Situational Awareness

There were two major stories that affected US Catholics over the past week, the Covington Catholic hatefest and Governor Cuomo's "celebration" of New York's expansion of legal abortion. The Covington story is a serious indicator of what can happen to ordinary middle-class Catholics these days, and it should make all of us take notice. The other has raised new questions about exactly what sanctions the Church can apply to politicians who claim to be "Catholic" but support laws in opposition to Church teaching (or for that matter that are just bad public policy).

Good and faithful bishops have weighed in on both issues, and the laity on one hand has stood up for itself when directly threatened and attacked, while on the other it's loudly made its feelings known to the public figures involved. Certainly these events have served to clarify current issues for large swaths of Catholics. And, at least on the blogs and YouTube channels I've followed, nobody has claimed that traddies or Latin mass followers have the sole truth -- I get an overwhelming sense that everyone thinks we're all in it together.

I covered an additional story on this blog, of things visible and invisible, this one among the smallest -- the removal of Fr Vaughn Treco as administrator of the tiny group-in-formation in the Twin Cities area. The puzzling thing is that on the blog where it came up, this appears to be an utter tragedy that's eclipsed all others. The main issue in the comments is whether the membership -- I'm told regular mass attendance is in the range of two dozen, though probably not all are canonical "members" of OCSP -- is unanimous in supporting Fr Treco, or whether there are Quislings in the group.

By the same token, I made a rare visit to the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog and found no reference to the current crises, although several frequent contributors are from the US. The one post that seemed potentially relevant was entitled A question of identity for Catholics of Anglican Tradition (say that quickly three times), but the "question" at hand there is

The most recent flurry was precipitated by Shane Schaetzel who changed the name of a private Facebook group entitled Ordinariate Catholics to Traditional English Catholics.

Shane accompanied the abrupt name change—which he admitted was meant to spark discussion–with this essay entitled On the Use of the Word “Anglican” in reference to the the Ordinariates.

Influential people are trying to destroy the lives of Catholic schoolboys purely for being Catholic at the March for Life, bad bishops are piling on, and the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society is debating the use of the word "Anglican" over high tea. As far as I'm aware, Bp Lopes has had nothing to say on the big crises, although other junior bishops, like Scharfenberger and Strickland, have. I don't know what any OCSP priests have said to their tiny groups of faithful on these subjects -- as far as I can see, it isn't public.

Yet once more, I will not go anywhere near an OCSP group or parish.