Can someone explain to me how the Pope can single-handedly bring the entire Roman Church into demonstrable aliturgical heterodoxy, and how this is somehow distinct from his ''infallible'' magisterium? It just seems to me that apologists for the infallibism of the Papacy among ''traditionalist'' Catholics seem to consider the Sacred Liturgy among the mutable ''disciplines'' of the Church rather than something so fundamental as to be above tampering. A Trad priest once told me that Pius XII had the authority to do what he did, but what he did was wrong. Personally I fail to see the logic in this...
I posed a similar question on Father Hunwicke's blog and got no response at all. I really wish someone would at least attempt it. It looks to me as if without intending to do so Pius XII and his successors codified liturgical chaos and created problems that cannot be solved without placing limits on papal authority that I cannot imagining any pope accepting. The pope now has absolute control of the liturgy. There is nothing any pope can do that his successor cannot undo with the stroke of a pen. I don't see how liturgical stability can ever be restored, and without liturgical stability doctrinal stability is impossible. If the present state of affairs can be reconciled with any meaningful notion of Tradition, I wish someone could tell me how. I have taught college age Catholics and I promise you that for the vast majority of them the religion of their grandparents is as alien as Theravada Buddhism. And that state of affairs is the direct result of the view that "good" "orthodox" Catholics have of the pope's authority.
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