Why We Remain at Home in the Present Crisis
Garden of Mary is Roman Catholic. Our purpose is not to establish another church, to invent a new form of Catholicism, or to place ourselves outside the Church founded by Jesus Christ. On the contrary, our position arises from the conviction that the Catholic Church is exactly what she has always claimed to be: the one Church founded by Christ, entrusted with the Deposit of Faith, protected in her divine mission, and incapable of becoming something substantially different from what she was before. It is precisely because we believe these things about the Church that the present crisis cannot simply be ignored or explained away.
The difficulty confronting Catholics today is therefore much more serious than a disagreement over customs, personalities, liturgical preferences, or the relative merits of old and new forms of worship. It concerns the nature of the Catholic Church herself. If something was taught as Catholic truth for generations, defended by the popes, incorporated into catechisms, theology, canon law, and the ordinary life of the Church, then it cannot later become false simply because the times have changed. Likewise, doctrines once condemned as incompatible with Catholic teaching cannot become acceptable merely by being presented in different language. Truth cannot contradict truth, and the Church cannot preserve her identity by contradicting what she previously taught.
For us, this is the fundamental question underlying the entire present crisis: Can the Catholic Church teach one doctrine for generations and afterward teach its contrary? If the answer is yes, then the Catholic could never possess real certainty in matters of faith, because what he is required to believe today might be repudiated tomorrow. The Church has never understood the Deposit of Faith in this way. Revelation was entrusted to her custody so that it might be preserved, explained, defended, and handed down intact, not reconstructed according to the changing ideas of successive generations.
The Crisis Goes Deeper Than the New Mass
Many Catholics first became aware that something was terribly wrong because of the changes made to the sacred liturgy. The transformation of the Mass was immediate and visible, and for Catholics formed in the older religion the difference could hardly be overlooked. Yet the liturgical revolution was not an isolated event, nor do we believe that the present crisis can be reduced to a dispute between those who prefer an older form of worship and those who prefer a newer one. The deeper problem concerns doctrine, authority, and the nature of the Church.
The Second Vatican Council and the developments that followed it introduced principles regarding religious liberty, ecumenism, relations with non-Catholic religions, and the Church’s own identity that appear impossible to reconcile with teachings previously given by the Catholic magisterium. These principles did not remain confined to theological discussions. They became the foundation of an enormous transformation in Catholic worship and public life. The liturgy and sacramental rites were extensively altered, ancient disciplines disappeared or were greatly weakened, ecumenical activities formerly considered forbidden became normal, and attitudes toward false religions changed in ways that earlier generations of Catholics would scarcely have recognized.
The problem is therefore not solved by saying that disciplinary changes sometimes occur or that liturgical rites have developed throughout history. No Catholic disputes that legitimate development is possible. The issue is whether legitimate development can contradict the principles from which it supposedly developed. If earlier popes condemned propositions as injurious to the Faith and their successors later promote essentially those same propositions as Catholic teaching, there is a genuine theological problem that cannot be answered simply by appealing to changing historical circumstances.
The Church Cannot Give Her Children a False Religion
Catholics have always been taught to trust the Church, not merely in the abstract belief that she will somehow continue to exist until the end of time, but in the concrete exercise of the mission Christ entrusted to her. The Church teaches, governs, sanctifies, legislates, administers the sacraments, and regulates her public worship. Her children are expected to obey her precisely because Christ established her as a safe guide to eternal salvation.
This creates an immense difficulty if we are simultaneously asked to believe that the same Church could officially promote serious doctrinal error, impose harmful worship upon the faithful, or universally establish practices that undermine the religion she previously defended. Individual churchmen can certainly sin, speak imprudently, make poor judgments, or fail in their personal duties. History supplies ample evidence of human weakness among ecclesiastics. But the present crisis cannot reasonably be explained merely by pointing to the personal failings of individual men. What has occurred since the middle of the twentieth century involves decades of official teaching, legislation, liturgical reform, ecumenical activity, episcopal policy, and institutional transformation throughout the Catholic world.
To attribute this entire revolution to the Catholic Church herself while at the same time admitting that much of it contradicts what the Church formerly taught creates a profound problem concerning indefectibility. We believe the Catholic answer must begin with the certainty that the Church herself cannot defect. Consequently, when something presenting itself as Catholic authority contradicts what the Church unquestionably taught before, we cannot solve the problem by changing the definition of the Church until contradiction becomes possible.
The Question of the Papacy
This difficulty necessarily raises the question of the men who have claimed the Roman pontificate since the death of Pope Pius XII. We do not approach this question because we reject the papacy. The opposite is true. It is because we take the papacy and its divine purpose seriously that we cannot regard the question as unimportant.
The Roman Pontiff is not merely the administrative head of a large religious institution. He is the visible head of the Catholic Church and the guardian of the Faith entrusted to the Apostles. Papal authority is given for the preservation, defense, and government of the Church of Christ; it is not an authority by which the religion itself may be substantially transformed. Catholic theology also recognizes that membership in the Church and public defection from the Catholic Faith cannot simply be treated as compatible realities.
For this reason, we cannot begin with the assumption that every man recognized publicly as pope must necessarily possess papal authority and then reinterpret Catholic doctrine whenever his teaching creates a contradiction. Such reasoning places recognition of the claimant before the Faith by which his claim must be understood. We believe the safer principle is the opposite: Catholic teaching concerning the Church, the Faith, her indefectibility, and the papacy must remain the standard by which an unprecedented situation is examined.
We therefore do not accept the post-Pius XII claimants as true Roman Pontiffs simply because they have been recognized as such by the institutions that followed the Second Vatican Council. That conclusion is not based upon a dislike of particular personalities, nor upon an assertion that Catholics may judge the pope in the ordinary sense. It follows from the deeper theological impossibility of attributing to the Catholic Church an authority that appears to have been used to establish and defend teachings and practices contrary to the religion previously handed down.
Why We Do Not Simply Join a Traditionalist Group
Recognizing the post-conciliar crisis immediately creates another difficulty. If one cannot safely follow the religion that emerged from Vatican II, where is a Catholic to go? Traditionalist chapels and organizations naturally appear to provide an answer because many of them preserve the older Mass, older sacramental rites, traditional catechisms, devotions, and outward forms of Catholic life. We understand very well why Catholics are drawn to them, especially when they have discovered what has been lost.
Nevertheless, preservation of the traditional liturgy does not by itself resolve the question of Catholic authority. The priesthood of the Catholic Church is not an independent ministry in which a priest receives Holy Orders and thereafter exercises his ministry solely by virtue of his own judgment. The Church possesses not only sacramental orders but also government, mission, and jurisdiction. Priests and bishops historically received their mission from lawful ecclesiastical authority; they did not establish apostolates merely because they considered their work useful or necessary.
The present emergency is unquestionably grave, but the gravity of a crisis does not in itself create ecclesiastical authority. Nor can necessity automatically supply every form of mission or jurisdiction that would ordinarily come from the Church. This is why we cannot conclude that a priestly society, chapel, or independent bishop possesses lawful Catholic mission simply because the traditional Mass is offered there or because the clergy correctly oppose certain modern errors. The fundamental question remains: By what authority do they act?
This is particularly important when considering organizations that simultaneously recognize the post-conciliar hierarchy as the true hierarchy of the Catholic Church while resisting its doctrines, laws, disciplinary decisions, or liturgical reforms. If those men truly possess the authority attributed to them, the implications for Catholic obedience and the Church’s teaching authority must be faced. If they do not possess that authority, then recognizing them while habitually resisting them does not solve the crisis either.
Why We Remain at Home
Our remaining at home should therefore not be understood as a rejection of the Catholic Church, nor as a belief that individual Catholics are sufficient unto themselves. We remain at home because we do not believe that we possess the authority to manufacture an ecclesiastical solution where we cannot establish one with moral certainty. We cannot give ourselves priests, create jurisdiction, appoint a hierarchy, or make an apostolate lawful merely because our need for the sacraments is very great. Nor do we believe that attachment to Catholic tradition, however sincere, grants powers that belong by divine constitution to the Church herself.
Neither does this mean that we believe the Catholic Church has ceased to exist. Such a conclusion would contradict the promises of Christ concerning His Church and the Catholic doctrine of indefectibility. We know that the Church remains and must remain until the end of time. What we do not claim to know is precisely how legitimate ecclesiastical authority is presently preserved during this extraordinary crisis or where every remaining member of the hierarchy may be found.
This distinction is central to our position. We know where the Church is not, even though we do not presently know where all of her legitimate visible authority is to be found. We do not consider that uncertainty an argument for abandoning Catholic principles. On the contrary, when certainty cannot be honestly attained, we believe it is better to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge than to construct a solution that requires us to compromise principles the Church herself taught.
Indefectibility and the Present Crisis
One of the principal objections made against our position is that if the post-conciliar institution is not the Catholic Church exercising her lawful authority, then the Church must somehow have disappeared. We do not believe this follows. The doctrine of indefectibility assures us that the Catholic Church will remain what Christ established her to be; it does not oblige Catholics to identify every institution publicly claiming her name as the true Church regardless of what that institution teaches or practices.
Indeed, indefectibility is one of the strongest reasons we cannot simply attribute the present religious revolution to the Catholic Church herself. If the Church cannot defect, then she cannot become the instrument by which a substantially altered religion is universally imposed upon Catholics. If her teaching authority is protected by Christ, then contradiction cannot be transformed into continuity merely by declaring that both teachings came from the same authority.
Our reasoning therefore begins not with the idea that the Church has failed, but with exactly the opposite conviction: the Catholic Church cannot fail. Whatever explanation ultimately resolves the extraordinary circumstances of our time must preserve that truth intact.
Was Vatican II Merely Pastoral?
It is often argued that the difficulty disappears because Vatican II was described as a pastoral council rather than one issuing new solemn dogmatic definitions. We do not believe this adequately addresses the problem. The significance of Vatican II lies not merely in whether individual sentences meet the technical conditions required for a solemn infallible definition. The Council was presented to the Catholic world as an authoritative exercise of the Church’s teaching office, and its principles became the foundation for subsequent papal teaching, episcopal action, liturgical reform, canon law, ecumenical policy, and the general direction of Catholic life.
A Catholic cannot reasonably be expected to treat such a council as authoritative whenever its teaching appears compatible with tradition, yet dismiss it as merely pastoral whenever it conflicts with what the Church had previously taught. That does not resolve the question of authority; it simply transfers the final judgment to each individual Catholic.
The deeper issue therefore remains: whether the Catholic Church can officially teach, promote, and implement throughout the Catholic world principles contrary to what she previously taught. Calling those teachings pastoral does not remove a real contradiction if a contradiction exists.
Tradition Is Not Merely a Preference
We do not understand the traditional Catholic Faith as one legitimate preference among several different expressions of Catholicism. The doctrines taught before the present crisis were not the opinions of a traditionalist faction. They were simply Catholic doctrine. The catechisms used throughout the Church were not ideological documents belonging to one party; they taught children the religion professed by Catholics throughout the world. The traditional Roman Mass was not created to satisfy those with a preference for antiquity; it was the inherited worship of the Roman Church, sanctified by centuries of Catholic use.
Likewise, the traditional devotions, fasts, feast-day customs, sacramentals, books, and family practices that we preserve at Garden of Mary are not important merely because they are old. They are valuable because they belong to a coherent Catholic world formed by a coherent Catholic Faith. When doctrine, worship, discipline, prayer, and domestic Catholic life all arose from the same religion, each strengthened the others. It is this inheritance that we seek to preserve.
What We Do in the Meantime
Remaining at home does not mean doing nothing. We continue to practice the Catholic Faith as fully as our circumstances permit. We pray the Rosary and other traditional prayers, observe Sundays and feast days, keep the traditional days of fast and abstinence, teach the catechism, read the lives of the saints, preserve sound Catholic books, pray for the living and the dead, make spiritual communions and acts of perfect contrition, practice the devotions handed down through Catholic generations, and teach our children that the present confusion does not alter what the Church has always taught.
At the same time, we do not pretend that deprivation of the Mass and sacraments is a small matter. It is a profound suffering. Catholic life ordinarily centers upon the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the sacramental life of the Church, and their absence cannot simply be replaced with private devotions. Yet the greatness of the deprivation does not give us the power to settle questions of authority by desire alone. Need does not create jurisdiction, nor can spiritual hunger by itself transform an uncertain ministry into a lawful one.
Scripture and Catholic history both show that the faithful may undergo terrible periods of deprivation and persecution. Catholics have at various times been left without regular access to priests, Mass, or the sacraments through circumstances beyond their control. Such deprivation is a cross, not an alternative form of Catholic life to be preferred. We pray that it will end, but until lawful order is restored we believe that fidelity requires patience rather than the invention of authority we do not possess.
Our Hope
We do not claim to know how or when the present crisis will be resolved, and we do not believe that Catholics are required to devise the mechanism by which God will restore order to His Church. Divine Providence has permitted crises in the Church before, although the circumstances of our own time are extraordinary in their extent. Our responsibility is narrower and more certain: to preserve the Catholic Faith we have received, refuse doctrines that contradict it, avoid claiming authority that does not belong to us, and entrust the restoration of the Church’s visible order to God.
For that reason, Garden of Mary continues to gather and preserve the Catholic inheritance that existed before the present upheaval: the catechisms, sermons, theological writings, prayers, devotions, feast-day customs, spiritual works, children’s materials, and ordinary practices by which generations of Catholics learned and lived their religion. We do so not because everything old is necessarily good, nor because we imagine the past was without human weakness, but because the Faith itself does not change with the spirit of the age.
We wait and pray for the restoration of visible order, lawful authority, and the public profession of the Catholic Faith in its integrity. Until then, we intend to hold fast to what the Church unquestionably taught before the present confusion began, preserving it in our homes and handing it on to our children as faithfully as we are able.
“Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.”
— 2 Thessalonians 2:14
The Faith does not belong to us to change. It belongs to us to receive, preserve, and hand on.