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Tantum_ergo
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Decided to post a poll on whether or not to use the term TINO. Check it out and vote! (especially if you have a better idea, that’s option 4.)
LOL!Decided to post a poll on whether or not to use the term TINO. Check it out and vote! (especially if you have a better idea, that’s option 4.)
Frankly, I find it a label with no real meaning. Qualifiers such as “Latin Rite Catholic, Anglican Use Catholic, Maronite Catholic, Melkite Catholic” have actual meaning. Traditional Catholic, conservative Catholic, liberal Catholic do not.Does one have to go to Tridentine Mass to be a Traditional Catholic? How would you all define Traditional Catholic? Also what would be an an example of someone that is not a Traditional Catholic?
I can’t imagine what you mean.Anglican Ordinate [not related to Anglicans]
I hope you get the idea.
Precisely this. Moreover as was stated elsewhere, the term “Traditional Catholic” has no canonical status.Frankly, I find it a label with no real meaning. Qualifiers such as “Latin Rite Catholic, Anglican Use Catholic, Maronite Catholic, Melkite Catholic” have actual meaning. Traditional Catholic, conservative Catholic, liberal Catholic do not.
I quite like the way the moderator of this sub-forum has qualified the traditional Catholicism sub-forum: Discussion of Catholic traditions and customs. The sub-forum, some years back, was given a “facelift” as they called it, to move it in this different direction, which the moderator explains in his “sticky note.”
As it is too often used by certain Catholics, both those who self-identify as such or are identified as such by others, “Traditional Catholic” is weaponised…as, in fact, are other labels with qualifiers attached.
Indeed. I don’t have to imagine, actually. I have the same reaction.As you can imagine I have a hard time holding back laughter when I see the label “traditional Divine Office” on the 1960 Breviary!
I had left your post and this thread…but I have swung back to it because of something you wrote.Much of what I read among “traditionalists” here seems to me in reality nostalgia for a certain snapshot in time, /…/
Father,I had left your post and this thread…but I have swung back to it because of something you wrote.
Nostalgia I can understand. I experience it when I think back to people of years long past to whom I was close and who are now gone. I can experience it when I am in particular places where notable things happened regarding me in times past. Sometimes, the nostalgia can be very strong indeed.
I have much more problem understanding the phenomenon, however, when it comes to people who did not live through an epoch who exhibit…I don’t even know what to call it in English. Romanticism, perhaps.
One of the most comical things I have encountered here in my time on this forum are the references to “veiled women” and “veiling.” It is incomprehensible to me. It makes my mother and my grandmother sound like they were exotic figures emerging from a souk. Nothing was further from the truth. They did not wear anything reminiscent of veils at all.
Nor was there some esoteric spirituality to covering their heads anymore than my father saw some profound spiritual or mystical meaning in putting on a coat and tie or wearing a hat. He was as happy as my mother when hats went out of fashion for men; he threw his into the garbage. I have memories of my father and his hats until he could be rid of them…and then they were discarded and he never wore a hat for the rest of his life.
The same is true with the whole matter of an eastward orientation. It was one of six of the churches around me in my young days, as I go back and think about it…all obviously built well before the Council…where the altar for the vetus ordo Mass faced East.
As for us praying, we did not stop to turn and face East. So young people today, who were not there, try to tell me that there was “liturgical East”. Of course, I remember when the phrase came into vogue…long after the Council. I served in a couple of Churches where, if the direction that the altar faced had been “liturgical East” then every direction was East since the principal altar, the side altars in the upper church and the crypt chapel with its altars would combine to face every direction of the compass.
So many who were part of the Council are now gone to God…so few are left…and fewer with each passing month. When everyone is gone, it would be interesting to hear conversations…when there is no one who can still say, “Oh, that’s silly. That is not how it was at all.”
One hears things about what some of us, who are still alive, lived that has more fantasy about it than nostalgia, to be perfectly honest.
No, I don’t think that at all. I do think that what many label as “traditional” often most certainly is not (like the 1960 breviary example), but that is merely a lack of knowledge or a mistaken nostalgia if anything.Box myself in? Box myself in? “Narrow”?
It sounds as though you think all Catholics who for a variety of reasons, and usually when queried by somebody who sees them doing something that the other person associates with ‘nutcase narrow-minded old fogeys’ or ‘weird thing I never saw another Catholic do’, mention that they ‘happen to like a certain traditional practice’ all are doing the same narrow, limited, nostalgia-inducing things that the Church “wisely left behind after Vatican II” and that only the ‘modern’ Catholic is the one who is out there exploring a wonderful, open, varied and relevant practice of the evolving and ‘improved’ Catholic faith.
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The problem with this otherwise extremely well expressed post is not so much that people who like traditional things are the ones placing themselves in the box, it’s that people who enjoy some of the things (and the mainly negatively-perceived ones especially that I listed) are placed in the box by others.No, I don’t think that at all. I do think that what many label as “traditional” often most certainly is not (like the 1960 breviary example), but that is merely a lack of knowledge or a mistaken nostalgia if anything.
Tantum Ergo, I think you’re overthinking this. We are either Catholic, or we’re not. We don’t need labels.
Those who are are toxic or in schism don’t need any “Catholic” label, because they have placed themselves outside the Church. Our goal should be to “pray” them back into the Church and evangelize. Don’t give them a label that legitimizes their position. Instead be solicitous for them for the sake of their souls.
For those of us in the Church, we have a rich patrimony of traditions, practices, observances, prayers and liturgies; some are newer than others. Some, like the Benedictines go back before Trent some 1500 years. Some, like the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, are recent (1955). Even Gregorian chant, though it has ancient roots, in its modern use is somewhat still a novelty, as the restoration only dates back about 150 years or so. Then there are some very modern movements like Charismatics, or Taizé.
The age and source of these rich parts of the Church’s patrimony doesn’t matter. We are Catholic which means universal. It doesn’t mean uniform. We are all free to borrow from those parts of the patrimony that speak to us. Real Catholics don’t go into schism over different spiritualities… we found new religious orders and congregations instead!
It’s why I eschew the label “traditional” even though I’m devoted to some traditional elements of Catholic piety such as Western Monasticism, plainchant, and praying the Hours. In others I very much embrace modern trends such as the vernacular where appropriate, the OF Mass versus populum, the new breviary, etc.
So no boxes please. Instead the ability to build our own personal and authentically Catholic spirituality borrowing those elements that reach our hearts. For many, that may be something which includes most of the elements that those who label themselves “traditionalist” embrace. So be it. The problem with boxes and labels though, is that they end up creating “us vs them” mentalities and that’s not a healthy thing to have inside the Church. We are all in the barque of St. Peter trying to navigate dangerous waters together. Let’s not try to place divisions among us or we not only may rock the boat, we may make it capsize.
I think it’s just that the word “traditionalist” has become loaded in the Catholic context. There are those who use the label in a derisory way to denigrate those with attachment to some older forms of piety, and there are those who impose it on themselves to “circle the wagons” and keep out people who don’t think the way they do (trust me the latter exists). Part of the problem too is that “traditions” of the Church is a moving target. The Church continues to evolve, as does her liturgy. So yes, often “traditionalist” becomes a snapshot in time (in the Catholic usage). There are some, for instance, who can’t brook the 1955 Holy Week changes. So you have pre-55 and post-55 “traditionalists”! You have “traditionalist” laity attached to the 1960 Breviary that in the first place isn’t “traditional” and in the second, that was almost never prayed by the Laity except in the public celebration of Vespers from time to time or when visiting religious communities. Hardly a “tradition”!The problem with this otherwise extremely well expressed post is not so much that people who like traditional things are the ones placing themselves in the box, it’s that people who enjoy some of the things (and the mainly negatively-perceived ones especially that I listed) are placed in the box by others.
So we have to immediately distance ourselves from any kind of ‘label’ by saying, “oh no, I may like this and this and this but I’m not ‘r-d trad’” and we hear, "but I saw or heard people who like exactly the same things you do and they proudly identify as traditionals and they want to bring back some ‘idealized time’ therefore so do you.
Why is this one word ‘traditional’ made to mean only one thing when it comes to the Catholic Faith?
Why is it that I can say I like traditional recipes, and I feel like I’m a traditional kind of cook, and nobody thinks I’m trying to warp the world back to the 19th century?
Why is it that I can say I like traditional crafts, and consider myself a traditional craftsperson, and nobody thinks I’m trying to get everybody to give up machine made goods and wear burlap and eschew electricity for home-dipped candles?
BUT if I say I like Catholic traditions and feel like I’m a traditional kind of Catholic, suddenly I’m a crazy, ‘nostalgia-driven’, rigid, backwards dragging Neanderthal who is trying to make ‘all Catholics’ go back to some fantasy world?
Why is that?
Hi Richard, I have placed numbers before each of your 3 points for easy following[1] Does one have to go to Tridentine Mass to be a Traditional Catholic? [2] How would you all define Traditional Catholic? [3] Also what would be an an example of someone that is not a Traditional Catholic?
Sorry, to have to disagree with “THIS WOULD BE THE MATURE DECISION”I wouldn’t confuse different rites of the Mass with traditionalism. In my view there is Catholic and everything else. If you are a Catholic you believe, and to the best of your ability, live ALL the teachings of the church. If you find you can’t, you leave the church. This would be the mature decision. You DO NOT make up your own religion by picking and choosing what you can live and pretend it is Catholicism.
VERY WELL DONEHi Richard. Peace in Christ:
‘Traditional Catholic’ is not a recognized status in the Catholic Church. You will not find it in canon law, Papal documents, or Ecumenical Council documents.
If we apply ‘Traditional’ as it is used in the Catechism, then I suppose a ‘non-Traditional Catholic’ would be somebody who is not in conformity to Church doctrine. They would be heterodox. Although these are not terms that are formally used. ‘Traditional’ is a redundant adjective because that is inherent to being a Catholic, as opposed to protestant, whereas ‘Latin’ or ‘Byzantine’ would not be redundant since they are referring to specific rites.
The three sources of authority of the Catholic Church are Scripture, Tradition (i.e. the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, among many other things), and the Magisterium. All three are interlinked with one another since Scripture is born from Tradition and Tradition conforms to Scripture, and the Magisterium protects, explains, and disseminates them.

You should try attending Mass at a Benedictine monastery. I see you’re in Canada. If you ever attended at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Quebec, you’d find everything you say, but in the Ordinary Form Mass: incense, Gregorian chant sung a cappella, pipe organ. However as is customary at many Benedictine monasteries (and this pre-dates Vatican II), the tabernacle is in a beautiful side chapel that is conducive to silent contemplation and adoration.Pax et Bonum! I consider myself to be traditional in my tastes and the Mass I attend. It is not about what I am wearing, but more about the way the Mass was celebrated dating back in history and before the Vatican 11 changes. This does not make me an old fuddy duddy or someone who resists change and my age and life have proven this out.
I like incense and Gregorian music with no instruments or just the organ and the tabernacle to be the main centered and obvious focus before Mass and after Mass for private prayer. The respect presented by an individual (when not an act), is something to be cherished and passed on to children. I prefer the quiet mystical contemplative mood of the Tridentine Mass, well-behaved children and adults during Mass.
This also does not mean I never attend the Novus Ordo. angeltime![]()
Pax et Bonum! tks for the info about the Bendictines; I may get there sometime! You are right reverence is not the monopoly, but it certainly is an obvious improved behavior. This seems to me too, to be a reflection of the disposition of the individual; not judging - just noticed. angeltimeYou should try attending Mass at a Benedictine monastery. I see you’re in Canada. If you ever attended at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Quebec, you’d find everything you say, but in the Ordinary Form Mass: incense, Gregorian chant sung a cappella, pipe organ. However as is customary at many Benedictine monasteries (and this pre-dates Vatican II), the tabernacle is in a beautiful side chapel that is conducive to silent contemplation and adoration.
Closer to Montreal, the Benedictine cloistered nuns of Ste-Marie-des-Deux-Montagnes would offer a similar experience and moreover a couple of days a week the Mass is entirely in Latin. Also in the Ordinary Form.
Reverence is not the monopoly of the EF!!!

