and then, turning, they may tear you apart.
I was reading a Canadian blog that says to TLM supporters, “ Now you know what it is like being a Jew in Germany in 1938. Now you know what it is like being an African in North America or hunted by dogs or being lynched….. The Nazis and the KKK killed the body. Bergoglio wants to kill your soul.”
Hyperbole…hysteria…complete self-absorption. The fruits of idolatry?
Idolatry, indirect blasphemy, pride, schism, heresy. We are living in the time of a major heresy and schism.
I would add that besides idolatry and blasphemy, those papal accusers, papal slanderers, rash judges, are committing sacrilege. It is a grave sin.
“Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.” (CCC # 2120).
David did not even dared to touch Saul, his persecutor, for Saul was anointed by God.
A good and holy thing such as the bronze serpent which was ordered to be built by God Himself and served to save the lives of many Israelites, had to be years later destroyed because it became an idol.
[2 Kings 18]
{18:3} And he [Hezekiah] DID WHAT WAS GOOD before the Lord, in accord with all that his father David had done.
{18:4} He destroyed the high places, and he crushed the statues, and he cut down the sacred groves. And he broke apart the bronze serpent, which Moses had made. For even until that time, the sons of Israel were burning incense to it. And he called its name Nehushtan.
Who gave us the TLM ? – God through His Church. Now we want to kidnap it? or make it an idol?
Now God through His Church wants to restrict the TLM. Good. Let’s be like Job
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Just as it pleased the Lord, so has it been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
{1:22} In all this, Job did not sin by his lips, nor did he speak any foolish thing against God.
The Lord tested Abraham with his son Isaac, he passed vey well. Now some are failing miserably because the Lord through His Church is restricting the TLM.
I think perhaps God has willed these restrictions, temporarily, to test traditionalists to see if they will be obedient to him or not. It seems that some will leave the Church rather than give up the exterior elements of liturgical form. This is so much like the Pharisees, caring more about the widening of their phylacteries than love and mercy.
Notice that Pope Francis seemed most concerned about dangers to unity, rejection of the Council, and similar problems. It is not an attack on the TLM, but a correction of some who adhere to that form, corrected for errors beyond liturgy.
I have another example of the contempt in which some of the TLM supporters hold the Pope. I will stop pointing out these disloyalties, honest, but I want to mention one more. There is a British blogger, who no doubt considers himself a devout Catholic, who for the past few years has never referred to the Pope by name, not even as ‘Bergoglio’ as Archbishop Vigano does, but as ‘the Evil Clown’. I once mildly rebuked him, but he did not post my comment and has doubled down on the use of that epithet. Just yesterday, he came up with a new one: ‘Adolfrancis’, and refers to the ‘Adolfrancis Holocaust of the Mass of the Ages’. He has launched a campaign to get fellow Catholics to stop donating ‘even one penny’ to the Church, and he is actively wishing for Pope Francis to die soon.
The identification of some of these outraged bloggers of themselves with real victims of persecution, who lost their lives in appalling circumstances, is beyond comprehension. Perhaps this is a byproduct of comfortable, middle-class lives, lockdown fatigue, and a complete lack of understanding of why our Church is different from the eternally splintering Protestant ones. We can only pray for these angry and embittered souls.
The Pachamama incident was hilarious. I would have thrown it in the Tiber as well. Why you do not consider it an idol? Isn’t it the equivalent of placing a statue of Isis or Venus in a catholic church?
The faithful must trust the Roman Pontiff, who has the charism of never failing faith. This subculture which has developed, in which every conservative judges the Pope harshly, because he is seen as a liberal political opponent, is gravely harmful. We should not judge every element of doctrine and discipline in the Church, and live by our own understanding. That is not faith.
You can read various orthodox explanations of the Pachamama symbol, but it is far better to trust the Church based on faith.