Will the real Traditionalist please stand up?
Too Traditional for Tradition?
Peter Kwasniewski vs. Pope St. Pius X
UPDATE 08-DEC-2023 17:44 UTC:
Dr. Kwasniewski has contacted Novus Ordo Watch and disputed the accuracy of our claim that he has never had an official teaching mandate from the Novus Ordo hierarchy.
Here are the professor’s comments in full, which we are repeating here for the sake of accuracy and fairness:
I noticed in your latest article about my “hubris” a simple factual error:
“When an academic who has a Ph.D. in philosophy but no degree in theology, and who has never had an official teaching mandate from what he recognizes to be the lawful ecclesiastical authority…”
In fact, I received the mandatum to teach theology twice: first from Cardinal Schönborn (yes, I know… but he was the bishop of the diocese in which the International Theological Institute was located), and then from Bishop David Ricken of Cheyenne (prior to his transfer to Green Bay). The mandatum was confirmed by the next two bishops of Cheyenne. It is worth pointing out that all accrediting agencies recognize “equivalencies” to having a terminal degree: namely, scholarly publications and teaching experience. Having an STL or an STD does not magically turn a person into a “theologian,” as we can see from countless heretics of the 20th century.
The following is our ORIGINAL article as posted here on Dec. 7, 2023. We ask the reader to keep in mind the clarification given by Dr. Kwasniewski and read/evaluate the following text accordingly. Obviously, insofar as our charges have been counterfactual and therefore unjust, we hereby retract them with an apology to Dr. Kwasniewski.
The accusation of ‘hubris’, however, still stands with regard to his disgraceful rejection of the papal magisterium regarding those things he believes are “hyper-papalist” (or “ultramontanist”, as if the latter were a bad thing), simply because they are not compatible with his ideas about Catholic Tradition, the Sacred Liturgy, and the authority of the Pope.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The word hubris is defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence”.
When an academic who has a Ph.D. in philosophy but no degree in theology, and who has never had an official teaching mandate from what he recognizes to be the lawful ecclesiastical authority, presumes to lecture the public on ‘traditional Catholicism’ and yet is not ashamed to go against even a solemnly canonized Pope known as the Church’s greatest foe against Modernism, surely the suspicion that such a man suffers from hubris is more than justified.
We are speaking of Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, a retired philosophy professor and self-styled ‘traditional Catholic’ who seems inclined to mistaking the immense success his writings enjoy among his co-religionists with divine approval of his work. Thankfully he has stopped calling himself a “Catholic theologian”, which he used to do on his web site, although his biographical blurb at Life Site still refers to him as a “Thomistic theologian”.
Years ago Kwasniewski was mostly known as a speaker and writer on liturgical matters, but when the mess Jorge Bergoglio (‘Pope Francis’) has been making started to become ever more glaring, he began writing and speaking more on doctrinal-theological issues. As Bergoglio’s magisterium is manifestly incompatible with the traditional Roman Catholic religion the Papacy is guaranteed to uphold and defend, Kwasniewski began ‘rethinking’ the Papacy instead of questioning whether the Jesuit claimant from Buenos Aires really is the Pope.
At first Kwasniewski seemed to be oblivious to the true Catholic teaching on the Papacy; but when people began to point out to him that his theological ideas actually run contrary to the pre-Vatican II magisterium, he did not correct his errors. Instead, he began trying to justify a rejection of the traditional Catholic doctrine — under the veneer of ‘properly understanding’ the ‘real’ Catholic teaching, no less (which ‘proper understanding’ must have escaped the Popes of the 19th and 20th centuries, naturally).
Logically speaking, he is only being consistent. If Kwasniewski considers himself authorized, capable, and perhaps even obliged to sift, criticize, and reject the magisterium of one Pope (or a man he accepts as Pope, that is, Francis), then why stop there and not also do the same for any other Pope — not excluding even the great St. Pius X, the scourge of the Modernists? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.
For all its convenience and popularity, such an approach is wholly incompatible with traditional Catholicism. It can therefore hardly be used ‘in defense of Tradition’, any more than a man can borrow his way out of debt. For someone who states on his web site that he is “dedicating his life to the articulation and defense of Catholic Tradition in all its dimensions”, that should be a showstopper.
Sadly, however, it seems that “the Kwas”, as some former students of his affectionately call him, considers himself and his research to be the ultimate standard and judge of all things Catholic.
Thus, if he finds something objectionable that a pre-Vatican II Pope taught or legislated, he has no qualms about correcting the papal magisterium, rather than humbly conforming his own mistaken understanding to that of the Pope. Never mind that this runs contrary to the First Vatican Council (1870), which taught explicitly that “the judgment of the Apostolic See, whose authority is not surpassed, is to be disclaimed by no one, nor is anyone permitted to pass judgment on its judgment” (Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 3; Denz. 1830).
It appears that as the years go by, Kwasniewski gets more and more comfortable criticizing, rejecting, and ‘correcting ‘the pre-Vatican II magisterium. Pope Pius X (r. 1903-1914), who was declared a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1954, seems to be a particularly fond target of his.
Let’s look at some concrete examples. In the recent past, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has…
- accused Pope St. Pius X of “liturgical Modernism”
- called Pope St. Pius X’s teaching on devotion and submission to the Pope a “painful historical embarrassment”
- called Pope St. Pius X’s revisions to the Roman Breviary “impious” and “absurd”
- shared and praised a quote from Fr. Adrian Fortescue in which the English priest refers to Pope Pius X as an “Italian lunatic”
Yes, you read all of that right.
We will now look at each item in detail and provide the necessary documentation.
(1) Kwasniewski accuses St. Pius X of ‘Liturgical Modernism’
On Feb. 4, 2019, Dr. Kwasniewski published the article “The Need for Mutual Humility and Support Between the SSPX and the FSSP” at the New Liturgical Movement web site. In it, he has this to say regarding the sainted Pope Pius X:
…there is one blotch on his papal escutcheon: the violence he did to the Roman Breviary with his radical reforms of 1911. Many popes have added this or that small feature to the liturgy — a new feast, a new preface, a new octave, the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Last Gospel; many have modified the rubrics; very occasionally they have pruned elements deemed overgrowths, such as Pius V’s removal of certain obviously legendary saints from the calendar of the 1570 Missale Romanum. But never had a pope dared to alter in such a radical and thoroughgoing way any of the Latin Church’s ancient liturgical offices. When Pius X had the Breviarium Romanum dismantled and reconfigured in the early 20th century, he was not merely setting aside something that had been constructed in the 16th century, as liturgists can be found to assert; he was altering a rule of prayer so old its origins cannot be discerned. Indeed, there is strong reason to think that the daily recitation of the Laudate psalms (148–150), from which the very hour of Lauds derives its name, is traceable to the Jews of the time of Christ and therefore, with great likelihood, was practiced by Our Lord Himself in His prayers on earth.
There were problems with the breviary at the turn of the 20th century; no one disputes this point. But Pius X’s solution was not to retain the office as it stood while modifying its rubrics so that (e.g.) the weekly cursus of 150 psalms would be prioritized over the festal psalms, or perhaps some hours, such as Matins, would become optional for secular clergy, in order to conserve the integrity and harmony of the breviary as a whole. Instead, Pius X became the first pope in the history of the Latin Church who, freely spending the abundant capital of ultramontanism, threw the weight of his office behind the construction of a new Divine Office. In this way he provided the very premise of papal contructivism [sic] that offered Pius XII the precedent for revamping Holy Week in similar fashion from 1948 to 1955, and Paul VI for transmogrifying everything from 1963 to the mid-1970s. Paradoxically, the pope who fought valiantly against doctrinal modernism exemplified liturgical modernism by rupturing the principle of the inviolability of longstanding tradition in the name of easing up pastoral burdens. If this sounds eerily familiar, it should.
Thus, the very saint to whom the SSPX is dedicated shows us two sides in tension: the zealous promoter of Catholic dogma, and the larger-than-life pontiff who treated part of the liturgy as if it were a mechanism to be rebuilt rather than a living organism to be nurtured or an inheritance of the saints to be treasured.
(underlining added)
The audacity of these words is astounding. That Kwasniewski can say all this in an article in which he calls on others to practice humility, is amusingly ironic.
Pope Pius X reformed the Roman Breviary with his decree Divino Afflatu of Nov. 1, 1911. Its original Latin is available here, and an English translation can be found in American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. 37, n. 145 (Jan. 1912), pp. 166-170.
Pius X’s reform was a substantial revamping of the Church’s official liturgical prayer book which the holy Pontiff judged to be necessary and appropriate. A summary of the changes can be found here:
- Reform of the Roman Breviary (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Amazingly, it does not occur to Dr. K that perhaps it is he who is wrong in his judgment about the Breviary reform, not the Pope who legislated it. Granted, there are other liturgical scholars who share the Kwasniewskian criticism (such as the Benedictine Alcuin Reid in The Organic Development of the Liturgy), but it would behoove the American philosopher to approach the authoritative judgment of a canonized Supreme Pontiff with a bit more deference.
A Catholic is certainly allowed to wish that the Pope had not made the changes he made. But what we cannot do is ignore/disobey the reform, declare the revised rubrics null and void, or accuse the Pope of Modernism. As if the Sovereign Pontiff should have checked first with self-appointed lay ‘experts’ to tell him what is and is not in conformity with sound Catholic principles!
Regarding liturgical matters, Pope Pius XII spelled out quite explicitly that
the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification. Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship. Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide for themselves in these holy and venerable matters, involving as they do the religious life of Christian society along with the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ and worship of God; concerned as they are with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity, the Word Incarnate and His august mother and the other saints, and with the salvation of souls as well. For the same reason no private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind, which are intimately bound up with Church discipline and with the order, unity and concord of the Mystical Body and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith itself.
(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, n. 58; underlining added.)
Kwasniewski’s article was published in early 2019. It was the author’s opinion then that the reform of the Roman Breviary was the “one blotch on [St. Pius X’s] papal escutcheon”. Can anyone be really surprised that the retired professor has found a few more since — or so he thinks?
(2) Kwasniewski calls St. Pius X’s Teaching a ‘Painful Historical Embarrassment’
On Nov. 18, 1912, Pope Pius X received in audience members of the Apostolic Union of Secular Priests for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of their founding. The Pope gave a poignant address that apparently gained worldwide attention, as the following newspaper excerpt from the Jan. 17, 1913 edition of The Tidings (p. 16) reports:
It is this papal address Kwasniewski finds so objectionable that he calls it a “painful historical embarrassment”, as we will show momentarily.
But what did the Pope say that Dr. K finds so embarrassing? It is this portion, regarding fidelity to the Holy See and devotion to the Pope:
And this is why, when we love the Pope, we do not dispute whether he commands or requires a thing, or seek to know where the strict obligation of obedience lies, or in what matter we must obey; when we love the Pope we do not say that he has not yet spoken clearly — as if he were required to speak his will in every man’s ear, and to utter it not only by word of mouth but in letters and other public documents as well. Nor do we cast doubt on his orders, alleging the pretext which comes easily to the man who does not want to obey, that it is not the Pope who is commanding, but someone in his entourage. We do not limit the field in which he can and ought to exercise his authority; we do not oppose to the Pope’s authority that of other persons — no matter how learned — who differ from the Pope. For whatever may be their learning, they are not holy, for where there is holiness there cannot be disagreement with the Pope.
(Pope St. Pius X, Address Vi Ringrazio to the Priests of the Apostolic Union, Nov. 18, 1912; in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 4 [1912], p. 695; translation from Papal Teachings: The Church, n. 752. #CommissionLink)
Notice that St. Pius X spoke not simply of the Papacy in general but quite concretely of the Pope. A Catholic must be devoted to the Pope, regardless of his person. He who truly believes in the Papacy as a divine institution enjoying God’s special assistance, will have no problem with that. The 19th-century Oratorian Fr. Frederick Faber once explained this in a pamphlet by that name: Devotion to the Pope.
Furthermore, we should point out that Pius X’s words here are not merely spontaneous or informal remarks of no further consequence. Rather, His Holiness ordered his address published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Acts of the Apostolic See), which makes it officially part of his authoritative magisterium.
Let us now look at what Peter Kwasniewski had to say about this magisterial address of the canonized Pope.
In a Facebook post dated Dec. 17, 2022, the haughty professor writes that the papal address
strikes me not as a conversation-stopper (“Aha! Gotcha!”), but rather as a painful historical embarrassment that Catholics need to know how to explain away if they would offer their fellow Catholics any reason not to rush off to become Orthodox or sedevacantist, as any sane Christian could be forgiven for doing when confronted with this particularly obnoxious vein of hyperpapalist official theology as if it had to be accepted.
(underlining added)
Ah! Someone does not want to be sedevacantist. Now that alone might explain a lot of ‘theology’ in the writings and speeches of Prof. Kwasniewski.
But that’s not how Catholic theology works. We do not start with a desirable conclusion and then try to find the theological evidence for it. Rather, we must allow Catholic doctrine, Catholic principles, to tell us whether Francis could possibly be a true Pope; we cannot start with the conviction that Francis ‘must be’ the Pope and then modify Catholic theology to make it fit the historical circumstance. Yet that is precisely what Kwasniewski has been on an unholy ‘mission’ to do, regardless of how impious, how anti-Catholic, how absurd the consequences of such an endeavor show themselves to be.
Since Dr. K’s words are so outrageous, we are providing a screenshot of his Facebook post here as evidence:
In his Facebook post, the Kwas refers disdainfully to what Dr. Thomas Pink has called “official theology”. While that is very much a matter of interest for this blog, we will leave discussion of it for a future post. Suffice it to say for now that anyone who thinks it is a good idea to abandon the official theology of the Pope in favor of the unofficial theology of an American philosopher, is gravely misled.
No one should think, by the way, that Pope Pius X said what he said to the Apostolic Union priests only because he happened to be the Pope at the time. Before his own pontificate, in 1887, when Pope Leo XIII was gloriously reigning as Vicar of Christ (1878-1903), the future Pope Pius, then still Bishop Giuseppe Sarto of Mantua, addressed the Holy Father in these words:
The moment has come to prove to the great Vicar of Christ our unchanging affection and fidelity. For us Leo XIII is the guardian of the Holy Scriptures, the interpreter of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the supreme dispenser of the treasures of the Church, the head of the Catholic religion, the chief shepherd of souls, the infallible teacher, the secure guide, who directs us on our way through a world wrapped in darkness and the shadow of death. All the strength of the Church is in the Pope; all the foundations of our Faith are based on the successor of Peter. Those who wish her ill assault the papacy in every possible way; they cut themselves adrift from the Church, and try their best to make the Pope an object of hatred and contempt. The more they endeavor to weaken our faith and our attachment to the head of the Church, the more closely let us draw to him through the public testimony of our Faith, our obedience and our veneration.
(quoted in F.A. Forbes, Pope St. Pius X [Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1987], pp. 34-35)
No doubt, this must be another “painful historical embarrassment” for Peter Kwasniewski! We suggest he read Dom Prosper Guéranger’s 1868 book The Papal Monarchy (#commissionlink) for additional such episodes.
(3) Kwasniewski calls Pope St. Pius X’s Changes to the Breviary ‘Impious’ and ‘Absurd’
We have already touched upon St. Pius X’s revisions to the Roman Breviary and the disdain for them Kwasniewski expressed in a 2019 article. Earlier this year, on May 17, 2023, in an article entitled “Custom and the Force of Law” for One Peter Five, Dr. K doubles down and calls the revisions “impious” and “absurd”:
Beyond being able merely to acknowledge the impiety of these ultramontane-positivist ventures of modern popes—whether Pius X’s abandonment of the traditional Roman cursus psalmorum [course of psalms], Pius XII’s revamping of Holy Week, Paul VI’s library of new liturgical books, or nearly the sum-total of Francis’s pontificate—are we able to say that these ventures are anything more than absurd? For as long as these acts are considered legitimate or licit, where does this leave the simultaneous reality and legal normativity of liturgical tradition? Does custom survive as anything more than an attenuated shadow of its former self?
(underlining added)
The question Kwasniewski should be asking is where it leaves the authority and credibility of Holy Mother Church if the liturgical laws promulgated by the Roman Pontiff for the Universal Church can be dismissed, condemned, and rejected by any of the faithful, or at least by those who fancy themselves wiser, more prudent, or more competent than the Church’s supreme authority.
In his 1794 bull denouncing the errors of the Synod of Pistoia, Pope Pius VI condemned as “rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against it” the idea that “the present order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated” (Auctorem Fidei, n. 33; Denz. 1533).
We would like to draw attention also to the dogmatic teaching of the Council of Trent, namely:
…[S]ince such is the nature of man that he cannot easily without external means be raised to meditation on divine things, on that account holy mother Church has instituted certain rites, namely, that certain things be pronounced in a subdued tone in the Mass, and others in a louder tone; she has likewise made use of ceremonies such as mystical blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind in accordance with apostolic teaching and tradition, whereby both the majesty of so great a sacrifice might be commended, and the minds of the faithful excited by these visible signs of religion and piety to the contemplation of the most sublime matters which lie hidden in this sacrifice.
If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety rather than the services of piety: let him be anathema.
(Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter 5, Canon 7; Denz. 943, 954)
It must have been precisely attitudes like the one displayed by Peter Kwasniewski that motivated Pope St. Pius X to say in his address to the Apostolic Union delegates that Catholics ought not to “oppose to the Pope’s authority that of other persons — no matter how learned — who differ from the Pope. For whatever may be their learning, they are not holy, for where there is holiness there cannot be disagreement with the Pope”.
(4) Kwasniewski Endorses a Quote from a Priest calling Pope Pius X an ‘Italian Lunatic’
Most recently, on Dec. 2, 2023, Peter Kwasniewski took to Twitter/X and Facebook to share a quote from Fr. Adrian Fortescue (1874-1923) from a personal letter written on Nov. 5, 1910.
Here is the entire Facebook post, with the Fortescue quote in blue, for easier reading:
An oldie but a goodie. Here is Fr Adrian Fortescue, in a letter dated November 5, 1910, speaking of Pope Pius X. (Can you imagine if there was social media in those days, and he had let loose?)
“You know, we have stuck out for our position all our lives … unity, authority, etc., Peter the Rock and so on. I have, too, and believe it. I am always preaching that sort of thing, and yet is it now getting to a reductio ad absurdum? Centralisation grows and goes madder every century. Even at Trent they hardly foresaw this kind of thing. Does it really mean that one cannot be a member of the Church of Christ without being, as we are, absolutely at the mercy of an Italian lunatic?… We must pull through even this beastliness somehow. After all, it is still the Church of the Fathers that we stand by and spend our lives defending. However bad as things are, nothing else is possible. I think that when I look at Rome, I see powerful arguments against us, but when I look at the Church of England… I see still more powerful arguments for us. But of course, saving a total collapse, things are as bad as they can be. Give us back the tenth century Johns and Stephens, or a Borgia! They were less disastrous than this deplorable person.”
Fortescue was no liberal or modernist, but he sensed a problem. That was 113 years ago.
Here is the screenshot of the outrageous post:
So, apparently Fr. Fortescue had a problem with Pope Pius X. With the benefit of hindsight, we are happy to take a shortcut and simply point out that “this deplorable person”, this “Italian lunatic”, is a canonized saint. His shepherding of the Church may not have met with the approval of this English priest, but it did meet with God’s approval, and that’s all that ultimately matters.
The idea now, however, is not to argue with Fr. Fortescue — may he rest in peace — but with Peter Kwasniewski. By the end of his life, Fr. Fortescue may very well have come to regret these words of his, but it is Dr. Kwasniewski who is today promoting them as an “oldie but goodie” — his subsequent attempt at damage control notwithstanding.
In response to a critical reply by Novus Ordo Watch on Twitter/X, Dr. K responded: “Is there anyone else in the world who assumes that quoting someone’s striking, private, and piqued words from 113 years ago equates to agreeing with all of them or even praising them? But when you are dealing with sedes, you are dealing with an alternate dimension of reality” (source).
So even though he had shared Fr. Fortescue’s disdainful and insulting words against the Pope under the label of “oldie but goodie”, without any caveat or disclaimer, the retired philosopher wants us to believe that it is the juicy personal insults against the Pope he happens to disagree with? But no, he didn’t even say as much. In fact, he merely asked a question about what one should reasonably assume. That’s a rather evasive answer where a clear one would have been necessary.
Later on Dec. 2, Kwasniewski published another post on Facebook, as evidently a number of people were equally appalled at his “oldie but goodie” quote:
My post of Fr Fortescue venting about Pius X certainly ruffled some feathers. Let me be clear: I admire Pius X for much that he did and said. Anyone who knows my work knows this (see, e.g., my lecture on YouTube called “Pius X to Francis: From Modernism Expelled to Modernism Enthroned”). But let’s also remember that no saint except Our Lady is perfect, and some saints have deservedly received criticism in certain respects. Here’s an article in which I went into this delicate matter:
The article he then links to is “We shouldn’t take holiness as blanket approval: Even saints have their blind spots”, published on Life Site on Dec. 8, 2020.
To be clear: Of course not everything St. Pius X did was perfect, but then that is beside the point. The point is that since the saint enjoys divine approval (as evidenced by his public canonization; cf. Mt 25:21), anyone who would find serious fault with him clearly has the burden of proof. In other words, the presumption is in favor of the saint and against the critic.
Furthermore, just as the saints aren’t perfect (aside from the Blessed Mother, of course), neither are the critics of the saints. Why should we find Kwasniewski’s criticism of St. Pius X unobjectionable on the grounds that even saints aren’t perfect, when at the same time it is clear that the lack of perfection applies to Kwasniewski all the more so?
When he canonized St. Pius X, Pope Pius XII delivered an address to the cardinals gathered in Rome for the occasion. In it, the Holy Father spoke about the Church’s teaching mandate, and the role lay teachers may have in it:
Christ Our Lord entrusted the truth which He had brought from heaven to the Apostles, and through them to their successors. He sent His Apostles, as He had been sent by the Father (Jn. 20:21), to teach all nations everything they had heard from Him (cf. Matt. 28:19 f.). The Apostles are, therefore, by divine right the true doctors and teachers in the Church. Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care (cf. can. 1326), there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ. But both the Bishops and, first of all, the Supreme Teacher and Vicar of Christ on earth, may associate others with themselves in their work of teacher, and use their advice; they delegate to them the faculty to teach, either by special grant, or by conferring an office to which the faculty is attached (cf. can. 1328). Those who are so called teach not in their own name, nor by reason of their theological knowledge, but by reason of the mandate which they have received from the lawful Teaching Authority. Their faculty always remains subject to that Authority, nor is it ever exercised in its own right or independently.
…
As for the laity, it is clear that they can be invited by legitimate teachers and accepted as helpers in the defense of the faith. It is enough to call to mind the thousands of men and women engaged in catechetical work, and other types of lay apostolate, all of which are highly praiseworthy and can be strenuously promoted. But all these lay apostles must be, and remain, under the authority, leadership, and watchfulness of those who by divine institution are set up as teachers of Christ’s Church. In matters involving the salvation of souls, there is no teaching authority in the Church not subject to this authority and vigilance.
(Pope Pius XII, Allocution Si Diligis, May 31, 1954; underlining added.)
Peter Kwasniewski claims that the Novus Ordo hierarchy is the legitimate Roman Catholic hierarchy, yet he has no mission or mandate from them to teach the public on Faith and morals. In fact, his theological work is in contradiction to that hierarchy, to the point where he is not even afraid or ashamed to criticize, ignore, defy, or ‘correct’ the Pope himself, even if he be St. Pius X.
The word hubris, ladies and gentlemen, is not out of place here.
We will end with words of warning spoken by the very St. Pius X Dr. Kwasniewski accuses of being a liturgical Modernist and a lunatic, in addition to imposing reforms that are impious and absurd:
…[H]ow far astray are those Catholics, who, in the name of historical and philosophical criticism and that tendentious spirit which has invaded every field, put in the foremost rank the religious question itself, insinuating that by study and research we should form a religious conscience in harmony with our times, or, as they say, “modern”. And so, with a system of sophisms and errors they falsify the concept of obedience inculcated by the Church; they arrogate to themselves the right of judging the actions of authority even to the extent of ridiculing them; they attribute to themselves a mission to impose a reform — a mission which they have received neither from God nor from any authority. They limit obedience to purely exterior actions, even if they do not resist authority or rebel against it, opposing the faulty judgment of some individual without any real competence, or of their own inner conscience deceived by vain subtleties, to the judgment and commandment of the one who by divine mandate is their lawful judge, master, and shepherd.
…
Do not let yourselves be deceived by the subtle declarations of others who do not cease to pretend that they wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight for her so that she will not lose the masses, to work for the Church so that she will come to understand the times and so to win back the people and attach them to herself. Judge these men according to their works. If they maltreat and despise the ministers of the Church and even the Pope; if they try by every means to minimize their authority, to evade their direction, and to disregard their counsels; if they do not fear to raise the standard of rebellion, what Church are these men speaking about? Not, certainly, of that Church established super fundamentum Apostolorum et Prophetarum, ipso summo angulari lapide, Christo Jesus: “upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph 2:20). So We must have ever before our mind’s eye that counsel of St. Paul to the Galatians: “If we ourselves or if an angel should teach you any other Gospel than that which we have taught you, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8).
(Pope Pius X, Address Con Vera Soddisfazione, May 10, 1909; in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. I (1909), pp. 461-464; underlining added. Translation taken from Papal Teachings: The Church, nn. 716-720; italics given. #CommissionLink)
But there we go again, relying on the ’embarrassing’ magisterium of Pope St. Pius X.
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