John Paul II in Ireland & America

by Michael Davies

NO ONE HAS more cause to rejoice with regard to the Pope's visit to Ireland and the USA than Catholic traditionalists. Obviously, there is much to regret—above all the banality of the liturgical celebrations. Leaving aside the doctrinal deficiencies of the new Mass, the sense of anti-climax in these impoverished celebrations was almost physically painful. However, although the Mass is the heart of our faith there is more to the faith than the Mass. The Mystical Body of Christ has been afflicted by sicknesses in all Its members. An attempt to cure these maladies will ultimately prove of no avail if nothing is done about the diseased heart of the Body; but, as members of that Mystical Body, we would be crazy not to rejoice at an attempt to cure any of Its ailments.

The first thing we should rejoice about is that our stand on so many vital aspects of faith and morals has been totally vindicated by the Pope. We have not simply been the "odd ones out" on the question of the Mass but on clerical celibacy, women priests, an unchanging deposit of faith, contraception, homosexuality, and even abortion. Many of our acquaintances in the Conciliar Church have looked at us with amusement and disdain—and I am not speaking of committed Liberals but the average middle-class parishioner who thinks it important to be up to date and in sympathy with new trends and "contemporary insights." Such Catholics have been given much food for thought by Pope John Paul II. But what of the committed Liberals? They have been dismayed. They are outraged. Whatever dismays and outrages the Liberals should make traditionalists rejoice: any traditionalist who isn't rejoicing as a result of the Pope's visit needs his head examined!

A headline in the 12 October issue of the Catholic Herald, England's largest circulation Liberal weekly, proclaimed with commendable honesty:

In The Tablet, England's other Liberal weekly, our equivalent to The National Catholic Reporter in the USA, two Liberal zealots gave out Job-like cries of anguish. John F. X. Harriott, a recently laicized Jesuit and "expert on Vatican affairs", entitled his column:

LIBERALS IN ECLIPSE. He admits to feeling that:

Mr. Harriott fears that: "The Barque of Peter is about to change course and sail in a circle; and that some of us will get mighty sea-sick in the process. I hope I am wrong. If not, Catholic liberals will need an intensity of faith beyond the imagining of the conservatives."

Clearly, traditionalists will all be praying that Mr. Harriott's fears will be fulfilled, that the Barque of Peter will change course. Meanwhile anything that makes his palms sweat should make us truly thankful.

In the same issue of The Tablet, one of America's own arch-liberals, Father F. X. Murphy, expressed similar gloom in a direct report from the USA. He bemoaned the fact that Liberals had expected the Pope to "pursue the implementation of Vatican II in a truly unhesitating fashion. Now they felt that he was trying to hold the line." According to Father Murphy, despite all the applause the Pope received: "a minority of the faithful along with most commentators were appalled with his denial of the right of women to ordination, his absolute insistence on clerical celibacy and his reiterations of Humanae Vitae. As the Polish Holy Father took to the skies for his return to the eternal city, he left behind him a bewildered American Church."

Militant feminists had already been outraged by the Pope's insistence that there should be no lay ministers of Communion at his Masses (National Catholic Register, 23 September 1979). Sister Maureen Fiedler, RSM, went as far as urging priests and deacons to strike in support of the feminists! In a letter published in the National Catholic Reporter on 21 September 1979, she claimed:

It was particularly striking that in Ireland, not only did the Pope insist on giving Communion on the tongue but, apparently, his example was followed by all the other clergy. I watched the distribution of Holy Communion during the televised Masses particularly for this point and did not see one instance of Communion being given in the hand, although of course it might have been. I understand that some American priests did give Communion in the hand during the papal Masses but that the Pope himself did not. A report in the 8 October issue of the Lexington Herald noted that during the Capitol Mall Mass: "The Pope placed communion wafers on the tongues of the faithful—250 especially chosen for the honor." The same issue contained a report headlined: NUN PROTESTS POPE'S STAND ON WOMEN. This report also contains much to cheer traditionalists. It reads:

A report in the 4 October issue of the Lexington Leader showed the Holy Father to be equally forthright on the question of clerical celibacy:

In addition to his courageous and unambiguous restatement of Catholic doctrinal and moral teachings which I have already mentioned, the Pope dealt with more vital issues in his address to more than 300 US bishops in Chicago. He did this largely by reminding them of a pastoral they had issued themselves in 1976 but which has been virtually ignored in the American Church. There cannot be the least doubt that this address was a public reprimand to the bishops, and an ultimatum that they should return to the Catholic faith. A large extract from this address will be cited, omitting passages which refer to such topics as Humanae Vitae which have already been noted in some detail.

Clearly the two most important points here are firstly the Pope's insistence that there is a deposit of faith which it is the duty of the Church to hand on in its "purity and integrity". The Pope correctly states that the faithful have the right to receive this depositum fidei intact—something that the American faithful have not been receiving from their bishops. Secondly, the Pope rules out intercommunion as a means of achieving unity. This will prove a serious setback to both Catholic and Protestant ecumaniacs.

My one disappointment with the Pope's US visit was his address to the United Nations which, I felt, could have been more forceful. However, Hamish Fraser, who knows far more about these matters than I do, assures me that there were some excellent points in it and he was particularly pleased that the Pope mentioned the Lebanon and his successful intervention in the dispute between Chile and Argentina. I was also relieved to note that in his reference to the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Liberty he did not quote the section which Mgr. Lefebvre and traditionalists have rightly criticized. I know that many Catholics would have liked the Pope to make an explicit condemnation of communist tyranny. Such a desire was not realistic as it was ruled out by the protocol which, as an invited guest, he was expected to observe. However, his condemnation of concentration camps and torture was clearly aimed principally against the Communist bloc. According to Time magazine: "This Pope does not shrink from telling people what they do not want to hear. Said New York Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN: 'I can attest from having watched that the Eastern European and Soviet delegates knew exactly what he was talking about, and for once in that chamber, looked fearful rather than bored'."

In my opinion, the most courageous part of the Pope's address concerned the United Nations "Year of the Child." Chief among the questionable aspects of this project, about which so many naive Catholics have been so enthusiastic, is the refusal to include among the rights of children the right to life itself! This unequivocally anti-Christian gesture should have been sufficient to preclude any Catholic involvement in the project. To his credit, the Pope delivered an undisguised rebuke to the UN in a condemnation of abortion and the refusal of the UN to condemn it: "Concern for the child, even before birth, from the first moment of conception and then throughout the years of infancy and youth, is the primary and fundamental test of the relationship of one human being to another."

UNFORTUNATELY, coverage of the Pope's visit to Ireland tended to concentrate on the question of violence. Many admirable points which he made tended to be overlooked. As regards the question of terrorism, this takes on an importance which transcends the Irish situation. His condemnation of political terrorism can certainly be applied to all such acts everywhere, including Rhodesia and Latin America. This will certainly not endear the Holy Father to the World Council of Churches and proponents of Liberation theology.

 The Pope also praised the Irish people for the manner in which they had kept the faith throughout the centuries. He told them that the Catholic Faith was their most precious heritage and that they should make fidelity to it their prime concern in life. He urged a revival of traditional devotions and made particular mention of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Hours, and Eucharistic Processions. He made a clear reference to the desire of Liberals to legalize divorce in Ireland. He stated that the very possibility of divorce in the sphere of civil law made marriages most difficult for everyone. "Divorce, for whatever reason it is introduced, inevitably becomes easier and easier to obtain, and it gradually comes to be accepted as a normal part of life." The Pope's endorsement of the prohibition of civil divorce in Ireland (even for Protestants) hardly accords with the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Liberty which states that no one must be prevented from acting in accord with his conscience unless a breach of public order would ensue.

Finally, mention must be made of a theme to which the Pope returned time and again in Ireland and the USA. This was the danger to the faith posed by materialism. Religious indifferentism is the first fruit of affluence. The contemporary climate of materialism is the greatest danger to the faith today, greater even than theological Modernism. Indeed, Modernism is largely an accommodation of materialism, of consumerism. The essence of the consumer society is that the consumer is entitled to whatever he wants and that the satisfying of his material needs is the principal objective of his life. The extent to which, in practice, Catholic morality has been adapted to this attitude hardly needs stressing. Modernists such as Father Curran with their new system of "pomology" simply give a theoretical justification for a state of affairs which already exists. Secular commentators have been astonished at the manner in which the Pope openly denounced all the accepted axioms upon which contemporary American Society is built and was applauded for doing so. Time magazine accepted that: "John Paul left behind a morally imperative message for a people who seemed to need it. His visit showed with surprising clarity that many Americans of many creeds are looking for direction, for stability." Too many Catholic bishops have been adapting the demands of the Gospel to what they believe the people want to hear. The reaction to Pope John Paul II reveals that what people really want to hear is the truth, even if it is uncomfortable. This explains the growing support for Archbishop Lefebvre and the unforgettable impression he makes upon all who meet or hear him. He preaches the Gospel handed down by Jesus Christ, a Gospel which involves the taking up of crosses as a requirement for salvation. There is not the least doubt that among all the prelates in the world the one who will certainly give the most unqualified support to all the papal teaching cited in this article is Mgr. Lefebvre—and according to the Bishops of the American Church he is a rebel, a man who is out of step with the Conciliar Church! If this is the case then so is Pope John Paul II.

Clearly, what we must now hope for and pray for is that the Pope will implement his words with actions. A letter which I received today from one of America's finest traditional priests remarked that unless the Pope takes steps to ensure the forceful implementation of his words they will achieve little. "Talk is no good at all; there must be firm action." At the very least we have the right to expect that within a year such notorious modernists as Charles Curran will not be teaching in official Catholic institutions, that nuns who have abandoned the religious habit will return to it, that no one in official positions will be allowed to promote the marriage of priests or the ordination of women. We could also reasonably expect that as traditionalists faithfully uphold all the teaching expounded by the Pope he will ensure that the repressive policy of Pope Paul VI is abandoned. One fear I have is that, in order to make himself appear impartial, the Pope may decide to balance his campaign against the Modernists by taking a firm line against traditionalists on the liturgical question. Clearly, this is a matter on which Archbishop Lefebvre will not compromise and on which he can be sure of our support. We are for the preservation of the entire Catholic faith—we can and should support every positive step the Pope takes in this direction. But if, in order to uphold the integrity of the Mass and the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we have to remain outside the official structures of the Church then we will have to do so. But for the moment let us rejoice that now we have a Pope to whom we can sincerely refer as a Holy Father. I would hope that no traditionalist who reads his paternal words to the youth of Ireland on September 30 would refuse Pope John Paul II this title: