Advice To Priests 5¢

Yesterday's post at Fr Hunwicke's blog is another that invites further analysis. It begins:

Dear Father

Thank you for your email about whether you are bound in conscience to adhere to Traditionis Custodes.

The answer is No; certainly Not; and No.

My first reaction is that he's making a big deal in public about how priests apparently seek him out for advice on issues of conscience. In this, he's echoing Fr Z, who even now apostrophizes colleagues on his blog to the effect of "Fathers: Remain steadfast" blah blah blah. Fr Z's issue is that, by trying to pull a fast one on the local bishop, he lost his faculties and is unlikely to get new ones anywhere else. Why would any priest take Fr Z's advice on anything?

If Fr Z had behaved with ordinary prudence, he likely would have been able to continue celebrating Latin masses in the Diocese of Madison, given the bishops' wide discretion under Traditionis Custodes. Now, he can't say it anywhere. Seems he can't even give good advice to himself. But Fr Hunwicke now wants to assume Fr Z's mantle, blogger to trads, counselor to priests in matters of conscience.

I have another problem I can't resolve in Fr Hunwicke's post. Who is the "Dear Father" who's sought his advice? (I don't rule out that this guy is a figment of Hunwicke's imagination.) Vocation directors and promising deacons and seminarians cycle through our parish, either in residence or as associates. As a result, I get some idea of the quality of priests who are ordained these days, how they're formed, and what's expected of them.

From the context in Fr Hunwicke's post, it appears that the priest is so deeply troubled that the wise Fr Hunwicke must refer in great detail to remarks by St Pius V at the front of his 1570 edition of the Missale Romanum. My reaction is to think what the real priests at our parish would say:

ME: Father, I'm deeply troubled by Traditioinis Custodes. Am I bound in conscience to adhere to it?

FATHER: (Quizzical expression) What was that?

ME: You know, Pope Francis's motu proprio on the Latin. . .

FATHER: Oh, right. I think I saw something about that. Well, the point is that we priests have to obey our bishop. That's just what we do. The bishop gives his instructions on how some priests are to celebrate the Latin mass. It only affects a few of us. Are you worried it might affect our parish?

ME: No, but I saw on a blog. . .

FATHER: Well, there are lots of blogs. I wouldn't worry. See you at mass!

I feel pretty certain that this is the exchange a more or less sane Catholic would have with 99.9% of Catholic priests, and it would be along the line of the trees are green and the sky is blue in its outline of reality. There's simply no need to go back to St Pius V.

But this still raises the question of the priest who e-mailed wise Fr Hunwicke with his question. A normal priest, whom I've come to recognize is no dummy, recognizes that, although it probably doesn't concern him at all, Traditionis Custodes simply returns authority over the Latin mass to the bishops, with a few additional limitations. Conscience has nothing to do with it. So what kind of priest would take this, not even to a colleague, but to wise Fr Hunwicke?

I think it would have to be (a) no priest at all, but a creation of wise Fr Hunwicke; (b) a thoroughly confused trad priest at the Fr Altman-Fr Z-level margin; or (c) an ordinariate priest. I would say that only an ordinariate priest would have the deep deficiencies in formation that would cause him to be so troubled over a non-issue and then refer it to wise Fr Hunwicke for resolution.

Neverthelss, I think the average visitor to Fr Hunwicke's blog, likely not a priest and certainly not one with his head screwed on, will be carried away with Hier stehe ich fantasies. This is simply not healthy.