IN RESPONSE TO A CRITIC

Response to a Critic Demanding We Remove "Tradition"
from Our Web Site Domain Name
BAR

This is a first for Catholic Tradition: receiving an irate e-mail from a "traditional Catholic" telling us to remove the word TRADITION from our domain name because we are not hard-hitting, thus not traditional enough to suit him. We will address his concerns anon. But first we have to explain about domain names. They are purchased for at least a year at a time-----they are a "lease" on web space with a specific address you could say. CT purchases the rights to "Catholic Tradition" years in advance. In order to change the name we would lose all the money paid in advance plus have to purchase another domain name, none of which of those available would be satisfactory since there are so many traditional Catholic web sites. This is by way of a business truth and unless someone has their own domain name and web site they may be unaware of all that is involved. If one finds the site not to one's liking, go elsewhere, rather than demand the impossible just to placate a single Catholic. In fact, our critic suggested I follow the viewpoint of another very fine traditional Catholic web site. Interestingly, I visit that site all the time, not for devotional material but for factual information on current issues, the very point of that site. Ours is much larger and while it does not shy away from current events the major portion is assigned to devotions. This is point 1.

Point 2, it is not part of Catholic Tradition that we sit in personal judgment of others' efforts behind the scenes. We judge circumstances, not the conscience and unseen, therefore unknown work. So it is ironic that our critic claims we are not following Catholic Tradition because we did not do enough research on St. Anthony of Padua. He has no idea of the amount of research we did do, nor how long we labored to put together a devotional directory, not a theological treatise.

He insists that we have abandoned Tradition because we did not present the Wonder Worker of Padua as "the Hammer of Heretics", supposedly. More irony! We have a whole page devoted to this aspect of the Saint's life. That page is an entire chapter actually. Usually we are accused of being too interested in hammering away at heretics! It is someone else who did not do his homework apparently, or else his eyes were tired the day he investigated our site and accidentally missed the chapter.

There are many aspects of most Saints simply because they are human and we human beings are a mixture of temperaments, family influences, and other personal experiences that shape our character and lead us to particular interests as Catholics laboring in the vineyard. Space does not provide that we are completely comprehensive, so we choose what aspects of a Saint to concentrate on. As long as we do not deliberately omit a vital aspect altogether, we are not "distorting" the life of the Saint as we have been said to have done. Most of the biography section of this Saint centers on his prodigies, simply because there is more material available on this aspect of the Saint. Since the goal of the Padua directory is devotion and since there are so many different needs among Catholics who storm Heaven for assistance, we concentrated on the variety of prayers to the Saint as well as put up beautiful traditional images as an aid to devotion.

Even here we received an anathema of sorts. Our prayer selection was too soft and not traditional enough. Again the irony!

Most images of St. Anthony depict him holding the Christ Child, a very tender scene, whether a painting or a sculpture. I suppose you could use the adjective "soft" or something similar, but I prefer tender simply because it is Traditional Catholicism to think of Saints with the Christ Child as a tender interlude in our meditation.

All of the prayers we chose for the directory are either from the Raccolta, hardly a bedrock of modernity and the soft life, or from other traditional prayer books and leaflets, many of them known and loved by generations, so much so, belonging to antiquity, that some are now considered quaint by modern Catholics, again hardly evidence of omitting "Tradition."

Our acerbic critic wants us to be like the other web site, a favorite of ours. Well since the web master does a superb job why re-invent the wheel, would not this be redundant and arrogant of us? Our purposes are as distinct from that site and its writers as theirs are from us, the whole point of being on the web: we serve as God leads us, or at least as we hope we are following His holy will to the best as we can ascertain, being imperfect creatures subject to Original Sin and error.

There is enough confusion in modern life and within the Church at the moment and there are too many Catholics running around with good intentions "excommunicating" this Catholic and that Catholic. As long as we believe all the deposit of the Faith, hold to Tradition as traditionally understood and pass it on, maintain our prayers and receive the Sacraments in the endeavor to sanctify ourselves, should we not uphold and support one another as Catholics although we may have to disagree here and there? After all we just may be the one who is unknowingly in the wrong. I love Tradition, I love Holy Church and I love my fellow Catholics who are struggling heroically just to be good, working out their salvation in "fear and trembling." I for one have no authority or license from Almighty God to excommunicate anyone. Since I give no scandal by concentrating on Padua devotions, and since I have told no untruths about the Saint-----he is a "wonder worker" as well as "the hammer of heretics", I have done my Catholic duty; I do not think I should be excommunicated from Catholicism because to be a Catholic is to be a Traditionalist. But I willingly submit myself and my efforts to the Holy See whereby it can decide if I am no longer a Catholic.

You see, if I am to remove "Tradition" from our domain name, I also have to remove "Catholic" as they are one and the same ontologically speaking. I merely added Tradition to Catholic to distinguish it from Novus Ordo sites, an unfortunate fact of life one has to deal with. This is point 3 and this is the end of this little response.

CHOOSE A PAGE AND JUMP:

SAINTS---------------------------------HOME