Post Trad Papacy

No sooner do you get used to there being a pope than they go and elect a different one. It's worth pointing out that it has been at least a decade since I would have called myself a sedevacantist. Many traditionalists exist in a gray area where he kinda sorta is the pope but we're just going to pretend he's not actually that important, like a figurehead monarch rather than Christ's representative on earth.

It's been a slow and awkward transition, not to mention a humbling one. It's hard to go from having all the answers to having very few, but since most things in my life have taken that trajectory, it's starting to feel like a familiar pattern. What's less familiar is the peace that comes from believing in the whole process instead of seeing the visible Church like some dead, contaminated thing.

The day after the big announcement my anxiety was through the roof over a work-related issue. Anyone who has ever had to fight back a crying spells over normal, everyday challenges knows how irrational and uncontrollable these things are. You will hold onto anything that might make you feel normal again or that will explain where the feeling is coming from, everything from "Maybe I didn't sleep enough" to "maybe I have some really terrible illness that I don't know about" to "maybe if I could just focus and start working I would be all right." It was at this point that I googled "prayer to St. Dymphna" on my phone, a saint I've never prayed to before but probably should have.

I followed the link to a prayer for perseverance. Just what I needed; perserverance in daily duties, yes? No. It was about keeping the faith until you die. That sent me into an even worse tailspin of frustration and painful memories--years of my life being told that the everyday stuff didn't matter as long as you save your soul in the end. "Sure, it's easy to die in the faith when you have nothing else going on," I thought. I looked on Facebook and saw a million (more or less) of my friends weeping and wailing and asking for prayers for the church "in this time of crisis" and making passive-aggressive comments about how actually now that they think about it, it isn't even like the pope really mattered that much back in the day, all while posting pictures of St. Pius X and [insert dead pontiff of your choice here] and a few of Cardinal Burke.

And then I remembered a book I read a long time ago. I don't know what it was called or even that I liked it much but it was about a girl who had travelled through time and had a wound on her leg that wouldn't heal. She never got any older and was able to slip back in time for short periods, which she did in order to see her family or to keep looking for them or something like that, and then she was brought back into the present time. Her modern friends figured out that each time she slipped into the past, she was "re-set" to that same age and if she stopped doing it she would start growing and her leg would heal, etc.

I really hate time travel books. I also hate taking lessons from fiction. But it was somehow worth thinking about, because whenever I start to feel a bit of distance between myself and the old ideas, I go rushing right back to them just to see how different they look now. There's a short term satisfaction to be gotten out of those exercises, but I'm realizing they may be doing more harm than good. I'm also facing the fact that I may have to distant myself from some friends. That is not going to be easy.

Two final things: When my head was spinning around for something to hold on to, I did, for a moment, find comfort in the thought that a pope had been chosen and was now in charge. It gave me a solid moment on a morning that felt like quicksand. Secondly, an emergency in the building sent everyone outside and no one knew if it was a real fire or just a drill. "If there's smoke, do you think it will be white or black?" one woman asked.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Final final thing: I keep hearing rumors that Pope Francis doesn't care about smells and bells. I don't want to get caught up in the liturgical fight because I now sit in profound puzzlement through terrible music at the Novus Ordo most Sundays because the drawn-out, hours-long TLM increases the severity of my TMJ, so I just assume the whole thing is one of the many trials that the Church has gone through since its beginning. But I will say that if we have a pope who will demonstrate through example that appearance matters less than internal disposition, then it stikes me that that is exactly what our current image-obsessed culture needs. And people think God doesn't know what He's doing.

Fasting and Starving

I started "practice" fasting as a teenager when I would give up snacks between meals. Nobody made me do that; it was just part of the rad trad lifestyle. It was what we did when other people's teenagers were getting up at five on Saturdays to train for the football team or whatever it is that athletes do. When I turned twenty, I fasted "for real" during the Advent before my 21st birthday. Meat only at the main meal, no snacks, two smaller meals which, combined, were less than the main meal. By the end of the year, I didn't realize I weighed 92 pounds, but when I went shopping for a Christmas outfit I couldn't figure out why the size 0 was too big. I had been a 4 before that and honestly believed that they were making clothes bigger. A lot bigger. It never once occurred to me that I was smaller. The New Year came and went, I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I got the flu, I plunged into the single most stressful time of my life. Most days I ate half a piece of toast for breakfast and for lunch had a bagel with cream cheese, a cheese danish, and a gigantic cracklatte, and then didn't eat again until dinner, when I had one helping of whatever. I thought I had a really healthy diet, or would have if I had had time to think about it or even to breathe, which I didn't.

Lent rolled around and I couldn't figure out how to fast because I was kind of already fasting. My memories from the time are fuzzy, but at some point I talked to a priest and must have asked him if I could be "dispensed" from the Lenten fast because I had very low energy and high stress, and he said no. He said I should still try to eat less than what I normally ate. I asked him again when I told him I was barely able to function and he said do what you can. Then he said just try to eat more at meals. He made it sound like it would be this terrible thing if I stopped fasting, like the entire structure of my spiritual life was propped up by not having a few extra bites of food here and there.

My life fell apart after that. Or I suppose I could say that it changed direction and no matter how hard I tried I could never get it to bend back in the direction it had been going. My doctor had me come in for weekly appointments so she could monitor my glacially slow weight gain. "No more fasting," she said, and I'm sure wanted to say a lot more but didn't, because she was a soft-spoken protestant lady. I had signed up for a summer class and she gave me a note with an anorexia diagnosis that would allow me to drop the class without having to pay the fees or take an incomplete. To this day I don't know if I'm actually anorexic, but she was vague like that, and anyway at that point in my life most things stopped having a clear meaning and starting becoming horrifyingly slippery and infirm. My main focus at that point was not letting my brain break any worse than it was already broken. My body continued to be irrelevant except in the sense that everyone was nagging me about it even more although all it had ever done was just exist. It didn't even take up that much room and now I was in trouble because there wasn't enough of it. What a drag it all was.

I thought I would be better by the end of the summer but I never really did get better. I gained a little weight, but never returned to being a size 4 or even a 2. I took fewer classes in the fall of my junior year and failed one of them. Then I took the following year off completely, which would have been my senior year. I considered dropping out since I obviously wasn't cut out for that kind of life, and my trad boyfriend agreed. I couldn't face the idea of returning, of not returning, of getting married, of waiting to get married, of anything. Nothing seemed worth the price that had to be paid for it.

So I just went back and finished my degree, anyway. My trad boyfriend resented me or the universe on some subliminal level and the relationship ended. I stood at my graduation believing that I had given up my health, my future, my ambitions, happiness, true love, and my whole sense of self for an academic degree that meant very little to me. Now I realize that many of those sacrifices were made of me by other people for other things, but perspective takes a long time to get and food seems like a luxury when you're in panic mode and the edifice is slipping away. I was only holding on to the necessities, and food wasn't one of them.

For several years, I endured friends and family telling me that "I would still be pretty" if I gained a few pounds, and when they gave up on that idea, they started telling me that "I would look so much better" if I gained weight. One woman told me I wouldn't get hired anywhere because no employer would want to pay for my health insurance after looking at me. The last time I went to confession to that same priest, who had always seemed so kind and reasonable, he asked me if I was struggling with the sin of vanity at all. I told him I wasn't.

I still only weigh about 95 pounds. I have no idea if that's normal or not. Nobody seems able to tell me: not nutritionists, psychologists, endocrinologists, homeopaths, general care practitioners, nobody. Considering how many tests I was given with no negative results I think I must be the healthiest person I know. Chinese medicine and acupuncture were next on the list but I put a stop to it and then I left the country for a place where they deep fry pizza and if someone makes a crack about your appearance you can't understand them anyway.

These days, I'm at loss when it comes to Lent. When I hear my new-traddy and cradle-traddy friends talking about fasting it seems like some weird drug that keeps them going but which I had a terrible reaction to one time. So this year I gave up TV and reading Slate. Well, I can still watch Netflix documentaries. Why? I don't know. I just can. Because if I stress out too much about anything I stop eating. That's why. It's like my own built-in anti-fanaticism device.

And because I don't think God really cares if I watch a documentary or not. I like to think that maybe He's even a bit concerned about the whole weight loss thing. I don't want to fall into the trap of looking for a tidy meaning in everything but sometimes the message is "Please stop this lunacy," which I wouldn't have, if there had been any physical way of continuing, because pursuing something selfish can be a strong force but when you're pursuing something unselfish that you believe is right even if it isn't, that force can be unstoppable.

There's a point where mortifying the body and elevating the spirit intersect. There's also a point where sin and harm towards the body intersect. Where these two points are in relation to each other is not always easy to see. Maybe that's why the Church has gotten rid of so many of the old rules about fasting; who knows? Fanaticism has a very strong draw for a lot of people.

Boy in Outer Space

But how can you NOT laugh?

I'm mostly just going to talk about makeup in this one. Mostly.

Cue outrage on Tumblr and Jezebel. "Ladies of the Internet Not So Politely Tell Concernmongering Guys to Shove It." I think it's fair to say that some men really do think women who don't wear makeup look better. That's just an aesthetic preference like any other, of which there are an infinite number. It's entirely possible
that Boy In Outer Space meant what he said, a true romantic at heart who also happens to look exactly like the lead singer of the band Fun.

But it's annoying to be told you're insecure when you're not, and it's annoying to be told that you look better without makeup on if you actually don't, and it's annoying to be told that whether you're wearing makeup or not it must be because you're trying to please men, although The Last Psychiatrist has a different take:

The evolution from "enhances sexual attractiveness" to "doing it for yourself" is definitely a regressive step, and by regressive I here mean "regressing to age two", but it's the next step which reveals the presence of a neurosis: recruiting science as a justification for behavior: "Study finds makeup makes you appear more competent."  Can't wait to read about that study in a Jonah Lehrer book.  Ugh.  So here's the evolution of feminist theory, take notes: "I want to look better" to "I want to feel better about myself" to "I want people to think I am better."  Madness....  

The reason the makeup debate is insoluble is that it's not yours to solute. The choice to wear makeup is no choice at all, I know you think you came to it on your own but you live in America, you don't make free choices here, freedom is a brand.  Makeup is an $8B/yr industry, that's face makeup alone, no way is it going to allow you to make a choice that doesn't involve a credit card, fine, if you don't like makeup here's a remover for $30, just remember that you're not doing it for men, you're doing it for yourself.  

Mostly, though, I was reminded of two things. One was a story by PG Wodehouse that I can't remember the name of. It was about a photographer who was so jaded by female beauty because he had to photograph movie stars all day that just the sight of a beautiful woman made him depressed. Then one day he saw a plain, freckle-faced girl in a taxi while stuck in traffic and he fell madly in love with her. The rest of the story was how he tracked her down, I think, and his name might have been Lemon. I love that story.

The other was Le No Makeup Movement, which I remember reading about back in the pristine days of Western Civilization before Instagram and dramatic poses were invented. I didn't wear any makeup in highschool or college, so I felt solidarity with the French women who thought that wearing little or no makeup was "youthful" and not "vulgaire." Easy enough to say at a time when heavy makeup wasn't in style, like it is now, especially in the excessively casual and "Yeah I left the house looking this way" San Fran Bay Area.

Sans Makeup, S'il Vous Plait is from 2006 (although I first heard of it in the early 2000s):

This season, the unadorned look is more in vogue than ever in France. The weekly magazine L'Express calls it "Le no makeup" look. French Elle described it this month as "Le bare face," defined as "nude skin, shimmering slightly." 

To women in France, the too-made-up look represents something more profound than simply one's taste in skin care. It is also the mark of the desperate housewife type who tries too hard. 

"The most beautiful makeup for a woman is passion" is the famous quotation of the designer Yves Saint Laurent. "But cosmetics are easier to buy."

Then the economy crashed, and women bought lots of lipstick like they always do in a recession. (Or more nail polish, depending whom you ask. The Lipstick Effect Is Real claims that women make up more in a poor ecomony to vie for the fewer financially stable males left, but I think it's simpler than that, especially since Boy in Outer Space tells us that men don't fracking like makeup anyway. Why not just create the illusion of glamor if you can't afford it? When you're rich, such an idea is "vulgaire," but when you're living an attic and eating oatmeal, a tube of red lipstick will make you feel like a millionaire. Well, maybe not, but it stops being "vulgaire" and starts being retro, an escape into a non-existent movie world where the look in your khol-rimmed eyes has more power over your fate than what you have in your pocket book. And without being able to explain why, I always feel that a generous coating of Boots Natural Collection in Raspberry puts a buffer between me and any intimidating scenario I may be about to face. War paint, I suppose. They can't get you if you startle them with your scary colors first. 

And who's complaining? The alternative is mourning; sackcloth and ashes; "go home and wash thy face." I'm going to enjoy wearing crazy bright lipstick until this train pulls out of the station, which it will, because fashion is cyclical and pretty soon everyone will be talking about natural, bare-faced beauty again. Hopefully the economy will get better, too.

Quotes you might have missed:

"A poll in 2003 concluded that 87 percent of French men and women believe that lingerie is an important part of life."

"She admits to wearing makeup even when gardening."

"For Ms. Fitoussi, who wears glasses and little makeup, it's all about choosing. Made-up eyes means wearing neutral lipstick. Red lipstick means dressing in black. 'Makeup dates you,' she said. 'Like a tree.'"

"When she had an upper tooth straightened last year, the daily newspaper Libération labeled it an un-French act. 'The French people's favorite Socialist is now endowed with an American smile,' Libération wrote."

We are not shining stars.

It's About Control

Naturally, I'm agog over the argument at Barefoot and Pregnant, "Slut Shaming and the Attractiveness Factor."

I do not want my daughter to grow up in a world where the boys and men around her constantly judge her morality in terms of physical attraction. I don’t want her to hear things like, “waiting till marriage is sexy” or “it’s a turn-off when girls smoke”. 

The piece is insightful and much-needed. I'm glad to see someone with a large audience calling out this phenomenon. But something is still missing.

It is absolutely problematic that boys and men are judging the women around them based on their physical appearance, but isn't the bigger problem that they're judging their morality at all? Would it be okay for them to say, "I don't think you should dance that way/dress that way/act that way because you might go to hell?"

I had a discussion with a friend once about a girl she knew who had called off her wedding because her fiance was insisting on the "no pants" rule. My friend didn't agree with him, but she thought my interpretation of his behavior was too simplistic. "I don't think it's about control," she said. "I think he's wrong, but he's really doing something that he believes is for the good of her soul. He think she'll go to hell if she wears pants." When faced this kind of boneheaded fanaticism, it's hard to tease out the underlying sources of the problem, but I did my best. Why, I wanted to know, was he marrying her in the first place if he didn't trust her to make good, moral decisions about how to dress? Why did he think he needed to make those decisions for her?

The problem is that some men think they can look at a woman and know what's going on in her soul and what she should be doing instead. Last time I checked, only God can do that. And last time I checked, there's a whole story in the New Testament about what Jesus thought about men who take it upon themselves to stone women sinning in public. Remember? Oh, yeah, that one.

So while I agree that it's wrong for men to substitute "not attractive" for "morally wrong," it seems to me that the real issue here is why are these men bossing these women around in the first place?

And no, I don't think "You're not my brother, husband, father" is a good response to these men, because that brings in another whole boatload of problems about whether men in general have some kind of authority over the women in their lives, with some restrictions. Yeah, I don't buy that, because A. Casti Canubii explicitly calls out and condemns men who treat their wives like subordinates and minors, B. It's been a loooong time since my father had moral authority over me. You know, like when I was a child. C. My brothers having authority over me is just a weird idea, period. They're far too busy living their own lives to want or need to police my actions, even if such an idea occurred to them in the first place, which it wouldn't.

These men, the ones condemning women for being "unattractive" when they really mean "sinful," have seized on a woman's natural desire to be loved and found lovable and turned it to their advantage. Most know they would not get away with stating in so many words that women should follow the moral guidance of regular, everyday laymen, but they still want to claim some of that oh-so-tempting authority for themselves, the kind that only the Pope or God or a priest in a confessional has. Kind of like my friend's friend's fiance, who put his future bride in the position of having to choose between saying no to marriage with a man she loved and saying no to a normal adult life where she would make her own decisions about what clothes to put on  in the morning. And the root of the conflict was that this young man refused to relinquish what he thought was his right to have veto power over every moral decision his wife might make, even the tiny ones.  He assumed she would not give up a life of being loved, even if that love was conditional, and he was right, because she married him anyway. Living a life of being rejected and unloved is a terrifying prospect for most women.

"What's the motivation?" Okay, let's run through this again. Only God gets to police our moral decisions, and His representatives on earth. The Pope, etc. Anyone else who tries to horn in on this right is trying to be like God. Becoming like Gods; gee, what does that remind me of? Weird how it all fits together when you really think about it.

So yes, it's problematic that women are being made to feel bad about their appearance in yet another way, but lets not ignore the root of the problem. You can have the kind of confidence that genuinely doesn't care about what men think of your appearance, and the problem will still be there, because those same men will find some other way of manipulating women in order to get what they want, whether it's a hot sexy always available female companion, or a submissive jean-skirt wearing undemanding self-sacrificing wife-in-the-background. In the end, it's about snatching control and using it for self-centered purposes.

"What about the women?" Women are just as likely to rant and rave about how unattractive "slutty" women are, or to call for dress codes in church, so why just attack the men?

Honestly, that one puzzles me, too. I have no idea what those women get out of it, although I can think of a few theories. Maybe they're trying to get in the good books with the men who make the complaints in the first place. "Look at me! I'm not one of those hideous slutty girls. Wife Material right here." Maybe it's their own desire to control; hey, women can be bossy. Maybe it's jealously of the attention those women get or, more likely, jealously of the freedom exhibited by women who haven't conformed to rigorist religious standards. Maybe they're simply doing what women do best: caring for and being loyal to their own communities. The last interpretation is the one I prefer to believe, because quite frankly I don't have the heart to think about it too much, nor do I want to add my voice to the many others who are griping about women's behavior and how they should change it.

What Respectable, Middle-Class Catholics Can Do About Rape Culture

1. Be the family that will raise hell if any woman in the vicinity is harmed. Be known for this. Individual single adults can do this, too, but the effect is much less powerful than it is coming from a family. Don't assume that everyone just knows that you're nice people who would never blame the victim. Actively promote the idea that you find double standards, mild or overt misogyny, or anything that even hints at the mistreatment of women to be totally repulsive and something that you, personally, wish to fight against. If this seems silly and embarrassing, then don't be surprised when a woman who is on the receiving end of any of these actions will be too embarrassed to ask for help. She is in a far more vulnerable position than you are.

2. Lose the denial. The reality is that even in conservative circles, possibly even yours, there may be problems with sexual harassment and sexual assault. I grew up in a strict Catholic middle-class family. I have never had a "wild" phase and have always been cautious about what kind of men I spend time with, and I have personally known one "devout" Catholic man who committed date rape and another who attempted it and failed. It's pleasant and comforting to believe that these problems only affect those other people--promiscuous college students, people of other races or religions, poor people, whoever. This attitude is not just elitist and borderline racist, it's also dangerous and stupid.

3. Accept that men can control themselves. This means not making statements like, "If he's straight, he will make a pass at you," or "What did you expect? Men are just hardwired that way." Men have free will. If you or any man you know can choose to have self-control, so can every other man on the planet, including the one taking your daughter on a date or the one she might run into at a party. Never start a sentence, "Yes, men are responsible for their actions, but..." Chastity, the way it's currently spoken of and taught among conservative Catholics, puts most of the burden of purity on the shoulders of girls and women, an attitude which has moved seamlessly into questions of physical safety and assault.

4. Teach your sons to defend and protect others. Teaching young men to be chaste and not sexually aggressive, while necessary and commendable, is not enough. They must also keep their eyes and ears open, and speak up when their friends say or do things that are morally questionable, especially with regard to women. All women: not just their sisters or whoever they've decided is a "lady." In all Christian communities or cultures, there has been a high level of expectation from men to protect others, even total strangers. When men have a "not my problem" attitude, or are given the impression that it's prudent to stay out of harm's way, they are allowing the problems to flourish. It may be tempting to believe that keeping to yourself has a neutral effect on society as a whole, but it doesn't. There's no neutral as long as predatory people exist.

5. Teach your daughters the exact same thing. Being female is not a free pass to ignore problems. Sitting around waiting for someone else to act is not a good example of female fortitude. In the absence of any other kind of help, a woman still has to act, in whatever way is appropriate or necessary to the particular situation.

6. Don't assume church-attending religious men are worthy of trust. They might be, they probably are, but they don't automatically deserve a blind eye simply because they show up at Mass every Sunday. Men should not be offended by this. It is not a presumption of guilt, but rather the expectation that character counts and is based on each individual's chosen actions. Every Catholic girl has horror stories of Mass-attending boyfriends who pressured her for sex. I do, and I've gone out of my way to avoid men like that. It became obvious to me during those experiences that men can get away with problematic, immoral and manipulative actions while putting minimal effort into keeping up a good front simply because everyone assumed that they could do no wrong.

7. Understand that the culture we live in is in a state of emergency. It is not normal or common sense that a girl in a highschool in a first world country has to worry about getting raped at a party, even if she does something imprudent like getting drunk. Rape is not the natural result of mixing men with alcohol, and everyone needs to stop talking about it like it is. If a woman has to alter her behavior for her own safety, it should be made clear that this is not the norm and it is only necessary because of a pathological unwillingness to deal with a real and present problem of safety among "normal" people.

8. Do more than just tell women to stand up for themselves. Your daughter/sister/friend/cousin, whatever her age, should be able to say to a man, "If my dad/brother/friend/cousin knew what you just said to me, or tried, or asked for, you would be lying on the pavement with a broken jaw." It will do her very little good to say this if she knows, at the back of her mind, that you're too frightened of other men's opinions to speak up when something is wrong. If a woman, of whatever age, has no family or close male friends that she can turn to for this kind of support, see item #1.

9. Stop the femininity training. This doesn't mean discouraging girls from showing their own natural femininity, but it does mean Catholics must stop telling girls, in whatever subtle or underhanded way, that being a "lady" means putting on an act of always-gentle compliance and cheerfulness, and that any opinion has to be trussed up in a pink dress and high heels. Stop telling girls to hide their brains and show their ankles. The reason why this femininity training creates problems is because it is nearly impossible to unlearn compliant, male-ego-pleasing behavior in a moment of crisis. Saying "no" takes a certain amount of practice, and it's hard to get that practice if you're punished socially for saying anything that will make men uncomfortable or unhappy. Stop teaching young men that this is what "real" women are like, and stop tolerating this expectation in adult males.

10. Lose the embarrassment. Talking about rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence or any issue related to the personal safety of vulnerable people is not tacky and rude just because it makes you feel awkward. If it's not possible to discuss these issues without someone having a "well-I-never" moment, then it's not surprising that the victims of these crimes are unwilling to ask for help. Don't ask, "Why didn't she tell anyone?" if you have ever said something along the lines of "Such a thing would never occur outside of a Chicago ghetto."

11. Have a zero tolerance policy towards conservative misogyny. Rants against "evil feminists" will sound to a young girl like rants against all women. They will sound to a grown woman like they are coming from an environment that is hostile towards women speaking up against mistreatment, and that her dissenting or controversial opinion will not be treated with respect or charity. This is true regardless of your personal views on feminism, or whether you are the one making these statements or just standing by. It's true even if the men saying them are clueless, immature, or secretly mean well. If you, personally, do not speak up and make it clear that rough or aggressive language about women or towards women, regardless of their political affiliations, is always unacceptable in your presence, you are contributing to a hostile environment for women, which no one should have to put with just so you can keep your neocon friends.

12. Stop keeping secrets. If a man speaks about women in a denigrating or lewd way, tell everyone about it. If you see evidence of abuse in another family, talk about it, ask, make waves. If you're being pressured to have sex by someone you're dating, make that person a laughing stock. If you hear screaming, call the police. The likelihood of an innocent person being punished for something they didn't do is far less likely than people with something to hide would have you believe. Communities keep tabs on each other for mutual protection. Name names. It's necessary. It is criminal to protect the reputation of a criminal.

I hope this helps. Be careful out there: there's ice on the roads today.

Thoughts on Traditionalism

"We're just doing the same thing the Church has always done."

You hear this mantra spoken often and without qualification among Traditional Catholics, and it's a very attractive idea. I understand why it works so well. It's not really true, though.

What the Church has always done is have problems with heresy. You might even say that what the Church has always done is have problems, period. There has never been a golden age of Catholicism where everything was perfect and everyone was saint; not in the Middle Ages, not in the 1950s, not ever. And the way that the Church has dealt with problems is in her own way, on her own time.

What heretics have always done, incidentally, is to say, "I don't like what the Church is doing, so I'm breaking off in order to save my soul, because you're clearly corrupt over there and you're not fixing it right now. I have the truth in my camp." And then they've proceded to split a million different ways and have a million problems with extremism and fanaticism.

I can't say who is a heretic and who isn't, but...or perhaps I should say because...the Church has never required individuals to be theologians and to figure every last little detail and every last little problem out on their own. In fact, our Faith tells us to be like little children. That's not an excuse to be completely ignorant or careless with our souls, but it is a gentle warning against the mentality that you can't get to heaven unless you read the right encyclicals or books written by people who already agree with you or St. Robert Bellarmine. God isn't playing gotcha. He's not playing a giant joke on everyone who doesn't go to the Latin Mass.

I asked my best friend, a sedevacantist, if she believes that everyone who goes to a Novus Ordo Mass is a heretic. She said no, because most people who call themselves Catholic are acting in good faith and don't know that the Pope is a heretic. "But that's not how it works," I said. "The people who followed Martin Luther were heretics, and still are, and we don't give them a free pass because they might have been acting in good faith. What you're basically saying is that the Church is in pieces. There's a piece over here who have the truth and go to the Latin Mass, and there's a piece over there who are following a heretical pope and don't know any better. If you believe the Church is One, that's impossible." Because she learned all the same things I did about the Four Marks and invincible ignorance and what heresy really is, she didn't have an answer.

Another friend, a convert who attends the SSPX, once casually threw out a remark in conversation about how mainstream Catholicism is "a completely different religion." She would die rather than call herself a sedevacantist, but she doesn't seem to realize that she believes the exact same thing, as does anyone who creates a dividing line in their mind between the "real" Catholics and all those other ones who don't know what's what.

"But what about women priests? What about priests saying that stuff isn't sinful when it is? What about liturgical abuse or this or that or the other? Isn't all that heresy?" Sure, I guess. I was raised trad; I don't mind calling sin by its real name. But who invented the idea that if one member of the Faith falls into error, the rest of the visible structure of the Church and its hierarchy gets contaminated along with them? And that all that can be done is give it up as a bad job and start over? That's not what the Church has always done. It's not what the Church has ever done. There is nothing even slightly traditional about it.

I'm aware that Tradition is gaining a lot of ground. It has made a huge leap in popularity in the past ten years from what I can see, particularly among young people. I don't have an opinion on it except that I'm too burnt out to care very much, which is a little sad because there was a time in my life when I would have been thrilled. I'm aware that there are advocates for Traditionalism who don't create a dividing line in their minds, but I wonder sometimes if they know how strong and pervasive the "us and them" mentality really is. I hope they know what they're dealing with, because it's probably not what they're anticipating.

Thank goodness it's not my problem to solve. I can't say who is a "real" Catholic and who isn't, and I would be a pretty big busybody if I tried. The Church will deal with it in her own way, on her own time, just like she always has.

Wisdom for the Most Confused Generation

"Knitting a ceiling cosy...let her get on with it!"

It gets even better upon repeat viewings.