Getting Back to Normal

One of the things I've always stressed that traditionalists need to keep in mind is that we can't be utopians.  In our criticism of today's state of affairs, we run the risk of acting as if the previous eras were not just good, but perfect.  Phil Blosser touches on this in a way.  The Church is filled with sinners, and sometimes things are better or worse as a result of that. 

Pope Francis and the "Mission" Thing

"In time, we will understand the mission of Pope Francis."

"Just give it time, and we will see what great things the Holy Spirit has in store for the Pope."

My friends tell me this all the time whenever the discussion centers on Pope Francis. Some of my traditionalist brethren fear he is going to set back the traditionalist cause decades if not outright killing it. Others parse every word, looking for a grand agenda, and when his sweeping reforms will start. All of this happens even though, according to Pope Francis' own words, he hasn't done much of anything since becoming Pope, and he has played his cards incredibly close to his chest on what he was going to do.

On Divisive Terms, Dialogue, and Reading "The Signs of the Times"... Guest Editorial by I. Shawn McElhinney

KMT note: Longtime readers of the Catholic blogosphere may remember Shawn McElhinney. If you remember him, your perception of him depended greatly on whether or not you attended the Extraordinary Form during the early days of Catholics blogging. He ran the "Lidless Eye Inquisition" with several others in attacking what they perceived to be "radical traditionalists" and "radtrads." Here Shawn explains why he no longer uses the terms.

 

It was brought to my attention recently that Catholic Answers had done a two hour program on traditionalism and terms such as "rad-trad" were utilized as well as a new term "mad-trad." As I helped popularize the terms "radical traditionalist" and "rad-trad" in weblog publications years ago, I was asked by my good friend Kevin Tierney for some thoughts on the use of the term in the modern ecclesial climate. A simple comment would not suffice and after some pondering of the matter, the result is what you have before you. Now I was admittedly privy to some apologists resurrecting the term earlier in the year and proceeding to use it in ways it was never intended to be used. However, that was small potatoes compared to when Catholic Answers (among the largest Catholic apologetics organizations in the world) decides on one of their shows to sanction the use of terms like rad-trad and "mad-trad." With that in mind, a bit of personal disclosure at the outset of this article is necessary.

Metting Halfway

Something happened during the debate surrounding "radtrad" and "radical traditionalist." No, everyone didn't suddenly convert to the position they disagreed with before.  Instead, I think everyone is regressing to the mean after some initial bumps in the road.

Giving the Status Quo a Push (More on the whole Radtrad Debate)

Nobody died and made me leader of a cause, but the way I see it, traditionalists should keep the following things in mind moving forward:

Letting Us Stand Together

The dicussion surrounding my editorial at Catholic Lane generated a lot more discussion than I ever would have hoped or wished for. There have been a lot of varied responses, some more valuable than others. I'd like to call the attention of my audience to one of these responses in particular, by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

Latest Column at Catholic Lane

So I said before I have bad timing, and here is what I mean.

 

Over the past two weeks I've been working on an article which calls for the terms "radical traditionalist" and "radtrad" to be dropped from the popular lexicon. Part of this was even done in a dialogue with Dave Armstrong one can see in previous posts. I advocated dropping the term not to help out those classified as "radtrads", but as a way of cooling the temperature of the debate. "Radtrad", like "Neo-Catholic" is a way to demean and insult the dreaded other. That both have pretty precise definitions is utterly beside the point. It still comes across as hopelessely polarizing, and the last thing we need is more polarization.

 

Of course, this happens around the same time that a little tempest in a teapot begins brewing regarding the Latin Mass and a religious order. It is a bit tough to call for friendlier dialogue with greater charity when you see a lot of the reactions of some traditionalists, who used this more as a pretext for pope bashing than anything else. Let's be honest. Some people here doing this are people who are legitimately worried about the Latin Mass. They might be overreacting, but they mean well, and people should remember that. Yet there are others who simply use whatever they can as a pretext to air out their grievances about how they really don't like Pope Francis for whatever reason you want.

 

There are also traditionalists far better than yours truly using the moniker as a way of rebuking their actions. I sympathize with that stand. This behavior is wrong and intolerable. Yet now more than ever we need to be above reproach and charitable, even with those who deserve it least. It's a principled stand few will listen to, but few listen to me anyways, so I might as well plant the flag. Using these terms do nothing but add strife and vision, and it is possible to do this stuff without using such language. It isn't easy, and we fallen human beings take the easy way out far too often. I get that. Yet just this once, let's appeal to our higher nature okay?

Traditionalism and Beating the Expectations Game

A photo on Facebook can tell a pretty great story.  It is why traditionalists like myself are so optimistic.  In short, the photo shows the exponential growth of the Extraordinary From of the liturgy from roughly 1988-2010.  In 1990, there were roughly 60 masses available every Sunday throughout the country.  (Probably 30 of them were in Chicago.)  In 2006, there were roughly 200, a growth of roughly 8 or 9 a year.  This was under the ancien regime of the Ecclesia Dei indult, when the survival of the Mass was dependent on Bishops, many of them openly hostile to the Extraordinary Form.

Traditionalist but not "Restorationist"

The outrage meter is about to go past 11 on some blogs tomorow.  During an address to the Latin American Bishops Conferences (if we just got rid of these useless bodies poor Francis would have less an opportunity for scandalizing the consciences of some), the Holy Father talked about certain temptations that hinder the full power of the Gospel.  It really was a speech that offended just about every interest group in the Church, for better or worse.

The Pelagian solution. This basically appears as a form of restorationism. In dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely disciplinary solution is sought, through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer meaningful. In Latin America it is usually to be found in small groups, in some new religious congregations, in (exaggerated) tendencies to doctrinal or disciplinary “safety”. Basically it is static, although it is capable of inversion, in a process of regression. It seeks to “recover” the lost past.

There are uncomfortable realities here for all Catholics, not just traditionalists.  When we are presenting the Gospel, are we doing so in ways which are still relevant?  Let's take the manner of Latin for example.  Let's say tomorrow Pope Francis announced he was going to replace the liturgy that we know today with the liturgy of the 1962 missal.... except in English.  Would we take that deal, or would we insist on it being in Latin.  Unless we are fools, we would take the English.  Would it be our perfect ideal?  Maybe not.  Yet it would give us quite a bit of what we want, since it gives the underlying principles we hold dear.  So our focus should be on those principles, no matter what disciplinary fashion they are in.

The question basically becomes:  is full abolition of the Ordinary Form, and a reversion to the Extraordinary Form all that matters?

Finally, I have never wished to "recover" the lost past of events right before the Second Vatican Council.  Vatican II didn't cause Humanae Vitae.  Those leaders were in place well before the Council.  Some anti-traditionalists try to frame this argument "if traditionalism is so awesome, how do you explain the near total apostasy Catholicism experienced after the council?"  The near total apostasy part should never be denied.  Yet we should have no problem saying that our ancestors, heroic as they are, had some blind spots, just as we have our current blind spots that we need the help of God's grace to overcome.  (If they were a tad too legalistic, even most trads today are absolute panzies when it comes to suffering, if you compare our fasting to that of our ancenstors.)

There will never be a perfect Church militant here on earth.  But we can say that our generation needs to drink far deeper of the Gospel, and the principles we advocate are a way of doing that.  Few if any trads would say we simply look for a "discplinary solution", and quite frankly, the Pope should exhibit far more sensitivity when speaking on the subject.  As Archbishop Chaput rightly pointed out, Pope Francis needs to act like he is the Pope of traditionalists as well.

So really my brethren, stop taking every statement from the Pope as a way to tear you down further.  Look at it as a challenge to return to a greater fidelity to our principles.  Those disciplines we advocate so ardently are meant to lead to those principles, which is first and foremost a deeper personal relationship with our Savior.  We have had so much success these past 6 years showing the world these principles.  Let us always look for more chances.

The Triumph of Division

I certainly hope Catholic Answers is happy.  They wasted a lot of money on a pointless two hour radio program that didn't help their audience understand traditionalists, "radical" or otherwise.  What they did do was create an incredible amount of ill will from traditionalists, and even those who aren't.  When these kind of circumstances happen, certain traditionalists will go out of their way spoiling for a fight.

I'm not really one to comment too much on the article in The Remnant.  When one gets past Mr. Ferrara's verbal flourishes, one finds there actually aren't a lot of things to disagree about.  I think everyone would agree that nobody is obligated to attend Mass in the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form.  Everyone would also agree (or at least they should) that the Church has been under attack from both the world and from within, and that weapon has many names:  the dictatorship of relativism, modernism, secularism, etc.  I think it is also beyond dispute that everyone agrees the Second Vatican Council wasn't implemented pretty good, if at all.  Those who disagree are free to find beef with Pope Benedict (who spoke of a false council of the media that has mistaken for Vatican II) and Pope Francis.

These truths aren't denied by anyone, yet both sides have to act like they do.  Why?  To put it bluntly, people are pretty angry when they are treated as second class Catholics, and they are likely to fire back in kind.  When people aren't around screaming "rad-trad", you don't see too much talking about "Neo-Catholic."  Neither term is actually descriptive of anything.  It simply means "other people do crap I don't like, and I need to condemn it in the flashiest way possible."  They are polemical terms that belong to a previous age.  They are also words that are only meant for the choir.

So now we've got another pointless conflict that the good folks at Catholic Answers don't actually disagree with, or at least wouldn't dare to disagree with it in public, as they really are settled matters.  What's sad is that others are actually starting to become a bit more honest in their assessment of matters.  The only problem with this kind of approach is you aren't going to drive up ratings for your radio show or print magazine.  Instead you will do the far more mundane task of slowly but surely laying a proper foundation for true Catholic unity.  Perhaps Catholic Answers would be far better suited instructing its audience how to do that.

Why We Speak Past Each Other

As I've been mulling over a bigger work on so called "radical traditionalism" (more on this over the next week!), there have been a few other things that have happened which I want to talk about.  In trying to reach out to traditionalist audiences, two different voices gave two different critiques, but both seemed to fall pretty flat.  While some partisans will say this is just proof that trads are obstinate and impossible to have a discussion with, I think a more honest reading gives a far more simpler answer.

Closing the Door (Finally) on Vatican II

With the canonization of Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II, many are interpreting these actions as the triumph of the Second Vatican Council, and how now the council will continue to dominate Catholic discourse for the next several generations.  For many of my traditionalist brethren (even those who have no problem accepting it as a valid ecumenical council without error), this gives us distress.  For some of our friends across the way, this gives them another chance to concern-troll the crap out of us.   I would like to offer an alternative idea.

Leo XIII, John Paul II, and the Purpose of Society

In a previous essay, I introduced a point that some found surprising:  When trying to understand Blessed John Paul II's Man and Woman He Created Them, one should look to the Catholic Social teaching of Leo XIII for insight.  The root of both Leo's social magesterium and Blessed John Paul's Wednesday audiences stem from the fact that man was created in the image of God, and hence for union with God.  I would like to continue in that vein of thought today.

Why does society exist in creation?  Even amongst the beasts of the earth there exists hierarchies within their circles.  As the highest of animal creation, the society of man is far more advanced than those of beasts.  Why should such a society exist?  In his encyclical Immortale Dei Pope Leo gave the following profound insight:

Man's natural instinct moves him to live in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental and moral faculties. Hence, it is divinely ordained that he should lead his life -- be it family, or civil -- with his fellow men, amongst whom alone his several wants can be adequately supplied.

Man exists in a society because he must by his very nature.  He is not perfect, and as a result will always lack in some things which others will complement him in.  From this simple insight flows all of Catholic social teaching.  The Social Magesterium of the Church teaches how individual Catholics interact with civil society, government, and vice-versa for both.

Blessed John Paul II takes this insight and probes even deeper.  He asks his audience to ponder why this is the case (why can man only find satisfaction through the other), and believes the answer is found in man's creation as male and female:

When God-Yahweh said, "It is not good that man should be alone," (Gn 2:18) he affirmed that "alone," man does not completely realize this essence. He realizes it only by existing "with someone"—and even more deeply and completely—by existing "for someone."

According to John Paul, the mystery of creation sheds new light on this timeless truth explained by Pope Leo.  It is not enough that man simply live in a society so that only his needs are taken care of.  Such a society cannot last because it is full of nothing but selfish individuals.  As a result, Pope Leo speaks of the necessity of people living for the common good. (ID 3)  For John Paul, the only way one can live for the good of society is by living "for" that society, and at its most basic institution, the society of marriage, where two become "one flesh."

Through our relationship with others as male and female, we discover the truth of our existence.  John Paul II references the Second Vatican Council when he states the following:

 Let us recall here the text of the last Council which declared that man is the only creature in the visible world that God willed "for its own sake." It then added that man "can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself".

Pope Leo XIII discusses the nature of man in different terms, but terms I believe are essential to understanding John Paul's teaching:

Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law.   (ID 6)

Now as you read this, you might go:  these two aren't alike at all.  There's absolutely no relation!  John Paul II is concerned with the gift of self, and Leo is concerned with the worship of God as a result of our roots.   The answer to this conundrum is Jesus Christ.  Christ lived a life of complete sacrifice and self-donation when He left His heavenly home to become man.  He showed the depths of that self-donation when he died for our sins on the Cross, and because of that self-donation, returned to His heavenly home.

When Christ calls us to self-donation as He did, He calls upon us to return to our original calling, and through that calling, return to the Father.  The purpose of John Paul II's Wednesday audiences is to provide insight into how recognizing the truth of our creation as male and female can lead to the Father.  In this one could say he is providing a legitimate development of Leo's profound insight.

Catholic Social Teaching: From Leo XIII to the Theology of the Body

I'm doing a somewhat thankless task.  For one reason or another, traditionalists do not like John Paul II's Man and Woman He Created Them, popularly known as the Theology of the Body, hereafter TOB.  More often than not, this is done because a lot of the top evangelists of TOB are from a certain school of thought which looks with disdain upon most if not everything before the Second Vatican Council.  Hence Janet Smith, Fr. Thomas Loya and others speak with derision of "yesterday's Church" which wasn't very good at a lot of things, except repressing the truth about sexuality, which they excelled at.  Traditionalists rightly realize this is a load of crap, but all too often ignore Blessed John Paul's teaching about this subject as well.

Aquinas, NFP, and Modern Day Jansenism

*The Following is a lengthy examination of some very flawed views concerning human sexuality, marriage, and the marital embrace.  Due to the highly sensitive nature of the subject, read discretion is advised.*

When discussing the "Theology of the Body" with supporters of Christopher West, they will quickly pull out the Jansenist card, and declare anyone they disagree with part of this heretical group in the past, using it as a tactic to render their criticism illegitimate.  The overwhelming majority of the time, they are dead wrong.  Yet sometimes they are right, in that the occasional critic of their worldview harbors views that are indistinguishable from a Jansenist.

More (And Hopefully the End) on NFP

The article done yesterday about Dr. Jay Boyd's dismissal of NFP has caused quite a healthy level of discussion in my inbox, and the comboxes over at Dr. Boyd's essay have been quite lively.  I'd like to round up some of the responses I gave on those comboxes, and elaborate on those things said.

Jay Boyd and the Traditionalist Trojan Horse

As I make clear often, I'm a traditionalist.  I'm also set to be married soon.  I hate the way perfectly Orthodox Catholics are mandated to take NFP courses as a condition for getting married.  I hate it, but I obey it.  I hate when those who are looking to have large families are accused of not engaging in responsible parenting by those who basically belong to the cult of NFP.  I also hate it when those like Christopher West portray every traditionalist as a sex-hating Manichean.

Why We are All Irrelevant Scrubs

The following message is hard to hear, but it is something that needs to be said.  The blogopshere is abuzz with the issue of Anti-Semitism in traditionalist circles since Dawn Eden helped the issue go viral amongst the Catholic blogosphere.  Some wish that more prominent voices would get involved in this, and that traditionalists all over would see what a problem Anti-Semitism is in their circles.

I feel the approach that many are taking right now is flawed, and it stems from the fact that they suffer from an information disadvantage.  Allow me to explain.

When I say information disadvantage, I mean that we lack certain knowledge that others have.  We don't lack it because we are close-minded.  We lack it because we live in a bubble.  This happens in politics all the time, where someone is surprised that evil creep won an election when everyone they knew voted otherwise.  Traditionalists had this problem with the Mandatum issue.  They were horrified over the Pope "setting aside" a liturgical law.  To most Catholics, even Orthodox ones, they didn't know such a law even existed, or why it exists.  To try to explain the subtleties of laws to people who aren't even aware they are laws, you will just look like a fool.  Should they know?  Yes.  Yet they don't, and you gotta deal with that.  

So, you are asking, how does this relate to the problem of Anti-Semitism and traditionalists?  I'm so glad you asked!

When confronted by such vile Anti-Semitism, many traditionalists have acted with horror and revulsion, condemning the words.  Yet we also remind people that this kind of stuff is a minority within the traditionalist movement, and it is virtually non-existent in most parishes.  In short, what you see on the Internet is not representative of the whole.  The current response to this has been..... to point out nasty things people are saying on the Internet.

Why is this a problem?  Those who write and read blogs are a pretty small minority of the overall Catholic population.  They tend to be highly motivated individuals who take their beliefs seriously, for better or worse.  The majority of traditionalists and Catholics in general are blissfully ignorant of this entire dustup.  Even the most known of Catholic personalities online are probably only known by maybe 5% of the Catholic population.  An even smaller number of that 5% actually read them on a regular basis.  The kind of problems the blogosphere deals with are not the problems that exist in the majority of parishes or that we experience.

It is for that reason I disagree with one point of Simcha Fischer's otherwise excellent work.  Outside of the nonsense I run into online, I haven't encountered any Anti-Semitism.  Since the majority of Catholics (including traditionalists) don't really spend much time on trad blogs, I can say with confidence that the idea that "If you're a traditionalist and you hang out with other traditionalists, then sooner or later, you will run into Anti-Semitism" is actually a load of crap, and only someone who is a blogger would make that statement.  I know that I've migrated between 3 different traditionalist communities over a decade, and Anti-Semitism wasn't in one of them.  My experience is also what a lot of traditionalists are trying to say.  So we are lucky that it isn't in our neighborhood.

That isn't to say this is all much ado about nothing.  No, the problem is real.  Even if it exists in just a few corners of the Internet, it can have a lot of far-reaching conclusions.  That small bit of Anti-Semitism can damage our ability to witness.  Furthermore, we want those people on the Internet who read blogs.  They take things passionately, and they are serious about our beliefs.  Like any movement, traditionalists can use more serious individuals.  Yet they aren't going to give us a second look if they don't see that we really and truly oppose this crap.

If we are wondering what we can do to make others stand up, we need to do more to show that this kind of stuff actually has an impact, and the damage it creates is real, because to the majority of Catholics, they look at us the same way.  We really are a bunch of irrelevant scrubs who are talking about issues they have no clue about.  Such a message isn't appealing to the ego, yet if you want to be an effective witness, the first thing you need to do is tell your ego to knock it off.

Sometimes Being Liked is a Good Thing

For most of its existence, traditionalism has been a rebel movement.  Even the loyal sons of the Church were still looking to shake up the existing order of the Church.  We hated the horrendous liturgies rife with abuse, despised the heterodox theology coming from popular circles, and we hated above all the seeming "conservative" silence or acquiescence on these manners.  To borrow a page from pro wrestling (as a proud smark since the mid 90's), traditionalists were heels, and we loved being heels.  That also meant we weren't interested in cheers or adulation from the powers that be within mainstream Catholicism.  Many times those who were getting cheers were those traditionalists who did nothing but bash their fellow brothers, even the loyal ones. 

Making Sense of Tradition

After spending the past few posts outlining what tradition is, what it isn't, and why it matters, I would like to conclude with some general thoughts, and  how Catholics can have a discerning mind with these matters.

First, how does one know if we are dealing with Apostolic Tradition, when they aren't Church historians or theologians?  In this case, the simplest answer really is the correct one.  The Church is very clear on matters of Aposotolic Tradition.  On issues of Apostolic Tradition, the Church is protected by infallability.  We can have confidence that if the Catholic Church proclaims something as an Apostolic Tradition, it is an Apostolic tradition.