PopeWatch: Henry Sire

A corollary of this is his drive against tradition. Pope Francis realises perfectly well that the only real obstacle to his revolution comes from traditionalists in the Catholic Church, the only element with any backbone prepared to recognise that the emperor has no clothes. Hence the campaign he has waged throughout his pontificate against so-called “rigid” and “backward” Catholics, whom he derides at every opportunity. He repeated this theme just a few weeks ago, when he said what a scandal it was that young priests should be going to ecclesiastical tailors to order soutanes and traditional vestments. We all know what the real scandals in the modern Church are, but the only ones that bother Pope Francis are those of priests following tradition. Hence also his promotion of Cardinal Roche to be Prefect of Divine Worship in place of Cardinal Sarah, and the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes to undo the work of Benedict XVI. (By the way, it has been pointed out that a possible translation of Traditionis Custodes is “the jailers of tradition,” which is certainly the job that Cardinal Roche and Pope Francis would like to be doing.) Like Pope Francis, Cardinal Roche is also fond of lecturing traditional Catholics on how out-of-date they are. It has been remarked that the Catholic Church is the only institution in which men in their seventies and eighties are continually telling people in their twenties and thirties that they need to get with it. It suits Pope Francis to pretend that Catholic traditionalism is a matter of priests liking to wear cassocks and to use incense in church, but he knows very well that it is a matter of doctrine, of the Deposit of Faith, of the perennial philosophy of the Church, of the treasures of spirituality; and that is why it is an unbreakable obstacle to a Pope who tries to lead the Church into the paths of modern secularism.

Go here to read the rest.  The Church will be decades climbing out of the pit dug for her by this Pope.