/lit/ - Literature

>>23267740
I wonder what Hitch would think of TradCaths, he'd probably have lost his fucking mind. They're precisely a rebellion agains the "taming and domestication of religion" he's talking about.

>>22897721
IMO even as bad as Francis is, FSSP and its pledge of loyalty to the Papacy is the way to go. Christ founded the Church upon the Petrine office and we have to stick with it, even if the current occupant of the office is not very good.

For all the talk of being "trad," I notice many so-called trads have a very American attitude towards the Papacy, in that they think they can rebel against it when it does something they don't like. To me, the truly trad behavior is to remain faithful to your sovereign even when the sovereign is subpar. And the Pope is no mere sovereign, he's the Vicar of Christ.

That said, the SSPX did good to preserve the Latin Mass, and in time I expect Lefebvre's excommunication to be lifted. In the end I expect the FSSP and the SSPX to both play a role in the reformation and restoration of the Church after this period of corruption. Them and the Dominicans; I have a great fondness for the Dominicans, and they're one of the orders that's actually growing in strength, precisely because they haven't forsaken a lot of their old traditions. I'd love another Dominican Pope soon, they'd probably be a good bet to help clean up the mess Francis has made.

>>22522367
Dogmatism isn’t antithetical to mysticism. Catholic mysticism, being anchored by the stability of dogma and Church authority, can never pass into that wishy-washy sentimentalism that is characteristic of dogma-less “mystical” cults such as New Ageism. Ironically, Catholic Church authority itself is a profoundly mystical concept; for the bishops receive their power to teach, rule, and sanctify from God, who confers it on them only after their engagement in initiatic, mystical rituals involving the laying on of hands. Rather than being “bureaucratic”, as you allege, the Catholic Church and the Catholic mentality is profoundly MONARCHICAL, the Pope being the supreme religious authority, to whom even the bishops must submit without question.

Catholicism is inherently mystical, and this is what Protestants don’t understand. Unlike in Protestantism, where “going to church” serves no purpose other than the believer’s own intellectual and emotional edification, Catholicism emphasises first and foremost the SACRAMENTS. The Sacraments are real, mystical, initiatic rituals which in the Catholic worldview actually transform your soul and actually embody the things that for a Protestant would be considered merely “symbolic”.

The mass is the greatest religious ritual ever devised. It is FULL of symbolic life, FULL of mysticism. Gregorian chant, incense, icons, candles, vestments, prayers, and finally, the greatest symbol of all, the Eucharist… all of it is meant to incarnate heaven in bodily form, to raise this material world and sanctify it.

The Eucharist, the actual body and blood and soul and divinity of God, is digested at every mass. The believer becomes one with God in a mystical unity that both includes and transcends the material realm.

So yes, Catholic religion is profoundly mystical but, being tied to an established dogmatic tradition, it is never allowed to become hysterical, sentimental, or purely “experiential”. There is a moral, political, administrational, ethical, spiritual, mystical, philosophical, AND rational dimension to it.