   The Way Back to the Mainstream
They say all roads lead to Rome, but the only sure road is the Traditional Interstate which is the main and only artery between what Christ established and today's confused and deceived elect. Modernist "Rome" has put in many detours and off-ramps to deter Catholics from realizing the only way to be true to Eternal Rome is to stay on the main thoroughfare. The signs are all there to guide all Catholics. They just have to open their eyes and decipher the true signs from all the Vatican II graffiti.
"So, where can we start? How many times have we said at some time or another, regarding some new abomination taking place in the modernist Vatican organization, 'Oh, look what the Church is doing now!' But that's not the Church doing those things; the Church, being the Mystical Body of Christ, the one Perfect Society, can and could never do any such thing. Are we doing that? No. Ergo, the Church continues to live up to its standards as it always must. It's just those 'other guys' who are not the Church and who are doing whatever abomination is being spoken of. What they do matters no more than what goes on in any of the multitudinous other various sects and schisms and cults that exist out there. It's bad of course, but no more worthy of our response or comment than any of the similar bad things going on or being taught in the local Protestant or other 'church.'"
By all rights, we traditional Catholics are the Mainstream. Obviously we are now living far below our rights. But maybe not quite so far as we think. Indeed, it could be our own thinking processes and habits that do the most damage in holding us back. In the first installment of my
"What is Your Picture" series and combined series Down the Yellow Brick Road to Apostasy: The Lumen Gentium Syndrome, I mentioned the need for all of us to experience what I there and then called a "paradigm shift" in our understanding of the present situation regarding the Church. I then went on to discuss the logical, doctrinal, ontological, and historic reasons for why such a paradigm shift is needed. What I did not discuss is how we can and must renew our minds in Christ so as to reflect this knowledge, to live it in practice, so to speak.
What I have proved in that series, and also in my series on Grace, is that we traditional Catholics, taken together corporately and collectively, do ourselves comprise and constitute THE One Holy Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. We, and no one else. In particular, modernist Vatican, having cut itself off from its former Catholic past and also from the Catholic present, both by rejection of Catholic teachings and even outright apostasy, as well as a formal schismatical separation from we traditional Catholics, has no right to the title of Catholic, nor Roman, nor any of the other names of the Church. As I demonstrate in my book, The Resurrection of the Roman Catholic Church, we traditional Catholics possess all of those characteristics and the new 1964-created Conciliar "church" possesses none of them.
Let us review some of the manifestations of an incorrect mindset as I listed at that point, and the correct responses and manner of our belief and practice for each. Knowing the truth, no longer can we:
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Look to them as being essential to the future of the Church, to the point that the Church cannot truly continue until they repent. Since we are the Church, we shall continue, either with or without them (their choice). While we certainly hope and pray that they will return to us from whom they have separated themselves, and many of us eagerly work towards making that happen, we know that if they do not repent of their heresies and errors and return to us we shall continue well enough without them, indefinitely, if necessary.
- Wonder why they have been permitted to deviate so far from the Faith and for so long, and with no end of the nonsense in sight. Well, now we know why, namely because they have schismatically separated themselves from us and thus cut themselves off from the Catholic Unity which we traditional Catholics represent, and as such have entered the same exact status as every other sect which has done the same.
- Scramble for what slender slice of Grace they might on rare occasions throw our way. There is no need to do this, apart from that evangelical goal we have of encouraging their repentance and return by every means at our disposal. Within the Indult there are both those of that sect who use it to try to draw souls out of the Church and into their heresies, but there are also those us use the same to rescue souls from the fire and pull them back into our Church which is Christ's. There is therefore within it a "tug-of-war" and it is we traditional Catholics, standing upon the unmovable Rock of Peter, who provide that solid ground to stand on for those who work in the Indult to pull souls into the Church while those others in the Indult who merely use it to try to pull souls into the Novus Ordo have only slippery slopes and sand to stand on.
- Count on some "cardinal" of theirs to repent and begin reorganizing the true Church around himself and what few might be persuaded to join him, or else some successor of John Paul II to turn out to be (or repent into being) a real Catholic who will put things right. Though we seek their repentance, we need not wait for it in order to continue the Church's responsibilities.
- See them and their organization as "the Church," no matter how blatantly heretical and schismatic they become. In particular, it is this we ourselves also need to stop doing.
It is doing that last which I wish to write about here in more detail.
So, where can we start? How many times have we said at some time or another, regarding some new abomination taking place in the modernist Vatican organization, "Oh, look what the Church is doing now!" But that's not the Church doing those things; the Church, being the Mystical Body of Christ, the one Perfect Society, can and could never do any such thing. Are we doing that? No. Ergo, the Church continues to live up to its standards as it always must. It's just those "other guys" who are not the Church and who are doing whatever abomination is being spoken of. What they do matters no more than what goes on in any of the multitudinous other various sects and schisms and cults that exist out there. It's bad of course, but no more worthy of our response or comment than any of the similar bad things going on or being taught in the local Protestant or other "church."
So, we need to "catch" ourselves whenever we make this mistake, and correct ourselves, wherever possible, within the hearing of whoever heard us so misspeak. Bad mental habits can sometimes die hard, but they are bad mental habits and the sooner we root them out of our being the better off we will be. That also goes for catching each other in this common and easy mistake. Whenever someone else in our hearing says "Oh, the Catholic Church is going to Hell in a handbasket" again we must pipe up and point out that "on the contrary, our Church is doing just fine; it's just that other group who have separated themselves from us and who on account of that are indeed going to Hell in a handbasket."
Again, there are also subtler forms of the same mistake. How many times have we called them "the institutional church?" Once again, that is wrong. We traditional Catholics are the only institutional Church there is. Our traditional Catholic bishops are all legitimate and valid successors of the Apostles, and they exercise lawful authority over our traditional Catholic priests, who in turn exercise lawful authority over their traditional Catholic parishes and parishioners, i. e. us lay Catholics. That is the form that the legitimate and visible institutional Church has taken during this difficult time. That the modernist squatters at the Vatican may also continue to possess some vestigal aspects of an "institution" is as irrelevent and immaterial as the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention has accomplished the same.
So, what do we call them? Call them the Novus Ordo, or the Novus Ordo "church" of the People of God, or the People's Republic of Pseudo-Christianity, or the Conciliar "church" or today's modernist Vatican institution or apparatus. Though they squat in Rome do not call them Roman, for they do not think like Romans, either pagan or Catholic. Do not call them One for they approve all "faiths" in their pantheon. Do not call them Catholic for in every land they "inculturate" themselves into a morass of localized differing religions bearing extremely little resemblance to one another. Nor do they hold to all that God teaches, nor oblige all (or even anyone) to any of it. Do not call them Holy for their founders are the atheistic "fathers" from the Rhine countries and holiness is something they know nothing of as they formally and publicly approve the molesting of children. Do not call them Apostolic for the teachings of the Apostles of old mean precisely nothing to them, and the Apostolic succession is being killed off within their ranks (even as it was within the Anglican church for precisely the same reasons, as pointed out in an infallible decree of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII).
Some have wondered what we real or authentic or traditional Catholics should call ourselves. When asked our religion, some of us feel tempted to launch into some whole long disquisition about the difference between us and the Novus Ordo. We should resist that temptation. The answer is simply that we are Catholic, or "Roman Catholic," should the response be offered in a multiple choice format. If asked why we are not seen at some Novus Ordo "St. Miscellaneous's," our response is simply that we are Catholics and only attend Catholic churches and we then name the real Catholic parish we attend.
This claim we can and do and must make will stand, not only in our own private lives and among our associates, but also in the formal and public and even legal arenas. I have come across the regretable news that some authentic traditional Catholic chapels in England have actually refrained from using the phrase "Roman Catholic" on their placard or in their parish names. The phrase "Roman Catholic" was actually coined in England as a way to distinguish the real Catholic Catholics from the new counterfeit English "catholics," and has been so used by the real Church in England from those times onward to refer to the real Catholic Church even though technically, and in a strict manner of speaking, that is not its name.
By virtue of that well-known and publicly accepted definition (in England, and a few other places), it is we who rightly use the phrase "Roman Catholic" to designate ourselves. So why do many of the real Catholics in England not identify themselves properly? They fear litigation with the Novus Ordo. That is untenable. They should instead seek and desire that litigation. For in the British courts (or indeed any fair and honest court or forum) it would be trivial duck soup to demonstrate that the SSPX and "independent" and sedevacantist priests and bishops rightfully possess that title and may in all rightful justice use it in their names and placards. If they get themselves good barristers (lawyers) they might even be able to deprive the Vatican modernists of legal permission to use the title "Roman Catholic" in any of their local franchises.
Finally, it is good to take stock of the fact that we have already begun to make the necessary inroads. Even right now, were one to take a survey as to whether a person regards Mel Gibson as a Catholic, yes or no, I wager that better than 80% of the general population at large, that is to say, the general run of society, i. e. the Mainstream, would answer that question in the affirmative, even knowing that the chapel he and his family attends is "not affiliated with the Los Angeles Archdiocese."
St. Augustine once wrote "Although all heretics would fain call themselves Catholics, yet to the inquiry of any stranger, 'Where is the assembly of the Catholic Church held?' no heretic would dare point out his own basilica or house." How noble of the ancient heretics. Let us work to get the modern heretics to act the same and stop confusing everybody. Again I wager that were one to inquire within the neighborhood of any traditional Catholic chapel "where is the nearest Catholic church?" better than one in three (more like at least two in three) will point one to the traditional chapel, providing of course it is geographically closer than any Novus Ordo franchise.
That IS progress, though of course the real victory will be when at least so many would still point one to the traditional chapel even with one or more Novus Ordo franchises situated plainly closer, geographically speaking. I believe we can reasonably achieve this within the next 35 years. The sooner we all start talking correctly the sooner the rest of the world will follow suit. Speaking of "suit" we also have at our avail, for the present time anyway, the secular arm of the law which can and should be invoked in our favor. Even as the Apostle Paul was able to seek and obtain protection by the secular and pagan Romans from certain Jews who wanted to murder him, we too, for the time being anyway, could also gain our "day in court" and easily carry the day, thus gaining publicity and recognition for ourselves. For we have an absolute and inalienable right to our own rightful name, and it is for that we must struggle and compete, to win it back in the eyes of the world at large who, though not being Catholics themselves, will at least know who the real Catholics really are and no longer be confused. For even the Non-Catholic secular world at large has need, for the sake of peace and stability, of a Catholic Church which is not a moving target doctrinally, morally, or liturgically
We need to get away from this kind of "remnantism" that runs through so much of the Church today. True, we are reduced to a relatively tiny remnant, with barely the minimum necessary for the full and widespread and worldwide rebuilding of the Church, but we cannot afford to close ourselves in, hunker down, and pray "Bless us Oh Lord, we four, no more." Our clergy today have an immense burden the ancient Apostles of old need not have contended with. For they only needed to operate within a small geographical area, gradually expanding to the whole world (and knowing nothing of two entire planetary continents for over 1,400 years of Church history) whereas today our dozen or two faithful bishops and thousand or so faithful priests find themselves responsible to feed the souls hungry for the true and authentic sacraments all over the planet, greatly dispersed and far-flung.
Furthermore, there were many things the Church did, which we must begin trying to find ways to resume and continue, such things as charitable activities, public witnessing, and even miracles. We need those things, and provided we ourselves do the first two things I believe it quite reasonable for God to answer requests for the third. The world may or may not end soon. Either way, let us be found doing in our lifetime what would be most conducive to a long-term return of our Church to the Mainstream so that 500 years hence, should the world last so long, one or more real Catholic churches may be found in all cities all around the world, even as was the case back in 1960. As for the Novus Ordo, let them wither into nonexistence, or let them repent and return to us. Either way, with or without them we shall go on to fulfill the Gospel. For we don't need them; they need us, as does the whole rest of the world.
Griff L. Ruby
Griff's book is available from iUniverse.com Books for $26.95 or can be read on-line at www.the-pope.com We at The Daily Catholic strongly urge you to share it with all you can for that could be the gentle shove that moves your friends back to where the True Faith resides forever, rooted in the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church as Christ intended and promised.
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