To Fr Peabody...

This was initially a private e-mail but it might as well be published here:

Dear Fr Peabody,

I don't like blowing my own trumpet but in the light of your recent post about reviewing books by Marcel Lefebvre perhaps you might like to read my recent post on Summorum Pontificum?

My contention is that had Lefebvre never existed, or had just quietly acquiesced to the Novus Ordo, there'd be no Summorum Pontificum, the Latin Mass Society would be getting on with pre-1962 liturgy, as they ought, and the world would be a happier place - who knows, I might still be a Roman Catholick! I think that to take Lefebvre's views seriously and to "reappraise" Vatican II according to his "twisted ecclesiology" (that's Paul VI's not mine) is very dangerous and one of the many rotten fruits of Summorum Pontificum. SP is as much about ecclesiologies born out of schism as defective liturgy. What irritates me is the herd mentality. None dares question the views of this age which be utterly at variance with the views of the great proto-Traditionalists of the 1960's; Waugh, Houghton-Brown, Tolkien, Tyson, etc. If intelligent blogs are to have any purpose it is the edification of their readers. Please, therefore, take note and burn any copies of Lefebvre's works that are sent to you.

Kindest regards,

Patrick

And no, Fr Peabody is not the man's real name. Peabody is borrowed from C.S Lewis' critique of The Lay of Leithian.

UPDATE: The e-mail was never actually sent. Why? Well, it's like hammering away at an insoluble problem. The more you write about these problems, the more the desired object (rehabilitation of traditionalists) recedes.

UPDATE II: See here for an explanation of Peabody.