I believe that all good people of faith, any faith, like tradition, because it gives faith a sense of grounding and continuity.
That being said, people do not like being reminded over and over again that the way the mass was celebrated prior to Vatican II was the best thing since sliced bread and the mass after Vatican II was moldy. For those of us who came into the Catholic world during the OF this becomes annoying. I for one converted to Catholicism when there was nothing but the OF. Had it been so inferior, I would not have loved the mass and the Eucharist as much as I do. I think that I speak for others when I say that we get tired of people making comparisons between the two forms of the mass and claiming that one is superior to the other.
As to abuses, speaking to older priests who grew up with the EF, I have learned that there were abuses there as well. Abuse is not built into the liturgy in either form. Abuse comes from attitudes that people have about their self-importance. People who believe that their ideas are better than those of others or that their needs have greater priority than those of others tend to build things into the mass to serve their interests. Such selfishness can be found in any form of the mass, because it stems from the sinful condition of man, not the mass itself. It would be nice to hear someone who lived with the EF admit that there were abuses and posibly are still some within the EF.
In reading an article about a sermon given by one of the SSPX bishops at a mass, I was not impressed when the sermon turned into a rant against the Vatican rather than a reflection on scripture and a proclamation of the Good News. Such a rant is an abuse as well. The sermon is not the place to air out oneâs laundry. Therefore, it is very unappealing to hear of the reverent and faithful priests who celebrate the EF vs the irreverent priests who celebrate the OF, when you hear of a homily turned into proselityzing against Rome. This kind of traditionalism, if it can be called that, is regretable and bothersome.
Another annoying behaviour found among many (not all) traditional Catholics is the constant quoting of what former popes said about ecumenism, religious liberty and the liturgy. Or what someone wrote in a book. To the well educated Catholic mind it begs several questions. 1) How do you know that Pope X in 1600 was right and Pope John Paul II in 2000 was wrong? What if it was the other way around? What if Pope X was wrong and Pope John Paul is correctly interpreting a concept or interpreting ecclesiology correctly?
Just because something has been around for a long time does not mean that anything that came after it is wrong, because it is worded differently. It may be speaking to a different circumstance in Church history. Those who quote this author and that author to defend their traditionalist views, but do not quote John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II or Benedict XVI, often leave a bad taste in peopleâs mouths. Because it seems as if they place greater trust in a particular author who supports a certain viewpoint, but they do not trust the Pope who was given the authority to lead the Church and who has a better understanding of the Church, because he sees the bigger picture better than author X. This is also annoying to any Catholic who loves tradition, but includes in his tradition love, reverence and obedience to the Pope, not because he is God, but because heâs the Pope. If I had to choose betweent he best writer out there and the Pope, I would rather take my chances with the Pope unless he is preaching sin.
I donât like it when people say that popes can teach sin as if the rest of us didnât know Church history. Of course they can and have done so. But none of us can put a finger on a single thing that modern popes have expected or directed that is materially sinful. Just because it is different from what was said before, it does not mean that it is a sin or that the Pope has stopped believing in what was said before. It can mean that the contemporary pope is building on what a predecessor said or sees the circumstances as different and has to make a different statement, not to deny what came before, but to address what is happening today and what works today. The inability of some traditionalists to weave papal teachings together and their insistence that the popes of yesteryear were right and todayâs popes are wrong, is an offense to the intelligent Catholic who can see the connection and the reason for restating something
Itâs as if the person were trying to tell us that we do not understand Catholicism. Only he or she does, because he has a grip on something that Pope Pius X said. But why such people canât take something that Pius X said and something that John Paul II said and weave it together as one continuous idea approached from different perspectives by different people in different times is beyond me. Itâs almost insulting to those of us who can do so.
The use of the terms modern and modernist interchangeably is an insult to those Catholics who are well educated and know the difference between the two. Worse is the interchangeable use between the word new and modernist. Because something is new does not make it modernist. The incorrect use of language makes traditionalism sound horrible, when in fact it is not horrible.
Then there are too many apriori assumptions made by some postes that contemporary Catholics no longer appreciate such devotions as the rosary, Benediction, the Blessed Sacrament or the priesthood. This is a generalization that does not apply to every contemporary Catholic and is unfair.
Finally, there are some traditionalists who want to do battle over Vatican II, ecumenism, liturgy and form, but sow little interest in traditional mysticism, the virtues of endurance, humility and obedience which have been part of the Churchâs traditional spirituality and asceticism for 2000 years. That lifestyle is equally important to the existence and growth of the Church as any encyclical ever written. There are some exemplary contemporary saints that are rarely mentioned by some traditionalists who exemplify traditional faith and adherence to the Church such as St. Faustina, Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Bl. John XXIII, St. Alberto Hurtado, St. Padre Pio, St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein. These holy men and women were canonized or beatified after Vatican II and they have much to offer Catholics by way of traditional love of prayer, silence, obedience, humility, suffering, endurance, charity and evangelical living. The failure to mention them or even bring them up on traditionalist forums makes one wonder if they are appreciated by traditionalists.
I do not believe that traditionalists are all cut of the same bolt of cloth as many of the ones who post on CAF. I have met and worked with many who are very devoted to a life of penance, prayer, virtue, and reform from within the Church without going out of their way to find only the faults of the Church. One who comes to mind is Cardinal Sean OâMalley of Boston. He is a very holy friar who continues to observe the Franciscan tradition, despite his ascension to the College of Cardinals. He even continues to wear the traditional friarâs habit of poverty and penance, instead of the regal red robes of a cardinal.
There is not such thing as traditional Catholicism that people donât like. It is the way that people present Catholicism that people donât like, whether they are presenting it from a traditional perspective or a very contemporary perspective. If itâs only condemnation and criticism of the Church and the spirituality of fellow Catholics, it gets old and fails to cultivate a real spirit of prayer, penance, charity and humility. It appears to lack an effort to weave together the teachings of the Church from its birth to today. It seems that while the liberals seem to push the Church forward into some chaotic spirituality that they call Catholic, others seem to want to hold the Church hostage in the past instead of seeing the relationship between what has been handed down from the past and what the Church (not some individual) is giving us today.
This lack of intellectual honesty is not only found among the so called progressive Catholics, but among some traditionalist Catholics.
I for one prefer to be a Catholic (without labels) who loves the tradition of the Church and finds the continuity of our faith in what the Church teaches today as well as what she taught centuries ago.
JR
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