IN DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL PRIESTS
By Fr. Paul A. Wickens

                              TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site   
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	Frequently we see articles in some traditional magazines by 
priests who decry "disobedience" to ecclesiastical laws.  Lots of sniper 
fire is aimed at the various traditional organizations of priests and 
bishops, as well as the so-called independent priests.  This attitude is 
so full of sophomoric inconsistency that we can hardly restrain our 
laughter.

	These same priest-essayists have been consistently and flagrantly 
disobeying church regulations for the last two decades with many of 
their actions:  female altar servers, communion in the hand or under 
both species, non-clerics giving the sermon, non-scripture readings at 
Mass, leaving the sanctuary to give the sign of peace, improper 
purification of sacred vessels, Eucharistic ministers used in non-
extraordinary circumstances, eliminiation of patens, adding prayers to 
the Mass, etc.

	Yet, these are only minor trangressions compared with the heresy 
taught in the pulpits, the Modernist catechisms in the schools, the 
erotic sex ed in the classrooms, the uncatholic RENEW and R.C.I.A. 
programs.  And how about the subjectivism in morality so common in the 
confessionals?  And how about the proliferation of General Absoluton in 
parishes, at weddings, in funeral homes?  And what about these hospital 
chaplains who give communion to everybody regardless of creed?

	Yes, you may say, but our priest-essayists would not do any of the 
above.  Do you want to bet?  They have all been a part of liturgies, 
parishes, schools, hospitals at which these flagrant acts of 
disobedience took place.  They are guilty through association, through 
cooperation, and through silence.

	Did these priest-essayists walk off the altar?  Did they refuse to 
associate with a parish or diocese that is obviously disobeying Church 
Law?  No way!  Their salary and reputation might be endangered.  So to 
feel good about themselves, they criticize the uncompromising loyal 
priests who are willing to lose all for Christ.  It figures!

[Reprinted from The Catholic Voice:  Newsletter of the Society of 
Traditional Roman Catholics, March 1996, page 1.]


                       By Abbot Leonard Giardino

	We turn our thoughts to all those great men -- Priests:  the 
Traditional Priests in the Roman Catholic Church.  We are grateful to 
them for their great courage and their genuine and profound dedication 
to the fact of and the observance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:  
the Mass according to the form ordained by the Council of Trent.  We 
admire these men.  They have not acted stubbornly.  Neither have they 
exhibited a spirit of rebellion.

	Rather, they have courageously adhered to the established doctrine 
and the traditional ceremonies and usages of our venerable Catholic 
Religion.  They have never faltered.  Their devotion to the Catholicism 
taught them by their forefathers has always been genuine and constant.  
Without exception, they have been loyal -- always loyal -- to the 
immemorial and awe-inspiring forms of Sacred Tradition.

	In every circumstance they have maintained due reverence in their 
observance of that which is sacred and which they consider as alone 
proper and fitting for the Divine Worship.  With never a thought of 
compromise to distract them, they have valiantly shunned all novel and 
strange forms of modern Catholic worship.  They believe such ceremonial 
rites to be unfit, alien, and unworthy in the expresson of the true 
Catholic Faith....

	When the Church they have always loved began to crumble before 
their eyes, undaunted, they automatically and in full possession of 
their instincts turned their efforts to the preservation of that which 
has been so much a part of their lives, and which they were quite 
certain could never be lawfully denied them:  the Mass.

	For this, these good priests of God have been labeled diobedient, 
unruly, and psychologically unbalanced.  They have been condemned 
because they failed to keep up with changing times and the Catholic 
updating program.  They have been ridiculed for adhering to what is now 
classified as an outmoded religion....  To be sure, their suffering and 
fear have been truly great.  Martyrs every one, and for the sake of that 
which they believe in from the deepest recesses of of their hearts and 
souls....

[Reprinted from Speculum Benedictinum, No. 13:  Assumption 1996, pages 
3-4.]