Combating Church Scandal with Ancient Intimacy

Much has been said about the most seismic scandal that has ever hit the Catholic Church in America. Last June, Theodore McCarrick, a retired cardinal and former archbishop of Washington, was removed from the ministry after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenager for years. After the New York Times reported a month later on McCarrick's alleged abuse of seminary students, he subsequently resigned and was completely stripped of his title.

In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed that 300 of its Catholic priests sexually abused over 1,000 victims. It also revealed the vast majority of predator priests were homosexuals, most of whom preyed on post-pubescent teenage boys - something the Church and mainstream media overwhelmingly ignore or wrongly spin to make it appear as a pedophilia problem. Later that month, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Papal Nuncio to the United States, released a scathing eleven page letter that exposed a plethora of corruption, and even called for the resignation of Pope Francis, accusing him of covering up sexual abuse and giving comfort to a “homosexual current” in the Vatican.

There are currently at least 15 attorneys general from different states who’ve launched their own investigations. The U.S. Justice Department also opened their own investigations, and search warrants have been executed at various Catholic dioceses. On November 28th, 50 local and federal law enforcement officers conducted a surprise raid at the offices of Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, president of the U.S.Conference of Catholic Bishops, in search of wrong doings regarding sexual abuse. Shortly before Christmas, Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, issued a blistering report about clergy sexual abuse, saying that Catholic dioceses in Illinois have not released the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. The scandal and corruption is so widespread that it is also being found within communities of Catholic nuns.

As things continue to unfold, a “red pill” effect relating to corruption at the highest levels of the Church is sweeping across the Catholic landscape. Such effect has resulted in eye-opening revelations such as the St. Gallen mafia and ex-Cardinal McCarrick’s role in the corruption, which was brought to light by Dr. Taylor Marshall. Everything we are learning about the sexual immorality, sodomy, and cover-ups by cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns are only the tip of the iceberg.

In trying to understand this tragedy, I've read and listened to a number of sources, such as EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, Dr. Taylor Marshall, Patrick Coffin, Patrick Madrid, the Remnant, Lifesite News, Church Militant, etc. Yet despite all the information regarding the current situation and its cause, I continued to struggle with the reality of so many corrupt priests and prelates. The cause of such sinful decadence remained at the peripheries of my understanding. I simply could not internalize it. Then, one day clarity came to me without spoken or written words. I should say, the answer “appeared” before me.

It happened at a Latin High Mass one Sunday at the Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. My family and I were in one of the side pews close to the altar where we had a close up view of all the priest’s movements as he offered up the sacrifice of the Mass Ad Orientem (facing liturgical east / facing God). It reminded me of their daily low Masses I attended last Advent, but the view then was a bit obscured because I wasn’t directly at the side of the altar. This time around, the clear view of the priest had a profound impact on me.

Everything he did, and the manner in which they were done, shed new light on the Church scandals. Most notably were the following ten things that caught my attention: 1) The way he constantly humbled himself, 2) the way he bowed his head every time Jesus’ name was said, 3) how he slowly lifted his eyes to God, 4) how he closed his eyes when saying prayers during Consecration, 5) the way he handled the host with utmost care and reverence, 6) the way he never separated his thumbs and forefingers after touching the host until they were cleansed with water over the chalice, 7) how he meticulously cleaned the corporal and paten to prevent Christ (Who is present in every particle) from falling and being stepped on, 8) how he didn’t focus his eyes on the congregation when he turned his back to God to address us (in fact, they were closed), 9) how it took him approximately two minutes to slowly elevate the host and chalice, and 10) the way he reverently consumed the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ.

As I observed the priest, I saw a profound intimacy with Christ that I never saw from a priest until recently. It became clear as day that this intimacy I was witnessing is ultimately the solution to the present scandals and corruption. It was also clear that the absence or lack of it is what allowed the decadence to happen and is why it continues to fester. The intimacy shed light on the Catholic axiom, “Lex orandi, lex credendi,” which is loosely translated as “the law of prayer [is] the law of belief.” It deepened my understanding of the effect prayer has on our beliefs, which ultimately affects how we live - “lex vivendi”.  If more priests and prelates had the level of intimacy I witnessed, the magnitude of corruption and sexual immorality would be minute.

Ultimately, this lack of intimacy is the result of modernism, which according to St. Pope Pius X, is the “synthesis of all heresies.” Exorcist and theologian, Fr. Chad Ripperger, points to Immanetism and Kantianism (philosophy of Immanuel Kant) as the major roots of modernism. He teaches that Immanetism holds that anything of importance is found within the individual; the individual becomes the measure or standard by which things are judged. Kantianism holds that man’s experiences were essentially immanent; they are within or remain within him. It leads people to view religion as nothing other than personal religious experience, rather than revealed Truth itself. Both affect the way predator priests, prelates, and their supporters pray (lex orandi) and believe (lex credendi) by creating a false religion absent of the supernatural and plagued with heresy and/or heterodoxy. This is how the likes of former Cardinal McCarrick and many other clergy go on living such sinful and shameful lives while wearing their Roman collar. If one reverses the order, one can see that their decadent and corrupt lives (lex vivendi) are a product of their wrong beliefs and false religion (lex credendi), which was made possible by their poorly formed knowledge and practice of the Liturgy (lex orandi).

Fortunately, modernism was nowhere to be found at Mass that day. In its place was a manly young priest caught up in a state of intimacy while offering up the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The experience was so efficacious that I caught myself wanting to be a priest. In fact, if that Mass had taken place during my childhood, and I was one of the altar boys - I'm sure I would've at least entered the seminary.

The Mass culminated into a watershed moment when he consumed the host in a very reverent manner. It was then that I became 100% convinced that the ancient rite of the Traditional Latin Mass is somehow key in the formation of good and holy priests. If you asked me then to explain my conviction, I would’ve been at a loss for words. As a person who strongly believes that actions speak louder than words, I would’ve told you his actions came across as the quintessential meaning of what it is to be a holy priest. It appeared to be the foundation and bedrock of his priesthood.

A week later, this somewhat inexplicable conviction was confirmed and articulated by Fr. Ripperger in an interview done by Ryan Grant of Mediatrix Press. It would behoove priests and laity to pay particular attention to what he said about the ancient rite of Liturgy and its role in the formation of priests:

“His [the priest] identity is ultimately formed by the particular principles that govern the liturgy, that is the liturgy itself. So let's just give a few examples. The first is the focus on God . . .  In the ancient rite of Mass, what happens is the priest says Mass Ad Orientem . . . the focus when it's Ad Orientem is on God. It's theocentric rather than anthropocentric and so the focus is on God. Where he is directing himself gives him a focus and sets a principle in his mind about what the liturgy is about, what he is about in relationship to that, what his relationship is to God, and as a result of that - his identity because of that orientation. His identity becomes one with God in the sense that he sees himself ultimately only in relationship to God. That's what a priest ultimately has to to do. St. Paul said “When we see God face to face he will be all in all.” In other words, the priest himself has to start working on that, and the liturgy will contribute to that if its focus is on God. This is also true about the prayers of the liturgy . . . That focus of the priest has a fulfillment. A priest, because he is ordained, has a grace of state, and that grace inclines him to want to perform those things that pertain to a priest. Many priests who start saying the ancient rite of Mass say that there's a fulfillment in their priesthood that they weren't getting before, and so a lot of that has to do with the focus on the Mass has to do with God. It's obviously offered for the people, but it's offered to God and so God is ultimately the focus.”

Fr. Ripperger goes on to explain how the Traditional Latin Mass also helps the priest develop all the virtues:

“St. Thomas says that from the cross Christ preached all the virtues. For example, the fact that he refused to consume the gall was a sign of temperance.  The same thing should be able to be said about a particular rite of the Mass, and this is one of the beauties of the ancient rite of Mass. It teaches the priest humility. Throughout the course of it he's constantly humbling himself. There's certain things where he's recognizing his own sins and his own sinfulness. It's also a sacrifice. The priest has to sacrifice himself in saying the ancient rite of Mass by virtue of the fact that he has to conform himself to everything - from where his hands are positioned when he's praying, when he's actually putting things in the chalice his hands have to be in a particular location. When he turns around and faces the people, he's not to look at them - he's to keep his eyes down, which is custody of the eyes which is part of modesty. So the modesty is replete throughout the whole thing. Obviously there's a certain fortitude because it takes a lot of focus and attention and a lot of self-denial in performing it.  And prudence because you have to have a certain docility, which is a sub-virtue to prudence, because you have to have a docility to say the Mass as the church tells you how to say the Mass. There's an intimacy that a priest has when he confects the Eucharist because he is literally right there, he's holding the bread as it’s transubstantiated. When the bread is transubstantiated, there's intimacy that he has with God because he's literally holding Him in his fingers as God is becoming present through the transubstantiation, and the fact that the prayers of consecration are said sotto voce, loud enough so that heand the server can hear it so that it will be confected. There's an intimacy that he has with God in that, where if he's just saying it out loud etc, that intimacy gets affected. . . So I think that they need to get the liturgy back to the point where it would form the priests, and you actually see this even among different priests; how they say the Mass, which rite of the Mass they say, is very formative of their mindset about even their own priesthood and even how they view the Church's teachings. So, I think that historically the liturgy had a huge impact on the formation of priests.”

In addition to what Fr. Ripperger mentioned above, we would have more clergymen persisting in the arduous (virtue of Perseverance) instead of unwilling to put aside pleasure (especially material and sexual) in order to engage the arduous (vice of Effeminacy). If one took the time, one could find examples of how the ancient rite of Liturgy teaches all sixty four Catholic virtues. The more priests we have being formed with the Traditional Latin Mass, the more men of virtue we would have to call Father or Eminence.

As laity, we need to support priests who embrace the Traditional Latin Mass, such as those of the Fraternal Society of St. Peter (FSSP), Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP/ICRSS), Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, Society of Jesus Christ the Priest, etc.  We also need to encourage those who don’t offer the Traditional Latin Mass to learn it. There are far too many diocesan priests who refuse to embrace the ancient rite of Mass. Many even go out of their way to discourage it. Sadly, those who embrace it are often looked down upon, marginalized, and criticized by many priests. Such as the case with diocesan priest, Fr. Richard Heilman, who wrote an article about how his uncle (a Catholic priest) was offended by it.

In closing, it was clear to me at Mass that the laity’s best recourse to the corruption and scandals is to follow the example of that priest. Everything he did contained lessons for how to apply the lex orandi of that Mass to the lex vivendi in our own life. The biggest lesson came from his constant facing towards Christ, looking up to Him, and not allowing himself to become distracted by people around him. His focus was on God and giving his best to Him so that one day he and others will be with Him in Heaven. Our focus in life should also be the same. We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted by all the present and future scandals, which will likely worsen in 2019.  Let us instead, draw from the same Traditions that priest drew from to deepen our intimacy with Christ – the usus antiquior (ancient usage) of the Roman Catholic Church.

It is there where we can develop our intimacy without the weaponized ambiguity that plagues the Church these days. It is there where our our souls can benefit more from a deeper Sacramental life, particularly when it comes to more frequent confessions and receiving the Holy Eucharist most reverently. It’s also there where we can unite with forgotten treasures like Ember days, Requiem Masses, old rite blessings, and old rite Sacraments, to name a few.

Most important, it is there where we can give our best by praying the ancient rite of the Traditional Latin Mass. Not only can it better form priests, but it can do the same for the laity. Indeed, both the Novus Ordo Mass (today’s new Mass) and the Traditional Latin Mass are valid and intrinsically infinite in merit or value, but we should discern how the ancient rite helps us better develop an intimate relationship with Christ without falling into the temptation of labeling the new Mass as something bad. In doing so, we should remove our emotions and feelings from the discernment process, something Fr. Ripperger constantly instructs because the devil uses our feelings and emotions to attack us. Instead, we should use reason that is illuminated by faith to consider the objective realities that enable the Traditional Latin Mass to better form priests and laity. There are many good reasons to pray this ancient rite of Mass, such as the ones discussed by Dr. Taylor Marshall and Eric Sammon, but it would also behoove us to understand how the finite extrinsic value or merit of the Traditional Latin Mass is greater.

When we arm ourselves with an ancient intimacy derived from the time-tested-sacred inheritance and treasure of the Traditional Latin Mass, we become more equipped to fight against the principalities, powers, rulers, and spirits of wickedness. In whatever way we choose to combat the corruption, we can be confident that our actions will bear great fruit because of it. With it, we stand the best chance of overcoming whatever scandals and heresies await us.