Blog "Vive Christus Rex" closing

[MagisterMusicae]

 
  Who said anything anti-clerical?  Who said SSPX priests should not serve as confessors or spiritual directors?

 
I was critiquing the statement you made: "The SSPX should be a sacrament factory and nothing else."

You did not say they cannot be confessors or spiritual directors. I am suggesting that is the logical end of your statement, and, while perhaps not intended as such is classic anti-clericalism. It suggest that the only purpose for a priest, bishop, or even a pope is simply to give the sacraments to others, and ignores the purpose of all clerics, which is the sanctification of souls, which is both sacramental and extra-sacramental.

  They really have no "ordinary" jurisdiction, therefore they shouldn't be dispensing advice.

 
  Who said that?  Of course they can give advice.  I don't see  anything controlling about that at all.  It's just that, in some  situations, given the fact that they have no ordinary jurisdiction,  their advice would carry less weight.

 
But you said they should not be "in the least bit ... controlling of their followers". Again, the logical end of that statement is that they should just say Mass and hear confessions, but, of course, never do anything but absolve the penitent. Certainly, that's not what you meant, but, by absurdity, I'm trying to demonstrate how incorrect your statement was.

 

 Since they shouldn't be controlling or in the least bit cultish, they  can't preach about the social reign of Christ, against abortion or  immodesty, they have no right to tell a young lady to cover herself, or  a young man to take of the jeans and put on a coat and tie for man. Oh,  and they shouldn't ever run any schools because, they that may be seen  as controlling. I mean, they have to discipline kids. Talk about  controling. The SSPX of course, cannot train seminarians, because, well  look at those guys, they all wear the same thing, are forced to believe  the same thing, cannot go out as they choose, cannot have websites, can  only telephone anyone for a few minutes a week, their whole life is  communal and there is that whole personality cult with that guy who  called himself "Christ". Quick! Call the Winona police! There's a cult  up on Stockton Hill just waiting for the "Second Coming" thing.

 
  Of course the SSPX has to maintain discipline for its priests and in  its schools.  When would I have said otherwise?  But there's  an understanding that you'll have to follow their rules when you go  into those things, and those are special relationships where  "jurisdiction" really has nothing to do with the matter.

 
Well, I was bing both absurd and sarcastic here.

You response makes me question your rationale for the problem with Eric's situation. Did he not go into the SSPX's school of his own free will. Did he not create such a "special relationship". Is the school not making a policy decision that affects everyone, and do they not have the duty to enforce and discipline students who violate policy?

Do you not see the contradiction. You assert the SSPX should not be "controlling" yet then assert that they must enforce discipline in schools.

It seems you suggest that St. Mary's has that authority, but actually making a policy that you don't like is "cultish". Perhaps I have it wrong, and what you said was simply not clear. If so, relying on only the facts of the situation that we know, how is the policy "cultish"?

 If it's just an "expert answer," and it's not authoritative, then it  shouldn't be called a tribunal.  It should just be someone going  to an expert from the SSPX for advice, and that's it.  I'm fine  with that.
 

 
Well, honestly, I don't know the official name for the group. It's often called the "tribunal" by us lay folk, and even by some priests, but for all I know it could be called the "Expert Answer Group". I've heard it called, by priests, the "Canonical Commission".

The body itself, from what I understand, claims no jurisdiction. They require anyone approaching the commission to be morally bound by the decision, but that's fair and reasonable, I think.

That said, I think this question should probably be taken up in the proper forum, not on this thread.

[QuisUtDeus]

 

Father doesn't need to approve the color scheme for my living room, nor do I need his blessing to start a new business.

Yet Eric needs his blessing for a blog that he does in his spare time over the summer.

That's not what I said, Sophia.

I said there's nothing unjust or "cultish" about a school prohibiting its student (over whom they have legitimate authority) from running a personal website.

 

Unjust?  No, it's not unjust.  Anyone who goes to that school does so accepting the rules.  If they don't like it, they are certainly free to go to school elsewhere.  So, I think it's just in that sense.  It's also just because the student was informed he needed to take it down rather than just reprimanded or expelled out of the blue.  So I don't see anything particularly unjust here.

 

Cultish?  Yeah, kinda.  We're talking about adults in college, not high schoolers.  It seems demeaning and petty.  If a student had an inappropriate website or something, sure, take it down and reprimand them.  Same as if a student were visiting inappropriate websites.

 

But why a ban?  Let me be ridiculous here:  if they want to ban students from expressing opinions as adults, they should make them sign out pencils and paper as well as restricting access to a xerox machine.

 

Whatever issue they're trying to solve, they aren't going to be solving.  They would have to ban students from posting in forums, etc.   Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if that's next, but I hope not.

 

Cultish to me means having someone submit without a good or lawful reason.  They want them to submit "just cause."  I don't see a good or lawful reason for not allowing an adult to have a website that contains nothing immoral on it.  In fact, just the opposite, it may draw people to the faith.

 

Perhaps a compromise would be for St. Mary's to create space for student webpages that would be monitored to conform to school rules and Catholic morality.   But this all-out ban is just ridiculous.  We're subjected to secular anti-Catholic blogs, and some Catholic young man or lady wants to present a Catholic point of view and they're stifled by a Catholic school.  We're working against ourselves.

 

Only tangentally related but a point I would like to make...

 

"Because I said so" is not the Catholic way either.  The Church has always gone to great pains to explain and defend its teachings even though it is infallible.  There are always very definite reasons for what the Church teaches, allows, and restricts, and those reasons are repeatedly made clear and offered.

[DominusTecum]

If I might make a personal interjection here, these are my thoughts on the subject:

 

1. St. Mary's has the right to formulate disciplinary rules, and to enforce disciplinary rules in regard to a student, provided that the student accedes to them when he enrolls. If he doesn't accede to them, then he shouldn't enroll, and if he does enroll, then whether he likes them or not, he is mandated to accede to them.

 

2. However, as far as I see the situation, and as far as I understand legality to be concerned, St. Mary's does not have the right to tell me to force me to remove my website from the internet (the merits or demerits of the website aside.) The website being my personal property, maintained entirely outside school jurisdiction (ie: not using school servers, computer lab, or internet service) the school therefore has no jurisdiction over the website, except insomuch as they have jurisdiction over me since I am their student. Just as they would be out of line to tell me to tell me to repaint my house located in a different state, so they haven't the authority to tell me to remove my website. They might be able to tell me to do this if there was an obvious scandal involved; for example, if my website was full of pornographic content, then they could say "we don't want our students associating with this sort of trash, you're expelled" (or "this is trash, remove it or be expelled.") However, I do not believe, unless they purpose to condemn the internet altogether, that this principle could be applied to a Catholic website, a website which in no way was scandalous or otherwise publically objectionable.

 

3. They could easily, however, formulate a policy of blanket bans on websites being maintained by students while said individuals were students at St. Mary's, present at school or otherwise. The school would, as Inquisitor Generalis points out, be more than free to do this, and others would also be more than free to comment on it, yea or nay. The wisdom of such a policy aside, students would necessarily be required to assent to it in the very explicit body of rules and regulations which must be signed at time of enrollment.

 

----------------------

The conclusion I come to is this: I'm not obligated by force to remove the website from the internet, and although St. Mary's could make it forceful by including it in their rules, they couldn't single me out for it unless there was something substantially objectionable about my site, otherwise the only sufficient measure would be a blanket ban which I would have to assent to when renewing my admission for next year.

 

That aside, it seems from the Catholic perspective as if nothing would be gained save division, strife, {and perhaps, temporally speaking, expulsion on my part} for combatting the decree. Therefore, it's objectively not worth it, and I think the situation calls for humble obedience to the powers that be. A 2nd rate blog is not worth excessive controversy.

 

The only reason I am even particularly perturbed is the assertion (given that I don't think my blog is objectionable to faith or morals, especially not notoriously so) that it must be pulled down, and not only that, but was to have been so "immediately and quietly." Expulsion was certainly implied if I failed to comply with the removal, and this seems a bit pretentious, given that the rules as stand do not seem to give the school the authority to do this, and having invested at least a hundred hours over the last year (prior to entry into St. Mary's, of course) enriching the blog, being told to remove it immediately and without protest strikes one as a bit pretentious, to say the least. It seemed, for my part, as if I were being magnanimous to consent to the removal at all, given the circumstances, and the implication that if I were to protest the considerable loss of my labors, I would be manifesting unCatholic behavior and disciplined is distasteful, to say the least.

 

However, what's done is done, and the blog is, effectively speaking, no more.

[PinoyMonk]

Deus vult?  =P
 

[Daniel]

St Alphonsus of Liguori, a widely acclaimed Doctor of the Church wrote a book called "12 Steps to Holiness and Salvation." Chapters 7: Obedience; 8: Meekness and Humility and 9: Mortification deal directly with the topics that have arisen in this thread.

The great thing about St Alphonsus is that his style of writing is so simple and clear. Before the temptation to fire up smoke screens overwhelms anyone, I am in no way suggesting that I am any sort of expert on virtues by thought or deed. What I can say with certainty, after reading this book very recently is that the people who have openly disagreed with St Mary's on this matter have done so in direct conflict with the things this great Saint and Doctor has written in these chapters of his book.

 

As for the detailing of scandalous stories and naming of names regarding situations that amount to nothing more than the repeating of something old mate once told me because he couldn't resist it, is in conflict with more than a few chapters of a St Alphonsus. When I challenged the bearers of some generalisations to offer the details of this carry on I would have thought they might have actually had some genuine connection to the truth of the matter, a link to a credible sourse, rather than the same lack of control displayed by the person who couldn't help telling them.

 

Our usernames are exactly that. St Mary's is a real place. This is worth bearing in mind I feel.

[JubilateDeo]

Here, here!!!

[QuisUtDeus]

 

As for the detailing of scandalous stories and naming of names regarding situations that amount to nothing more than the repeating of something old mate once told me because he couldn't resist it, is in conflict with more than a few chapters of a St Alphonsus. When I challenged the bearers of some generalisations to offer the details of this carry on I would have thought they might have actually had some genuine connection to the truth of the matter rather than the same lack of control displayed by the person who couldn't help telling them.

 

Well, if you want to play this way, Daniel....

 

If these horror stories are a reality then let's hear the detail

 

You challenged someone to present horror stories.  I did.  I presented only public ones that apparently you weren't aware of.

 

Do you really think SSPX priests would give such ridiculous advice? The accusations you are relating cannot even be substantiated so why even bring them to light? What if the person who told you such things was not telling the truth or misconstrued facts? As far as a priest propagandizing students to Nazism. Which priest? What did he say exactly? Your stories are rather vague.

 

As you can see, Obscurus asked specifically for names.  I gave only names that again, have been public for many years and published in a magazine that has many, many readers and online as well.  And if you call a former Superior of the Society someone lacking control, then perhaps you don't have the respect for the Society you want us to believe you have.

 

Now, I could state personal stories (but they wouldn't be about St. Mary's since I have never been there), but then you would accuse me of spreading scandal because I had no proof.  So much for the game of mind checkers you want to engage in.

 

Shing a light on craziness does not mean making calumnious generalisations

 

Which is what I did.  I did not make a calumnious generalization.  I named specific incidents which were already of public record.

 

Is there a real point you are trying to make or a goal you are trying to achieve besides accusing people of calumny and gossip?  Because as far as I can see, that's all you've accomplished.

 

Unlike MagisterMusicae, you've made no logical defense of St. Mary's.  All you have done is call people liars, accuse me (and in effect Fr. Balduc since he hand wrote a letter to Fidelity) of lack of control, ask for details and then say it's a sin that they were provided and thump a Saint's text at people.

 

We aren't fools, Daniel.  We can clearly see where you are trying to take this, and it won't work.

 

If you have something of substance to say, say it already.  Right now you are just making noise and trying to steer the conversation away from what St. Mary's is doing to what the people on the forum are doing.

 

In the meantime, I will enjoy the civil debate between JLeigh and MagisterMusicae because both of them are giving me things to think about and have good points.  Though I still agree with JLeigh.