The authority conundrum

There are Catholics who love love love love ecclesiastical authority…until they find themselves on the wrong end of the authority whip they profess to love. They taunt evangelicals with formulaic questions like, "What's your authority for that interpretation? and "What's your authority for the canon?" (BTW, there's nothing wrong with asking how Protestants justify the canon or justify their theology, but casting the issue in terms of ecclesiastical authority begs the question.)

So long as ecclesiastical authority is on their side, they can never speak too highly of the pope's authority or "the Church's" authority. When, however, the ground shifts under their feet and they find themselves on the losing side of ecclesiastical authority, their love affair with papal authority or the Magisterium cools to temperatures approaching absolute zero. 

Watching RadTrads and avant-garde Catholics duke it out is kinda like watching the fight between fundamentalist Mormon polygamists and mainstream Mormons. Within the Mormon paradigm, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. Outside the Mormon paradigm, both sides are hopelessly wrong.

With pardonable hyperbole, we might say that for RadTrads, tradition ends with Pius X, but for avant-garde Catholics, tradition begins with Pius XII. RadTrads have the past while their adversaries have the future. But the team with a lock on the future is unbeatable. Living leaders have a decisive advantage over dead leaders. The living can overrule the dead while the dead are poorly positioned to overrule the living. 

It's especially ironic to see converts to Rome attempt to school cradle Catholics and even bishops, cardinals, and popes on true Catholicism. They're like slumlords who buy an apartment complex, then discover that they bought a dog. It's falling apart. The roof needs to be replaced. The plumbing needs to be replaced. The electrical wiring needs to be replaced. The complex is infested with rats and termites.