Reader response to Archbishop Chaput’s derogatory comments toward Traditional Catholics

The following was submitted by a reader, concerning the divisive commentary Archbishop Chaput offered to Trad Catholics of the Diocese of Arlington, in the wake of the destruction of the TLM there. Shameful, indeed. Read the Lifesite coverage here:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/abp-chaput-adds-insult-to-injury-for-arlington-catholics-who-love-the-latin-mass/

Reader response follows. I apologize for the wonky formatting.
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Men of the Council

November 14, 2022

This past October 22nd,, the retired Archbishop of Philadelphia, the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., spoke to Catholics attending a Eucharistic Symposium at the cathedral in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, and answered questions pertinent to Catholic life today. Present in the audience were Catholic laity and clergy, including Philadelphia native and local Ordinary, Bishop Michael Burbidge, who recently crushed diocesan Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) celebrations in his jurisdiction.

The archbishop noted that he has dealt with TLM Catholics who, if scratched, would ooze anti-Vatican-II blood. He never bothered to ask why this might be. He and his like-minded fellows never ask such questions. They are not with traditional Catholics in their concerns.

Why will these ecclesiastics not be wholly with us? (Play on words intended.). After all, we TLM-ers are simply striving to be faithful to our Holy Catholic Church as were our forebears of happy and sainted memory. Shouldn’t these men bearing the name “Catholic” be solidly with us?

Archbishop Chaput, who in the past opened the doors to the celebration of the TLM since his early days as a bishop in Rapid City, South Dakota, seems to find it all too easy today in retirement to dismiss many TLM Catholics as some kind of schism-leaning, noisome whiners too odd for his tastes. His episcopal motto, “As Christ loved the Church,” is a noble ideal, but he seems to fall short of its realization, given his Arlington comments. Are the lowest and most despised members of the Mystical Body of Christ to be scorned? Let not the head say to the feet: “Go away; either get on the Vatican II bandwagon or get lost!”

I would agree that many traditional TLM-loving Catholics, myself included, are odd, but only because we are part of a small but increasing minority of baptized Catholics who hold to the integral Catholic Faith and its perennial practice, and who, therefore, question what has happened to the Church since the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. I would suggest that fidelity to Holy Mother Church requires us to at least examine Vatican II with a critical eye.

Prelates in our present day, such as Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, both well-known figures in traditional Catholic circles, have been critical of Vatican II, although they differ as to what the Church will have to do with it when the Faith returns to the City of Rome and the spotless Bride of Christ returns from her present exile. These men are not alone in their critical views of the Council. They were in fact preceded by others as early as the opening of the conciliar proceedings in October of 1962.

The former Archbishop of Philadelphia apparently believes that the touchstone of fidelity in the Catholic Church is at a minimum the full-throated and unquestioning acceptance of every jot and tittle of the sixteen Vatican II documents officially promulgated by Paul VI. This very same Paul VI declared in his closing address to the Council that the finished work of Vatican II stands as a testimony to the (unbelieving) world that “we too have the cult of man,” to the denigration of Jesus Christ and the mission of the true Church. Should this not raise eyebrows? Yet Chaput, without shame or hesitation, spoke for himself and nearly all post-conciliar bishops when he declared: “I am a man of the Council.” This conciliar revolution is the idol to which they swear fealty.

Therein lies the answer for our inquisitive minds. Why is Chaput so dismissive of traditional Catholics in his replies to Arlington Catholics? Easy. He is a man of the Council. He cannot abide criticism of Vatican Ii, else his house of cards, called the “Conciliar Church” (and, more recently, the “Synodal Church”) be exposed for the fraudulent Antichurch that it is. He would never ask dangerous questions that might point to an unpleasant reality. He dare not honestly address our concerns, lest he become like us and see the true evils afflicting the Church today. No, it is much easier to ridicule and dismiss what cannot be faced.

If he holds Vatican-II-skeptical, traditional Catholics, who are faithful to the entire patrimony of the Church, its dogma and doctrine, its moral teaching, its timeless liturgy and rich devotional life, as near-schismatics if not worse, then it is he who has distanced himself from the Church. As he echoes Bergoglio, he by his own words condemns himself, not us. He and his fellow travelers have declared that the old Faith is dead, and that Vatican II ushered in an entirely new ecclesial reality that must not be questioned, much less repudiated. They tell us with unaccustomed gravity that we must embrace their novel enterprise with enthusiasm or lose our Catholic credentials.

For all their efforts, these churchmen cannot sweep truth under the rug. By the very ambiguity of its texts alone—let’s leave aside elements of error and heresy—Vatican II and the evil it has spawned cannot be a work of the Roman Catholic Church.

You see, the post-conciliar churchmen, having ditched their true Spouse, have gone a-whoring with the post-conciliar religion. Not only will they not be with us on the side of the unchanging and immutable religion given to us by Christ and His Church; they cannot be with us, or it will be their undoing.

Are we not allowed to question Vatican II, their “super dogma,” their “new Advent” and “new Pentecost” ushered into the body ecclesial by “the Spirit?” What spirit, I ask? Why is the entire Vatican II enterprise alone immune from criticism and condemnation while these “men of the Council” dismiss the Church as it was up to the eve of Vatican II?

Allow me now to tread too close to home. Let’s move beyond Chaput & Co. to the traditional Catholic milieu. While we, no more nor less than Catholics at large, have our faults both individually and collectively, and I myself am at the head of the line here, it strikes me as strange that so few voices are willing to rise above the crowd and to declare to the powers ensconced in the ecclesial structures that “the emperor has no clothes.” Why such pathetic if not treacherous silence on the part of so many?

For the past two to three years many traditional Catholics have at best shrugged their shoulders in the face of attacks aimed against them. How about lockdowns of churches and sacramental life in the name of a virus? Or jab evangelization by clerics? Or Traditionis Custodes? Hello? Anyone? In the midst of these evils, too many Catholics in traditional circles have bent over backwards to try to please these “men of the Council” failing in their duties as spiritual shepherds. Much more tragic still are the painful and embarrassing efforts too many of them have made to convince their conciliar overlords that they, too, embrace the Council and that they, too, are faithful and loyal to the very “men of the Council” who would destroy them.

Where among the lay faithful and the lower clergy are the voices of truth to challenge these “men of the Council?” Why are we effectively begging these men wedded to a new religion for permission to believe and to act as Catholics? How sad to see so many Catholics effectively saying to their clerical superiors: “Please mock us, beat us down, spiritually abuse us . . . so we may have your permission for a TLM and the practice of our Faith.” Co-dependency, anyone? Stockholm Syndrome? Fear unbecoming a follower of Christ and His Church?

May the Lord rouse us from our slumber, prod us in our laziness, and banish all fear from our pusillanimous hearts. We will soon hear in the sacred liturgy the words of St. Paul to the Romans (and we ourselves, heirs to their Faith, are Romans, too!) that “it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand..”

May these “men of the Council” be struck with fear and awe when they witness in faithful Catholics what they least expect. May they live to see those whom they presently ridicule and “scratch” with condescending pablum newly arisen from slumber, ready and happy to bleed. Yes, to bleed. To bleed with deep red faith, hope and charity, for the love of Jesus Christ and His one, true Church.

Yours in Christ +

8 thoughts on “Reader response to Archbishop Chaput’s derogatory comments toward Traditional Catholics”

  1. Why are they so defensive of a council that supposedly issued no new doctrines? a council that supposedly dis NOTHING but is somehow the most important ever? A council that cannot be summarized like all the rest can? Nicea: condemned Arianism, gave us the Nicean creed. Simple. What did V2 do? V1 declared popes infallible. Easy to summarize. Yet lol at it looking back! Trent: condemned a bunch of Protestant claims AND declare the Old Latin Vulgate infallible. Yet V2 or post-V2 (did the council do it or did a supposedly infallible pope after the council do it?) threw the Old Latin Vulgate out and replaced it with a Nova Vulgata (which is just the Westcot-Hort Nestle-Aland Greek text translated into Latin, thus rejecting the more or less Textus Receptus Greek base of the Traditional Vulgate). How does an infallible pope undo an infallible council? Lolz. And vice versa. Double lolz.

  2. bergoglio isn’t the pope, so TC, along with everything else he has issued, is null and void an initio.

    Problem solved. The only reason people obey is because they mistakenly believe he is Pope, or they are afraid to challenge him.

    Not enough people willing to stand up and call out this antipapacy publicly.

    I’m reminded of a recent story I came across of a very young altar boy in his TLM Parish. He knows all the responses to the Mass very well. His family even said they were praying he would have a vocation to the priesthood. He’s not even in his teens mind you.

    His family says the Rosary every night, and they prayed especially for the Pope and his intentions.

    This young Altar Boy thought he was doing great and that bergoglio would be completely proud of him.

    Then TC dropped, everyone was worried their TLM would disappear, and his parents who had been doing a good job of shielding their son from reality had to admit the truth to their son.

    They had to tell their son that the “pope” doesn’t actually like the TLM, and wants it to go away.

    That young boy was crushed.

    Here he was thinking his “father” (bergoglio) was very proud of him for helping at Mass each week, and how he prays for this “father” every night, only to find out that his “father” thinks he’s a loser.

    That would crush anyone.

    That young boy is on the way out of the Church, his parents know it, and it crushes them. He doesn’t pray for bergoglio anymore, and he’s stopped being an altar boy, and soon I think he’ll stop going to Mass altogether.

  3. “a council that supposedly did NOTHING but is somehow the most important ever?”

    They speak with forked tongues. Motte and bailey argument. The Council is the most important thing when they want to dismantle the traditional Catholic religion. When this is criticized, the Council did nothing: it was a pastoral Council. You are irrational if you oppose a Council that did nothing.

    They are masters of deception, like his father.

  4. Chaput, like Cupich and Tobin, is a poster-boy for the Bergoglian anti-church. That anti-church is manifesting daily before our eyes and it’s ironically the exact same thing as the American political theater (which I don’t think is a coincidence). Bergoglio is the dumb-ass, spoiled thug at the top, likely controlled by shadowy freemasonic globalists (and of course, satan above them). Cupich, Tobin and their wanna-be’s are the democrats, enforcing the party line with ruthlessness and just one step away from officially ‘coming out’ if you know what I mean. Chaput, Burbidge and a handful of pathetic others are the republicans – weak, condescending, embarrassed of the conservatives they allege to speak for, and are all too gleeful to throw them under the bus which is what they’re doing right now. Many, many, good Catholic souls are soon going to lose their Faith because of these sorry men and that tragically does not need to happen.

    As tempting as it may be, DO NOT LEAVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. If you think the SSPX is in schism, wake up and grow up. They are not and there’s an abundance of evidence to back me up. If, after the pacamammy, and the abundance of evidence that something was way off with Pope Benedict’s resignation, you still think Bergoglio is the pope and it’s “disobedient” to think otherwise… I don’t know what more I can say to you.

    Your Dioceses are not going to fight when they get bullied – all of them are blackmailable if I may borrow that line from Ann B. Sadly, I don’t think the ICK and FSSP are going to fight either – for the same reason – and I really hope I’m wrong. An invalid consecration is coming soon and that in all likelihood will leave the SSPX, the Eastern Catholic Rites and the underground Church. Look at your Mass situation where you live and have a contingency plan ready. You may need it suddenly and without warning.

    Death to freemasonry; Christ the King now and forever. Oh, and stay rigid too.

    1. What he said! When God led me to the SSPX in 2018, I could never have imagined how it would be a wall of protection for my family. I am eternally grateful.

  5. For those who don’t see that we are possibly a few years away from the return of Christ, what was the mission he gave to the apostles? To preach and teach the gospel to all nations. Now this “pope” has basically made the mission to make friends between all nations and build a utopia. Almost everyone can now be preached to because of technology. Jesus didn’t place us in the world for no reason. Everyone wants to convince us to just live this life, as though we don’t expect. Jesus to return as soon as everyone had the chance to hear the gospel. New heavens and earth is not an expansion pack but the main promise Christ gave to us,

    1. Preaching the Gospel apparently ended with V2, which furthers my impression that the “Conciliar Church” is a distinct entity, totally separate from the Catholic Church.

  6. Bergoglio is obviously not the pope; why then take instruction from NO, Indult or even SSPX when they all declare FiP? Makes no sense, especially for those with young boys serving Mass. Sede clergy have valid orders and Sacraments. Check them out and don’t let anti-sedes scare or deceive you. Sedes are Catholic

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