The Disturbance and the Backlash

True clericalism is an anomaly and aberration in that it engenders disdain and disrespect for others, especially those who are not clerics (ordained). Hence, real clericalism is when a deacon, priest or bishop has an attitude of superiority over his flock in that he believes he is 'better' than they are, whether spiritually, intellectually or otherwise. Clericalism patronizes and denigrates the unordained (laity). It seeks to be treated with privilege rather than seeking to be of service.

John Zuhlsdorf fits the description perfectly. He craves the adulation, unearned respect and entitlement that were presumed and taken for granted by the clerical subculture in ages past. He is a stunning example of the modern American celebrity cleric who has arranged and manipulated his universe in such a fashion that would be beyond the wildest clerical imaginings of most. John Zuhlsdorf resides inside the protective cocoon of ecclesiastical legal exemptions whereby he is permitted to be incardinated in an Italian diocese while living far away somewhere in his native USA and in very comfortable living arrangements.

It is likely that this is a diocese of convenience, a kind of ecclesiastical city of refuge for those who either can’t fit in anywhere else or have been driven out from where they were formerly. An interesting example is that of Fr Miguel Buela’s Institute of the Incarnate Word. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the metropolitan Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as well as the entire Argentinian Episcopal Conference had major problems with Buela and his new JPII ecclesial movement. Effectively Buela, his Institute and operations were shut down, proscribed and forced to seek some sort of legitimacy elsewhere. At the bidding of Cardinal Sodano, the Roman suburbicarian diocese of Villetri-Segni under the leaderhip of Cardinal Arinze, welcomed and incardinated them. It should not be forgotten that Sodano and former private secretary of JPII and now cardinal Archbishop of Krakow, Stanislaw Dzwisz were the protectors of Marcial Marciel and benefited greatly from his generous contributions. The Catholic Church is little more than a personal chess board for these characters.

Buela, his Institute along with Cardinals Arinze and Sodano and others may be a little anxious now that Jorge Bergoglio has become Pope Francis. Certainly serious issues and questions have been raised about Zuhlsdorf’s possible membership of this Institute and, if so, how and why would he have been permitted to exercise a mission outside of his diocese. Pray Tell published a short piece on this last year, 21/03/13,

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis) Clashed with New Religious Order; Cardinal Sodano Came to Its Defense

Argentine media report (here and here) that Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, clashed with the very conservative religious order “Institute of the Incarnate Word,” founded by Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela in Argentina in 1984. Bergoglio was primate during the first investigation of the order. Under his leadership, the Argentinian bishops stopped the ordinations, shut down the seminary, and put restrictions on the founder Fr. Buela and other IVE priests.

Then, according to reports from Argentina, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, now dean of the College of Cardinals, helped Buela and the IVE out of their problems with the Argentinian bishops. The IVE moved its headquarters to the diocese of Velletri-Segni, which is in Italy 37 miles south of Rome.

The ancient Diocese of Velletri-Segni has 153 square miles and 44 diocesan priests, with 79 extradiocesan and religious priests in its ministry. Among the diocesan priests is American priest Fr. John Zuhlsdorf who runs the widely-read “Fr. Z’s blog.” Bishop Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconin recently sent a communication to his clergy that Fr. Zuhlsdorf has full faculties in Madison.

Fr. Carlos Walker, IVE, General Superior of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, has sent a letter to Pope Francis expressing the IVE’s “total availability and obedience in the arduous task of the New Evangelization.” (Link here)

Some time ago, Zuhlsdorf heard the footsteps of NCR’s Phyllis Zagano behind him. Naturally he describes this kind of investigative attention as persecution. What he only begrudgingly acknowledges is that he is a public figure, makes public comments on anything he needs to so he will attract attention. What he hates is to be in a position where he has to justify his positions, views and very status in the Church. Zagano pressured him to such an extent that he issued a cosmeticised CV and apologia pro vita sua.

I am a priest in good standing in the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni in Italy. This is one of the little ancient dioceses encircling Rome, thus “Suburbicarian”. My name appears on my diocese’s website in the list of diocesan priests. Unlike poor Roger Maris, I have no asterisk by my name. I have faculties to say Holy Mass (can. 903), to preach (can. 764), and to receive sacramental confessions (can. 969.1).

I am living, with the knowledge and consent of my bishop and his predecessor, outside my diocese and in the United States. I am working on my doctoral thesis, working on the internet, writing as a columnist for different publications, and giving talks at conferences and other events.

I am not engaged in any official external apostolate where I live. I have no assignment. I haven’t sought anything on top of what I now do. I can barely make headway on my thesis as it is! (It’s about the figure of David as an exemplum of civic virtues between Augustine and Ambrose, by the way, for the Augustinianum.) Since I am not functioning publicly in any way as a priest within the diocese where I live, I do not need the faculties of the diocese and therefore I have not sought them. I have been in the diocese with the knowledge of the last two bishops of the place. I don’t know what the present bishop knows. I haven’t been in touch. [Since I posted this, the situation is changed. I have full faculties of the diocese and I am publicly functioning in various capacities.] [The Z statement is linked here.]

(It should be mentioned here that Zuhlsdorf is the ultimate editorial control freak in blog management. His site is gated, heavily moderated and peppered with shouting redactional comments to clarify and/correct anything which might confuse minds of the simple faithful who are devoted to him.)

Occasionally Zuhlsdorf mentions that he has undertaken an advanced degree at the Patristics Institute in Rome, the Augustinianum. He doesn’t say who in authority has given him this task and for what end. Futhermore, the Augustinianum is in Rome. Zuhlsdorf is not in Rome; he, it seems is permanently in the USA. He mentions from time to time his residence in the US and his academic commitments in Rome pose a difficult situation for him. One would think that if his primary task is to pursue a qualification at that level, then he would be required to live and work, for the most part, in the city where his University is situated. He covers his tracks with regular subscriber funded trips to Rome. His travelogues are heavily weighted with photos of mountains of food and drink, along with an image or two of St Peters Basilica, someone ‘saying’ a Latin Mass and the de rigueur photo opts featuring Zuhlsdorf with a person or persons of influence in the Vatican. He also invariably complains of the length of the plane trip from Zville, USA to Rome, Italy!

He seldom mentions the Augustinianum, consultations with his thesis director or the status of his research. His policy, it seems, is to move right along as this appears to satisfy his generous benefactors. My guess is that a Roman Patristics degree is little more than a nonsense and yet another convenient pretext for more funded trips across the Atlantic. Zuhlsdorf would have become extremely resentful when he was apprised of the fact that he would actually have to work for the desired parchment. Clearly Zuhlsdorf has chosen the better part.

He now claims that he is sacrificing valuable study time in order to carry out his very important cyber apostolate on behalf of the New Evangelism in the heartland of the USA. To do so, he had had to establish some kind of ecclesiastical mission. This provided him with the necessary level of approbation, stability and credibility. He needed sponsorship and this eventually was secured from the bishop of Madison, Wisconsin. This bishop just happens to be like Zuhlsdorf both a culture warrior and a fan of the Latin Mass. He was set no canonical mission in a parish or elsewhere for that matter. He is a free agent and he acts like one. It all amounts to this: he may now celebrate the sacraments legitimately and make some money from the ‘stole’ fees and stipends he no doubt accepts even when the Mass is according to the Ordinary Form and the other rites are also in the vernacular. Money will almost always trump ideology.

Although he protests and insists otherwise, Zuhlsdorf lives a very comfortable life without the concerns, obligations or limiting factor that go with pastoral care while claiming all the entitlements he thinks should go unquestioned with his sacerdotal dignity. Like the Cure of Ars he could say, after God, the priest is everything. Being the crass fundamentalist that he is, Zuhlsdorf is wrongly convinced that by virtue of the ontological change and the beautiful anointed hands of the priest he is entitled to everything for nothing. He is an anachronism, but he continues to cling to the decaying corpse of clericalism and its formerly unquestioned privileges.

The days of the celebrity priest, however, while long gone in most cases are not over for Zuhlsdorf. He does not just survive. He actually thrives and prospers as a direct result of two things: generous, medieval style, private patronage and a very handsome income from his business and trading enterprises. He’s doing it easy, without raising a sweat and I suspect, holds in quiet contempt those who feed him and indulge him.

No wonder he despises Francis! He arcs up when there is mention about the Pope summoning priests to vacate their comfortable hermetically sealed world and get their hands dirty in the real world of Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

To justify his self-established mission, Zuhlsdorf now and again does some extra self-promoting posturing. He desperately wants to be made a monsignor but that hope has been dashed. What he craves, however, even more than a red pompom on his biretta and the attractive colourful piping on his cassock is a Rupert Murdoch-like control over the Catholic media. Zuhlsdorf defines himself by the level of his hatred for the ‘liberal’ Catholic media, especially the NCR. In fact his is more than hatred; it is resentment and that particular form of resentment Nietszche described as Der Wille zur Macht, (the will to power!) The real prize however would be editorship of L’Osservatore Romano.

What some people have known for a long time and what others are learning, particularly and dangerously so for him, is that Zuhlsdorf is no different from any other posturing sybarite and crass materialist who funds his lifestyle off the psychospiritual pathologies of the misguided, the weak minded, the afflicted, the tormented and the scrupulous. Zuhlsdorf’s posturing and outward displays of pastoral care have nothing much at all in common with the Kingdom of God. The pantomime, however, does have a great deal to do with Zuhlsdorf’s broadcast message of ontologogical superiority, entitlement, privilege and automatic respect so craved by one so monumentally insecure and self-loathing as he. He hasn’t figured out yet the intrinsic link between priesthood and the pastoral care that goes with it. He doesn’t understand that priesthood is not self-referential but rather only makes sense when it is terms of it being a ministry of service.

He being without pastoral care, doesn’t draw a regular priest stipend. Therefore he ‘supports’ himself in a variety of ways. One is to offer his service as a consulter to various groups such as aficionados of baroque florally embroidered liturgical drapery, clapped out ciboria, thuribles, broken Sacraria and second hand Roman Missals. He also stars at conferences on the rubrics of the Tridentine Mass and welcomes any funded opportunity to be seen with people of some influence or other, especially members of the culture warrior hierarchy and Catholic wings of the Republican Tea Party. His blog features a monthly contribution barometer, a donate button, an extensive and very up market wish list to say nothing of his cuts from advertising. Effectively Z is an entrepreneur who presents himself as a spokesman for the traditionalist sector of the Church but he is a clever opportunist on that score. Kate Edwards regards him as a kind of Trad fellow traveller.

Why has Z become so famous and attracted a fairly wide constituency, almost cult like? The answers are, interestingly enough, provided by the cleric himself. Zuhlsdorf has a way of exploiting the innate fears and insecurities of the weak minded and the gullible. He plays on these pathologies and superimposes his own psycho-spiritual junk on top of it all. He has practically no evident theology in its many disciplines behind him. He is just smart enough however to compensate with a bit of pious doggerel. He conflates this into an amalgamation of rubrics and dated minor church law garnished with a load of bluff, bravado and showmanship. Recently he gained further validation having received the ongoing support of Detroit based Canon Lawyer the wide eyed Prof Ed Peters.

In actual fact, Zuhlsdorf is a lightweight in almost everything except devising new and elaborate ways of making money from his business enterprises. He is almost entirely consumed by his own turgid ideological world view which aims not to lift the world to a higher moral plane but to enshrine stasis and entropy. He ends up attracting disciples cast in his own image of self-absorbed individualism, crass materialism and narcissism.

He presents an interesting psychological profile of one suffering some degree of socio-pathology. He is a compulsive manipulator of the populist mind, providing what amounts to cult leader like hold over a willing, feckless, a-critical and easily led following. He plays the emotional game of providing the harmonics and articulated rhetoric which the followers crave. He had no qualms at all being photographed at a recent Catholic business conference with a character like The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, one of the most disgraceful public denialists of clerical child rape and other abuses. He has come out in public describing the victims putting on displays of repressed memory syndrome and being nothing but ‘gold diggers! Zuhlsdorf won’t go near the proven wide spread clerical CSA and its coverup by Church leaders. To do so would not be good for business or episcopal patronage. Zuhlsdorf is yet to demonstrate convincingly that, at least on issues like this, he has any integrity, credibility or a moral compass. Great pals and co-workers in hubis and scandalous contempt for the truth.

Zuhlsdorf is an ideologue. Jesus’ vision for God’s people embedded in the Gospel, authentic faith lived out in every age in its particular incarnations are all peripheral even extraneous to Zuhlsdorf’s tiny cosmos. He is not interested in, is actually hostile to any vision or structure of the Church which challenges him. He is a terrified little man who is so alienated from mainstream Catholicism that he had long indulged in a silly game playing with exotic Frenchmen whose world is fixed in the eighteenth century and will not move.

Zuhlsdorf plays the orthodoxy game but it is the SSPX variant which interests him. He has in fact aligned himself with the agenda of antiquarianism confused with the Catholic Church. The SSPX are de facto schismatic and Zuhlsdorf doesn’t seem to mind dining at table with them. He had few or no kind words to say about Benedict’s long lunch with Hans Kung way back in 2005!

Zuhlsdorf is a survivor, a pragmatist and an ideologue. He has just enough residual low cunning to maintain minimal distance from a full endorsement of the SSPX while effectively standing with them. Why? It is probably because they represent exactly what he stands for, give him oxygen, establishe and validate his anti-Vatican II views on Religious Freedom, Ecumenism and Collegiality. Futhermore the SSPX represent a remnant who are allergic to the twenty first century. They also value and preserve an extreme of sacerdotalist clericalism with its high camp culture. These get Zuhlsdorf enthused, engaged and very excited. They are the centrepoints of Zuhlsdorf’s existence and they clearly demonstrate the origins and causes of his own feeble grasp of reality

Over on Fr. Z's blog, he has posted this quote approvingly: A third stumbling block is also connected with the diminishment of authority. Our Lord is the Head of the Church. But since He willed that His Church should be visible, after His ascension into heaven, He gave her a visible head, who is His Vicar on earth, Peter and his successors. To him alone did Our Lord give the power to feed the sheep and the lambs, he alone has full, sovereign, and immediate authority over each and every member of the Church. That is why the Church has always proclaimed herself to be a monarchy, governed by one man. Certainly, the human character of government makes it quite understandable to seek counsel and the advice of wise persons, but a form of democracy imported into the Church by collegiality and by the parliamentary parody of bishops conferences allows all sorts of abuses and subjects to group pressure the decrees of Divine Law that declare that each diocese has only one head, the bishop of the locality. So far, all of the comments are enthusiastically in favor with the exception of one that asks: "If Bishop Fellay really believes this, then why does he not submit to the authority of he Pope?" (Linked here.)

He is not alone with his SSPX colleagues. He and they are the true remnant fringe dwellers who inhabit the outer limits of good mental hygiene and sound faith.

In the weeks ahead we shall take a closer look at Zuhlsdorf Enterprises Inc and how Brand Zuhlsdorf^TM protects itself. Below are some teasers of what is to appear soon....

Zuhlsdorf has established a niche market and made a cottage industry out of identifying himself with this lot. They are the lacy boy Tridentine line-dancers. Pope Francis recently referred to the Trads as followers of a fashion or fad. John Z was not amused.

His subsequent personal vitriolic attacks and white-antic of Francis has lost him a great deal of support even for the his regularly unswerving and trustful supporters. To his horror, Z now finds the Donate button is malfunctioning and he is now pulling in a fraction of what he did in the golden age when Benedict ruled and the dissenters were muzzled.

To set up a recurring, monthly donation (even a small one) go to the bottom of this blog and look for the drop down menu! I remember benefactors in my prayers and during Mass. I remember benefactors in my prayers and periodically say Mass for your intention.

Rubrics = Reverence

But he wants to put those aspirational lacy boys where they must first be transformed into real men through the rigors of a no-nonsense, sissy-free, altar server boot camp. (Link is here)