Brilliant Apologia

The publication that started it all puts it all quite clearly: "In our view a possible future declaration of a sede vacante "the period of time when the Apostolic See is empty, as a consequence of the heresy of the Pope, Catholic Family News, 7/2000) would take place automatically when the Church would become aware of the gravity of the present day errors and who is responsible for them." - We Resist The Pope To His Face, V.3 (emphasis ours)

An Apologia for Roman Catholic "Traditionalism"??
Christopher Ferrara, Esq. REMNANT COLUMNIST, New Jersey
With replies (preceded by asterisks) by Stephen Hand, editor www.tcrnews.com

Remnant Editor’s Note: The following article is so much more than merely part of our ongoing response to The Wanderer’s attack on The Remnant This article is just what its title suggests it is: a justification and a defense of the entire Traditional Catholic platform. Still, for readers who have grown weary of reading anything more about The Wanderer’s attack, we have decided not to devote more regular column space to this defense. We are adding eight pages to this issue of The Remnant in order to accommodate our defense under the format of a Remnant Supplement. This, of course, causes our postage costs to skyrocket. But it also demonstrates just how important we believe this discussion is. In the last analysis and after reading Mr. Ferrara’s piece, we even felt inclined to offer our thanks to The Wanderer and Stephen Hand for having provided the catalyst for two very positive developments: 1) A prolonged discussion of "We Resist You to the Face," which will serve the hoped for end for which the Statement was written. 2) The total discrediting of the "conservative" position: The Wanderer’s attack, by all accounts, has been adequately diffused already, but it’s now time to expose the myriad "conservative" errors once and for all. Our thanks to Mr. Ferrara for his fine body of work, which serves both these ends. MJM

Stephen Hand: Our purpose in this is to deconstruct the evasive hermeneutics of this sect, to show in a quick, informal, snapshot the hermeneutics of evasion employed by integrist Catholics i.e., Ferrara, Matt and company. Here we see right at the start sarcasm and misrepresentation, two of their specialties. The Wanderer did not attack, but only responded to an attack on the Holy Father in the form of their manifesto (We Resist you---the pope---to the Face) which showed how theologically deficient in knowledge these people are once and for all. Matt and company frame it as an attack hoping to win sympathy, but it is merely a ruse. Their strategy? To taunt and bluff their way evasively around their own clear statements, and around the Catholic judgment against their peculiar form of sola traditio, which, like Luther's sola scriptura or sola fide prefers private judgment to the living Magisterium of the Church. Sects always confuse the part for the whole. Mockery and taunting - Ferrara's specialty after general nastiness - directed against the Holy Father and against those who defend him, according to the saints, reflects the spiritual damage done to the soul of the one who cuts himself off from the charity of the Church, a charity expressed by the most sincere communion with and obedience to the Vicar of Christ. Ferrara's immediate aim is to keep people from reading the critique objectively ( Traditionalists, Tradition and Private Judgment ) by caricaturing it, its author, and publisher.

A FAILURE OF PROOF

FERRARA: This installment is supposed to be a reply to Part 4 of The Wanderer’s tract (authored by Stephen Hand), but a systematic answer to what Mr. Hand says there is beyond my limited powers of analysis and synthesis. Part 4 is essentially a rambling reiteration of everything Hand has already said in the first three Parts. He flits from subject to subject without logical connection, making one bare assertion after another, so that if one were to reply to him in the order of his various assertions, the reply would be as disorganized as the assertions themselves. It is impossible to find a line of argument in Hand’s various remarks.

***** "He flits from subject to subject... It is impossible to find a line of argument in Hand’s various remarks." This is classic Ferrara who is an expert at gratutitous provocation. In his street-fighting, insulting, tactics he reminds us of Mr. Clinton's cynical approach to language and Johnny Cochran's cynicism, spinning words and facts, etc. Ferrara was hired by The Remnant for his well known ability to spin a fact beyond recognition, and bluff his way around obstacles. He will attempt to show in his response that what was clearly said by the schismatic four was not said, in the same way that a lawyer might try to convince a wife that the woman found in flagrante with her husband was in fact a mirage. The fact is, the analysis he is trying to answer preempted his strikes from the start by sticking to immutable Catholic principles and showing how Ferrara's materially schismatic clients violated the same.

FERRARA: First, Hand denounces unidentified "integrists" for denying the very legitimacy of Vatican II as a council of the Church; then he accuses them of interpreting the Bible on their own, just like the Protestants; then he declares that "every heretic thinks the Pope is a heretic and every schismatic thinks the Pope has departed from the Deposit of Faith." Are you keeping a tally?

***** Mr. Ferrara's unenviable task (a paid lawyer must automatically file his counter-brief on behalf of his client, no matter how hopeless and miserable the case, as John Loughnan reminds us) is to convince people that his sect is guilty of none of the errors we attribute to them based on their own published words and works. Thus Ferrara seeks to recite this litany of errors very quickly so as to dazzle all by such speed and feigned fearlessness, leaving his readers lost for the moment in confusion. Yet for all that, their manifesto, video, and almost every issue of their various papers show how real their transgressions are. But note how he mischaracterizes our position. He says we accuse Integrists (or integralists) "of interpreting the Bible on their own," when he knows it is their private interpretation of tradition , their sola traditio, which concerns us, since it is simply heretical, not the Bible, even if that must be also proximately involved. They will not allow the Pope to authoritatively interpret tradition for them, distinguishing the essential and substantial from the accidental, but insist they will interpret it for him! This is simply not Catholic. Tradition is the second prong of revelation, and only the Church may interpret / mediate revelation, as Luther learned. And as for the "legitimacy of Vatican II," this is a disingenuous and meaningless phrase if it does not mean docility and obedience in those dogmatic areas where the Council authoritatively developed Catholic doctrine. One need only ask any Bishop in communion with the Holy Father in the world. Bishop Bruskewitz has spoken on their errors decisively. Their response? To taunt and heap howls of execration on the good bishop, even mocking his grammar and syntax. But the pseudo-magisterium under Michael Matt will brook no authority except their own private judgment in good Protestant fashion. They even preposterously quote the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger - always out of context - against us, as if the Pope and Cardinal opposed the Council's doctrinal developments and supported these inregrists! Bizarre.

FERRARA: Next, Hand offers the curious observation that he finds it difficult to conceive "that laymen sitting in front of the TV eating their pretzels and watching their games can feel confident in opposing the Successor of Peter without severe angst." Now, I have heard of the argumentum ad hominem, but this is the first time I have seen the argumentum ad pretzelem. What do the snack food preferences of "integrists" have to do with the merits of their arguments - none of which Hand really addresses? Hand adds that he is astonished that "they" do not fear schism, and that "they" have "grotesquely inflated egos." Who? You know - they.

**** Laymen snacking on pretzels, ah, yes. Chris would rather not focus on what the metaphor suggests, precisely that Michael Matt and company have no authority or competence to judge the living Magisterium which alone may interpret and mediate that part of revelation called tradition. Thus the esquire jumps over the allusion by poking fun at it and kicks up dust that others may not see the obvious meaning. This is what lawyers do when pressed to the wall by the truth. Having no authority - and make no mistake, what is at issue here is precisely a matter of divinely betsowed authority - Ferrara must seek to evade and deflect from the central issues.

FERRARA: From there Hand jumps to the claim that the ISOCC video and certain "traditionalist personalities and papers" declare "that the visible Church is no longer the Church" and that they are guilty of "heretical sedevacantism." This charge Hand bases entirely on a false characterization of the ISOCC video, which says nothing of the kind. To address this mischaracterization, the video’s producers have published a statement in the Remnant of August 15th which should make it clear to anyone who is not comatose that the phrase "it is a new Church and a new religion" is used in the same relative sense that Hand’s own tract uses the phrase "the fact is, it simply didn’t seem like church anymore" to describe the unrecognizable travesty of a Mass he encountered when he returned to the Faith after a long absence. The ISOCC’s August 15 statement also affirms - precisely as they told me, and as I reported in my first installment - that the visible Church is still the Church, and that John Paul II is its head. Only the malicious will refuse to accept their affirmation. Enough, already, about the ISOCC video.

**** As if double-speak now absolves these fellows after they have been confronted on such reckless, materially schismatic language. But lawyers will try to introduce new statements and obfuscation when in trouble. However, the video says explicitly: "Yet there are many who persist in asking 'isn't the Mass still the Mass and the Catholic Church still the Catholic Church? Tragically the answer is no! [it is a ] New Church, a New religion" Very clear, regardless of what this lawyer is enlisted to say. Language is of consequence where theology is concerned, especially when the Pope is the one being attacked, need we add. But in a sadly disingenuous attempt to cover his tracks, and attempt doubtless to do damage control, John Sharpe, of the In The Spirit of Chartres Committee suggests his video was misunderstood and that we hadn't even seen it before we wrote our critique of it. Wrong on both counts. As to the first, its meaning is clear to any objective viewer, when it says in the video the Catholic Church has lost the Faith and is no longer the Church. See our review done only after we watched it, as we specifically state. Moreover, the video states its meaning even on its cover when it asks rhetorically: "This video asks the hard questions: is the Church still Catholic? Has she lost the true Faith? Does the clergy still believe? Can we count on today's Church to lead us to salvation?" Quite unambiguous, a rhetorical question. Reckless in the extreme. We simply pointed it out, rang the alarm, because the implications are grave. We got no thanks. Ferrara's task, as a consequence, is defeated before it has hardly begun. Nor will he even apologize for the reckless, schismatic, language. The language is ominously and tragically clear, no matter how a cynical and vested lawyer tries to deflect the obvious. There is no invincible ignorance at work here it would seem. No, Mr. Sharpe knows very well what such statements mean and intend to say, and what its schismatic conclusions mean. Instead of humbly revising the schismatic language they dug in their heels and launched a futile counterattack. Moreover, Integrist tabloids like The Remnant, Catholic FamilyNews, as well as Atila Guimaraes' and Marian Horvat's Tradition in Action, and persons like Mr. Ferrara all know what they mean when they join in the tragic chorus in the "We Resist the Pope to the Face" manifesto (much worse than the video), advocating and defending the call to publicy "suspend obedience" to the living, teaching, Magisterium.

A canon law study concludes:
"....canon 752 defines schism as "the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him." What one must note here is that the canon does not distinguish between degrees of withdrawal of submission to the Roman Pontiff. In other words, one need not completely withdraw one's obedience to the Roman Pontiff in order to enter into a state of schism. For partial withdrawal of obedience in certain matters, even if one's intention in so doing is only temporary, remains an act through which one withdraws one's submission to the Roman Pontiff...

"Moreover, canon 1321 §3 presumes imputability, stating: "Where there has been an external violation, imputability is presumed, unless it appears otherwise." Finally, it would appear that malice (dolus) is at the root of imputability within this public declaration, for there is a deliberate public intention on the part of its authors to withdraw submission to the Roman Pontiff, in spite of the fact their expressed intention in so doing is only temporary.

"Therefore, one can reasonably conclude that the authors of the aforementioned declaration have incurred the latae sententiae excommunication provided for schism under canon 1364 §1, and thus the legitimate ecclesiastical authority would have sufficient moral certitude of imputability by reason of malice to declare sentence against the authors of this declaration."

Thus this is all very serious whether the fact is appreciated by Mr. Ferrara or not, precisely because, again, language is of consequence in theology and canon law. Never mind when one is accusing the Holy Father of deviating from the Catholic faith! One would expect a lawyer to know this (or perhaps he does know and doesn't care?) .

FERRARA: Hopping about like a frog on a series of lily pads, Hand next denounces

**** Note the rhetorical taunting: "Hopping about....". Ferrara knows all too well we did not "hop about" in our reasoned reponse to the tragic video and schismatic manifesto. But he frames it thus simply to deceive those who have not read it. He is proud of his debating wits. Clearly, however, he is the jumpy one who learned the worst of his lawyerly craft well and hopes people will believe what he says on the authority of his merely asserting it is so. The fact is Ferrara is the excitable frog leaping from hotplate to hotplate in this Controversy as anyone can see.

FERRARA: both The Remnant and Catholic Family News for "attacks against the Indult Mass and the approved Traditional Catholic orders." [Editor’s Note: For some reason, Mr. Hand has recently begun to pretend that he doesn’t understand the difference between us warning against what we have consistently called the "indult mentality" (i.e. the unspoken pact which some Traditionalists seem to make with their bishops, whereby they swap their silence against the revolution in exchange for permission for the Tridentine Mass) and attacking the Indult Mass itself which, as we have repeatedly pointed out, would be to denigrate the Tridentine Mass.

**** As if we are dealing with a mere warning in this Manifesto, rather than language with grave juridical implications. Officially and publicly "suspending obedience" to all of the Popes since John XXIII is hardly a mere warning (which would be bad and presumptuous enough indeed!). As for the Indult, Ferrara thinks that not agreeing with the extremism and schismatic views of tabloids like The Remnant amounts to "silence" and frames it as such. The fact is the approved traditional orders are not "silent" at all. They simply reject Ferrara's sect, as witness the FSSP's recent statements against this false traditionalism in their Mystical Body of Christ confession of faith (See TCR at its FSSP link).

FERRARA: We have said, again and again, that the word "indult" in front of the word "Mass" cannot possibly change the essence of the Mass. The "indult mentality," on the other hand, is an entirely different matter and should be strongly warned against, as we continue to do.

**** Matt and company show their sectarian spirit here. Ferrara opposes the Indult mentality because it is Catholic, i.e., because it is in communion with, and approved by, the Vicar of Christ, and his (Ferrara's and Matt's ) hermeneutics of suspicion, evasion and separation would rather frame the Pope as anti-catholic, with Michael Matt as the arbiter of truth now. Anyone who reads The Remnant, or Catholic Family News (or Ferrara's other favorite vagus priest-client, Fr Nicholas Gruner - Ferrara defends a stable of theologically inept men! We trust it is more ignorance than money...) knows that. Yet Ferrara and Matt would spin the obvious like a top until one doesn't know what one is looking at. That he or Matt would pronounce on what constitutes the "essence of the Mass" without quoting the Pope or CCC is pure protestant arrogance.

FERRARA: This warning, however, is directed at ourselves - at Traditionalists - as the "mentality" is self-imposed. Why would Stephen Hand fail to make this distinction and instead accuse us of attacking the Mass itself? Readers will have to ask him that question, as I have no idea why he does anything he does. [MJM]

**** More nonsense from Michael Matt who would not spend one minute answering us if he did not know his paper castle was on fire. Michael Matt's whole raison detre, one fears, is to make a living attacking the Pope, and the approved Indult comunities. He brooks no authority but his own private interpretation of revelation (scripture and tradition). All facts are interpreted against the Holy Father. If the Pope is right, the paper folds. These groups thrive on opposition to the living magisterium of the Church and in this they are the twin sister of the neo-modernists. A hard saying, but what else explains such constant tunnel-visioned negativity year in and year out. Hopefully our critique will make them try harder.

FERRARA: Not only does Hand cite no evidence for the charge - because he has none - but he deliberately suppresses key evidence that exonerates The Remnant and its editor: Though taking issue with certain recent FSSP tendencies towards unjust compromise, The Remnant has repeatedly affirmed its support of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, as recently as the August 15th issue; Michael Matt himself organized the American Chapter on the Pilgrimage to Chartres, France, each and every year for the past ten years, and this Pilgrimage has the priests of the FSSP as its official chaplains; and Michael Matt himself attends a diocesan-approved Indult Mass.

**** "deliberately suppresses key evidence that exonerates...." The language of a paid defense attorney. Anyone who reads The Remnant or The Latin Mass Magazine or CFN for any serious period knows this is untrue, and what is intended when they incessantly attack the FSSP and other approved Indult communities and the Holy Father. The fact is Ferrara's sect consistently attack the Indult orders precisely because these are in full and sincere communion with the Holy Father ( communion means obedience), and in order to drain these orders of people for their own sola traditio cause. I also know because Michael Matt used to urge his writers to do this, to see and portray the approved orders as "compromisers" and the like. It was the SSPX line. That's why such articles appear so frequently.

FERRARA: Hand next offers the rather abstruse accusation that The Remnant and Catholic Family News "deflect" what he claims is their obligation to "repudiate with great regret such audacity." (Which audacity? I’ve lost track.) Hand laments that "this deflection is tragic in the extreme." Having lamented this extremely tragic deflection, Hand observes, quite irrelevantly, that the Church fathers who taught on licit resistance to the Pope under certain circumstances did not "believe that it was possible to attribute heresy or grave errors to the teaching Magisterium or that the Church could defect from the Faith and make void the promises of Christ." By this remark Hand evidently means to suggest that somebody or other among the "integrists" believes that these things are possible, although he identifies no one who actually says so. As Hand rambles on toward the end of Part 4,

**** note the childish insults which are constant in Ferrara's characterizations

he offers the insight that piety does no good if "it is severed from Catholic dogmatic certainties"- you don’t say! - and that if "piety is used against the Church" then the bishops will be "more and more suspicious of us all as we are broad-brushed together." Hand somehow fails to notice that it is he who is wielding the broad brush. However, I can certainly agree with Hand that Catholic piety makes bishops suspicious.

****Now he backhands the bishops (which ones?) after cynically attempting to suggest that none of his clients have suggested anything of the sort which should concern the Pope, bishops or canon lawyers. No, it is supposed to be perfectly normal for Ferrara's men to publicly suggest a Pope is embracing heresies, advocating substantial breaks with tradition, and that he should be officially and publicly "resisted" for trangressing immutable dogmatic certainties, as if the fathers were thinking of such grave dogmatic matters when they urged licit disobedience in areas of prudential wisdom only. The fact is all the fathers misquoted along these lines affirmed that the Holy Spirit would not allow a pope to fall into formal heresy and intended political or other merely prudential matters, never dogmatic ones. The exhausted charge of "papalolatry" is cynical and has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. Yes, piety apart from obedience to the living magisterium is dead, an absence of Catholic faith. To claim obedience only to popes who are passed from this earth is very convenient since they cannot gainsay The Remnant's private interpretations.

FERRARA: Next, Hand leapfrogs to the odd non sequitur that the traditional Latin Mass is "no guarantee of right theological thinking" because the modernists offered the traditional Mass at the turn of the century. From this brilliant insight one could just as easily deduce that the Catholic Church itself is no guarantee of right theological thinking, as the modernists all belonged to it before they defected from the Faith.

****** More rhetorical spewing and incontinence. Ferrara himself, with his own theological eccentricities and errors, which he defends and parades, is proof that the Tridentine Mass is no guarantee to correct theological thinking. A rite does not make one orthodox, as his views so eloquently show. The Catholic faith is primarily a way of life nurtured by the sacraments. All heretics said approved Masses if they pretended to be part of the Apostolic succession. Our lawyer breathes smoke and fire hoping to dazzle the crowd, but, alas, he only insults their intelligence. If there was any proof needed that the Tridentine rite is no guarantee of orthodoxy, Ferrara and The Remnant abberations, which he defends, is it. Heresy is an act of the will and intellect, not a matter of approved rites. One may live the Eucharistic life in grace through any approved rite. Schism, however, is proximate to heresies the fathers teach.

FERRARA: From there Hand jumps

**** clearly I am …rabbit… a frog in Ferrara's mind...and I shall surely wet his hand with truth.

to the claim that traditionalists, like Protestants, "call one another heretics or dangerous, ad nauseam" and that this is what happens when "Peter the Rock is rejected." Excuse me, but the only one who is accusing his fellow Catholics of heresy, a la the Protestants, is Stephen Hand. Traditionalists certainly have disputes among themselves, but I don’t recall any responsible traditionalist, such as Michael Matt, denominating any fellow traditionalist - or, for that matter, any "conservative" - a heretic.

**** "but I don’t recall any responsible traditionalist, denominating any fellow traditionalist.... " he says. Right. The Remnant has a significant Sede vacantist subscription base who completely agree with Matt and company in their methodology, hermeneutics, and attacks on the Holy Father. Excommunicated SSPX'ers also. It is no mystery why Matt opposed publicly the approved indult orders who are in communion with the Pope so often and the sede vacantists and SSPX'ers so little. The Pope is the only principle of unity in Catholicism and to wash off that Rock of unity is to wash out into the chaos of ego opinions. But whether the Integrists are SSPX'ers, SSPV'ers, rigorist Feeneyites, Grunerites, Michael Mattites, of the Old Catholic lineage like one popular e-list moderator, independents, etc., etc., they sneer at one another even as they depend on one another to sustain the attack against the Holy Father (one should hear their "independent" priests at the dinner table - never mind the laymen!) Many extremists, lacking any real unity with one another in the tempests of private judgment, where self and private judgment reigns, seek a pseudo unity precisely in the attack on the Pope himself, and this explains Michael Matt's and Fr. Gruner's serving them steady, steaming, dishes of multi-faceted attacks against the Holy Father - precisely in order to maintain a subscription base. Every eccentricity finds its face in their papers somewhere! No wonder Ferrara, with fingers crossed, would only speak of sweet harmony. But it is no secret Integrists fight for turf and only really lay down their arms / tongues against one another when a defender of the Holy Father arises. Then they have a common enemy. It is too obvious a truth to spend any time on. All of them hover around a black hole, over the absence of the true principle of unity and communion - which means obedience with - the Pope, the only Rock of unity. Finally, to pretend to any "communion" with the Pope while withdrawing obedience and organizing a public suspension of obedience to his teachings is simple sophistry, as the sede vacantist subscribers consistently and logically point out. It is simple sophistry for Matt and Gruner to pretend to want their cake and devour it too. See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm for the Church's teaching regarding the Living Magisterium which alone can interpret and mediate that part of revelation called tradition. Tabloid papers and sectarian lawyers are not competent to do so -which is the whole point they would "deflect".

FERRARA: As Part 4 finally sputters to a conclusion, Hand contends that canon law allows one to make "constructive criticism of ill - considered directions and poorly formulated teaching at the local levels"- why only "local levels"? - but never by way of "private judgment and rejecting the most basic truths of the Catechism." Which "basic truths" of the Catechism does Hand claim traditionalists reject? Naturally, he doesn’t say.

**** Let me answer the last question first by citing just one for the moment, Catholic Ecumenism as taught by the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to name but one. Now, if these people do accept the authority of the Council and the teachings of the CCC then there is no problem, is there? The dispute is over. If they do not, it is on account of their uncatholic sectarian preference for substituting their own private judgement for that of the living Magisterium.

FERRARA: Nowhere in this hopeless jumble

****so hopeless a jumble that The Remnant did not cease to obsess on and attack it, enlisting all their "heavy" hitters (as if!) even as it likewise attacks the Holy Father. Silly.

does Hand provide a single quotation to demonstrate that anyone in particular holds any of the views he condemns. Nowhere does he attempt any analysis or refutation of the actual statements of real people.

**** This, of course, is lawyerly smoke and mirrors. I quote decisively, not to mention all that we have had at www.tcrnews.com. One quote of divinely bestowed and protected authority is worth a million opinions strung end to end by the extremists who think the Pope is not Catholic and propagates heresies. Peace can only come by surrendering private judgment to the teachings of the living magisterial
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm . It is to the living magisterium of the visible Roman Catholic Church that Christ promised to be "with...always, even to the end of the world" (Mt 28:20). And it was to the Vicar of Christ to whom the mandate was given, "Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Mt 16: 19; cf also Jn 16:13; 1 Tim 3:15)
Ferrara bluffeth. As for analysis, he would hardly be doing these illogical streetfighting somersaults and blowing diversionary fire in all directions unless it was a serious analysis, all too serious for these good fellows. All this goes without saying. Ferrara exclaims it isn't so in the hopes that, framing it thus by mere assertion, people will be spooked by his rhetorical antics and spend money on his theological conferences (By the way, who "sent" or "called" him or Mr. Matt to speak in the name of the Church and judge what is and what is not orthodox, judging even the living Magisterium? Protestant ministers "call" and "send" themselves.)

FERRARA: But then, his whole tract suffers from the same fatal deficiency. The whole thing is a kind of extended rhetorical wink at the "conservative" gallery: We know who they are, don’t we? And we know what they believe, don’t we? In reviewing Hand’s haphazard and exceedingly slim presentation,

**** on which he and his comrades in error have spent more time and vile ferocity than such remarks would justify, like fire ants gnawing on an exceedingly slim iron rod!

I am reminded of Cardinal Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, in which he gave this assessment of the infamous pamphlet written against him by his justly forgotten accuser, Charles Kingsley: "The Pamphlet . . . is as slovenly and random and futile in its definite charges, as it is iniquitous in its method of argument." Slovenly, random and futile are apt descriptions of Hand’s own pamphlet, in which he whirls about and fires off his blunderbuss at various ill-defined targets, none of which he manages to hit with even a single pellet of hard evidence. The word "iniquitous" also applies to Hand’s method of argument, as shown by his suppression of key evidence, noted above. (I will give other examples of Hand’s deliberate suppression of evidence further on.)

****"Slovenly, random and futile...." One will be forgiven for deducing from such rhetorical displays that Ferrara does not like "Hand," - or even seems to hate him whom he has never met or spoken to (except once on the telephone) - but the reader would be well - advised to read the work which Ferrara critiques so crassly. Integrism is a bitter affair, a joyless "faith". It thrives on polemics, on opposition and hatred. Ferrara was also probably upset that The Wanderer called his bluff when he threatened to sue before the publication (which I was asked, and did not simply volunteer, to do) was hardly even set in series! Thus he was forced to resort to taunt and spin as best he could considering he was defending the unenviable thesis that the Pope is not Catholic, or at least not as Catholic as his sect. And imagine Ferrara quoting Newman who wrote so prolifically and profoundly about the Church's development of doctrine and yet advocating for The Remnant precisely with its ossified, petrified view of Tradition (sola traditio!), as if "development of doctrine only happened in yesteryears and not in Councils also!

FERRARA: In short, I have nothing much to say about Part 4 of Hand’s "monograph," except to make clear that I do not use my by-line to defend sedevacantists,

****Ferrara's clients, while denying to be Sedevacantists - even as they midwife it daily - wrote: "In our view a possible future declaration of a sede vacante ('the period of time when the Apostolic See is empty, as a consequence of the heresy of the Pope,' CFN 7/2000) would take place automatically when the Church would become aware of the gravity of the present day errors and who is responsible for them." - We Resist The Pope To His Face, V.3 (emphasis ours) And yet, again, the signers and defenders do not blush to cynically engage in deliberate doublespeak and assert this does not mean they are necessarily Sede Vacantists! Nothing is what it says in their Wonderland of "Yes-No". He speeds over chapter four because once in its leg - clamp he will not get out. He would like the reader to hurry over it too!

FERRARA: or those who say that the Second Vatican Council was not a valid council of the Catholic Church,
If the Council is valid, again, the argument is over, their case is destroyed, since we advocate nothing but the Council's development of Catholic doctrine in all the crucial areas (ecumenism, Interfaith dialogue, Religious Liberty, etc, etc) we state in our book and at TCR. John Paul's teachings are in perfect accord with the Council which presupposed Trent and all previous Church Councils. The Second Vatican Council represents a development of Catholic doctrine, not a rupture with ill-understood doctrines.
FERRARA: or those who accuse the conciliar Popes or the Council of teaching actual heresy, as that term is properly understood (the denial of an article of divine and Catholic faith), or those who affirm that the New Mass or the new rite of priestly ordination are invalid, meaning that we would now have no Masses and no priests in nearly the entire Catholic Church.

*******This is all disingenuous in the extreme, designed to pass over very quickly precisely those areas in which they are the most guilty as objective persons can see. They accuse the Pontiff of the most grave beaches with sacred Tradition in dogmatic areas (ecumenism, the Council, Religious Liberty, Interfaith dialogue, etc, etc..) over which he has the divinely bestowed and pleroma of authority to "bind" them. And they say his "errors" are indeed so grave that he is destroying the Catholic faith! It is the constant language and tone of The Remnant, CFN, Atila Guimarares, et al. If these men are not schismatic they are illiterates! And yet here Ferrara pretends there is little to quarrel over. This is simply egregious misrepresentation and coverup, as Bishop Brukewitz's analysis of their position showed, as The Wanderer's editor showed, and as Canon Law studies to be published show. Here poor Ferrara will have to wash out his mouth with soap if he prefers not to go to confession and confess such sophistry and his leading innocent ones gravely astray.

FERRARA: My friends Michael Matt and John Vennari have never held such views, nor, to my knowledge, have they ever been held by the other signers of We Resist You (henceforth the Statement). It is not my burden to defend nameless phantoms summoned by Hand from the periphery of the post-conciliar debacle, and I do not defend them here.

****This is the crux of the matter; as if Matt, Ferrara and company were papal loyalists! Here is where they think they can swindle their customers. It is tragic deception as anyone who can read their manifestos, videos, and tabloids can see for himself. Every page tells the story of their misrepresentations and non-sequiturs grounded in a false and ossified conception of tradition. They accuse the pope of being an apostate who has broken with Tradition in dogmatic areas, they predict the Church will depose him and Paul VI and John XXIII for such breaks, and this is all now characterized as nothing really.

FERRARA: Rather it is Hand’s burden to show that the particular people I defend

**** note Ferrara language..."burden...".... how he acts as lawyer here who must file his counter-brief)

the ones he has accused by name - have advocated such things; and he has not shown this because there is no evidence of it. That is precisely why Hand’s entire tract is devoid of quotations from the written and oral statements of the accused. Hand offers us nothing but 63 pages of vaporous innuendo. See Tradition and Private Judgment from The Wanderer to see how cynical is this rascal lawyer who does not spend months on end attacking us for nothing. The, er, "burden" is surely squarely and only on the shoulders of those who charge the pope with substantial breaks with tradition in dogmatic areas .

****Again, Ferrara must wash his mouth out with soap for such evasive misrepresentations. I hasten to add that those who have adopted such extreme positions are for the most part merely victims of the
unprecedented state of confusion in the Church today.

**** Even after the most egregious dodging (and, yes Virginia, lies) he pretends to defend OTHERS against the uncatholic and apostate Church and Holy Father by whom the Faith has allegedly been betrayed!

FERRARA: When the 1,500-year-old liturgy of the Roman Rite is tossed aside in favor of an entirely new rite of Mass concocted by a committee with the aid of six Protestant advisors, under the tutelage of a suspected Mason later sacked and sent off to Iran; or when the reigning Pope celebrates solemn liturgies in St. Peter’s Basilica and many other places with pro-abortion laymen in bishop’s costumes;

****"Pro-abortion laymen in bishop’s costumes..."? Now who is failing to name names?! And does the esquire now pronounce that such have lost office and now wear only "costumes" on his own "authority" ? Behold the hubris of a defender of schism pronouncing as if announcing himself a veritable counter-magisterium only in need of robes and mitre. And, incidentally, note how he utterly confuses the Eucharist with its various rites. The Eucharist in fact is alive and well until the very end of the world even if its many rites can be improved as faithful Catholics work to do. (see our link "One Mass Many Rites" at TCR) And even Michael Davies has had to rebuke his theologically impoverished friends and show how the new rite of Mass is, in all its essential parts, perfectly orthodox and stems from tradition right down to the kiss of peace. The fact is many good Catholics -millions!! - do NOT prefer the Tridentine rite (especially when chapels are filled with too many such men as Ferrara represents along with good Catholics). Less than 1 % of all Catholics are Traditionalists in preference and yet millions love and adore the Eucharist and bear its wonderful fruits in prayer, good works, the works of mercy and love for the poor. They live for more than bitter polemics. Mr. Ferrara, however, confuses the Eucharist with its rites and his opinions for magisterial judgments. Extremist Traditionalists all too often confuse what they personally do not LIKE with heresy. And then they begin interpreting all events accordingly, conspiratorially. This is another of their hermeneutical errors and it is self-centered in the extreme. For some it is near to pathology.

FERRARA: or when His Holiness says such things as "May Saint John the Baptist protect Islam . . ."—when strange, shocking, utterly unprecedented things like these happen again and again in the post-conciliar Church, it is hardly surprising that some shocked and rightfully scandalized people will come to the wrong conclusions, having simply failed to make the right distinctions.

**** Ferrara simply asserts, as if by fiat, gives no context, seeks to interpret speeches and texts against the Pope (against all Catholic hermeneutics, in the same way that cynical higher critics pit scripture against scripture ) refuses to see how they fit into the Council's teaching which he (disingenuously) claims to accept in some bizarre way which, however, does not require obedience......

FERRARA: As I said at the beginning of my reply to Hand, if one wishes to be honest, one must look to Rome for the ultimate cause of the post-conciliar crisis. The Pope is our father in the faith, and we must revere him as such, but we can no longer pretend that the state of the household of the Faith has nothing to do with the head of the household.

**** One would have to be omniscient to know what forces and weight are arrayed against the Holy Father and then be able to conclude that it would be a simple thing to fix the post-conciliar crisis as Ferrara the Brash would. Presto! Even Popes Pius X and Pius XII, for example, refused to excommunicate modernists as a rule, preferring other means and great patience to deal with them.

Let's take the case of Hans Kung: Rome has to pick its fights carefully in each and every case, weighing what the ripple effect will be. In our age of instant communication any further action against Kung, like excommunication, might trigger wholesale schism of nations, media gang-up, etc., and JPII is too concerned about the Catholic in the pew to let that happen. We have to trust that the Pope knows many things we do not. To cynically suspect the Pope as the extremists do is a satanic spirit, and their cure is far worse than the diseases. They confuse their lack of trust in the divine promises (the divine "always" and "whatsoever" Mt 16: 18; 20:28) as we walk through the valley of the culture of death for truth, when it is really weakness and pride. Kung was stripped of his mandate to teach as a Catholic theologian. It was traumatic for him and he was even taken to the hospital with chest pains when it all came down almost right after JPII became Pope. He knows that nothing he teaches can ever be in the name of the Church. Kung sees JPII and Ratzinger as the very Inquisition because everything the Pope teaches represents the death of Kung's theology, philosophy and the end of the epistemology of the whole culture of death. JPII sees the world very realistically, I believe, as thoroughly post-Christian, it's all gone, Christendom, and thus we must go back in the New Evangelization to existing as witness and leaven and teaching the philosophical basics all over again (the way the conductor in Fellini's "Orchestra Rehearsal" had to teach the musicians who rose up against him in the name of "freedom" and "art" how to play the notes again, since they won freedom only to lose the music!) regarding freedom, liberty, truth, the pursuit of happiness, democracy's potential and potential collapse, etc. By ignoring Kung, most young Catholics have hardly heard of him. Truth as leaven must be the new model of evangelization in a post-Christian world, I believe. And we must resist all nostalgia. The Parousia is the term of history, we are in the time in between.

The Pope must consider the implications of his actions for the whole Church and makes his decisions accordingly. Ah, if only Ferrara were Pope....!!! Then all would be well. He could roast Hand at the stake and go on a feeding frenzy, from which God spare us. His cure, again, would be far worse than the disease. Ferrara speaks as if ubiquitous modern nihilism and hedonistic contemporary world has not attacked the Church and especially the Holy Father who stands all but alone against it. To join those forces in attacking him in this hour is spiritually criminal. If the Pope is not obeyed by liberals today he deserves our prayers and sufferings offered for him, not our vitriol and hatred! If there are abuses in the Church and in the liturgy it is those abuses which ought to be patiently addressed. Instead Ferrara casts the first stone, with the liberals, and he should be ashamed for such treachery in such an hour. He and they seem to prefer their money-making conferences and turf to the truths for which the Pope suffers! The liberals consider the Pope the very Inquisition and detest his very name and that of Cardinal Ratzinger. Ferrara joins them in the crucifixion for his own reasons of private judgment. It is one thing to urge the Tridentine rite. It is quite another to charge the Pope and Council with teaching grave errors. There is more than one rite in the Church and Integrists must maturely accept that fact and work to attend the one they find themselves attached to. Abuses in all rites should be opposed.

****The Guimaraes / Remnant / CFN / manifesto - all Ferrara's bombast notwithstanding - makes the Pope out to be nothing less than an apostate from the Catholic faith as Ferrara full well knows. This is how they think they can justify their official and public "suspending of obedience" to him which, canonically is schism. They assert it is probably only a matter of time when the pope will be deposed along with all the other "conciliar" popes once the future ideal church sees Ferrara's wisdom. Ferrara needs to get honest; he needs to get real.

FERRARA: Now, there is no question that it is a gravely difficult thing for a layman to undertake what he believes is due criticism of the Pope’s stewardship of the Church without undermining respect for the institution of the papacy itself. That the task is difficult, however, does not excuse us from undertaking it. Obsequious silence is not an option when we are confronted with what Paul VI himself described as the auto-demolition of the Church.

**** This is a remarkable arrogance wherein one theologically crazed layman with no theological training or mandate from the Church would presume to charge the Pope with making breaches with Tradition (do read their pamphlet WE RESIST YOU TO THE FACE in dogmatic areas over which the Pope alone has authority over them, not they over him! This pseudo-magisterium is a spectacle in the extreme. Neo-modernists know how to make theological distinctions and don't. Integrists of Ferrara's kind simply do not know how. They merely parrot SSPX literature.

FERRARA: If we say we love the Holy Father but do nothing to make known to him our concerns or to resist actions we believe are deeply injurious to the Church, we have ignored the voice of conscience and failed in our obligation in charity. For this reason Saint Thomas teaches that "the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person to whom one is bound by charity, provided there is something in that person which requires correction."[i] Here the Angelic Doctor was speaking precisely of St. Paul’s public rebuke of the first Pope for his scandalous conduct in betraying his mission to the Gentiles.

**** Mr. Ferrara, as a wise priest said, is no St. Paul. Nor are his other pretenders. And St. Paul provides no legitimate analogy for laymen presuming to pronounce judgment on what is and what is not the Catholic Faith. The Pope's teachings in dogmatic areas was not the subject of St. Paul's rebuke (which rebuke was in the context of a dialogue between men of Church-bestowed authority, between an apostle and a pope, not between laymen pretending to be a magisterium unto themselves). The teachings of the Vatican Council and the teachings in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are pure Catholic doctrine, are they not Mr. Ferrara? Yes or No? Yes? Then you will not blame the Pope, resist him, or "suspend obedience" to him. But if you say NO? You, esquire, are a heretic. You have reached the level of your incompetence. As if the Angelic Doctor would subscribe to The Remnant's belligerence, much less its theological errors! Accept the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the argument is over, Mr. Ferrara. Reject it and accuse the "conciliar" Popes of breaking with revelation in the form of Tradition and you must not squeal when you are told you are in schism according to Canon law.

FERRARA: I am writing, then, to defend nothing more or less than Roman Catholic traditionalism of the sort practiced by my friends Michael Matt and John Vennari....

**** Aye!!! "Of the sort practiced by..." the infamous pseudo-magisterium which considers the Magisterium a dead letter not a living reality which alone can interpret and mediate Tradition, for Tradition is a part of revelation! Only the Church can interpret revelation, of which Tradition, together with Scripture, is a part. Mr. Ferrara's self-styled "remnant" has no competence to pass judgment on what constitutes the Catholic Faith or any development of its Tradition. He has mistaken the Roman Catholic Church for Protestantism wherein each man interprets revelation for himself! Chaos lies that way.

FERRARA: who have had the courage to exercise their duty as they see it, even if it involves criticism of the Roman Pontiff. Let Hand and The Wanderer prattle on about phantoms holding positions the accused and I do not defend. I could not care less.

**** Behold the man. Behold his simplistic sectarian spirit attempting to say his naked king is fully clothed. Tragically, he crucifies - with the world and the liberals - the Vicar of Christ. What a thing to make of ones life! Better to be poor than perfidious. We would rather that Ferrara's crowd simply admit a certain mistake in using reckless, materially schismatic language far too often and repent of it. Vomiting is hard, but one feels better afterwards. Otherwise they must own their words like men and women, and not seek to insult the intelligence of their readers with doublespeak. This is no place for pride. Truth matters. And in the Catholic Church we do not interpret the Truth by means of private judgment, whether from the left - or from the right.

A Final note on "ambiguities" in Council texts: All Integrists make a lot of alleged or apparent ambiguities in the Council texts. Any ambiguity in any of the Conciliar texts is sufficiently cleared up - for those in good faith - by the Catechism of the Catholic Church and an enormous amount of authoritative writing, not to mention the Pope's teachings. Also, it is a hermeneutical principle that ambiguity ( or even outright contradictions, such as we see in some of the writings of the saints) must be interpreted in favor of, not against, the orthodoxy of the Church, Pope, and Councils of the Church. Nor should ambiguities be interpreted as having been planted in such a way as to trump the Holy Spirit who protects the Church's councils from heresies. No council of the Church is verbally inspired, yet they are all protected infallibly from heresies by the Holy Spirit. Ambiguity simply awaits, if necessary, the interpretation of the living Magisterium of the Church which does not fail to provide it. All too much has been made of "ambiguity". Heresy is a matter of the heart. If any want to see ambiguity, let them read any issue of the Integrist papers - especially those which pretend not to be sede vacantist even as they midwife it daily!!!

(c) 2001, Stephen Hand. All rights to this commentary reserved; this document may not be circulated in any way or republished in any form without explicit permission of the author.

NOTE: His Eminence, Mr. Ferrara, last year went to Rome hoping to administer theological exams to the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, and the Ecclesia Dei office. He was to instruct the Vatican on the errors he perceives in the CDF document, Dominus Iesus which he considers a modernist-liberal document! This is the document, recall, which neo-modernists consider the return of the very Inquisition! Upon his return, Ferrara grandly debriefed his Mattite clients saying his trip to Rome was quite "successful". Msgr. Calkins of the Ecclesia Dei commission (need we say? see link above) hardly thought so. Calkins repudiated Integrist exaggerations forthwith and announced that such "theology" as these men preach is not in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and thus they may only be approached ecumenically. Ferrara, of course, goes directly ballistic and writes in the Remnant that Calkins is the worst of the Vatican apostates, and accuses him, and those in communion with him, of having "obsessions" about Ferrara and his cohorts.

Note, Calkins writes ONE article on these fellows and it is pathological "obsession"; His Eminence, Mr. Ferrara, and his Mattite friends attack the Pope and magisterium with every publication (certainly felling whole forests with the ink spilled by now), making a fine living doing so, and that is not obsession. Such are the antics of the new parallel magisterium which fancies itself the modern Essenes, a "remnant".