Customer Reviews

More Catholic Than the Pope: An Inside Look at Extreme Traditionalism

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

1) Disclaimer: (1) my reviews tend to be very negative. (2) I consider my knowledge of Catholicism to be good, but my knowledge of Traditionalism is limited to "The Gread Facade", and a bit of "In the Murky Waters of Vatican II".

2) General Impression: A Good start, but just enough to whet your appetite.

3) Overview of the book: A short (146 pages) attempt to show that the SSPX is schismatic (with a short history of the SSPX movement, and a good rebuttal of their canonical obfuscations), and that Vatican II is OK (whether for Transsubstantiation, Oecumenism, etc.).

4) Pros
- Catholicism needs a rebuttal of Traditionalist claims that is recent, exhaustive, clear, and faithful to the Pope (the real Pope, John-Paul II). It seems the main missing ingredient of this book is the "exhaustive" part.

5) Cons
- A better book would "suck the life-juices" out of Traditionalists by listing and attacking the horrors done in the name of the "spirit" of Vatican II. You can't just say that everything hasn't been perfect since Vatican II! We would need hundreds of pages, with pictures, describing the atrocities committed on our Mother the Church (desecrating the Liturgy, the crisis of homosexuality in the seminaries, Rome's inaction concerning blatant heretics, dumb moves by JPII like kissing the Koran, etc., etc.). Traditionalists have a bloody important point! We need to emphatically recognize that, before any attempt at explaining their errors.
- We need a far more in-depth defense of Paul VI's Mass. It wouldn't hurt either to have at least a list of the (perceived or real) inadequacies of the Tridentine liturgy.
- It would be nice to explain the "typical patterns" used by Traditionalists, since they often rely on taking a quote out of context, then bending its interpretation so it will fit with some factual leftist horrors, then not talking about places in other documents where those very same leftist horrors are condemned, etc. An explanation of this pattern, with many examples of applications, would help.
- It would be nice to at least have some arguments specifically targeted at books like "The Gread Facade", and "In the Murky Waters of Vatican II".
- It would be nice to give a "roadmap" of reforms that need to occur in the Catholic Church (for example, excommunicating pseudo-Catholic politicians, getting rid of the "Catholic Omerta" whereby a Bishop never condemns sins commited by a fellow Bishop, no matter how severe or public, etc.)

In Christo,
[...]