Four Stories -- or maybe many more than four

I finished reading Andrew Likoudis' introduction to the collection of essays:  Faith in Crisis.   It seemed to turn into an apologia for the third category of Catholics, and part of the apologetic effort involves a discussion of all the ways traditionalism doesn't measure up.   I am disappointed in this, since I hoped that the book would be making an effort to understand the traditional phenomenon rather than just dismiss it.  

But since there are a variety of contributors, and one of them is Cardinal Sarah, and two others are Mike Aquilina and James Papandrea, I expect I will be able to learn if I keep reading.    So I will keep reading.  

As a kind of counterpoint to the book,  I read two online articles today:

• Reading Saint Paul in a Time of Synodality by Carl Olsen
• The Church of Theseus by Matthew Walther 

I don't know a whole lot about either of the authors, but Olsen used scripture to point out features of the kerygma as it was discussed by Paul in his epistles, to show the principles that ought to be behind all the synodal activity and are often given only the most cursory mention in its many documents.

Matthew Walther described how the Church looks to the Society of Saint Pius X, how when a ship has had every part of itself replaced, there is a question whether it is the same ship.    

These are the ones that happened to come up in my reading list today -- there are many, many more.   

When Traditionis Custodes came out in 2021, there was a flood of very, very good articles in response.   One of the ones I think of again and again was by Shaun Blanchard:   Traditionis Custodes was Never Merely about the Liturgy.   (Actually, rereading it now I see he also divided Catholic opinion into four categories, this one based on reactions to the motu proprio.)

Anyway, he wrote:

I believe Pope Francis’ motu proprio is the latest in a long series of papal assertions of Deutungshoheit over the legacy of Vatican II. Literally “interpretation-sovereignty,” to have Deutungshoheit means to have sovereignty over a narrative, which is the power to control meaning. 

A lot of what goes on in the Catholic op-ed world nowadays looks to me something like attempted narrative-sovereignty .... the topics at hand are the material for the ongoing conflict.  Or to put it in another way, it would be much easier for me to tell the story that each of the four groups tell about the last 60 to 100 years, than it would be for me to show the logic of their arguments.   Often the positions are fairly logical given the premises.. the narrative set up.  But the division remains, because the set up is different.

Their stories move alongside each other, very different, even while recounting the same events.    

By noting this I am not trying to relativize or historicize.   The truth is there, but it is God's viewpoint, and ours only indirectly.    The Psalms are very good at pointing this out again and again.    Kings rise and fall, courtiers plot, but God is in charge.    

I've written about this before..... 

 It seems that how this will be settled is one of the things the Church will have to work out, and it is complex.   I think the Bride, the Body of which Christ is the Head, is the only one who could possibly do it, even with her members sometimes getting a bit in the way.