I read a post yesterday that set my teeth on edge. It was from a Catholic who had his assault rifle aimed dead center on traditional Catholics. Well, he wouldn't want to call them "traditional" Catholics because the word Catholic should stand alone -- no adjectives. We're all just plain, old Catholics.
Apparently this writer sees no distinction between "cafeteria" Catholics, "faithful" Catholics, "pro-life" Catholics, "pro-abortion" "pro-choice" Catholics, etc. Putting those adjectives on the word Catholic is, what? Divisive I suppose, and we can't divide those who actually practice the Catholic faith from those who pay it lip service by adding adjectives before the word Catholic. Diversity, after all, is the new mantra from Rome since all religions lead to God; and, despite starting the Catholic Church and urging the apostles to evangelize the whole world, Jesus didn't really mean it. We all need to get with the program.
But this writer had no problem dividing "traditional" Catholics from the rest and giving them an adjective: "gnostic traditionalists." I'll just include one scathing section:
Traditionalism has become an ideology that, even though sometimes correct in its analysis of the crisis in the Church and world, nevertheless makes one spiritually sick, as one becomes more attached to the traditionalist movement, its narratives, personages, publications, polemics, criticisms, etc. than to the Church as a whole -- and to Christ Himself. The apotheosis of idiosyncrasy is a formidable American temptation. Add to this the temptations to an “inner-circle” pride, an overly critical and judgmental spirit, and an “I-am-attending-the-superior-Mass” self-consciousness. These are quite present in traditionalist circles. There is a certain fanaticism that prevents the traditional Catholic soul from experiencing deep, simple, humble prayer and self-forgetfulness. The phrase “Catholic Pharisee” comes to mind, and even if modernists and neo-Catholics hypocritically use this term against humble traditional Catholics, if it’s accurate for some, it’s accurate.
Well, at least he acknowledges that there can be at least a few "humble traditional Catholics," but obviously the movement as a whole is "spiritually sick." And he goes on to illustrate it:
One tell-tale sign of gnostic traditionalism is a penchant for coming up with air-tight theological syllogisms that, in reality, lead to insane conclusions, yet are given as much authority as the conclusions of the Magisterium....What is worse, the gnostic Catholic evangelizes his sacred syllogism as if it were the Gospel, and woe to those who do not believe in it! They are cast to the outer darkness.
Actually, the writer is casting all those he's judged as "gnostic traditionalists" into the outer darkness. I'm tempted to say, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." Examine your own conscience and check for the beam in your own eye. But he's not done. His judgment and condemnation of the "gnostic traditionalist" gets more personal:
He has developed a kind of impenetrable shell over his soul, exacerbated by his personal sins and his habituation in the modernist spirit of liberal culture. This shell must first be removed before Tradition can penetrate his soul, but he is too busy delving deeper and deeper into what he considers authentically “traditional Catholicism” to realize that he is digging a deeper and deeper hole to a self-created Hell.
Wow! The traditionalist is surely in deep, deep trouble because he is ultimately:
...an ultra-modernist and anti-traditionalist, because he has put himself in a position gnostically above all received Tradition, above all that would evoke in his soul a non-deliberative, non-critical, non-analytical, childlike “fiat” to the order of supernatural reality as it is incarnated in the visible Catholic Church under the reigning Pope (if he is actually reigning), well as a fiat to the dogmatic inerrancy of Vatican II and the validity and non-evilness of the Novus Ordo Mass as initially promulgated). Sola Traditio, with me, not the Magisterium, having the final interpretive say. This is Protestant.
He goes on with a lot more like this including criticizing large families for, in his judgment, using their children as trophies proving their orthodoxy. But this was the pinnacle of his rash judgment:
Trads have a deep seated problem with authority, which is a problem with the will, not the intellect. They are in an inner circle cult as evil and fraudulent as modernism. The more they proof text their positions, the deeper they entrench themselves in the cult. Trads are Trads because they get something from being in the cult, a psychological or emotional or social or psychological or financial good, and they place the good they are getting above the ultimate good of truth. Until they recognize this, all dialectical engagement just makes them more cultish. The problem is not logic or reason but the will. The madman, as Chesterton said, has lost everything except Logic. Trads will prooftext their way all the way to hell.
Woah! At this point I reached my limit, although I was only halfway through the diatribe. I skipped the subscribe page and decided this writer is guilty of all the judgments he's made on "Trads" and their "cult" which is "as evil and fraudulent as modernism."
As one who was raised in the Traditional form and lived it through my college years, then practiced the Novus Ordo for the next 50+ attending daily Mass for most of those years, I found this article nauseating in the extreme. My husband and I returned to the traditional form during COVID seeing the zeal for souls that made priests from the SSPX seminary near Charlottesville, drive 2 1/2 hours to Front Royal for the fairground Masses. There was something incredibly touching about seeing the priests in the field with long lines of penitents who knelt in the grass to confess. We were so grateful to them, we decided to remain after the churches re-opened. We couldn't repay our debt of gratitude to the SSPX if we lived to be 100.
Have I ever met a "trad" who fits the description of this writer? Yes. And the third Mass of the Ages film shows a couple who did also which delayed their coming to the TLM for a time. But, guess what! I've known Novus Ordo Catholics who are just as uncharitable and rigid and, sad to say, pro-abortion and pro-contraception. Do I judge all Novus Ordo Catholics by these folks, a minority I might add? Of course not. I could no more lump all those who attend the Novus Ordo into a group, excuse me, a "cult," as fly.
I am so sick of the circular firing squads in the Church. Can we please stop it already! We live in challenging times. The crisis in the Church is real. Do I agree with every Catholic because we wear the same "label" despite often believing seriously disparate things? Of course not. I wish we would all be on the same page, believing what the Church has taught for millennia and the truths revealed by Jesus Christ which cannot change no matter how many popes introduce novelties that are, at least borderline, heretical. But God has a purpose in all this. Nothing "just happens!" So I put it all in the hands of our heavenly Father with the words, "My Jesus I surrender myself to You; take care of everything."
I'm offering the rosary today for the writer of this dismal article. He has lots of subscribers and, as they say, bad news travels faster than good news. Was this article click bait? Who knows? I'll presume that he is completely sincere and thinks his uncharitable assault on "Trads" will convert us away from the "cult" before we go to hell.
All he did for this "Trad" was make me shake my head and consider the sins against the 8th Commandment: rash judgment, slander, and calumny. It made me want to review my own tendency to presume all member of a group (like Democrats) embrace all the evils of their party. How many, are, in fact, clueless. I hope most, since it is much less serious to sin out of ignorance than malice. Preserve me from malice, Lord, and increase my charity even toward writers like this one who tempt me to anger.
May God have mercy on all of us and increase our charity.
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