During my middle school years, my parents rented a lovely home on Juniper Lane in Falls Church, Virginia. The street got its name from an enormous Juniper tree that occupied a plot along the road. I think it was in the center and the road went around it on both sides, but that memory may not be accurate. At any rate, it was an impressive sight! Much more than the picture above.
Our house was a rambler with a finished basement and a huge master bedroom, the only room (with bathroom) on the second floor. It had a large back yard that included a little pond with a stone bridge surrounded by rhododendron trees. We had golden koi in the pond, but I think a heron stopped by one day and ate them all. At least they disappeared. There was also a beautiful shaded stone patio adjacent to the house with a stone wall surrounding it. The perfect height to serve as a place to sit or lie down and dream. On hot days I loved to lie down on the cool stone and soak in the sounds of summer. Between the side of the house and the patio was a small plot where several fig trees grew which we kids liked to pick and eat when they ripened.
What a property for pretending and playing! My baby brother at the time was a curly haired toddler who my sisters and I used to dress up as our baby when we played house. Poor boy followed the birth of five girls. I can still close my eyes and walk through that home and then go out in the front yard in my mind and play Red Rover and Mother May I? with the neighborhood kids.
Every summer on the fourth of July there was a fest centered around the huge Juniper tree that gave the lane its name. The neighbors planned all kinds of games and activities to entertain the kids. And, of course, fireworks. What a glorious four years before my dad got transferred to the Naval Air Development Center in Pennsylvania.
But I also have one horrifying memory from that place that makes me think of today's crisis in the Church. There were two bedrooms in the finished basement. One Spring morning my older brothers who slept in a downstair bedroom came up like they'd been shot from a cannon. We all went down and saw a seething mob of insects all over the floor. In fact, they were like a thick, moving carpet of bugs. It still makes me shudder to think of it.
TERMITES!
Obviously the entire house was infested and this was the spring swarm. Of course, the owner of the house took care of the problem, but the memory of that disgusting sight, like out of a horror movie, remains in my memory to this day.
The crisis in the Church reminds me of that seething mass of destructive, house-eating bugs. The Church is indefectible, but her hierarchy are not. Neither are the popes except in very rare situations. And for almost my entire lifetime poor Holy Mother Church has been under the visible headship of abusive fathers, some worse than others. Like the termites they swarm everywhere: in Vatican dicasteries, in dioceses headed by scandalous bishops, in parishes sporting the rainbow flag and with pastors who introduce ridiculous novelties in to the liturgy. And what is the result? Increasing chaos in the family of the Church, confused Catholics who don't know the faith, churches and liturgies stripped of beauty and reverence, banal and inappropriate music, etc.
The SSPX is responding to that chaos by upholding the faith of our fathers while they experience accusations and brickbats attacking their activities. I recently read a comment from someone who may have never even set a baby toe into an SSPX chapel who called the Society a "cult" and described the "control" by the Society's clergy over the brainwashed flock. He didn't use those words but the implication of his comment was clear.
Well, I have yet to see any spiked Kool-Aid at the Sunday coffee and those who don't follow the dress code or women who don't veil or wear slacks or men in jeans are not shamed and escorted to the door with admonitions to not come back until they comply. On the contrary, these priests go out of their way to save souls and meet extraordinary needs. I experienced that first hand when our former pastor visited my sister in a nursing home to hear her confession and give her last rites. She hadn't been to confession in years, but his kindness and gentleness won her over. It relieved my heart to know that she received all that the Church has to offer before she died. My former Novus Ordo pastor suggested I bring my sister to him, a physical impossibility. A Novus Ordo local priest in Frederick did agree to go see her, but I don't know if he ever did.
disagrees. Everyone has to follow his own conscience and I continue to read the critiques of others about the SSPX.
But I take particular note of the opinions of Bishop Athanasius Schneider who, like his predecessor whose feast is today, recognizes the serious errors of modernism which are even more grievous than the Arian heresy faced by his namesake. Check out Bishop Schneider's website and see his defense of the SSPX. He believes the excommunication, if they happen, will be an error. Here is some of what he said in an interview on the matter with Christopher Wendt:
However, the special situation of the Church, the unprecedented crisis of faith, and the insufficient protection of the purity and integrity of the faith and the holy liturgy are unfortunately not fully guaranteed by the Holy See. We know that there is confusion and problems with some doctrinal ambiguities in certain texts and expressions of the Second Vatican Council. This has not yet been resolved in an honest way that would demonstrate true continuity with all the preceding teaching of the Church. There are still serious doctrinal ambiguities in the Novus Ordo, and these topics must be addressed in an honest way....Since Rome requires, for permission of the ordinations and for granting a canonical structure, that they previously accept all the teachings of the council and, in some way, the goodness of the Novus Ordo, this is basically the problem that they cannot accept in conscience.
At the same time, the Church during and after the council said that we must no longer name the Orthodox or the Protestants as heretics or schismatics. The expression schismatics was dropped in reference to the Orthodox. When the Holy See receives Orthodox representatives, it says that they are not called schismatics and that we are almost united. As Pope Leo said on the 25th of January at the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Rome, addressing the Orthodox and the Protestants, we are already one. So why not say the same about the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth? Therefore, I think we must be very honest and recognize the exceptional emergency situation of the crisis in the Church and the proven and declared non-schismatic intentions of the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth in ordaining bishops.
Confusion and inconstancy on steroids?
Let us all continue to pray and sacrifice for Holy Mother Church whose children are so subject to confusion and, even heresy, coming from the highest levels in the Church. And let me urge all readers to pray for another lion of the faith, Bishop Rene Gracida who died this week at the age 102. What a hero of God. May he intercede for us as we continue to face the crisis in the Church.
Lord Jesus, King of the Universe, Head of the Church, have mercy on us. And please, Lord, remove all the termites in the Church from high office who are doing so much damage to the faith and so scandalizing the people of God.
Mary, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces, pray for us.
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