Starting in 1968, Catholics United for the Faith did enormous patient, tedious, but productive work behind the scenes to address catechetical and liturgical abuses. They didn’t win all their struggles, but in most dioceses helped facilitate better religion texts and fewer liturgical abuses. Usually it was a case of communicating abuses to proper authorities, demonstrating the damage done by certain abuses, and getting information out to the laity about what the Church actually teaches.
They seldom got credit for the genuine improvement they brought about. The media was constantly teasing them to denounce the very liberal bishop in our diocese, but CUF never would (though they ****discretely ****communicated with him when they disagreed with something). They didn’t want to weaken the office of bishop, and we now have a far more conservative bishop.
The SSPX local chapel began in the 1970s, when we had no access to any kind of Latin Mass, and the diocese was very liberal. Today there are 2 diocesan Masses, We have a very different kind of diocese, but the chapel still maintains the same fortress posture - not against the secular world, but against the diocese that they had in the 1970s.
Instead of doing the patient productive work of CUF, I see CM taking on the SSPX kind of response. It is like a workman who only knows how to use one tool.
