“…the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.” — Dei Verbum, 8
In 1993, from August 10 to 15, World Youth Day was held in Denver, Colorado. This event, as George Weigel has noted, was one of the catalysts for the birth of what became known as the John Paul II or “JPII” generation in American Catholicism. Prior to John Paul II’s arrival, the Church in America was marked by two distinctive pillars. The first was the residual of immigrant Catholicism, the Catholicism of the “Irish Catholic” or “Polish Catholic” (or Italian, Czech, German, etc.) American. These were Catholics who pursued the faith of their immigrant ancestors, attending Mass, joining the Knights of Columbus, wearing St. Anthony medals, and sending their kids to parochial schools.
The second major force in American Catholicism at this time was what has been called “Old Liberal” Catholicism. The Old Liberals were largely in sync with the intellectual trends of the New Left and the 1960s counterculture movement. While it would be unfair to label all the Old Liberals as “heretics,” it is true that some of the major Old Liberal figures professed views that at least appeared (and sometimes, in fact, were) heretical.
There was at this time a small but powerful group of Catholics, centered around ETWN, Ignatius Press, and budding “Newman Guide” colleges such as the Franciscan University of Steubenville and Christendom College, which could be called “conservative.” However, these conservatives were largely a minority voice. While conservative and liberal Catholics clashed with one another, both groups accepted the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council and the 1970 Novus Ordo Missae—although the two groups’ interpretation of the Council—as well as how the Novus Ordo should be said and celebrated—could vary quite widely.
Conservatives, traditionalists, and the current situation
John Paul II’s arrival in 1993 helped energize the Catholic conservative movement, making it eventually the dominant cultural force in American Catholicism, and inspiring a host of educational initiatives as well as the birth of new religious orders. While it would be difficult to succinctly define the JP II generation, a general description might be given. The John Paul II generation largely consisted of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and early Millennials who grew up, came of age, or had a conversion (or re-version) during the pontificate of John Paul II (1978-2005). Intellectually, they were shaped by Christian existentialism and phenomenology and largely read the Church’s Thomistic intellectual tradition through these lenses. They attended a reverent Novus Ordo Missae. As opposed to a “fortress mentality,” which sought to shut out the world, they attempted to evangelize pop culture and were largely immersed in the world. They accepted Vatican II and were influenced by the Christian Democratic movements of Europe as well as the neoconservative movement in the United States.
Traditionalism in the United States, both before and immediately after the emergence of the JPII generation, was considered largely a marginal phenomenon. The 1962 missal was considered an aesthetic preference for members of the Fraternity of St. Peter or those who attended the “indult mass,” allowing its celebration. Certainly, there were monarchists, various Chestertonians, and both young and old fogeys who desired a return to the “old world” of aristocratic customs and folk culture, but these were largely marginal phenomena. Breakaway groups such as the SSPX and sedevacantists were considered schismatic movements outside the fold, and they had very little effect on mainstream Catholic discourse.
Today, the situation has radically shifted. What is called traditionalist Catholicism is a strong, even dominant, voice in American conservative Catholic discourse. Views once considered verboten like sedevacantism; the illegitimacy of not only the Second Vatican Council, but even the First Vatican Council; the illegitimacy of not only the 1970, but even the 1962 missal; and a rejection of the Enlightenment, liberalism, and even modernity in general are now acceptable opinions, not only among American Catholics, but also among Protestants and even secular conservatives, who fall within the orbit of traditionalist discourse.
Traditionalism has been fueled by a variety of factors, but one of the most prominent is the rise of internet conspiracy culture. The overarching traditionalist conspiracy argues that a collaboration of communists, Freemasons, Jews, Western intelligence agencies, bankers, and other secret societies has infiltrated the Church and forced their fundamentally anti-Catholic ideas into the liturgy and doctrine of the Catholic Church. Until more recent revelations of horrific abuse in some traditionalist communities, the argument was made that the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church were tied to the apparent changes in doctrine and liturgy, and that good and holy priests who said some version of pre-1970 Catholic liturgy were immune to such faults.
A sympathetic but critical historian
French historian Yves Chiron (b. 1960), in his recent works, has explored some of the core pillars of traditionalist thinking, providing an objective analysis that topples some of the central trad shibboleths. At the same time, Chiron’s works are deeply sympathetic to the traditionalist movement. His biography of Pope St. Paul VI (“the divided pope”) depicts a well-intentioned, albeit liberal, pope who attempted to stymie the decline of Catholicism in Europe by modernizing the Church’s message. Chiron also notably puts to rest one of the key trad conspiracies about Paul VI’s personal life by noting that this harmful allegation has no substance and was fabricated by an Italian tabloid. Chiron’s biography of Annibale Bugnini likewise notes that, despite traditionalist claims, the archbishop was not even the main architect behind the 1970s missal, nor is there any evidence that he was a Freemason as some traditionalists claim.
In his most recent work, Between Rome and Rebellion: A History of Catholic Traditionalism with Special Attention to France, Chiron presents a comprehensive and sympathetic portrait of the traditionalist movement while also, as he does in other works, providing some major clarifications.
The first clarification is that the struggle between traditionalists and modernists predates the Second Vatican Council. This point is well-known throughout traditionalist and non-traditionalist circles. It begins in France with the French Counter Revolution, which began with Pius VI’s condemnation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the 1791 Civil Constitution of the Clergy and continued with Gregory XVI’s encyclicals Mirari vos (1832) and Singulari nos (1834) and Pius IX’s Quanta cura and the Syllabus Errorum (1864).
Traditionalism, in 19th-century France, was originally a movement that emphasized tradition vis-à-vis rationalist explanations of religion. Integralism commenced in Spain during the 1880s as an anti-liberal political movement under Ramón Nocedal Romea (1842-1907). In later 19th-century France, traditionalism took a more theological turn, being used by Catholics who wanted to defend Catholic theology against modernists who wanted to change it.
Pope Pius X famously condemned modernism as the synthesis of all heresies as opposed to a critical method. Benedict XV further renewed the condemnation of modernism in Ad Beatissimi. However, he noted, “Non nova, sed noviter” (Old things, but in a new way). Also, in order to eliminate “dissension and strife,” he argued that “no private individual, whether in books or in the press, or in public speeches, take upon himself the position of an authoritative teacher in the Church.” This is notable in the current age of social media magisterium, in which individual laymen appear to claim the ability to anathematize popes and to reject the canonization of saints.
Another important work is Cardinal Suhard’s Essor ou déclin de l’Église (1947). As a preliminary to Vatican II, John XXIII’s aggiornamento and Paul VI’s attempt to liberalize the Church’s presentation, Cardinal Suhard noted that the contemporary world had changed and was leaving the Church behind. Cardinal Suhard condemned both the innovators as well as those who refused any sort of accommodation with the modern world. He condemned both modernism and integralism. He also noted that Thomism is the official teaching of the Church, but that Thomas has not said everything to be said about philosophy.
Curiously, Suhard condemned integralism as being a secular and human endeavor. Interestingly, he further condemns those integralists who are “Christians of the Apocalypse and Parousia” who hold a worldview informed by Marian apparitions, mystics, and private revelations. He refers to this as excessive traditionalism that holds as being eternal what is not. This work is critical, for some traditionalists today claim support for their positions from Marian apparitions and other forms of private revelation.
The case of Archbishop Lefebvre
Archbishop Lefebvre, who appears in the chapter, “Archbishop Lefebvre, a Gentle Yet Unyielding Soul,” is one of the key figures in the book with whom American readers will be most familiar. While Chiron is sympathetic to Lefebvre, he lays out some clear criticisms—some of which are quite shocking. Lefebvre, for example, claimed to have received a vision in the cathedral at Dakar so he could found an international seminary in order to transmit the doctrinal purity of the Church and pass on the Catholic priesthood. This dream was then ratified by the mystic Marthe Robin.
This is a key point that Chiron handles with sympathy and tact: at least some traditionalists rely on private revelations to guide them. Even though it has been the tradition of the Church—encapsulated in the two great spiritual masters, St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross—said that private revelations and visions should be treated with extreme caution. Archbishop Lefebvre obtained permission from Bishop Adam of Sion on May 19, 1970, to have a year of spirituality in Écône; the bishop granted permission for a seminary in December 1970. However, it wasn’t until June 9, 1971, that Lefebvre decided to publicly reject the New Mass. As Chiron notes, at first, Lefebvre argued for the faithful to attend the new Mass and even stated that the new Mass was not “invalid and heretical.” However, he would later refuse to let his followers attend the Novus Ordo.
Archbishop Lefebvre ordained two priests in 1971 and received permission to ordain both of them. Even though there were conflicts with the French episcopate as early as 1961, due to his “integrist” beliefs, it could not be stated that Lefebvre was then in direct disobedience to the Church. However, bishops soon began withdrawing their seminarians from the archbishop’s coenobium. Chiron notes that while French seminaries were shrinking, Lefebvre’s was growing (his seminary was not, however, the only traditionalist one formed at this time).
The first public criticism of Lefebvre’s seminary came in 1972 as the French press condemned the seminary as a “wildcat seminary” (séminaire sauvage), which was first coined by Fr. Marcus, the superior of the seminary at Issy-les-Moulineaux. Fr. Marcus said something rather odd but important, which drives home the paradox of the Catholic life in the post-Vatican II Church. He condemned Archbishop Lefebvre as producing seminarians who would be “unrecognizable” to the Church. If Lefebvre was indeed providing a traditional formation of priests with traditional Catholic discipline, this means that the Church’s tradition before Vatican II is “unrecognizable”; this is a point Benedict XVI would later clarify with his hermeneutic of continuity.
In one sense, Chiron depicts Lefebvre as a sympathetic figure who was singled out by the French bishops’ conference, which did not want to deal with or dialogue with him. Archbishop Lefebvre, in response to this initial shunning in 1972, sent a letter to the French bishops noting that he had received approval for his work from Bishop Adam of Sion and Bishop Charrière of Fribourg. This point is crucial, for at this point, Lefebvre still viewed his work as part of the canonical structure of the Church. Chiron further notes that the French bishops had condemned Lefebvre’s work even before he publicly attacked the Novus Ordo Missae or Vatican II.
This point is also crucial, for Chiron, throughout Between Rome and Rebellion, as well as other works, notes that traditionalists were attacked and condemned even when they were not in open rebellion.
Lefebvre’s seminary at Écône continued to grow even though it was attacked by both the French episcopate as well as the secular press. Furthermore, despite the belief among some traditionalists today that Archbishop Lefebvre was the “leader” of the traditionalist movement, he did not consider himself as such and, at least initially, wanted only to be the head of his seminary. Nonetheless, Lefebvre’s increasingly strident attacks on the Novus Ordo Missae, as well as Vatican II, drew even more ire from European bishops. The SSPX, which founded a house near Rome in 1974, still had the approval of some bishops and largely operated within the canonical structure of the Church.
Archbishop Lefebvre received the now-famous apostolic visitation in November 1974 by Cardinals Garonne, Wright, and Tabera. Lefebvre and some of the seminarians later claimed that some of the visitors made heretical claims during the visits—including, allegedly, expressing doubts about the Resurrection of Christ. Chiron, however, wisely states that he only has one side of the story.
The major break came with Archbishop Lefebvre’s “Declaration” of November 21, 1974, which presented a contrast between “Eternal Rome” and the “perennial magisterium of all time” and “neo-modernist” Rome. This was a major public break in which Lefebvre implied that the Church in Rome was not the true Church, or at least had been corrupted and stands apart from the true Church. As Chiron notes, Archbishop Lefebvre would later express that the “Declaration” was written with “excessive indignation.” Moreover, even some of the professors at the seminary were worried by the Declaration, which, Chiron argues, was viewed as a “declaration of war.” At the same time, Chrion notes, Lefebvre also wanted to remain in unity with the pope.
Lefebvre was summoned to Rome in February and March 1975. In the second of these two meetings, Cardinal Garrone accused Lefebvre of teaching his seminarians to rely on “personal judgement” as well as attempting to form a “new Church.” Bishop Mamie of Fribourg withdrew the approval for the SSPX, and a commission of cardinals, with Paul VI’s approval, removed the canonical approval for the SSPX. Chiron quotes an article from Louis Salleron in Le Monde, which argues that the decision for the removal of the SSPX’s canonical status was not because of the SSPX’s adherence to the Latin Mass but because of the defiance of the Declaration.
This is one of Chiron’s key points throughout his work: traditionalists may have been treated unjustly at various points in the development of their movement, but there usually comes a point when some act of defiance facilitates a break with the Church. In June 1975, Paul VI asked for a public act of submission from Archbishop Lefebvre.
Defiance rather than obedience
One of the other key revelations of Between Rome and Rebellion is the belief, among some traditionalists, that near the end of 1976, there was a marked change in Lefebvre’s public statements and also his character and even mental health. Chiron handles this matter with tact but also with honesty. Dom Roy made this comment, and Cardinal Siri likewise allegedly planned to appeal to Paul VI on Archbishop Lefebvre’s behalf, claiming that Lefebvre had arteriosclerosis, which was impairing his judgment. The Abbot of Fontgombault likewise wrote to Paul VI, claiming that Lefebvre was suffering from health problems, which were impacting his cognitive functioning. Lefebvre’s friends further encouraged him to write a letter to Paul VI, affirming his obedience.
Presented with the explicit command to accept Vatican II and to say the Novus Ordo, Archbishop Lefebvre refused and went on to ordain 13 priests on June 29, 1976; he was then suspended a divinis on July 22. Thus, the SSPX would continue to function outside the canonical structure of the Church even to this day. Under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, however, those attached to the 1962 missal would be granted greater liberties, and Chiron hints that if the SSPX had not been defiant and had instead been patient, things would have improved.
The left-wing conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche (who later became a right-wing conspiracy theorist), who became entangled with traditionalist Catholics in Northern Virginia, once referred to traditional Catholicism as “a gnostic cult that has nothing to do with authentic Christianity.” This statement is unfair to the average Catholic layman in the pews. However, LaRouche’s claim does have some merit inasmuch it is directed toward certain cultural expressions of traditional Catholicism. At its heart, traditionalist Catholicism should be the desire to preserve the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.
That includes the desire to follow the Church’s authentic political teaching. All too often, however, various political and intelligence organizations have exploited this desire for their own ends. Moreover, as Yves Chiron has demonstrated, at least some (if not all) of the trad conspiracies are false, and there have been major issues and pathological behavior among some traditionalists since the beginning. If anything, the claim of “traditionalist” Catholic can be a distraction. If someone is not trying to follow the Church’s authentic teaching, what sort of Catholic are they? What is needed are those who do not prioritize ideologies or chase conspiracy theories, but seek to be, first and foremost, simply Catholic and a follower of Jesus Christ.
Between Rome & Rebellion: A History of Catholic Traditionalism with Special Attention to France
By Yves Chiron. Translated by John Pepino.
Angelico Press, 2024
Paperback/Hardcover/Ebook, 432 pages
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Was Paul VI merely a Conspiracy theorist when he ordered the 3 volmume Gagnon Investigation into Vatican Infiltration?
Was Pope Jean-Paul 1 a Conspiracy theorist when he attempted to Act upon the results of the Gagnon Report?
Was Francis 1 merely an anti-conspiracy activist when he cancelled the 2nd investigation into Vatican Infiltration he discovered left over from ppBXVI?
What Chiron dismisses as Internet Conspiracy theory actively involves Popes.
Wait, someone calling himself ‘Mr Cracked Nut’ is doubling down on conspiracies??? Who could have guessed such a turn of events.
Following Christ has a cliff of false teachings and practices on either side. St. Pius X (happy feast!) warned the faithful of Modernism. Rigorism is also to be rejected. Fidelity is neither.
We look to Christ and His Saints to guide us. Our enemy is sin. We worship the Loving God.
“The Holy Trinity of Divine Persons is eternally knit together by Charity.”
(St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapter 5)
I believe it was Aristotle who said “virtue is in the middle between the two extremes “
Christ taught that we have to choose Heaven with Him or Hell.
I think Br. Jacques was talking more about our Christian walk.
The Protestant preacher Charles Swindoll used walking on a tightrope as a metaphor for our journey in life. Christians feel the pull from both Justice & Mercy, Innovation & Tradition, Being in the World vs not. When either side relaxes its grip, the tightrope goes slack & we fall. A constant tension from either side keeps us balanced.
Coincidentally, the use of the word “shibboleth” caught my eye in the article when I read it this morning (8/21). Today’s first reading is the one from the book of Judges where “shibboleth” is used to determine who is from Ephraim. It’s fun when allusions match up with the daily readings in real time!
This is a very personally useful article – thank you, Jesse!
“Traditionalism has been fueled by a variety of factors, but one of the most prominent is the rise of internet conspiracy culture. The overarching traditionalist conspiracy argues that a collaboration of communists, Freemasons, Jews, Western intelligence agencies, bankers, and other secret societies has infiltrated the Church and forced their fundamentally anti-Catholic ideas into the liturgy and doctrine of the Catholic Church. ”
**********
Thank you for sharing that.
I love the TLM & have attended it often ever since Pope Benedict made that possible. In my former diocese we had a very diverse TLM community with people from all walks of life & ethnicities. The president of the local NAACP chapter came to our TLM & we would visit with him over coffee & doughnuts after Mass. I never heard any of these conspiracy narratives until TC & Oct. 7th. But I know this has been a problem going back in time. We were fortunate it didn’t affect our community until quite recently.
I’ve had to take a pause from the TLM. It was possible to avoid hearing really distressing racial & conspiracy nonsense by not attending TLM social gatherings but when it became a feature in the homilies that was a bridge too far.
My prayer is that enough people who value the TLM & our beautiful Catholic traditions will stand up to oppose this social contagion. The Left has its social media delusions & so do we.
Perhaps Christ allows the wheat and tares to grow together in His Church as well.
Tares are fertilised by social media I think.
This summary checks out with what I’ve watched happen with Traditionalists and RadTrads. France is the wellspring of these attitudes, perhaps a remote inheritance from Jansenism. (RadTrads are intensely Gallophilic.) But assuming the review covers all the book’s major elements, there are two gaping omissions: anti-Semitism and anti-feminism. The former extends well beyond the obsession with the “Judeo-Masonic conspiracy” and latter can sink to semi-Taliban depths. As a measure of the current confidence of Tradotionalism, compare an old paper issue of The Remnant with its slick current website.
Yes, what’s going with this nonsense Miss Sandra? I used to enjoy listening to Dr. Gavin Ashenden & I still respect him but the podcast channel he appears on did an interview with a Holocaust denying priest earlier this year. The guest priest claimed within the first 5 mins. of the interview that Jews had infiltrated the Church. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing & thought surely he’d said something like “Judas” not Jews. But no. I replayed the interview & it only got worse.
I’ve sat through homilies that referred to Jews as “Talmudists” & “Bankers” or claimed the USA & Israel were in a conspiracy together. We were told not to kneel on Good Friday during the prayer for the “talmudic peoples” even though we genuflect for everyone else. I was tempted to show up & kneel anyway but I resisted that & went to a different parish.
I’ve spoken to some of the people spreading these narratives. They are our brothers & sisters in Christ & I care about them. One recommended I listen to a YouTube podcaster for their perspective. I checked them out & it was yet another Holocaust denier.
It’s so sad .
Well, Mrs. Cracker, there’s a shameful line of antisemitism connecting Edouard Drumont in 19th C. France, to Irish Fr. Cahill to Fr. Denis Fahey to Fr. Coughlin in America. Watch out for anybody who uses the term “Talmudic Jews.” That’s a “tell.” It’s shorthand for a theory–prominent in the writings of Fr. Fahey–that by rejecting Christ ancient Jews also were also rejecting their ancestral faith, replacing the Torah with the Talmud and making world domination their racial goal.
Such ideas have been around for decades among RadTrads. Note: RadTrads are a minority, not to be confused with Traditionalists who simply love the Latin Mass. The most repulsive Catholic antisemite in media isn’t a Trad at all.
But Holocaust denial has been around since the event itself. It used to masquerade as “historical revisionism” but the old Jew-hatred is still there behind the mask. It’s out in the open more of late, with deniers getting interviews on prominent cable shows and podcasts. It’s only going to get worse because of events in the Middle East. Don’t fall for that smarmy line “I’m only asking questions. . . .”
I keep promising Carl an article about Catholic antisemitism. Watch this space.
I’ll be looking forward to that. Thank you, Miss Sandra.
We read: “Chiron’s biography of Annibale Bugnini likewise notes that, despite traditionalist claims, the archbishop was not even the main architect behind the 1970s missal, nor is there any evidence that he was a Freemason as some traditionalists claim.”
The article might footnote whatever it is that Chiron “notes” for this contrarian revelation.
As a watershed, we read: “John Paul II’s arrival in 1993 helped energize the Catholic conservative movement…”
In 1993 John Paul II also wrote “Veritatis Splendor” defending the natural law and moral absolutes, for the first time explicitly making this part of the magisterium (n. 115), and at the same time clarifying that: “[t]he Church is no way the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” (n. 95)! NEITHER TRAD NOR OTHERWISE!
So, today, how does the givenness (!) of human nature or the nature of Man fit in with distracting doctrinal turmoil of the post-Vatican II Church? In this 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, might the crisis of our time be less about the doctrinal nature of God than it is about the pre-doctrinal and inborn and universal nature of Man? We argue cerebrally about process theology–serious enough–while being consumed by tapeworms.
Evidence if found in entropic disintegration at all spiritual, political, social and psychological levels, and in the kissing-car[din]nal’s parallel-universe “Fiducia Supplicans.”
It’s a terrible shame you experienced negative people after Church Mrs C.
Isolated cases exist; none of that after my TLM on Sunday.
It is not because one penguin is black white and red, that all peguins are thus?
It was beyond negative Mr.Nut. It was surreal.
I don’t believe every TLM community or every TLM priest is like that but with social media today contagions can spread very quickly.
I’m very glad to hear you haven’t experienced that sort of thing. I hadn’t either until the past couple years. It’s been really sad for me because I valued the fellowship after Mass. These are otherwise good, devout Catholics but they’ve been taken down some very dark rabbit holes & need to be led back out into the light.
I think the most important thing for us as Catholics is to always and everywhere speak the truth boldly. That means when our confreres in the Church (no matter who they are) go off the rails (as all sinners are wont to do), we must speak out most decisively. One of the greatest problems we’ve had in the Church in modern times is a seriously chronic case of fecklessness even (and especially) among bishops. Catholics remain quiet and passive in the face of lunacy in the Church coming at us from all directions. This has not been salubrious for the Church. We can’t just go into our quiet little corner where it’s “just Jesus and Me.” Even in small monastic communities there is regular Chapter of Faults. Admonishing sinners is one of the corporal works of mercy.
I’ve met with some of those folks DR & even invited them to my home to discuss this. So far we’ve just agreed to disagree but I’m praying for them. As Christians we care for each other & for each other’s well being. This is something that’s grown not just because of TC or Oct. 7th but since the Covid lockdowns. I don’t know how many people’s mental health was affected by that but I keep encountering them.
Mrs C, sounds like “the Francis effect”. Persecution from Rome of TLM parishes worldwide did not do much for those of already suffering persecution complex…
PpF1 bombed traditionalist areas leaving groups with the gitters; watching healthy parishes closed on a papal whim was potentially toxic for some survivors…
I think folks who were set up for that sort of complex saw a justification of their worries under TC & things like the FBI investigation of Traditional Catholics. Some things that sound like paranoid delusions can in reality be factual. Other things aren’t. Since Covid it’s been harder to tell the difference.
I am certainly not as learned as many of those who comment on the various subjects addressed by “Catholic World Report.” But speaking as simply “an average Joe from the pew,” much of the divisiveness in the Church today can be attributed to a serious lack of transparency in Rome. The Holy Father could accomplish much in addressing the present divisions in the Church by providing some clarity to what has occurred during the pontificate of his predecessor. And by clarity, I mean reversal of those actions by Francis that actually harmed the unity of the Church. I remain skeptical that this will happen. While the Church has demonstrated great proficiency in apologies ad nauseum for various cultural offenses, there seems to be a real blindness in walking back the harm that has been done to its own members. Please pray for the Pope and all bishops.
Still too early in this pontificate, Jeff. I believe this man has the reputation of being very cautious and deliberative.
Jeff Reimers: you speak with much wisdom; erudition isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. That said, I’d recommend we not wait for Leo to be transparent (desirable, but might never happen). I say that it’s people like you the Church depends on to speak the truth boldly at all times. Present your thoughts on what you see happening. It’s the stuff martyrs are made of.
Amen.
Amen.
Well said Mr. Reimers. Amen.
“Chiron hints that if the SSPX had not been defiant and had instead been patient, things would have improved.” Just like the “faithful” trads of the FSSP, who in their infinite patience are still waiting for the bishop they were promised in 1988, and the unfettered entry into dioceses to serve the faithful everywhere who long for the TLM.
The SSPX aren’t the enemy. I wish more Catholics would figure that out & help mend this division. We need each other.
An interesting, certainly informative, somewhat suspect [in spaces] feat on the traditional Catholic getting it all wrapped up. Although, insofar as the latter it always appears too complex to precisely categorize when they’re so many moving parts.
Anybody who understands the origin of the term “conspiracy theory” would avoid it, as its creators coined it as a vaguely threatening, imputation of paranoia to be a weapon of summary dismissal-in other words name-calling.
In recent years,it has been deployed by mobs against people whose heterodox ideas turned out to be prescient than paranoid.
Amen.
I believe it is a very big mistake, if I understand Mr. Russell’s intentions (written at the end of his essay) to confine a concern to preserve Catholic tradition (in Mr. Russel’s text, the phrase is “traditionalist Catholicism”), solely to “the desire to preserve the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church.”
If that is Mr. Russell’s intention, then I would conclude that he sees little or nothing of teachable content about Catholic faith in the Church’s liturgy of The Mass.
That , if it is the case, would be a very “non-Incarnational” assumption about the culture of the Roman Catholic Church.
Amen.
This article falsely characterizes the positions of Catholics involved in what could loosely be termed the “Traditional Mass Movement” (i.e. Catholics who want a sane Sunday liturgy) by accusing us of delegitimizing Vatican II and the Novus Ordo. Very few people doubt that Vatican II was a legitimate ecumenical council, or that the Novus Ordo is a valid Mass. (Marcel Lefebvre himself, who signed all but two of the council documents, never made such claims.) The point is that BOTH were/are/have been utterly disastrous for the Church. But to go on and deplore that a “rejection of the Enlightenment, liberalism, and even modernity in general are now acceptable opinions,” as if this were a bad thing, illustrates this author’s serious disconnect from reality.
Amen.
One needs to remember that under Paul VI orthodox Catholics in positions of leadership were being steamrolled. That was the only way that religious orders, convents, hundreds of dioceses, could have been “reformed” overnight. Archbishop Lefebvre’s crime was to have enabled the now “unrecognizable” Catholicism of all time to continue, by training priests. Yves Chiron has not been tactful, but misleading, if he suggested that Archbishop Lefebvre “claimed to have received a vision in the cathedral at Dakar so he could found an international seminary”. He never claimed such a thing. Instead of stooping to insinuations about Archbishop Lefebvre’s mental stability, Chiron could have tried to explain the theological questions at issue.
Latin Mass enthusiasts who were “patient” with the steamroller have accepted the confusing innovations of Vatican II that make it somewhat unrecognizable – a new ordinary episcopal jurisdiction autonomous from that of the Pope (contradicting Mystici Corporis), false ecumenism, religious liberty etc. The “traditionalism” that this article refers to concerns these “patient” circles. Only among these do some question the First Vatican Council, or the Constitution of the Church, or the Tridentine reforms. Only here could “even secular conservatives… fall within the orbit of traditionalist discourse”, as this article states. High Church Conciliarists are not to be confused with Archbishop Lefebvre’s stand.
“The overarching traditionalist conspiracy argues that a collaboration of communists, Freemasons…”
Australian priest admits to being a freemason. “Fr. Kerry Costigan, now retired, of the Toowoomba Diocese in Queensland, contributed an article to the publication The Swag in which he admitted that he has been a member of the Ashlar Lodge for over ten years.”
French priest is a freemason. Paris, France, Jun 11, 2013 / 02:02 am MT (CNA). Bishop Yves Boivineau of Annecy in southeastern France has barred a local priest from public ministry after he was exposed as an active Freemason. Father Pascal Vesin, 43, was suspended for his active membership in a Masonic lodge of the Grand Orient of France. He became a member in 2001, five years after his 1996 ordination as a Catholic priest, the French newspaper Le Figaro reports.
Italian priest openly joins the freemasons. An Italian Paulist priest has become a member of the Masons, joining the group in a ceremony attended by about 40 people at the Masonic headquarters at Piazza del Gesu in Rome. Father Rosario Francesco Esposito dismissed the Church ban on membership in the Masonic lodge, saying that it is “a thing of the past.”
Jesuit founder of Costa Rica, Francisco Calvo, SJ, was claimed to be a known freemason by the Masons themselves.
Masons admit that Austrian priest is a freemason. Fr. Weninger, a former Austrian diplomat who was ordained in 2009 following the death of his wife, is a Mason and the chaplain of three Austrian Masonic lodges. In 2012, Pope Benedict appointed him to the Pontifical Commission for Interreligious Dialogue. On the podium with Fr. Weninger was Georg Semler, a self-described “committed Catholic” who is currently Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Austria.
“It’s possible to be a Catholic and a Freemason, because freemasons are ‘certainly not’ excommunicated, Father Michael Weninger, 68, claimed at a February 11 presentation of his book ‘Loge and Altar’ in Vienna.
The Austrian ‘Lodge of Mark Master Masons No. 1954’ writes (WordPress.EastLancsmark.org, October 14, 2014), that Weninger himself is a mason.
Almost all of my Protestant ancestors were Masons and so was Danny Thomas.
Unlike today, most men used to belong to fraternal organizations. And at least in UK and the US, Masons weren’t sinister operatives.
Masonry in other nations could look different. I think Protestants can have their conspiracy narratives about the Vatican and we have ours about Masons.
Catholics do not need “conspiracy narratives” about Masons in order for freemasonry to be considered an evil by the Church.
Freemasonry, of whatever stripe, is naturalistic and religiously indifferent and is, thus, incompatible with Catholicism, as every single pope who has ever dealt with the issue has ruled, including Pope Francis.
Freemasonry, even the most innocuous type, promotes religious indifferentism. A person cannot truly believe what the Catholic Church teaches and at the same time be a freemason. The two are diametrically opposed, and this includes the U.S. variety.
In order to fall under condemnation by the Catholic Church, Masons don’t have to be murdering little children in secret rituals or be “sinister operatives” with secret oaths and handshakes, plotting the overthrow of society. All they have to do to be incompatible with Catholic teaching is to conform to the masonic principles of naturalism and religious indifferentism. That is enough for their ideas to be condemnatory.
This is true, and it is why Catholics cannot be Masons, even though it is no longer explicitly forbidden in canon law.
I think a lot of Catholics who join the Masons are sufficiently badly formed in their faith that they don’t notice the heresy of religious indifferentism, have already thoroughly imbibed it from the culture at large.
From the article: “The overarching traditionalist conspiracy argues that a collaboration of communists, Freemasons…”
From various old news articles.
“Father Franzoni, 98 years old, joined the Communist Party in June despite church rules forbidding priests to join political parties. He was suspended from all priestly functions two years earlier because he supported Italy’s law permitting divorce. The priest resigned in July 3973 as abbot of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls monastery and basilica in Rome to work among the urban poor.”
Old Catholic Herald news article: Pope Paul has sharply criticised Catholic priests and laymen running as Communist Party candidates in the June 20 national Italian elections. He referred to them as “traitors”…
Vietnamese priests run for election to communist government.
From Viet Catholic News June 3, 2011: Reports published today by the Vietnamese Government’s National Election Council show that 7 Catholic priests have won seats in the National Assembly and Provincial Councils in the General Election held on last Sunday May 22.
Further in the article: The running of priests for communist ruling bodies caused heated debates among Vietnamese Catholics. The Code of Canon Law (285-3) forbids clerics from holding political office “if it means sharing in the exercise of civil power.” In an open letter to the Vietnamese hierarchy, several priests—including Father Nguyen Van Ly, a prominent dissident who has spent almost 15 years in prison—argued that membership in communist ruling bodies falls into that proscribed category, since these organs exist to legitimize and carry out decisions of the Communist Party. “It is clear from Church teachings that no true Catholic can ever be a Communist, or condone Communism,” the priests added. They asked the Vietnamese bishops to take disciplinary action against the priests who were candidates for election.
And of course there is the Patriotic Association, which is a communist organization.
“The overarching traditionalist conspiracy argues that a collaboration of communists, Freemasons…”
Final comment. The idea that communism and freemasonry have infiltrated the Catholic Church is not the sole province of “traditionalist” Catholics. The number of rank and file Catholics (or “Novus Ordo” Catholics, for lack of a better term) who believe that to be the case is far larger.
The majority of people who believe in the alleged apparitions of Garabandal are not “traditionalists,” as that term is commonly understood among Catholics today. The purported seers are what we would call “Novus Ordo” Catholics, but they have insisted over the years that there are priests who are communists.
Father Stefano Gobbi was certainly not a “traditionalist” (again, as that term is commonly used). Yet, he has stated in his book of alleged locutions that there are Marxist priests and that “ecclesiastical freemasonry” has infiltrated the priesthood and hierarchy.
Father Gobbi’s book has the imprimatur of at least 3 cardinals and one bishop (again, “non-traditionalists”). There are hundreds of “Novus Ordo” priests who follow his movement and tens of thousands of laity.
People who believe that Father Gobbi’s locutions are authentic also believe that the Church hierarchy and priesthood have been infiltrated by both communists and freemasons, as that is a significant claim in his book.
Those people also believe that the alleged apparitions of Medjugorje are authentic, as Father Gobbi makes that claim in his book. The two are necessarily tied.
All this to state: The number of “non-traditionalist” Catholics who believe that the Church has been infiltrated by communists and freemasons is far greater than the number of “traditionalists” who exist, and such a “non-traditionalist” number includes hundreds of priests, some bishops, and even some cardinals.
“Traditionalists” do not have the market cornered in that regard. Most who believe it are run of the mill Catholics who attend the new Mass.
What you have stated is obviously true. I live and work at a major center of “charismatic” Catholicism, and I have noted that a very high percentage of “charismatics” believe in all sorts of communist and Masonic infiltrations into the Church, and in general, they entertain a great many “end-of-times” prophecies and conspiracy theories. On the other hand, having attended the TLM at many SSPX, FSSP and independent chapels, as well as diocesan TLMs, I have never once heard a homily about communists, Free Masons, private doom revelations, or any other conspiracy theory. Nothing but solid preaching on the Gospel. The author of this article has merely exposed his own extreme paranoia about the Traditional Mass Movement.
Regarder et voyer!!! la Mère de Dieu Avec le Christ mourant de faim et de soif. Je n ais pu vous faire parvenir mon image d une femme et son enfant mourant de soif et de faim a gaza ses ce que Dieu ma fait voir!!! Amen
This has to be the dumbest article I’ve read on this website, and embodies everything I hate about “conservative” Catholicism. Slandering traditionalist and integralist Catholics trying to defend the perennial teaching of the Church and the Social Kingship of Christ the King is what conservatives do best. This article itself is riddled with lies and reeks of the modernism in conservative “Catholic” circles. Let me break it down.
1. One of the cunning word games conservative modernists (like this author) tries to do is paint integralists and modernist as two sides of the same coin. He first the false claim that integralism is a secular and human endeavor. That is just an outright lie. Integralism seeks to restore the Social Kingship of Christ the King and usher in a truly Catholic society. It seems this moronic author never bothered to read the Josias website, or the works of integralists like Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius IX, Pope Pius X, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Pope Gelasius, or St. Thomas Aquinas. Integralism is the unbreakable and infallible teaching of the Church throughout it’s thousands of years of history. Modernism erupted in the twentieth century, and was all about forcing Catholic to embrace the demonic evil of classical liberalism and the enlightenment.
2. Again, with Lefebvre. This is a favorite tactic of conservative modernist heretics. Use Lefebvre to bash traditionalists over the head to embrace the satanic evils of classical liberalism and the enlightenment. While Lefebvre was wrong to do the consecrations, the Vatican (under the guidance of the current modernist Cardinal Ratzinger) refused to answer his calls for more doctrinal clarity on the ambiguity of Vatican II’s statements.
3. Trying to paint the Traditionalist Catholics who defend the unbroken tradition of Church doctrine as “gnostic cultists” by bringing up the testament of one far-right activist is just pathetic.
4. Us Integralist and Traditionalist Catholics are actually trying to read Vatican II in light of Church teaching. Seperation of Church and State and embraced of the satanic evils of Classical Liberalism, the satanic liberal conception of religious freedom, the American founding, and the Enlightenment were never supported by Vatican II. But the author denounces any Catholic who rejects these evils as heretics.
5. Conservative Catholics are just as bad as progressives, and equally as modernist. They destroyed the Social Kingship of Christ the King, rendered society and the state completely secular, and now are shocked that society has turned godless. Obviously, younger Catholics are turning to Traditionalism and Integralism because it is the truth of the Catholic faith in action, and seeing through this conservative modernist lies.
6. Catholics who support the Enlightenment, Classical Liberalism, Americanism, and the satanic ideas of the American founding are heretics. They are also ignorant of the fact that LGBT rights, mass apostasy and heresy, porn, abortion, and birth control are the logical conclusion of the American founding, Enlightenment, and Classical Liberalism.
As a final message, the conservative and neo-conservative modernist heretic movement is dead, and has been a poisonous stain on the Church. They are no better than the progressive modernists, and now a truly Catholic movement (Integralist and Traditionalists) are rising up against the satanic evils of the Enlightenment, Classical Liberalism, and the American founding. Classical liberalism will die it’s well deserve death.
P.S.: John Courtney Murray was exposed by David Wemhoff as a CIA agent, heretic, and traitor to the Catholic Faith who had no influence on Vatican II.
“I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the world of all governments. If you must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be.”
(C. S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. page 81)
So? Where in this mess because of the Enlightenment and Classical Liberalism. The Middle Ages where the thousand year of peace. The Protestant Revolt, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution where all satanic rebellions against God the Faith, and as a Catholic Integralist I refuse to bow to the satanic idologies of 1776 and 1789. You Americanist heretics can still hold unto the heresies of the vile traitor Murray. But God and history has validated us integralists, while you satanic classical liberals have been proven wrong!
God endowed us with free will. As such, He trusts his creation more than you do. Your position is not Christian. It’s closer to radical Islam.
“Render unto Caesar… and unto God…” (Matthew 22:21)
“My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)
And the call to work towards building the City…
“Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
Also, if you want to why the satanic, anti-God, and anti-Catholic abomination of the Enlightenment, French Revolution, and American Founding is violently opposed the Catholic Faith, read the works of Solange Hertz and Christopher Ferrara. They opened my eyes and cured me of conservativism (which is just classical liberalism) and Americanism. They are the ones who started me down the path to the truth of integralism and traditionalism. The Left are fulfilling the satanic ideologies of the American Founding, and I believe the founders would completely approve of abortion, LGBT rights, and the destruction of Catholicism.
I re-read the essay and respond on 3 of the themes therein:
A. the “apparent versus actual” heresy among the major figures of “the Old Liberals” in the Church;
B. faulting “traditionalists [for] rejecting The Enlightenment and modernity;” and
C. the suggestion that “His Excellency” Annibale Bugnini is unfairly blamed for the implied failures of the fabrication and implementation of Paul VI’s “New Order of the Roman Rite” of the Mass.
A. Actual Heresy of Old Liberals in the Church. Among the actual heresies in evidence among “Old Liberals,” there is this heresy held and published and taught for 50 years by a man of high office: Jesus did not have a bodily resurrection, he only “obtruded in the spirit.” This heresy is held, taught and published by the Reverend and then Bishop and then Cardinal Walter Kasper, and he was promoted to teaching office (Bishop) AFTER he published his heresy, which remains in print, and is used in seminaries and colleges throughout the Catholic world, in his book “Jesus the Christ” (1974, re-issued 2011). The heretical book is “recommended” by “His Eminence” Cupich, a “new liberal” of Chicago.
B. Rejecting The Enlightenment and Modernity. I can only add to the comments already made by Timothy Williams. It seems to me that this “crutique” of traditional-minded people is unintentionally “praising with faint damns.” Is there now a presumption that Catholic people are expected to offer their uncritical assent to the magisterium of Descartes, Kant and Nietzhe?
C. As to Bugnini. We have, courtesy of Fr. Louis Bouyer, in his Memoirs, the benefit of a first person account of Bugnini (and what the late Laszlo Dobssy calls “The Bugnini Mass”). Fr. Bouyer, who served on the committee that Bugnini ran, to come up with a new mass, recounts in detail how Bugnini would lie to the face of commitee members that Paul VI was demanding changes that were in fact desired by Buginini, and then when Bugnini presented the changes to Paul VI, who expressed concern (etc), Bugnini would then lie to the face of Paul VI, and tell him that the committee were unanimous in urging the changed fabricted by Bugnini. Bouyer summed up Bugnini as a man “as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty.”
For your Bugnini files:
What I Didn’t Know about Bugnini and the Liturgy
By Julia Meloni April 25, 2019
That is eye-opening.
Bugnini can be understood as the extension through time from Fatima August 1917, of the Lodge trying to take control. Continuing trying to wrest control and claim to have authority. Without having to become clerics bona fide, they could be in the Church and never have to answer before official tribunal as heretics, schismatics, etc., nor for what they would do and say as laymen and women. Yet be authoritarian and subversive and taken as authentic and legitimized, as it would suit.
Among the many things that catch them, they immediately fall foul through mere intention.
DJR, I was riveted to the screen, thanks for the thorough overview.
If the Catholic “village” had been taken over by New World Order, pragmatic acquiesence to NWO ideology would replace Catholic Truth on faith and morals. There would be an outright repression against recalcitrant pockets of authentic Catholic resistant from underground China to downtown Glasgow.
Any suggestion that this is indeed the actual situation is to be firmly condemned as conspiracy theory and blue pill books are required reading, framing all resistance to 1789 as absurd.
Glasgow you say?
https://www.ncregister.com/news/scottish-police-arrest-pro-lifer-outside-abortion-facility
Amanda, you doubling down on conspiracy theory too? Don’t let Vince catch you!
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23495836.glasgow-decision-cancel-thriving-latin-mass-sparks-fury/