When the sanctuary is obscured, the hierarchy disgraces itself, and even Rome kneels where it should rebuke, Christ still judges, remembers, and leads His own to the true mountain.
Passiontide begins with a plea that sounds almost indecently direct in an age of managed messaging and ecclesial euphemism.
Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight against a faithless people; from the deceitful and impious man rescue me.
There is no public-relations varnish on that prayer. The Church puts it on our lips because there are seasons when the faithful do in fact find themselves surrounded by treachery, by spiritual fraud, by men who speak in the vocabulary of religion while hollowing out religion from within. The liturgy does not tell us to pretend that such a condition is normal, ask us to flatter corrupt authority, or invite us to baptize betrayal with softer adjectives. It teaches us to appeal over the heads of men to God Himself.
That is why these texts land with such force in our moment.
Traditional Catholics are told, day after day, to calm down, to be strategic, to avoid overreaction, to stop noticing what their own eyes can plainly see. Bishops punish reverence while smiling at irreverence. The old religion is tolerated only under terms of quarantine and supervision. The men who spent years thundering about Francis suddenly discover the virtues of patience, prudence, and nuance once Leo is the problem. The same media class that once knew how to recognize scandal at a glance now develops cataracts whenever the scandal wears a new white cassock.
So the Church gives us Psalm 42.
A plea for judgment.
Because sometimes the faithful are not confused. Sometimes they are being lied to.
Continue reading at Hiraeth in Exile