Got Logic? Part 1: Two Things that are Diametrically Opposed Cannot Both Be True....

Fr. Laurent-Marie Pocquet

 ....They can both be false, but they cannot both be true. 

Which brings me to an excellent article posted at Rorate Caeli by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski. Written by Reverend Fr. Laurent-Marie Pocquet du Haut Jussé, former superior of the Servants of Jesus and Mary (SJM), it discusses paradoxes raised by the problematic motu proprio Traditionis Custodes and the response to the dubious dubia. 

The first is a moral paradox:

Since 1988 the Church has recognized, through the voice of its supreme pastor, the existence and legitimacy of the attachment of many of the faithful to the Tridentine liturgy, and measures have been taken to facilitate communion for these faithful. By abruptly putting an end to these benevolent (but also just and logical) dispositions, the authority breaks this trust and manifests that it becomes thus moral not to respect one’s pledges.

As parents, Larry and I taught our children how serious it is to break a promise. We rarely fought and, even when we did, hardly ever raised our voices. This night was an exception.  We exchanged harsh and angry words over something involving money which was more than a bit tight at the time. The monthly budget was increasingly going into the red. We had all our children in Catholic elementary and high schools and the biggest budget item was tuition which was squeezing us dry. 

After the fight, our oldest, who was about 15 at the time, came up and knocked on the bathroom door where I had retreated and was soaking in the tub and asked in a frightened voice. "Are you and Daddy going to get a divorce?" 

My reaction was spontaneous. I started to laugh. "No honey," I said through the closed door. "We made a promise when we got married and meant it. People can disagree without getting a divorce."

Apparently we are more serious about promises than our spiritual Daddy, Il Papa Francis, who apparently has no problem snapping his fingers and eliminating almost two millennia of worship that his predecessor assured us was legitimate and had never been abrogated. So much for promises in the eyes of the current occupant of the chair of Peter. No (Tridentine) Mass for you, you rigid, unprogressive, pharisaical Catholics!

Fr. Pocquet's second paradox involves a serious logical problem:

In the span of a few years, the Magisterium affirms two contradictory things. Benedict XVI authoritatively affirms a fundamental and indisputable theological principle with regard to Tradition: “What was sacred for previous generations remains great and sacred for us, and cannot all of a sudden be totally forbidden, or even considered harmful. It is good for all of us to preserve the riches that have grown up in the faith and prayer of the Church, and to give them their rightful place.” From the [recent] disciplinary measures we can infer the doctrinal principle that appears to be perfectly contradictory to the one enunciated by the Pope Emeritus, namely, that that which has contributed to the sanctification of countless numbers of baptized people and to the building up of the Church must be considered today as dangerous or harmful. This magisterial about-face only a few years later shows a disturbing disarray between theology, the history of doctrine, and discipline.

Logically, either Pope Francis is wrong or Pope Benedict is wrong, or both of them are wrong and there is a third possibility. I certainly can't think of one! Holy Tradition and past documents by popes like Pius V's Quo Primum (1570), an Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Tridentine Liturgy, make it clear that what is happening today is an aberration and a violent break from the past. [Side note: Quo Primum is a brief, totally transparent document unlike the wordy and endless blather put out by Pope Francis about the environment and ecumenism. READ THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION and keep in mind that an Apostolic Constitution is the most authoritative type of Vatican document! (source)] 

To accept the thought of Pope Francis requires one to throw out two millennia of Church teaching in order to embrace a moral relativism under the guise of a false "unity" that allows a global Church reset. The Church image that Francis apparently desires conflicts with the past and sanctifies all the ambiguities and outright errors in the documents of Vatican II and the views of progressive voices in the Church. 

The third paradox is a canonical one:

According to a natural conception of it, law exists to protect the rights of persons, and first of all of Catholics. In the absence of any backtracking on the disciplinary measures taken by Pope St. Pius V (measures that have never been repealed) or dispute over the law of custom that applies to every baptized person, layman or cleric, it is nevertheless obvious that a right has been recognized for the faithful attached to the perennial form of the liturgy. Now this right has been violated, in defiance of the dignity of the baptized. The “synodal Church,” “at the service of ecclesial communion,” has lost all credibility.

Wow! The laity have rights because of the "dignity of the baptized!" What the pope's action displays is the most arrogant form of clericalism. "I AM the boss. I AM the pope. You WILL obey me! Why? Because I AM the boss and I AM the pope and I-I-I said so!

To be continued tomorrow....