http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2784-the-most-radical-of-traditionalists The Most Radical of Traditionalists Pat Archbald If you spend even a few moments online among Catholics, you will come across the pejorative “Rad Trad” or radical traditionalist. This is an exclusive club I somehow got inducted into and yet I don’t remember filling out the application. And man, the dues… the dues are steep. As most of us know, “Rad Trad” is meant as an insult, a way of separating Catholics and, let’s be honest, smearing a group of good Catholics who attempt to practice their faith in a way similar to how Catholics have always practiced it. They label them as judgmental, holier-than-thou, Pelagian, Promethean, haters of mercy and all the proof required is some comment by some guy in some com box somewhere that was over-the-top and rude. So, you are just like that guy. Just ‘cause. But I have seen something else, something else entirely. In my relatively short time in the traditionalist camp, I have seen the face of the most truly radical traditionalism, and it is something to behold. I have seen faithful Catholics persevering through this crisis without running away and screaming. In the midst of this maelstrom, they remain kind, loving, and patient. They pray their rosary every day for the Pope and for the hierarchy of the Church, even as they recognize the depth of the crisis caused by these men. They see regular reports of prelates and Popes insulting their religiosity, insulting their family size, and sometimes insulting their very faith. But they turn the other cheek as Christ did. These Catholics have resisted not only the uncatholic aggiornamento gutting the Church today, but they have also resisted the faithless and easy ways to avoid it. They reject the easy neo-modernism even as they reject sedevacantism in all its forms. Even as they see the disastrous prudential decisions of the modern papacies culminating in the current pontificate, even as they see the ordinary magisterium being twisted to harm the faith by no less than the Pope himself, they do not reject the papacy and its rights. Somehow, some way, they do not reject the ordinary magisterium, even if that means a daily struggle to understand what has become of it. They take no easy way out, each day praying for guidance for how a faithful Catholic can have genuine Obsequium Religiosum, that duty of submission of will and intellect, in a Church gone mad. Each day discerning, meekly but with valor, that which can be followed and that which cannot. And they do it every day. And they mostly do it alone. That may be the most amazing part of this genuinely radical Catholicism. They know they are alone and that nobody is coming to rescue them. But they still do it. They had put great faith and hope in Pope Benedict, only to have their faith dashed. This was made worse by the Pope Emeritus’ abandonment of his flock because he could not bear the thought of another long trip. They hear these things even as they pack up their children in the van each Sunday and drive, sometimes for hours, just so their children can have what centuries of Catholics took for granted: the faith and liturgy, unadulterated. But they still do it. Alone and unloved in their own Church, they still do it. They see the few prelates willing to say even the meekest words in favor of tradition, publicly rebuked and embarrassed by the current Pope. And worse, they see others whom they had thought to be strong go silent rather than face the same. I have met some remarkable and capable people; hardworking, educated, and skillful people who could use those talents to have pools and BMWs, forgo fortune and respect in order to daily preach unpopular truths, even to the mockery of their co-religionists. I have seen them all persevere even though it all seems hopeless, even in the knowledge that on its current trajectory, the gates of hell would prevail against the Church, if such a thing was possible. But even in the face of this onslaught, they believe wholeheartedly that Christ will fulfill His promise. I sometimes think this may be the point of it all. That the faithful remnant must come to the conclusion that we will not be rescued from this crisis by ordinary means. That no “Benedict Solution”, no biological solution is going to save us. That the bishops will never stand up en masse and say “Enough!!” That we will never be rescued from this crisis by our own strength and resolve. That God may only deign to rescue us when we finally acknowledge we cannot rescue ourselves. And in the face of all of this, amidst all these trials, amidst all this loneliness, these most radical of traditionalists, these Catholics, preserve in faith and love. These faithful Catholics, persevering through all these trials, are the most radical of traditionalists. I am honored to know them. ■
It is true there is a persecution of what once used to be mainline Catholicism. Why am I a "traditionalist" when I am doing nothing different than my parents did when they grew up? And their parents before them, and so on. The saddest thing is that we are still living in the "easy" times. I cannot imagine how bad it might get once things really get rolling. My greatest fear is that I might be without a priest at all...
I think this paragraph illustrates the problem of these 'traditionalists'. Instead of following and learning from the authentic Church leadership, they have a 'view' of what authentic Christianity is. They need to trust instead the living and active leadership of God's Church. I have a 'nostalgia' for many of the things that the traditionalists love but that nostalgia must not cloud my faithfulness to Peter and his Church.
Yeah, they're following Scripture and 2000 years of Church teaching and distrusting these novelties with which some in Rome are "tickling our ears." Evil trads! How dare they ignore the authors of this new false gospel?!? They're not, in fact, "trads." They're - Horrors! - CATHOLICS! http://www.onepeterfive.com/losing-the-labels-lets-be-catholic-again/ Losing the Labels: Let’s be Catholic Again. In a recent online exchange, someone accused me of not being a “real traditionalist.” I suppose that the jibe was supposed to chafe, but if so, it landed pretty far afield. Not only is this not the first time such an accusation (if one could even call it that) has been leveled against me, but it’s an appropriate enough assessment. In point of fact, I’m not a traditionalist. I am a Catholic. I can’t tell you how often I have lamented with friends over the way this phrase has been denuded of any real meaning. I’m not old enough to know what Catholic life was like before the Second Vatican Council, but from what I understand, there are people still alive today who can remember a time when saying, “I’m Catholic” conveyed a great deal about one’s life. It meant, at the very least, that a person attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (and called it that!) on Sundays and holy days of obligation. It meant that they observed the Church’s fasts and feasts, did penance throughout the season of Lent (and Advent, too, if you can believe it). It meant that they prayed for the pope, the conversion of Russia, the liberation of the Church, and for the protection of St. Michael. It meant that they knew what they were made for, when they should and shouldn’t receive communion, who belonged in the sanctuary, and how to pray the rosary. Even those who had never darkened the doorstep of a church knew better than to offer a steak to a Catholic on Friday – not just during Lent, but year-round. The masses that Catholics attended espoused the universal character of the Church, in that they were all essentially the same. Picking a parish at random in a city far from home wasn’t a game of liturgical roulette, where one might get something reverent or might be treated to something sacrilegious, depending on the luck of the draw. A priest in those days might have been more or less reverent; he might have been better or worse with the Latin; his homilies might have been inspiring or dull; the music might have been heavenly or hellish; but whether a man heard Mass in Atlanta or Antwerp, he knew, within reasonable boundaries, what he was going to get – and he could follow along. It was a time when Bishop Fulton Sheen’s Life is Worth Living could be one of the top-rated prime time television shows on ABC; when biblical epics like The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur were blockbuster films; when The Bells of St. Mary’s and Come to the Stable and The Quiet Man all depicted Catholicism as something real, noble, and worthy of respect. Vocations were on the rise, Mass attendance was high, and decorum was still a notable aspect of Catholic life and thought. But even in the years leading up to the council, the apparent golden age of the Church was anything but. Science tells us that a star shines brightest right before it burns out. The collapse of faith that happened beginning in the late 1960s certainly had architects who helped it along. But only a structure already compromised could fall so far, so fast. So what happened? If Catholicism yet infused the culture of the early 20th century, it was an inheritance from an investment many centuries in the past. It was the default position in Catholic Europe. It was a force to be contended with in Protestant America. The fact was, if you lived in the Western world, Catholicism had built the culture and had shaped its path. From the preservation of knowledge and the written word during the so-called “dark ages,” to the many technological and scientific contributions of the Church over the centuries, to the astonishing works of art, music, architecture, and literature that were inspired by — or at least indebted to — the Catholic ethos, even many of the people who saw the Church as an enemy didn’t bother trying to diminish her role or steal the credit for what she had done. They knew that the Faith was a force of nature (even if they didn’t recognize that it was also a force of supernature) and couldn’t simply be ignored. It had to be contended with. As the Late Middle Ages ended, the world began a spiral into chaos. Everyone wanted to take a swing at Catholicism. From the Protestant revolt to the subversion of the Enlightenment to the outright attack on Catholic monarchy in the French Revolution, the Church suffered blow after blow. King Henry VIII divided European Christianity and furthered the cause of Luther’s Reformation when the Church wouldn’t break the rules on marriage for him — though he still tried to keep England Catholic without the pope. Voltaire saw the Church’s influence as such an impediment to his ideas concerning natural religion and the supposedly false dichotomy of good and evil that he wanted to “crush the infamous thing.” Italian communist Antonio Gramsci knew that his fellow Marxists would never have success in a world “thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2000 years,” and so he set about a program of uprooting the faith so that the errors Russia had to force on its unwilling populace could flourish and grow naturally amidst the ruins of Christendom. At the dawn of the 20th century, Pope St. Pius X warned Catholics that a dangerous change was coming. A change from within. A change that would come at the hands of “Modernists” with their toxic cocktail of all the most devastating heresies combined. These Modernists, the sainted pope foretold, would “lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt.” The rise of communism in early 1917 gave rise to warnings about the dangers it presented to the Church and the world by Our Lady of Fatima in July of the same year: I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. ... ...I am not defined by the characteristics of any sub-group or ideology. Though the shorthand is easy to fall into, I do not introduce myself to people by saying, “I’m a traditionalist.” I say that I am a Catholic, and if the opportunity merits, I tell them that I love the traditional Latin Mass and sacraments, the old book of blessings, the exorcisms present in the venerable rite of baptism, and the devotions and practices that made Catholics strong in faith. I love them not because they are old, but because they are profound, and they bring me and those I love closer to God, and more perfectly praise Him. I don’t care if some choose to measure my actions on an imagined scale of immersion in their ideal, on whether my family perfectly observes the extrinsic aspects deemed suitable for membership in the rarified ranks of the self-professed. I am not a traditionalist — I am a seeker of truth, and I believe that the Church was more fully invested in understanding and spreading the truth in the past than she has been recently. I also believe that she will rediscover her zeal again in the future. We don’t need labels which serve only to justify and entrench our multiplying divisions. We need sanctity. We need to rediscover the things that made the Church strong and practice them again. We need to identify her perennial teachings and be faithful to them. We need to shrug off the impulse to innovate, and instead guard, contemplate, and — when necessary — develop organically and expound. We need to love Christ in the Eucharist, pray the rosary, wear our Sunday best to Mass, study our catechisms, obey the Church and evangelize those outside her embrace, carry our crosses and venerate His, and live the example of apostles. We need to teach our children the same. We need to love and support our priests, and pray that God will send us more of them. We are Catholics. If we can rediscover how to act like it again, we might just change the world.
Absolutely! But then the article does just that, saying "We are Catholics". The problem with that little sentence is that it means different things to different people. The great Archbishop Sheen is often used by the modern day traditionalists to support their 'position' but he would be truly horrified by the behaviour of many 'Catholics' with regard to Pope Francis. Here is a lovely, simple, quote on how to become holy from the Archbishop: The shortcut to sanctity “In what does your life consist except two things: (1) Active duties; and (2) passive circumstances. The first is under your control; do these in God’s name. The second is outside your control; these submit to in God’s name. Consider only the present; leave the past to God’s justice, the future to His Providence. Perfection of personality does not consist in knowing God’s plan, but in submitting to it as it reveals itself in the circumstances of life. There is really one shortcut to sanctity – the one Mary chose in the Visitation, the one Our Lord chose in Gethsemane – abandonment to the Divine Will.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Seven Words of Jesus and Mary)
David, The article does highlight a not too distant time when if I said, "I'm Catholic", others would not err too far in knowing what I believed. The fact that it now means different things to different people reveals that something is terribly amiss! I do attend the Novus Ordo. I love the expanded Lectionary. I am preparing to be ordained a deacon in 19 months. None of these were possible in the 1950s. But the sad truth is most Catholics born in the decades following the Council have a nominal understanding of Catholic truths and little, sensible grasp of the beauty and wisdom of the Deposit of Faith. Ignorant and deluded Catholic parents, even if well-intentioned, are raising children who are primarily formed by our secular and hedonistic culture. Something is terribly amiss! I agree wholeheartedly with Steve Skojec in the above article when he states: We need sanctity. We need to rediscover the things that made the Church strong and practice them again. We need to identify her perennial teachings and be faithful to them. We need to shrug off the impulse to innovate, and instead guard, contemplate, and — when necessary — develop organically and expound. We need to love Christ in the Eucharist, pray the rosary, wear our Sunday best to Mass, study our catechisms, obey the Church and evangelize those outside her embrace, carry our crosses and venerate His, and live the example of apostles. We need to teach our children the same. We need to love and support our priests, and pray that God will send us more of them. And I am convinced that you and virtually everyone on this Forum concurs! We are Catholics! Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Must one not be faithful to all the Peters? To the Fathers? To Our Lady? To Christ Himself? Is Tradition not the extra-Scriptural Truth of the Church and not merely something one can put behind oneself with wistful nostalgia? Essentially, what is the difference in human nature now compared to that of 2,000 years ago, or even 60 years ago? What did they put in the water in the 60's to cause us to change so much in such a short period? Do you think we 'evolved'?
If, in good conscience, anyone believes that the Pope is in error, then he must follow his conscience if the error affects him or her in some way. It is wrong, I believe, for such a person to try to persuade others that the Pope is in error. Of course obedience to God comes before obedience to the Pope, even in important matters. But that is simply another way of saying that conscience always comes first in how we should act.
If a Pope directly contradicts Jesus Christ, are you suggesting that one should keep it to oneself? I have a daughter soon to be married. Speaking purely hypothetically, if she was to suggest to me that, if things don't work out, she will have a second chance because Pope Francis has said so, am I to restrain myself from persuading her that the Pope is in error?
Your question answers itself, which points out how silly (to put it kindly) contrary positions really are. But I see a softening here, and a dawning that something might not be right...
In that hypothetical case it would be appropriate for you to inform her of your view. This case, of father and daughter, is very different to a blogger writing on the internet! In any case, I do not believe God will allow the Pope to err in cases such as this exhortation. Also, in this case you will have taught your daughter the indissolubility of her union and the marriage will be valid if consummated.
Unfortunately, the very existence of this conversation is symptomatic of our Pope's having, at the very least, fomented confusion about a matter about which there had been none previously. Had he simply affirmed the views of his two papal predecessors (and of Our Lord) this thread would not exist.
Doesn't every Catholic have the duty of telling the Truth to all his 'brethren in Christ'? That they may not fall into error?
Pope Francis is trying to take God's Mercy into a paganised world. He is also trying to teach Catholics that their faith should be more about love than 'ticking boxes' in a rule breaking contest. As appears on all padraig's postings, at the end of the day we shall be judged on love, Pope Francis' guidance is all about that sentence.
The Church has always, from the Pentecost, brought 'God's Mercy into a paganised world'. Never before has She met paganism half-way. What 'Love' exists in delivering approval of marriage breakdown, directly in contradiction to Her Founder or indirectly promoting degradation of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? All the evidence of the Protestant world overwhelmingly indicates that these kind of approaches don't work anyway and actually make things completely worse. On the other hand, for its first twenty centuries the Catholic Church held marriage together quite well. It seems Pope Francis thinks he knows better... 'Love' mightn't be entirely about rules but they play a big part in it. The Fall involved the breaking of one and God gave the Jews the Ten Commandments before he permitted Moses to lead them out of the desert. God gave us the unimaginable privilege of free will. However free will without rules becomes infernal. And quickly. We will indeed be judged on 'Love'. Love of Christ and love of spouse will figure prominently. Ditching a first spouse for a second is going to be hard to make a case for to Him who has explicitly ruled it out. I don't see how it can be answered, no matter how much the second spouse is loved-there is still that first one ditched.
At a recent Pastoral Council meeting in my parish my daughter, who is the youngest member of the Pastoral Council, suggested a special Mass for blessing all the newlyweds in the parish and also have some couples who are married for maybe 10, 20 ,30 years etc might be invited to renew their marriage vows as special event for the parish. Other members of the Pastoral Council wanted it opened up to co-habituating and divorced and remarried couples. She had to argue that it should be for married couples only.The priest present didn't offer a word of support to her and a nun present was worried that it might be seen to cut out people. That is the result of the various comments issuing from Rome. Its very sad and yes any catholic who wishes to respect the traditions coming down from Jesus and the Apostles really feels alone. For now we are co-existing but we wont be tolerated in the long run.
This is a very good article about the exhortation: Taking Time to Read Amoris Laetitia CAITLIN MARCHAND Here’s an unusual suggestion for reading Amoris Laetitia: don’t. OK so that sounds much more extreme than I mean but now that I have your attention, let me explain. Of course you should read the new document from Pope Francis, eventually. But should it be this week? I suggest that for many of us the answer is no. Here’s why. An apostolic exhortation is a great teaching document of the church. They should be read prayerfully, thoughtfully, respectfully. Yet this is becoming increasingly difficult. The maelstrom of noise surrounding the release of any papal document, or indeed of any papal utterance at all, can be disorienting and overwhelming. It can be unsettling and destructive of peace and trust. This is not really a recipe for prayerful contemplation. Everyone knows prayer requires a little bit of silence. And silence is hard to come by. We live in a time of surfeit of information. We live in an age where we expect immediacy. So we find ourselves with the first reports on Amoris Laetitia emerging even before actual copies were in wide circulation. Indeed, some of these reports were written before their authors had read the document. But more and more and more information, or more and more words, more and more noise, is not necessarily more and more wisdom. The fact we can read everything right away makes us feel like wemust. There is also a problematic urge to be “in the know” as part of a global conversation as opposed to being in the know in the sense of being taught by an encyclical. We want to take part in the talk around the water cooler more than we want to be instructed in virtue. Furthermore, this desire for immediacy is affecting our relationship with the Papacy. I particularly reference the institution and not the individual Pope because it is this institution we seem to be forgetting of late in emphasizing the individual men who hold the See of Peter. Because we can know exactly what Pope Francis said on a plane before it even has time to land is developing in us a sense of entitlement to know and dissect everything instantly. The speed of the dissection is somehow becoming more important than the care and precision with which it ought to be done. And we remake the Pope in our own image, expecting Him to say what we want when we want or expecting him to be nemesis to our personal interests. Familiarity is breeding, perhaps not contempt, but disregard for the special relationship of the Papacy to the Holy Spirit. There have been good popes, great popes, even some capital G Great ones, and there have been some bad ones, personally vicious, weak, unwise. Yet the center has always held. Nothing but God’s love for His church and his unwavering personal care for her and for the rock upon which she was founded explains this. The center always held. We don’t have to love everything going on in Rome at any time. Some people fold themselves in pretzels to love every utterance and move of every 21st century Pope, which must be mentally exhausting given what different men each has been. Still, at the root of our relationship to the Popes there should always be this sense of peaceful, calm trust in God’s guidance for the Papacy itself. I believe that feeling like Rome is in our backyard is not all good. A little distance, a little time, a little patient waiting helps maintain this essential trust in the barque of Peter. All this has suggested to me a mental experiment. I’ve decided to imagine Amoris Laetitia was being released hundreds of years ago. To make copies would be a long and painstaking process, to distribute these even longer. And surely the copies would have gone first and foremost to priests, bishops, professors, theologians. Many of the faithful would not have been able to read the text for themselves and would have relied upon the teaching to be filtered down to them through the authentic teaching of the magisterium in its day to day workings. For previous generation the question was, as it still is for us today although it is so easy to forget: How am I called personally to live out my Catholic faith in my own life, today? That means ensuring we are well catechecized in the tenets of the faith, and then going about the business of our individual vocations while pursuing virtue and living that faith. If your vocation is theology, or church news, then by all means, you may be called as part of that work to read the new encyclical ASAP. But if you vocation is motherhood, or carpentry, or medicine, or you name it, taking your time to read it is perfectly acceptable and perhaps prudent given the climate of agitation that swirls around its release. It is quite possible to be a good and faithful Catholic without reading every single thing on day one of publication. Of course in the end I am not suggesting never picking up Amoris Laetitia. I’m not even suggesting avoiding other people’s commentaries on it. I would recommend choosing those commentaries judiciously. I would recommend saving the read for the right time. Spend the meantime fostering a sense of trust in God and his love for the Church as evidenced through his ongoing care of the Papacy. I would recommendlearning about the relative weight of the magisterial authority behind different kinds of papal document and the history of previous documents. When the dust has settled and the noise softened, when you can approach the read with tranquility and genuine desire for instruction and clarity, then read. It will still be waiting. Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. This is His Church. Follow Him. Live your vocation. Do not be rushed. http://catholicexchange.com/taking-time-to-read-amoris-laetitia
"...there have been some bad ones, personally vicious, weak, unwise." David, on the above, I and probably most here would not disagree. Unfortunately, your 'mental experiment' edges close to Luther.
