The CDC Has Lost The Bubble

I woke up this morning to see new signs -- unusual for a weekend -- that the CDC is losing control of the narrative. A big one is that people there are leaking. As of Thursday, an internal PowerPoint reached the Washington Post:

It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures, including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.

. . . The data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be published in full on Friday.

However, this didn't happen. Instead,

The White House on Friday struggled to explain to reporters why it suddenly stopped holding coronavirus briefings after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its latest masking guidance.

“Why are the doctors not here in the briefing to take our questions?” asked NBC reporter Kelly O’Donnell during the White House press briefing on Friday.

. . . Since President Joe Biden took office, he promised regular public briefings with federal health officials to talk about the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic.

. . . But the briefings stopped after the CDC announced new masking guidelines on Tuesday, even for fully vaccinated Americans.

“Of all the weeks not to hold have a COVID briefing, why this week?” asked CBS reporter Weijia Jiang.

That the legacy media, NBC and CBS, would be asking essentially hostile questions is a bad sign. The ongoing mask mandates are increasingly unpopular, and the masks cause stress. Add to that the normally high stress level of air travel, and the result should be predictable:

Nearly one in five flight attendants say they have witnessed physical incidents involving passengers this year, and their union is calling for criminal prosecution of people who act up on planes.

A union survey supports what airlines and federal officials have been saying: There has been a surge in unruly passengers this year, who sometimes become violent.

The most common trigger is passengers who refuse to follow the federal requirement that they wear face masks during flights, according to the survey by the Association of Flight Attendants.

And then add to that the sense that arbitrary increases in controls are inevitable.

President Joe Biden confirmed Friday that Americans should expect more coronavirus-related restrictions, as the Delta variant of the virus continues to spread.

Biden spoke about more restrictions on Americans after CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked him if he expected more restrictions as the virus spreads across the country.

“In all probability,” he replied as he left the White House for a weekend trip to Camp David.

. . . The White House continues to fail to explain to Americans why fully vaccinated people in some areas have to wear masks, leaving future restrictions entirely up to public health officials.

Another commentator in independent media said,

That response set off alarm bells on social media, with lots of expletives being shared. Most Americans are simply not up for another round of science-less proclamations made to protect politicians more than people.

So is there something in the works here? Or is Biden just doing the “old man says stuff” routine he’s so fond of?

Earlier today, CDC Dir. Rochelle Walensky stated that there will be no national mask or vaccine mandates, claiming that any prior comments to that effect were speaking strictly about private entities. Further, Deputy White House Press Sec. Karine Jean-Pierre said that lockdowns were not in the cards despite indicating a day earlier that Biden would do whatever the CDC recommends.

Given that, what other restrictions could Joe Biden be talking about? While I could spend the next few minutes racking my brain to try to come up with hypotheticals, I think the answer is simple enough — Joe Biden does not know what he’s talking about.

It's interesting that the CDC gave the impression that it was issuing a national mask mandate, or recommendation, or exhortation or whatever it was, on Tuesday, but by yesterday, Dr Walensky said she hadn't done that at all, except that President Biden thinks they're going to go ahead and issue more something or others. Meanwhile, the New York Post Editorial Board says It’s time to take CDC chief Rochelle Walensky off the air:

Even if it were better qualified, the message all too many Americans get is that the agency’s advisories are arbitrary and senseless — or, worse, that it has lost confidence in the vaccines to protect us right now.

It’s not that her science is wrong, but that she has no understanding of how to communicate to the general public — or that, as is the habit of public health bureaucracies, her only concern is that something awful will happen without her having covered her butt in advance.

This pandemic is over; loose talk about remote possibilities is the last thing the public needs as it strives to get back to work, to school and to normal socializing.

The last time Dr Walensky took such a high media profile was last March, when she said, verging on tears,

I'm going to lose the script, and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared.

The basic problem, I'm beginning to conclude, is that Dr Walensky is a ditz. We basically have a ditz feeding policy advice to a guy who's not all there. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out.

Something's Hinky About The COVID Data

I've never stopped checking the daily Los Angeles County COVID statistics. The graph above is a screen shot from today's report. While other graphs show sharp increaes in positive tests and hospitalizations, there's been no eqwuivalent rise in deaths. The graph is based on seven-day averages to compensate for daily fluctuation. By early June, the averages reached a floor of about four deaths per day in the county of over 10 million. Since then, they've fluctuated between two and four, with no increase equivalent to those for positive teats and hospitalizations.

Among other things, it's hard not to conclude that whatever the reason for an increase in hospitalizations, there are far fewer deaths resulting from them. So I went to find a graph of total COVID deaths in the US. Here it is at right (click on all the images for larger copies). A key takeaway is that, if in the past the public health authorities took cases as a leading indicator of deaths, so far, this doesn't seem to be happening with the delta variant.

As you can see, there's an uptick in the cases graph at right that simply doesn't appear on the deaths graph above it. These were taken from screen prints of web searches, both using New York Times data, within minutes of each other this morning. A smaller takeaway is that the uptick in cases that had Dr Walensky in tears on national TV last April, which she took as a leading indicator of deaths, was in fact never reflected in any actual increase in deaths. (It's worth revisiting what she and Dr Fauci said then, which I covered at the time in this post.) It's also worth noting that deaths began to decline in mid-January nationally, well before significant numbers of people were fully vaccinated.

It's hard to avoid a conclusion that as the pandemic proceeded, aftrer mid-January 2021, the disease itself became less fatal, and medical treatments became more effective. It's also hard to disagree with conclusions by variouis observers that herd immunity based on people who were already infected but had recovered was an important factor in the overall improvement.

I also ran across an intriguimig story at the Foundation for Economic Educdation, Despite ‘Delta’ Alarmism, US COVID Deaths Are at Lowest Level Since March 2020, Harvard and Stanford Professors Explain. Rather than using raw totals as the graphs above do, this graph from the story normalizes the data to deaths per million, but it draws a very similar conclusion.

[T}he actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph [the one at right] from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

. . . Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant.

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination.

I think a major difference between now and 2020 is that the population is getting smarter and will push back more readily against new calls for controls. Governors like DeSantis and Abbott will publicly resist reinstatment of masking, social distance, and whatever else, and the problem for the public health authorities will be that there will be no difference in statistics between states like Texas and Florida and the rest of the country.

Why the calls for reinstatement are coming is another question, which i'll tackle tomorrow if nothing intervenes.

Really, Is Fr Hunwicke OK?

I couldn't help but notice a post yesterday at Fr Hunwicke's blog, which reads in its entirety:

Like Vatican II, TC has now (after only twelve days!!) sprouted its own ghastly SPIRIT, which can even be directly contrary to the wording of TC, but still has to be as ruthlessly enforced.

According to Fr Zed, an American cardinal called Gregory has forbidden an Authentic Form Mass in an American church which ... is NOT a "parish church".

Simply a tyranny, isn't it, all this. You have to guess what Hitler or Stalin or that North Korean chappy really want, then you have to enforce it. If you know what's good for you.

This is what tyrants and their lackeys always really expect. They don't really take seriously even their own wretched enactments. They just want you to grovel.

Several things interest me here. It appears Fr Hunwicke thinks Cdl Gregory forbade a celebration of the Latin mass "directly contrary to the wording of TC". But Article 2 of Traditionis Custodes simply says,

It belongs to the diocesan bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole liturgical life of the particular Church entrusted to him, to regulate the liturgical celebrations of his diocese. Therefore, it is his exclusive competence to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See.

We can question Cdl Gregory's judgment in this particular case, but he's doing nothing "directly contrary" to the guidelines of the Apostolic See. § 2 of Article 3 says the bishop

is to designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather for the eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes)

But it does not imply that any non-parish church is automatically eligible for celebration of the Latin mass. The basilica involved is a non-parish church, but it happens not to be one that the bishop has designated. And the fact is that if a bishop orders something, the Church orders it. Full stop. One thing I'm picking up when I make these visits to Fr Hunwicke is that if I go back and read whatever document he's referring to, it usually turns out not to say what he claims it says.

By the same token, he refers to a post at Fr Z's blog, which I diligently looked up (he didn't provide a link). Fr Z quotes a release from the Paulus Institute, whose celebration of the Latin mass was canceled (italics in original):

We ask this unfortunate reply be met with controlled reactions, whether with strength, substance, and opposition, but without polemics and inflammatory or coarse words, which The Paulus Institute rejects.

So naturally, Fr Hunwicke compares the pope to "Hitler or Stalin or that North Korean chappy" and calls him a "tyrant", with Cdl Gregory his "lackey". Except that Cdl Gregory has had to "guess" nothing; he's acting entirely within his episcopal authority. And even the Paulus Institute is saying yuu may disagree with the cardinal's judgment, but by using intemperate language, you're making Pope Francis's point for him.

But this brings me back to a more basic question. Where does comparing Pope Francis to Hitler, Stalin, and Kim Jong-un stop and calling him the Antichrist begin? There are hundreds of Protestant denominations that have no problem at all with the comparisons Fr Hunwicke is drawing. Pastor John MacArthur, a highly respected Evangelical, insists that the Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian denomination. Might those views actually be more friendly to Fr Hunwicke in his current state?

In fact, Anglicans of old had no problem at all denouncing the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, Article XXXVII makes it plain:

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

As Wittgenstein would suggest, the solution to Fr Hunwicke's problem will come from the disappearance of the problem. If he will simply renounce his misguided and clearly ill-informed conversion to the Roman church and return to the traditionial and long-established church of his own nation, which gives and has almost always given him full latitude to celebrate whatever liturgy he wants, he'll be much, much happier. Or do I have this wrong?

The Ordinariate Refuses To Confront Its Systemic Racism

A visitor sent me the above screen shot from a Facebook thread on one of the ordinariate groups there. The backstory appears to be this, according to the Black Catholic Messenger blog:

A planned council of the Knights of Peter Claver & Ladies Auxiliary at an Ordinariate parish in California has been quashed—and likely due to racism, according to the prospective council head.

It would have made history both as the first KPC unit at an Ordinariate parish, and also as the first in Orange County (an affluent region in Southern California that is only ~2% Black).

Last year, Gunnar Gundersen led the effort at Irvine's St John Henry Newman Catholic Church, a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The plan was initially approved in December by the parish administrator, Fr Evan Simington, after the POCSP bishop Steven J. Lopes gave the green light in August.

The visitor suiggests that Fr Simington's apparent turnaround came about because Mr Gundersen is an angry guy, to say the least. In one post attacking Bp Barron, he says

Having specialized in building an online presence tackling the challenges presented by mostly White and angry atheists, he has sought to be equally relevant in the social-justice-movement debate that is growing in the United States and around the world.

He has done this by writing a series of essays on Word on Fire, and in other outlets and formats (including interviews). That effort has involved framing most modern social-justice activism as “woke” and rejecting “wokeness” as “vile"—an adjective he used in an interview with the Babylon Bee podcast.

. . . His definition and criticism are premised on the notion that those who are woke are not Christian, do not believe in objective morals, and do not seek to develop cooperative social structures.

The visitor comments on the controversy:

The young black Ordinariate member from Cincinnati [Jordan Arnold in the Facebook thread above] accused the KofSPC of embracing Critical Race Theory and promoting Marxism, which seems unlikely. A more plausible explanation is that the chapter or whatever it’s called was “gathered” and really has little connection with SJHN, Irvine. This is of course the danger with these little Ordinariate groups, as we saw at St Bede, St Louis Pk. They are easily hi-jacked by a few potential trouble-makers who have wandered in from other Catholic parishes where they did not have the influence they feel they deserve.

I am not accusing the KofSPC group of being such, but these small communities are always vulnerable. It was mentioned that the Knights of Columbus group at SJHN is inactive. Of course the KofC has no connection to “Anglican Patrimony” and is part of the post-Anglican cultural mix of the Ordinariate.

Well, one issue I keep returning to here is that Critical Race Theory, which is closely aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement, isn't Marxist, because it represents an alliance of the Lumpenproletariat, the petty criminal class and street rabble, with the wealthy elites. Both are opposed to the working class broadly considered, but Marx also understood that the Lumpenproletariat is not a reliable ally for anyone. The alliance, however temporary, feeds the narcissism of the elites and is momentarily convenient for the lumpenproles.

I think narcissism is key to understanding the larger phenomenon we've been seeing for nearly a decade with the North American ordinariate: it's attracted fewer of the disgruntled high-church Anglicans it was meant to reach than it has the tiny wandering cliques of fringe cradle Catholics of many different stripes, who've been frustrated at the unwillingness of larger novus ordo parishes to nurture their particular rage. Thus we see the odd alliance in the Facebook thread above between Peter Smith, a prominent white cradle trad who's drifted into the ordinariate, with Mr Gundersen, who self-identifies as black and woke, against Mr Arnold, who strikes me as a black member of the down-to-earth class that works for a living. Narcissism, I hate to say it, is a dominant feature in this thread; the putative class alliance here is purely for show and transitory.

But this goes to the question of Fr Simington, who in my view made the correct call. Althogh he is a graduate of the Episcopalian high-church Nashotah House seminary, he opted to spend additional time in Roman Catholic seminary formation. In his assignments since ordination, I believe he's had part-time positions as an associate in diocesan parishes and also, I believe, has lived in diocesan rectories. (I'm open to correction here.) He's celibate.

This means he has probably developed friendships with celibate, working diocesan clergy, and maybe just as important, networking contacts. He's much closer to what I see every day with real Catholic priests, which means he's far better equipped to make the kind of call he made. A priest who just recently left residence at our rectory to resume a position as a pastor said in his farewell homily, "I realize that sometimes I'll need to say 'no' in my new assignment." Looks like Fr Simington has developed this necessary priestly faculty, and I take it as a sign of maturity.

I've got to think better work will emerge for Fr Simington. He shouldn't be wasting his abilities in nickel-and-dime situations like this.

On The Prescience Of Die Hard

My wife and I normally record each night's TV schedule to watch the following night so we can fast-forward through the commercials, but if there's not enough history or animal or true crime stuff, I go looking for a film. The other night, I settled on Die Hard (1988), which neither of us had seen, and for which my expectations were low. After all, it's the dregs of summer season. It turned out not to be High Noon, but it was actually watchable, and remarkably insightful into modern culture very much like the Jason Bourne films that I've already discussed here.

The Bourne films carried the strong subtext that the CIA of Allen Dulles, North by Northwest, and Topaz isn't the CIA we have. But I made the point that the Bourne trilogy appeared between 2002 and 2007, long before Donald Trump was anything but a playboy billionaire and reality TV star. Remarkably, Die Hard makes a similar point, that the FBI is no longer the FBI of G-men and J Edgar Hoover. And it said it in 1988, long before Ruby Ridge, Waco, the bungling of 9/11, and conspiracies to kidnap Gov Whitmer.

Indeeed, the latest scandal over Richard Trask, the agent who led the undercover team that appears to have been the leadership and most of the co-conspirators in that plot, who was arrested for slamming his wife's head into the night table after a swingers' party, seems the best possible illustration that this is not your grandfather's FBI. Forget the night table, Mr Hoover would have thrown the guy out if there was even a whiff about swingers' parties. Seems like the FBI would be having a better time lately if it paid more attention in general to who's a horndog, but as they say in the government, that's above my pay grade. (By the way, who would want to go to a swingers' party with that guy?)

According to Wikipedia, expectations for the film weren't high. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone had already turned down the lead role, and Bruce Willis was definitely Plan C or worse. But the film was an unintentional success, in part due to Willis's portrayal of the character as an uncertain, conflicted hero forced into his situation.

But I think an unacknowledged factor is the film's depiction of both the Los Angeles Police Department (which had yet to disgrace itself in its handling of the 1992 Rodney King riots) and the FBI, whose failings were still in the future. Somehow, I think the public sensed an authenticity in the film's portrayal of official hot-dogging, cowardice, and careerism that were yet to be fully visible in events.

The broad outlines of the plot are that a New York cop, John McClane (Willis), travels to Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife, who is an executive. He meets her at her company's Christmas party in a high rise. However, a terrorist gang suddenly arrives to seize the building and rob the vault that holds the company's valuables. When it becomes plain that the terrorists intend to kill people, McClane escapes and uses his law enforcement skills to begin killing each of the terrorists, one by one.

The police, despite McClane's efforts to contact them, refuse to take his alarms seriously. Once the terrorist attack becomes impossible to discount or ignore, the LAPD brass arrives, but it decides it can't decide who's the bad guy, and it decides McClane could well be a terrorist himself, what with all the shooting and stuff. Amid LAPD's dithering, the FBI arrives and takes command, but they agree with LAPD that McClane is a terrorist. It's plain by then that no matter any other outcome, McClane is destined for a cell at the Colorado supermax, just down the corridor from the likes of Ted Kaczynski.

The climactic scene has the terrorists shepherding the remaining hostages onto the high-rise's roof, on the pretext that helicopters will be sent to rescue them in accordance with their demands. However, McClane suddently realizes that in fact, the terrorists mean to blow up the roof once the hostages assemble there, so he has no choice but to get to the roof himself and, with no other option, he fires his weapon over their heads to get them to go back downstairs.

Just at that moment, the FBI helicopters arrive and see McClane firing his weapon over the hostages' heads, which only confirms their view that he's a terrorist. A couple of hot-dogging FBI agents in the helicopter congratulate each other that they've caught the bad guy in the act. However, the terrorists then blow up the high rise roof, although the hostages have barely escaped due to McClane's quick action, but the explosion catches the FBI helicopter, which crashes, and the hot-dogging agents are killed.

There's more action to go, but the key event is that at least the agents who could have testified against McClane and put him in the supermax are out of the picture, which strikes me as perhaps the unintended moral of the whole film.

According to Wikipedia, "Deemed 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' by the United States Library of Congress, Die Hard was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017." Along, I might remind the reader, with Animal House.

I Got Some More Insights Into Traditionalism In Yesterday's Post From Fr Hunwicke

Naturally, in. the current controversy over Traditionis Custodes, it's important to understand our fellow Catholics on the other side of the issue. Yesterday's post by Fr Hunwicke, while it seems simple on the surface, carries two subtexts that lead to a deeper understanding of his, and traditionalists', mindset. It begins,

I have always had a soft spot for S Anne, not least because she is the Patron of my wife's college at Oxford (we sent two of our children there) . . .

In his thumbnail, he says he himself has been Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. But just so we're all on the same page, for those of us in the US at least, you need to substitute Yale, or possibly Princeton, for Oxford. Yalies in particular never let you forget they've been to Yale; two recent examples are Glenn Reynolds, whose actual intellectual mentors are Ayn Rand and Hugh Hefner, and Michael Medved, who lost his radio show when his NeverTrumpism became too boring even for the Salem network. Fr Hunwicke's fellow prominent Oxonians include Ghislaine Maxwell.

On one hand, it's never a good idea to cite your alma mater as evidence of your worth; there are too many felons, grifters, and general by-blows among your fellow alums. But in addition, that sort of constant name-dropping -- Fr Hunwicke effectively got four Oxfords into one short sentence -- is evidence of a deep insecurity. Trads seem to cling to figures like Scott Hahn, who not only converted to Catholicism but converted to Latin mass after that, going so far as to call it "superior" to the novus ordo, except he never explains why, just that he likes it. Again, this reflects an insecurity among many trads.

A remark by a visitor brought another issue into context. The visitor suggested that Latin masses tend to be attended by young families with large retinues of children, while novus ordo masses are less that way. The visitor suggested the trads are visibly following the Church's teaching on contraception, while the novus ordo Catholics are not. That's a matter for the confessional in the end, but the visible part is actually a problem.

I thought back to Honor Moore, daughter of Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore Jr, who noted in her memoir that, as her parents had baby after baby en route to a total of nine children, she kept wondering who they were trying to beat. It later emerged that Bp Moore had been a closet bisexual all his life. Large broods of children, especially if the girls are wearing chapel veils, are a statement, not just an outcome.

They can certaimly reflect insecurity, and I hardly think the Moore family was unique in using a large brood to cover for serious behind-the-scenes issues in a marriage. Honor Moore's memoir suggests that a divorce would have ended Bp Moore's career, so there was a mutual interest in maintaining appearances for the sake of lifestyle, though his first wife did not follow him to New York, and they effectively separated. Fr Chad Ripperger, a trad priest, has noted that the kind of stuff that reaches him in the confessional makes him worry that the Latin mass is not having the salutary effect some might claim for it.

So the first issue, which I think applies at least to Fr Hunwicke's constant name-dropping (cf his recent reference to a private e-mail from Prebendary Moreton), is the apparent deep insecurity this reflects.

But there's another issue, which is the self-contradiction that verges on ditziness. This past Friday, Fr Hunwicke placed St John XXIII in his gallery of Hitler popes, or quasi-Hitler popes or something, for promulgating Veterum Sapientia, which did nothing more than assert that Latin is valuable to the Church because it is "universal, immutable, and non-vernacular.” And since Fr Hunwicke is most definitely on the side of universal, immutable, and non-vernacular, he ought to like St John XXIII, but that guy is actually Hitler (or something).

In yesterday's post, he then basically just reprints a Latin hymn to St Anne, no translation, as of course all his readers are naturally expected to be fully conversant with the universal, immutable, and non-vernacular. But they're nevertheless expected, apparently, to hurl anathema upon St John XXIII during the implicit Two Minutes Hate, at least when it suits Fr Hunwicke. I'm sure if anyone calls him on it (I receive copies of comments left on his blog that he won't approve), he'll excuse this in some way or other, oh, no, no, no. he never meant that at all. But isn't there, in the end, a sedevacantist subtext here?

Looking for a picture to use at the top of this post, I found it. Fr Longenecker had already used it in a 2016 post at his blog, where he quotes a traditionalist blogger who says,

. . . young advocates of traditional liturgy like me found ourselves heading to worship God every Sunday in the company of individuals who, as often as not, seemed dour and judgmental. They spoke in effusive terms when they described their Mass, but appeared pained when they actually attended it. No smiles ever seemed to touch their lips, and they would glare at women (like my wife) who would at times forget their chapel veils, or wear makeup, or fail to provide some means of instant corporal punishment at the first sign of a squirming toddler.

He himslf concludes,

[W]hy does there still have to be the sour, negativity, suspicion and persecution complex among some who call themselves traditionalist? . . . The more radical ones play the victim saying they are a persecuted minority, but they sure don’t mind loading their weapons and taking pot shots at everyone with whom they disagree.

The problem is that, in the current controversy, they wind up making Pope Francis's point for him. I think insecurity, based in part on their own uncertainties over Church teaching and a resulting overcompensation, is one cause of the suspicion and persecution complex among the trads. I can't disagree that the Latin mass thing has gotten out of hand.

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.

Fr Hunwicke And Standup Comedy

When I was a lot younger, I had a friend who was an aspiring comic (he wound up working for American Greetings writing gag lines, so he had talent). I used to go to his routines on amateur night at the comedy clubs to support him, so I wound up learning a little about the business. One thing a comic has to do is put his best material up front and time it so the audience gets into the habit of laughing. Then he puts the not-so-funny stuff into the mix, and even if the joke is just "it rained last Tuesday", the audience still laughs.

Fr Hunwicke, as far as I can tell, is thought in some quarters to be funny. His problem is he ran out of good material years ago, but he keeps posting the C-minus stuff, day in, day out. Let's look at a random recent post, the one he had up yesterday, Der Fuehrerbefehl. A Fuehrerbefehl is an order from the Fuehrer, viz, Hitler. I assume he's drawing some sort of parallel between that and a motu proprio. ROTFL, huh? But then he starts off,

Many of you will be too young to remember the infamous events of 1962. They led to famine and public disorder; to mobs of crazed people jostling in the streets as they struggled in the queues to register for their unemployment benefit and for hand-outs of public foodstuffs. Gaunt and famished, in country after country the hungry men, driven to despair, protested in the only way they knew. The barricades ... the street massacres ...

The cruel decree Veterum Sapientia had ordered the sacking of thousands of men, and some women, from Catholic seminaries throughout the world. Papa Roncalli, "Good Pope John XXIII" as he had ironically been called, in full consciousness of His authority, Decreed and Commanded eight important rules. Rule 5 ordered that the major sacred sciences should be taught in Latin, that the professors of these sciences in universities or seminaries be required to speak Latin and to make use of textbooks written in Latin.

So my reaction was. "huh? wha?" Fr Hunwicke's timing was way off, first a Hitler joke that wasn't funny and then a pedantic detour into the alternate universe that had nothing to do with the Hitler joke. By the next paragraph, we learn this has something to do with "Good Pope John XXIII" (clearly uttered with a sneer), who is being characterized as something between Hitler and an out-of-touch fuddy-duddy. The general idea might work for a speaker trying to warm up a Klan meeting, but the references are too obscure, and the tone is too preciously literary, so it won't even work for the Klan, though comparing a pope to Hitler isn't a good strategy for Catholics, either.

(In fact, I went to Veterum Sapientia and found most of it unexceptionable):

As is laid down in Canon Law (can. 1364) or commanded by Our Predecessors, before Church students begin their ecclesiastical studies proper they shall be given a sufficiently lengthy course of instruction in Latin by highly competent masters, following a method designed to teach them the language with the utmost accuracy.

Fr Hunwicke himself affects a level of erudition that would only look down on anyone not fully competent in Latin. It would seem that, leaving his immediate personal agenda aside, there's little for him to disagree with otherwise here.

In fact, it appears there's little discussion on the web covering this particular constitution and its history, but it actually seems like an interesting case and worthy of real investigation, not summary dismissal. But we're back to Fr Hunwicke's alternate universe:

In Argentina, no bishop was more rigorous than Bishop Bergoglio in enforcing the decrees of S John XXIII. If ever he heard of a seminary professor giving a single lecture in Spanish rather than Latin, he was instantly on the phone demanding that the man be sacked. He had the reputation of being the strictest bishop in Latin America in implementing Veterum Sapientia.

Of course, nothing like this actually took place, and Hunwicke's point is obscure. A rhetorical journey ino the alternate universe must be apt. The problem for the metaphorical structure here is that Hitler is likened to John XXIII is likened to Francis, but the result is that the three figures merge into a single raging apocalyptic fuddy-duddy, which doesn't work. Wouldn't it be even a little easier to say flat-out that the Bishops of Rome are the Antichrist? There's a problem here, because a certain no-Popery is lurking behind this whole metaphor. Once you accept one pope as Hitler, you open Pandora's box. The nicest thing you can say about Hunwicke's argument is that it's shallow and puerile.

But then he gets to his overall point:

Our privilege today, in 2021, is that we are being given a very similar opportunity for total and unthinking obedience, Jesuit style. Pope Francis possesses precisely and exactly the same authority as S John XXIII. When he decrees the extermination of the Old Mass, that decree comes to us with precisely and exactly the same force as the requirement of S John XXIII that all Priestly Formation in seminaries should be done entirely in Latin ... er ... except that possibly a motu proprio may not have ...um ... quite the authority of an Apostolic Constitution ... er ... . I wouldn't know about that sort of thing; I'm only a 'convert'.

For starters, he makes two inaccurate assertions, or suggestionis, or whatever they are. He claims Francis "decrees the extermination of the Old Mass", which he clearly didn't; nobody says that. Nor (since I went back and read Veterum Sapientia) did John XXIII decree that "all Priestly Formation in seminaries should be done entirely in Latin", he wanted only the theology courses in Latin.

But here's the problem. Fr Hunwicke clearly doesn't like John XXIII; after all, he called the Second Council. He clearly doesn't like Francis, he's a tool of the globalists or something. But he likes Benedict XVI, because he issued Summorum Pontificum and Anglicanorum coetibus. So his point is that we should follow one set of apostolic constitutions/motu proprios but not another, apparently based entirely on whether he likes the pope involved.

This is meaningless. But more important for the point here, it isn't even funny. It's a lot of unfunny stuff inserted in the routine, when he hasn't got the audience into the habit or either laughing or nodding assent.

BOOO! GET BETTER MATERIAL!

The Big Boo-Hoo

Heavy-duty Catholic George Weigel thje other day described Traditionis Custodes as

“theologically incoherent, pastorally divisive, unnecessary” and “cruel.”

Msgr Charles Pope issued a cri de coeur, which seems subsqently to have been edited to "cry from the heart":

I must say that I am grieved and stunned by this document and the letter to the bishops that accompanied it. I think not so much of my own potential loss but of the many Catholics I have served who love the extraordinary form. For so long and in so many places they have often been treated harshly and have been marginalized for their love for the form of the liturgy that most of the saints knew.

The Remnant editorialized:

Francis is also obsessed with crushing the tiny remnant of believers left in a world of universal apostasy because he is a globalist tool. He has locked down Summorum Pontificum because like a crucifix to a vampire, the old Catholic liturgy threatens the diabolical New World Order to which Francis has signed on.

This level of over-the-top indignation from priests and Catholic laity hasn't been seen, frankly, since the Viet Nam war. Meanwhile, the US bishops and the UK Latin Mass society have said the result of Traditionis will likely end up as a series of relatively minor adjustments. From the latter:

Pope Francis’ new decree restricting the traditional Latin Mass can be interpreted in such a way that it is “perfectly reasonable” for bishops to allow existing arrangements for celebration of the older form of the Roman rite to continue in their dioceses, and for lay faithful to continue attending such Masses.

. . . The principal feature of Francis’ apostolic letter is to reassign to bishops the power to restrict celebration of the older Mass, giving an ordinary “the exclusive competence to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese.”

But in its guidance, the Latin Mass Society notes that in insisting on the role of the bishop as the “moderator of the liturgy” in his diocese, the decree “is not making any innovation or investing bishops with special authority” but merely reiterating “the existing legal situation.”

So why are even normally responsible Catholic spokesmen getting so weepy about Traditiones? Especially since, as in our novus ordo parish, Francis's move went unnoticed. The big issue, if any, was that we had to wear masks again last Sunday, and frankly, I think that was far more important. For our parish, what happened with Latin mass was about as relevant as whether the new street cleaning schedule affected parking in Hackensack.

I've had a hard time finding good numbers on how many Latin mass Catholics there are. The closest I've come is this piece from several years ago:

[C]ompare the 489 Latin Mass parishes to the 17,000 total. While the 489 are not all contained within the 17,000 number (the SSPX parishes are not, for example), if they were, they would make up less than 0.003% of the total. An estimated 100,000 faithful attend the Latin Mass every week, traditionalists have much larger families than pro-contraceptive N.O. families (at least that’s what the data suggest), and the youth do seem to have a much higher preference for tradition than previous generations, but 100,000 is not a large population when you consider that 556,418 Confirmations took place in the previous year.

The reasoning is vague, and it makes unjustified assumptions. It refers, for instance, to "pro-contraceptive N.O. families". This seems to imply that novus ordo Catholics, or at least those in families, are all pro-contraceptive. But our novus ordo parish makes it plain that it will not marry a couple in the Church unless they complete a course in natural family planning. This is the sort of knee-jerk assumption, from a group that's far from a majority even among faithful Catholics, that I find offensive.

The question I have is why the leaders of the boo-hoo contingent completely ignore the passage in the letter accompanying Traditionis:

A final reason for my decision is this: ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.”

What's disturbing is that the more fervent Latin mass apologists, like a couple of those above, simply make Francis's point for him by calling hjim a "globalist tool" and doubling down on the attitude he criticizes. But another problem is that Catholics who ought to be more responsible are twisting their tissues and dabbing their eyes on cue. My guess is that the journalists who contacted them somehow goaded them into making statements that I think are extreme. It would be more disturbing if people like Weigel and Msgr Pope made them on their own initiative.

My guess is that if I went to any of our priests, outlined my concerns, and asked what I should do, among their recommendations (which would include to pray about it and listen), would be to continue to speak out and act where appropriate. This I will likely do.

I'm told, for instance, that I had a great deal of influence in the old blog on the North Anmerican ordinariate's policy on certain priests. Maybe I should take on Fr Hunwicke. Frankly, I think his ordination was a grave error. The North American ordinariate had the good sense to correct some such errors and modify its stance toward other such priests. I find that if I put my mind to it, I can make a difference now and then. I do think something needs to be done in some of these areas.

More Thoughts On The Reaction To Traditionis Custodes

Most of the reaction to Traditionis Custodes I've seen in Catholic media has been negative, almost always tied to deep, and I would say knee-jerk, suspicion of Pope Francis. I don't think anyone can dispute that this is the case. This leads me to a basic question: how would I address any concerns I had about Francis in the confessional?

Option 1: "Bless me, Father, I have sinned. I have attended a novus ordo mass, eleven times. I have received the sacrament standing, in the hand, eleven times. I was tempted to agree with Pope Francis in his statements on faith and morals, more times than I can count. I changed my mind on the death penalty after reflection based on remarks by our priests and his revision of the Catechism. I am sorry for these and all my sins."

Option 2: "Bless me, Father, I have sinned. I have unconsciously adopted the idea that Catholics who don't attend the Latin mass aren't good Catholics. I have spread the opinion that the pope is a heretic. I have spread the opinion that the Second Council was not valid. I am sorry for these and all my sins."

It occurs to me that almost any priest (excluding some real jerks I know in the ordinariate) would be tempted to laugh me out of the confessional for Option 1, but would actually try a patient explanation, given the time available, of what the Catholic Church is about, but again considering the time available, maybe even suggest either counseling or a return to confirmation class. He would almost certainly find it problematic that such a person would be thinking perfectly good things are sins, while quite possibly neglecting a more thorough examination of conscience over things like pride that he thinks are not.

The second option, it seems to me, would reflect a more authentic examination of conscience over matters like pride, gossip, and scandal. I would imagine that just about any priest, again excluding those jerks in the ordinariates, would be happier to hear Option 2 than Option 1.

Actually, considering what I've been seeing in social media -- heck, not just in social media, in respectable Catholic blogs and web sites -- I'm feeling more and more offended by the aspersions that traditionalists now even more vehemently cast on me and the great majority of other Catholics who attend and are well fed by novus ordo parishes and masses. It's not much different from the elites who now routinely insult me by claiming I'm a racist. It's poisoning the atmosphere.

In fact, I probably need to bring my own reactions to this up the next time I go to confession.

Let's look at the dynamic here. The Vatican II constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, which at Bp Barron's recommendation I just read, decreed "a general restoration of the liturgy" so that

For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary.

This document, the product of an ecumenical council, is as authoritative as you can find in the Catholic Church. If you have problems with it, you have problems with being a Catholic. So to get around it, those who object criticize what emerged as the novus ordo liturgy. Just today, someone sent me material about Annibale Bugnini, the head of the commission that produced the new mass and a longtime bete noire among traditionalists.

The point seems to be that Bugnini was politically adept and even something of a schemer, and not all the bishops liked him -- even Paul VI got tired of him. I don't understand. In Acts, we learn that St Paul didn't get along with St Mark at all and didn't want to travel with him. How does this undermine the New Testament? This sort of thing happens among human beings. As someone who's had to get even small-scale stuff done at work, I've learned you have to have political skills, even to revise a technical manual. How much more do you need to revise the mass? The Church nevertheless comes out of it.

Wikipedia quotes Michael Sean Winters:

Aficionados of the old rite like to talk about how that rite uniquely conveys the sense that each Mass is a part of the one eternal sacrifice of Christ […] If the Eucharist is, as Vatican II taught, the source and summit of the Catholic faith, then we know that when the celebration of the Eucharist fails to serve the unity of the church, something is wrong, and it isn't ever the fault of him whose sacrifice we commemorate.

I've got to say that the traditionalists' tone in this discussion, often doubling down on the position that Vatican II was not authorized to change the liturgy, or that Francis is a heretic, is driving me away from that group and only confirms the impression I'd developed that Anglicanorum coetibus was an intiative as flawed as Summorum Pontificum. I'm with Francis on this one. And I'm a conservative guy.

The Problem With COVID Now Is The Lies

Does Dr Fauci seem a little tired, even distracted, in the photo above? I'm beginning to think so. He's now been fighting the public gain-of-function question for six months, when he'd spent almost all of 2020 trying to keep it from coming out at all. And notwithstanding his efforts, the word is out that

An increasing number of senior administration officials engaged in a probe of the virus are now backing the theory that the virus could have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a CNN report.

However, Dr Fauci is still on the side of the natural origin theory. No wonder, the obvious question, which nobody is quite putting in the terms it ought to be asked, is that a so-far unknown amount of money, almost certainly in the hundreds of millions, from the US government, incuding Defense, State, and the NIH, went to the Wuhan lab to fund gain-of-function research.

The claim was that this was to prevent future epidemics. Instead, a lab leak from this research seems to have caused the kind of worldwide epidemic it was supposed to prevent. So what if the Chinese are stonewalling? We have almost all the answers we need from Drs Fauci, Collins, Daszak, Baric, and I'm sure many more right here in the US. It's looking more and more as if the US public health establishment was complicit via its "experts" in causing the epidemic. Isn't this the sort of thing that would normally call for a national commission, like the Kennedy, Watergate, Church, and 9/11 investigations? So far, not a peep.

Meanwhike, the same public health establishment can't understand why not everyone wants to take the vaccine. They blame anti-vaxxers, but people are smarter than that. In this case, they maybe aren't geniuses, but they're still smart enough to grasp that there's just something hinky about the whole received COVID narrative, and whether they're right to refuse the vaccine, they're certainly right to question what figures like Fauci are telling them, because Fauci is clearly telling lies. This isn't helping the country, and if the public health establishment wants credibility for more vaccinations, it's time to drop Fauci.

(At this point, they'd answer that if they drop Fauci, then everyone will know they were lying, and even fewer will take the jab. But that's just another problem they've created. Crisis management consultants are long overdue.) A good sign of how the problem has aged is that Fauci, tired and on the defensive, is definitely losing his cool. Rand Paul confronted him again yesterday:

Paul detailed the evidence that he claims proves that experimentation on gain of function research was happening at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and quotes the doctor who did this work on both her work and on the amount of funding she received from the NIH.

"Knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11 where you claim that the NIH never funded gain of function research in Wuhan." Paul asked Fauci.

"Senator Paul," Fauci began, "I have never lied before the Congress and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you are referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function."

Paul interrupted, "You take an animal virus, and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you're saying that's not gain of function?" He asked incredulously.

"That is correct," Fauci defended, "and Senator Paul you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially: You do not know what you are talking about."

P:aul told Sean Hannity last night,

I will be sending a letter to the DOJ asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress. We have scientists that will line up by the dozens to say that the research he was funding was gain-of-function.

This is nothing but an empty gesture, of course, since a request for a referral will get nowhere in the Biden Justice Department. But it's worth asking this kind of question about the public narrative, because there's a fairy-tale quality to the whole thing. Now LA County is responding to the rise in cases among the unvaccinated by requiring everyone to mask up again -- when a year of evidence based on hundreds of millions of subjects shows that masks have no effect.

To what extent is the general atmosphere of lies intended to obscure a big truth? As Rand Paul told Hannity,

Once everybody puts this together, he realizes where the blame is going to attach. He has at least tangential responsibility. If this came from the lab that he was funding, my goodness, can you imagine the moral culpability the man has?

Not just Fauci, of course. There's an institutional rot that needs to be addressed much more widely than just in the NIH.

More Fallout From Traditionis Custodes And The Pope's Letter

As I predicted Sunday mornimg, there was no mention of Traditionis Custodes in that day's masses at our novus ordo parish, nor would there be any reason to mention it. Our pastor has sent no e-mails to reassure us of anything. We have a reverent OF celebration that includes professional vocalists with a small orchestra and a full organ. It's mostly all back from the lockdowns. Nobody is threatening it, and it appears that the archdiocese smiles on our rectory.

A visitor sent me the image above, which is a social media message an ordinariate priest sent to his little group, as yet still a considerable distance from being a parish. Unlike our successful parish, clearly unthreatend by Traditionis Custodes, Francis's letter is clearly the one thing that's on their minds, notwithstanding they aren't a Latin mass parish and are no more threatened than ours.

In fact, the priest goes on to say the Holy Father is "deeply, distressingly unpastoral". Just him, of course. Not speaking as a priest at all. But, er, Father, why did you use the official group mailing list to express your opinion? You're a priest 24/7. Were the Chicago priests who got busted for hanky-pank in a Miami rental car near a school acting only in their personal capacity, not as priests? Appears Cdl Cupich didn't think so. This is one reason I would not go within a mile of the ordinariate for any pastoral function, its standards for ordination are distressingly low, and we see it over and over, as we see it here.

Beyond that, I went back to the letter and re-read it carefully. Catholic commentators that I took seriously in good faith when I started as a Catholic, like Msgr Charles Pope, have called its tone "harsh", but I just don't see this. Where does Francis call anyone names? Where does he scold anyone? Where does he use abrasive or profane language? Where does he not give full explanations, fully footnoted, for his action, referring to scripture and Church authorities, in particular the Vatican II constitutions? I keep coming back to the sense I get that in fact, the traditionalists Francis identifies don't really acknowledge Vatican II, and for Francis to cite its constitutions is perhaps the big thing that's too harsh.

The problem the ordinariate priest acknowledges is, of course, that Traditionis Custodes does in fact pose "some implicit threat to our existence as ordinariate Catholics". Astonishingly, in the next sentence, he directly accuses the pope of scandal. Just him, of course. Not speaking as a priest, just some guy wearing clericals with access to the group's official mailing list. If this priest felt the need to say anything, since as he acknowledges, his group isn't affected, wouldn't just a two-sentence note suffice saying the group isn't affected, and we'll learn more about how the move affects those who are in coming weeks?

That's certainly what the US bishops are saying. Their position generally appears to be things will continue as they have while we work on this. We'll see it through. Calm down.

So the question I have is why people who aren't affected are in such a panic. The ordinariate priest, wno isn't affected, is nevertheless saying "he's talking about us in the most unpastoral way!" The people Francis is talking about are described fairly precisely:

A final reason for my decision is this: ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican Council II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the “true Church.” One is dealing here with comportment that contradicts communion and nurtures the divisive tendency — “I belong to Paul; I belong instead to Apollo; I belong to Cephas; I belong to Christ” — against which the Apostle Paul so vigorously reacted.

In other words, he's referring to people who use the former liturgy as a totem, and we can see fairly clearly that ordinariate groups share similar totems with the Latin mass faction, such as women and girls wearing chapel veils, insisting on communion kneeling and on the tongue, and indeed, using the innovation of intinction to enforce the latter. I don't see how those totems imply anything other than "we have it right; everyone else has it wrong"; in other words, they're using them as a force for disunity.

I've certainly seen this over and over covering the North American ordinariate for nearly ten years in my former blog. In fact, without being specifically referred to or called out in any way in the pope's letter, I'm seeing an ordinariate priest recognizing that Francis, describing only a general set of attitudes, seems to be referring to him and his flock. As the saying goes, if the shoe fits, wear it.

I would guess that the ordinaries recognize this as well. If they want to stay out of the crosshairs -- because it would seem at least some of their priests understand that they qualify -- they should be acting forcefully to discourage these tendencies before higher authority moves in to do it. The problem, though, is that by doing this, they would take away what for many of their flock feel makes them special. But isn't that the point of Francis's letter?

LA County Issues Indoor Mask Order

On July 15, LA County imposed an indoor mask requirement, which took effect at midnight Saturday. Media reports like this one have been incoherent, describing on one hand the usual "sharp increase" in cases, while saying as well they're "a far cry from the winter peak that saw an average of more than 40,000 per day". Nevertheless, CNN reported that every patient now in the hospital for COVID is unvaccinated.

An issue that so far nobody has raised is that, with compliance in LA County near 100% on masking and social distance in late 2020, it had no effect, even with partial new lockdowns, on controlling the pandemic, with case rates declining only after the introduction of vaccines. If the problem is actually the unvaccinated, any type of masking, or the reimposition of any other former controls, will have no better effect than they did last year. But reimposition of former controls is exactly what the county has in mind:

[Health Officer Dr Muntu] Davis said L.A. County’s order doesn’t have an end date, and will stay in place “until we begin to see improvements in our community transmission of COVID-19."

. . . Davis said physical distancing requirements and other public health measures could also be reinstituted.

"Anything is on the table if things continue to get worse," Davis said.

The problem remains that the pandemic is essentially limited to the unvaccinated, but the entire population is being inconvenienced by ineffective controls, more of which are now pretty much guaranteed to be reimposed. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said on the Sunday talks,

[A] reimposed mask mandate in indoor public spaces is “not punishment,” but “prevention.”

. . . At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not changed its policies to require those who are vaccinated to wear masks in public settings indoors, and the Los Angeles decision has been met with some controversy.

As shown above, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva posted an announcement that he will not enforce the order. (Villanueva is an elected official and able to issue policy statements in opposition to other county departments.) In addition, Ric Grenell, a former Trump operative, has filed for a temporary injunction against the order. So far, I haven't been able to find any update on the status of this case. It's being handled by Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco public-interest attorney who has been involved in other COVID related legal action.

The Health Officer Order impermissibly restricts the liberty of fully vaccinated individuals without rational basis or legal authority. Since March 2020, County residents have had their liberty restricted in unprecedented ways. Businesses, schools, and houses of worship have been shuttered or had to follow other onerous restrictions in an effort to stop the spread of COVID19. Those restrictions have loosened as the result of rising vaccination levels, but now the County seeks to again restrict the rights of vaccinated County residents, yet this time based on a minuscule risk of COVID-19 contraction or transmission.

The overall conundrum is that the county, early this year, went out of its way to reach the most vulnerable populations, focusing especially on poor and minority communities. Vaccine doses and vaccination sites were allocated in ways that were specifically intended to reach those groups, with vaccines given free of charge. Those who didn't get the vaccines, despite these exhaustive efforts, are now the ones suffering from those choices.

There needs to be a better solution. As things stand, LA County is trying to reimpose draconian controls like Australia, while its overall statistics will undoubtedly be no better than places like Texas and Florida with no controls. This will likely have to be resolved in the political arena. Recent moves by Sheriff Villanueva may indicate he intends to have a political future as well.

What About Anglicanorum Coetibus?

Yesterday I said that, although Anglicanorum coetibus so far doesn't seem to have been affected by Traditionis Custodes, maybe it should be. Although it was originally intended to appeal to disgruntled high-church Anglicans, very few of these came in (I think this reflected a profound misunderstanding of Anglicanism). Instead, such appeal as it's had has been largely among the same traditionalist faction of cradle Catholics that Pope Francis intends to bring to heel with Traditionis Custodes.

I observed this movement for almost ten years in the old blog. Even before Anglicanorum coetibus, the most successful Anglican Use Pastoral Provision parish, Our Lady of the Atonement, wound up appealing largely to traditionialist Catholics as well, but its separatist posture resulted in financial as well as sexual abuses.

Media commentators over the weekend across the board haven't mentioned the essentially separatist nature of both Latin mass and Divine Worship parish culture. That the intent of Traditiones Custodes is to take the Extraordinary Form out of the parish environment -- allowing its celebration only outside parishes and forbidding new parishes centered on the Latin Roman Canon -- suggests to me that Francis in fact understands where the problem lies.

I think it's significant that, although Latin Mass apologists say it attracts younger and more generous Catholic families, Traditiones Custodes will have absolutely nil effect on our highly successful novus ordo parish, which fully met its fundraising goal for a building program despite being closed or with restricted worship during the pandemic. In fact, it also conducted a separate drive to renovate the adoration chapel, using the lockdown as an opportunity to do it -- this was fully funded as well. I doubt if Latin mass will be mentioned at all in today's masses.

Visitors have suggested to me that so far, it doesn't look like Traditionis Custodes will have any effect on the ordinariates, at least one of which, in Australia, is on life support without its help. A visitor who follows ordinariate Facebook groups says,

The consensus seems to be that Divine Worship is safe for now, having been established pursuant to an apostolic constitution rather than the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. And of course its similarity to the OF—-its lectionary, choices of Offertory prayers and Canons of the Mass—-are in other contexts subjects of frequent complaint. It is certainly not “the EF in English“ that many would prefer. Christian Campbell, the SSPX attendee, points this out regularly. But those who are saying “Nothing to see here” are failing to look at the larger picture, it seems to me, which is the Pope’s agenda in suppressing Summorum Pontificum. If he is looking to root out hotbeds of “traditionalist” resistance then the ordinariates should be next in line. I’m sure there are ways around Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Nevertheless, the visitor points out,

As we recall, Msgr Steenson closed the door on Extraordinary Form celebrations in North American ordinariate communities. This led to some negative comments in the blogosphere, although as far as I know only Fr Catania, then still at Mt Calvary, Baltimore was offering the EF. Luke Reese of course offered DW, OF, and EF as PV at Holy Rosary, Indianapolis when it hosted the St Joseph of Arimathea ordinariate community, but that seemed to be okay.

Bp Lopes seems to have lifted that prohibition, and the EF is offered at some North Anerican communities on one or two weekdays. Several communities are hosted by churches that are also TLM parishes, suggesting a certain sympathetic mindset. We recall that Msgr Reid had great difficulty finding a host parish in Victoria, BC after the ordinariate group was asked to leave Our Lady of Fatima. They were finally taken in by the local TLM parish despite having to be wedged in an afternoon time slot.

Now Bp Lopes will have to “go on the record” with the Vatican if he wishes the existing EF masses to continue —- with possible repercussions for his future career — they will have to be offered by ordinariate Pastors/PAs, and it looks as if the concept of a “TLM parish” is being rethought, which may mean that communities have to look for new locations. There have already been several instances of new diocesan pastors being appointed and suddenly the ordinariate group’s finding itself no longer welcome.

An intriguing issue is that, as in fact was done at Our Lady of the Atonement, there doesn't seem to be any prohibition on celebrating the Ordinary Form mass in Latin. The issue is focused on the Roman Canon in Latin, not Latin per se, which again suggests to me that Francis is fully aware of the particular form of EF's totemic status among dissident Catholics. But I think Traditionis Custodes prevents ordinariate parishes just as much as diocesan from celebrating the EF mass in the parish.

Again, as far as I'm aware, there's no single manifesto from traditionalists on why they insist on a pre-Conciliar Roman Canon, but it appears to be at the center of their so far inchoate doctrine. In recent days, several of Fr Hunwicke's posts have hovered around this point. Most recently, he says Francis doesn't have the authority to abrogate Summorum Pontificum, while Hunwicke presumably has the authority to rule on this. Well, he has his following.

But if the ordinaries want to stay out of the crosshairs, not just from Francis but from their brother bishops, they should really shut Hunwicke down.

Reaction To Traditionis Custodes

One thing I've come to like about Pope Francis is how easy it is to find photos of him with a wide range of facial expressions. Whatever else someone may say, he doesn't lack affect. I have a sense, in the absence of equivalent photos, that Leo XIII or Pius XI might have been like this, too. Francis is a good Italian.

There was a general anticipation that something like Traditionis Custodes was in the works, and I've already said that I don't have a dog in the fight over the Latin mass. But scanning reactions yesterday, I was struck by their intellectual weakness -- even beyond that, their un-Catholic nature. The most bizarre was from Fr Hunwicke, who cited an Anglican authority against the pope:

From a private letter to me from Prebendary Michael Moreton (7 November 2001);

"I regard the Roman canon as part of the complex of traditions which characterised the life of the Church as it emerged from the centuries of persecution: a shared rule of faith in the creeds, a shared rule of what constituted Scripture, a shared rule of holy order, and a shared rule of prayer. I do not believe that any part of the Church in later centuries has any authority to alter these canons."

Prebendary Moreton (1917-2014) was an Anglican, never a Roman Catholic. To cite him in an argument from authority is delusional. This is yet another illustration of Hunwicke's apparent view that he didn't need to convert to Catholicism; as an Anglican, he was plenty Catholic enough, and the rest of us should be, too. And I've got to say that, although Anglicanorum coetibus so far doesn't seem to have been affected by Traditionis Custodes, maybe it should be. I don't think it's a stretch to ask if Fr Hunwicke is actually Catholic. Again, if Msgr Newton wants to keep the ordinariates out of the crosshairs, he needs to shut Hunwicke down.

Here's another strange take, in the Register:

Raised with the ordinary form of the Mass, [Sarah] Copeland [a mother of seven from Phoenix,] went to her first Mass in the extraordinary form as a college student and said, “I was blown away by the beauty of the prayers. I just felt like this was the Mass that really exemplified and gave glory to God in the most beautiful sense.”

. . . By contrast, she said she experiences the ordinary form as more rigid because she feels forced to pray at specified times, leaving her less free to contemplate the mystery of the death of Christ.

I interpret this, as far as anyone can, to say she doesn't understand the Latin, so she just hears some droning, which with the candles and altar and stuff lets her mind wander, and she contemplates mysteries at whim. If the mass were in English, she'd be forced to pay attention. This is, unfortunately, the intent of the Vatican II constitutions, that the laity should actively participate in the liturgy. If she wantts to contemplate mysteries, she should find out if the parish has an adoration chapel. Although unintentional, it's hard to imagine a better argument for Traditionis Custodes.

Fr Z is over the top, which is hardly unexpected:

That leads me to my first reaction to the Motu Proprio, Traditionis custodes, which effectively insults the entire pontificate of Benedict XVI and the pastoral provisions of John Paul II and all the people they have affected.

Speaking of nukes, while this is quite awful, it is also good in that the line has been drawn. For all the cant about “unity” – which apparently is something to be forced not fostered – the divisions are now clearer.

I think it's fortuitous that, at Bp Barron's recommendation, I recently read Lumen Gentium. Fr Z makes remarks that I think are questionable in its light:

Holy Mass, particularly according to the pre-Conciliar form, has been called “the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven”. That cannot be contradicted.

However, let us remember that we are on this side of Heaven, and not the other.

Confer Lumen Gentium:

8. Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element.

In the Church, we are not "this side" of heaven, it's more complex than that. I think it's significant that in his letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes, Francis refers repeatedly to Lumen Gentium, and again, as someone who's read it within the past few weeks, I think he's reading it correctly. One big problem with pre-Conciliarism, which is the school Francis is correcting here, is that it rejects documents like Lumen Gentium.

This means there's really no basis for dialogue, and given reactions like the ones I've linked here, I don't think Francis had much choice than to act as he did.