Bitter Trad Syndrome

 Engage in any discussion long enough regarding trads, and eventually the subject comes up, like clockwork.  "But why don't you stand up to the angrier trads?  SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THEM!"  Sometimes, this question is asked sincerely.  A lot of the time, it is in bad faith.  What is meant is "why don't you spend more time telling people they aren't holy enough."  I have zero patience for those individuals, and they rise beneath my contempt.  Go ahead and ask the legion of them on social media who have asked that question dishonestly, and gotten a nasty answer from me.  Yet for the one in good faith, let's discuss this question a little more.

There's a lot of assumptions that are made in this, and those assumptions are why the answer you get isn't very satisfying at best, at worst, you're cursed at and shouted away.  (You may have even deserved it.)

First and foremost, I can't stress this enough, The Catholic Church is NOT a political party.  There are no membership dues, and you aren't expelled from the party, except for some very rare circumstances involving clear canonical crimes.   Being an idiot is not a canonical crime.  Believing crazy things is not a canonical crime.  What people often want when this is said is for those bitter trads to be told they are no longer welcome at that Church, and they should be shunned until they change their opinions/disposition.  That isn't Catholicism.

I'm reminded of the story of a group of parishioners who were furious Michael Voris (a dishonest grifter if there ever was one) was attending a parish more frequently.  Several parishioners were enraged, not wanting their parish to be "represented" by the likes of Voris.  They wanted the parish priest to take action against him, some even wanting the priest to say Voris and the other "crazies" weren't welcome there.  The priest responded in his usual somber voice "the crazy people need confession just as much as you do.  Well, after this discussion, maybe not as much."  Catholicism isn't a party or a book of the month club:  its a communion of sinners being transformed into saints.  If we start modifying Church law to where the priest can deny the sacraments to someone he (or the congregation) doesn't like, we're heading into very dangerous grounds.  It was precisely this rationale that was given to a pretty rabid anti-traditionalist priest several years ago that made him see the errors of his ways, at least on that point.

The second assumption is that you matter.  You likely do not.  At all.  I'll give you time to process being offended, because clearly you have not been told enough in life you don't actually matter that much.

You good?  Let's continue.

There's a pretty prominent rabid anti-trad blogger once who was in discussion with me, angry that I wasn't opposing bitter trads to his satisfaction.  He admitted that I've offered real correction on a lot of issues, but I wasn't offering enough correction on this or that social issue he felt was really important that trads weren't listening to enough.  After reading him go on and on for hundreds of words (all getting increasingly nastier at me), I responded with the simple question:

Who is X (his name), and why on earth should I care about him?

Are you a bishop?  Are you a pastor?  Are you part of that individual's family?  In this case, he was a bitter fool consumed by hate.  Why should I care what such a fool says?  In better circumstances, the individual making this request is still an "outsider".  Why should your outsider criteria be listened to for a single word?  Sometimes there are good answers to that question, but you have to approach it with the assumption you have to prove that answer.

If you understand we can't vote people off the island for being knuckleheads, and that you have to prove why your criteria matters, you will probably get a fair hearing from trads about the question of bitterness.  Now we can speak, and I hope you will allow the brief answer I give to start a conversation.

I don't look at bitterness as something that is unique to trads, or even something that trads exhibit in an atypical sense.  I can say that having pretty extensive experience in both communities.  I've watched bitter scolds in the Novus Ordo try to humiliate my wife for failing to keep a special needs child quiet, and I've watched bitter scolds in the TLM tell me to go to the Novus Ordo down the street so my son's stimming won't bother him.  I've also watched their bitterness increase when they learned in no uncertain terms that we weren't leaving, and in the case of the Latin Mass, I informed the elderly man (after standing up towering over him) that unless he had a plan for making me leave, I was staying right in the back of the Church.  I've even felt bitterness at times over the way my faith life has turned out.  Sometimes even intense bitterness.

Bitterness is part of the human condition, a realization that the world (or the Church) is not as you thought it should be, and that disconnect causes you stress and anxiety.  Those same bitter trads consumed by anger at the latest this or that of the Pope or some idiot washed up blogger tend to be the same bitter trads looking to nitpick every little thing going on in the parish.

I also see that bitterness among a lot of ex-trads, who saw this kind of behavior, and not only stopped going to the TLM, but now make it their passion and burning crusade to attack it (and their former brethren) at every step.  To both sides I offer the same cold but sincere advice:  I am deeply sorry that the Church is not as you think it should be, and that somewhere some Catholic attending whatever Mass he attends isn't as holy as you think they should be.  I don't mean that with crocodile tears, I am sorry for the hurt and anguish they often cause, and if I'm there, I'll offer whatever help I can.

Yet I sincerely believe that the best way to help that situation is to get people to accept that source of their bitterness, because once they understand that source, it is something that God can work with.  Maybe the Church should be what it isn't.  Yet what are we going to do to bring that about?  We also should be something we aren't.  Do we want people to react in the same way we do to their imperfections?  Sure, the Pope might indeed be everything bad you think he is.  This is exactly why we pray for him.  When Christ told Peter the devil meant to go after him and sift the flock by that attack, he meant he would exploit every weakness a shepherd has to scatter the sheep.  Christ told Peter his faith wouldn't fail in the end, he never said Peter would always do the wisest or smartest thing.  So we pray he does.

The way to counteract bitterness (whether the traditionalist or the bitter ex-trad) is through understanding.  What other tools do we have?  There are indeed more coercive measures, but as we pointed out above, its a bad idea to use them because someone is cranky.  The Church, even in her degraded state has understood in her wisdom not to employ such tools for that purpose.  Maybe consider my approach instead.