Traditional Catholics

[BernadetteM]

If you consider yourself a traditional Catholic in the most extreme sense, does that mean that you don’t consider the OF valid? Do you still feel that Pope Benedict is the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church?

I was wondering as on a Traditional Catholic website almost all the posters seem to find fault with everything that is not pre VII.

If a Catholic rejects the Holy Father’s decision on allowing certain liturgies or devotions and almost everything else that comes from Rome do they still consider themselves part of the Catholic Church under the Papacy or do they consider themselves the True Catholics and everyone else are not fully Catholic.

I feel sad when reading these types of posts, as it seems they have set themselves apart from the whole Church.

From the posts here on CAF I don’t find that the traditionalists in general think that way, but was wondering if there is a line that one crosses where you only attend the EF and if one is not available would miss Mass.

I see the Church as welcoming and pastoral. Of course there are individual priests and Bishops who are less pastoral, but this is true on both the more traditional side and the less traditional side. Hopefully they are the exceptions, not the rule.

Although the site does not claim to be SSPX, there are members who are. The bottom line is can you be a traditional Catholic without this narrow mindset?

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

 

[corsair]

I consider myself to be extraordinarily Traditional. I attend the EF as often as I can afford to travel the 120 miles each way. If I can find any licit EF Mass to attend I will go. When I can’t, I go to the OF. The Pope has said that it is the Mass and I will take his word for it even though I don’t care for it.

 

[m134e5]

If you consider yourself a traditional Catholic in the most extreme sense, does that mean that you don’t consider the OF valid? Do you still feel that Pope Benedict is the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church?

I was wondering as on a Traditional Catholic website almost all the posters seem to find fault with everything that is not pre VII.

If a Catholic rejects the Holy Father’s decision on allowing certain liturgies or devotions and almost everything else that comes from Rome do they still consider themselves part of the Catholic Church under the Papacy or do they consider themselves the True Catholics and everyone else are not fully Catholic.

I feel sad when reading these types of posts, as it seems they have set themselves apart from the whole Church.

From the posts here on CAF I don’t find that the traditionalists in general think that way, but was wondering if there is a line that one crosses where you only attend the EF and if one is not available would miss Mass.

I see the Church as welcoming and pastoral. Of course there are individual priests and Bishops who are less pastoral, but this is true on both the more traditional side and the less traditional side. Hopefully they are the exceptions, not the rule.

Although the site does not claim to be SSPX, there are members who are. The bottom line is can you be a traditional Catholic without this narrow mindset?

A true traditional Catholic doesn’t reject the Pope or attack clergy they disagree with (exposing error when it needs to be is one thing- attacking the clergy is another- some don’t know the difference). A true traditional Catholic loves the priest because of what God has done through him- even if that priest cannot recognize that in himself. A true traditional Catholic will strive above all for his own holiness, and will work to make sure that they are not a stumbling block for others’ salvation.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

If you consider yourself a traditional Catholic in the most extreme sense, does that mean that you don’t consider the OF valid? Do you still feel that Pope Benedict is the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church?

I was wondering as on a Traditional Catholic website almost all the posters seem to find fault with everything that is not pre VII.

If a Catholic rejects the Holy Father’s decision on allowing certain liturgies or devotions and almost everything else that comes from Rome do they still consider themselves part of the Catholic Church under the Papacy or do they consider themselves the True Catholics and everyone else are not fully Catholic. … I feel sad when reading these types of posts, as it seems they have set themselves apart from the whole Church. … Hopefully they are the exceptions, not the rule. … The bottom line is can you be a traditional Catholic without this narrow mindset?

Bait bait bait troll troll troll.

 

[HCC]

If you consider yourself a traditional Catholic in the most extreme sense, I’m not sure what you mean by extreme. Do you mean SSPX or Sedevacanist or those who follow the Dimond brothers? I fall in to none of those categories.

does that mean that you don’t consider the OF valid? I do, but I have a preference for the EF Mass.

Do you still feel that Pope Benedict is the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church? Yes, absolutely.

I was wondering as on a Traditional Catholic website almost all the posters seem to find fault with everything that is not pre VII. Those are generally sedevacanist, SSPX and indie-schism sites. For me, as a “traditional” Catholic, I simply want the faith of my fathers. The Faith taught by the Apostles, expounded on by the Church Fathers and passed down to us by the Popes and saints. I prefer the traditional customs of the Church and the traditional understanding of those customs. I don’t need novelty explanations and tweaking of sacred liturgy and experimentation to give my faith life meaning.

If a Catholic rejects the Holy Father’s decision on allowing certain liturgies or devotions and almost everything else that comes from Rome do they still consider themselves part of the Catholic Church under the Papacy or do they consider themselves the True Catholics and everyone else are not fully Catholic. I am concerned more by the silence over the last few papacies on what is now being called the misinterpretation of Vatican II and the poor implementation of it and all of the subsequent abuses and all of the fall outs which occurred after the council, more than being upset over the OF Mass itself, if that answers your question.

I feel sad when reading these types of posts, as it seems they have set themselves apart from the whole Church. Yes, it is sad that so many horrible things have come since the Second Vatican Council, one of them being rifts within the Church, such as ideological sparing between “liberals” and “conservatives” and various schisms both on the “Ultra-traditionalist” side and various progressive movements.

From the posts here on CAF I don’t find that the traditionalists in general think that way, but was wondering if there is a line that one crosses where you only attend the EF and if one is not available would miss Mass. I wouldn’t miss Mass, but I do not enjoy the OF as a form, no. (In vernacular or in Latin)

I see the Church as welcoming and pastoral. It can be, parts of it can be rotten to the core, but that is the human side of it and we can’t let those things eat away at our faith that Our Lord is leading His Church and that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. And certainly not at the expense of our eternal salvation.

Of course there are individual priests and Bishops who are less pastoral, but this is true on both the more traditional side and the less traditional side. What has come to be called “pastoral” seems to have gotten confused with diplomacy or niceties and while that makes things run smoothly, those attitudes of not wanting to step on toes, has also permitted abuses and dissent and caused much of the confusion in the Church today.

Hopefully they are the exceptions, not the rule. We hope, yes. I see some signs things are getting better, God willing.

Although the site does not claim to be SSPX, there are members who are. Not good when they are trying to be recognized canonically by the Holy See.

The bottom line is can you be a traditional Catholic without this narrow mindset? Yes, I think I am and many of the good people on this form are as well. If we know our faith and are trying to live it to the best of our ability, with the help of God’s grace, throw in a lot of common sense, one should be able to sail through the storm safely. My former spiritual director, may he +RIP, used to say, “Live your faith in a simple and unassuming manner. Keep your feet planted on God’s green Earth, tell the devil to go to hell and keep walking toward heaven.”

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

 

[Vince1022]

If you consider yourself a traditional Catholic in the most extreme sense, does that mean that you don’t consider the OF valid?

All Catholics recognize the validity of the Mass.

 

[ConstantineTG]

All Catholics recognize the validity of the Mass.

There are those who claim to be Catholic and don’t.

But given the recent trend these days, many claim to be Catholic when they are not. Some may be obvious as the Roman Catholic Women Priests, some may be subtle as sedevacantists who claim traditionalism while rejecting the current Pope.

 

[BernadetteM]

Bait bait bait troll troll troll.

If your referring to me you are completely wrong. But this is the type of attitude I was allluding to on the other website. If you don’t agree with their view of what the Mass must be and that is only the TLM or a Bishop makes a statement, they pick it apart and everything seems negative about the Church.

The Church is hugh and there are going to be personal differences, that does not mean that those that differ are less than they are. Many of the posts just seem very arrogant.

Whether we like what has happened within the Church these past years or not I believe that Pope Benedict is doing his very best to bring it back to a balance. Catholics can reject abuses, but to reject everything they don’t agree with is wrong. From the beginning the Church has evolved and so has the liturgy. It is evolving again towards what has been lost. It took 40 years and will take time to recover, but for some to always find fault with every Bishop, there are few exceptions and most of the priests, has to make one wonder where they are coming from.

In my opinion being considered traditional doesn’t equal only the TLM/EF liturgy, there are many areas where one can be traditional but do not favor the TLM/EF.

Bernadette

 

[thistle]

Ther are no traditional or liberal Catholics. There are only Catholics who are in a state of grace or in a state of mortal sin.

 

[Timothysis]

In my opinion being considered traditional doesn’t equal only the TLM/EF liturgy, there are many areas where one can be traditional but do not favor the TLM/EF.

Well put. I once noted that my parents grew up with the latin mass, were married in it, followed the Church with the introduction of the Pauline Missal, yet had someone here tell me that they weren’t “traditional.”

You can ask ten people here what it means to be “traditional” and will get ten different answers. To me, personally, this notion of being “traditional” has a very ugly connotation. It seems that many who call themselves “traditional” have a disdain for the Church today, bishops, priests and even the pope; they constantly are criticizing everything that doesn’t pre-date Vatican II; they are constantly equating Mass according to the Pauline Missal as being “protestantized;” they also have a penchant for far right-wing politics (see the Francisco Franco was right thread) and many other things that belong to minority status in the Church.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

From the beginning the Church has evolved and so has the liturgy. It is evolving again towards what has been lost. It took 40 years and will take time to recover.

This a very good way to put it.

 

[Denise1957]

You’ve asked very good questions here, Bernadette. I agree with one of the above posts which said that if you ask ten different people what it means to be traditional, you’ll get ten different answers. Traditional views run the gamut from extreme hard-liners (sedevacantists, and also those who believe that the OF is illicit), to those of a more moderate view who prefer the EF, but who accept that the OF is completely valid (this is my own view).

I was once a hard-liner, but never tended toward sedevacantism. My views have changed considerably since I no longer attend a Society chapel, but instead I now attend an FSSP parish.

Not everyone who attends a Society chapel is a hard-liner, but those who spend a lot of time visiting the more extreme traditional websites (like I used to do) will end up entrenched in more extreme views. And some Society publications will also encourage extreme views. Fortunately, extreme views were not generally preached from the pulpit there, though.

I have hope for those traditionalists who hold more extreme views, especially the ones who participate on this forum, because eventually they will come to see that there are good and sincere Catholics outside of the Society, who adhere to Church teaching, and love Our Lord and Our Lady. I’m very grateful for this forum!

 

[At_Trent]

The EF is the traditional Roman Catholic Mass. There is no better term to describe it. The OF is the norm of course, in that it is the most widely prayed Mass. But it was introduced as the New Order, so to refer to it as the new mass is not out of line. Rome named it, not those who prefer the traditional Mass.

The term “traditionalist” had been around for a long time. Just because one may use it to identify those who take an extreme stance and reject anything post VII does not crown the term as appropriate when describing that group.

“Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
St. Athanasius 373

Wasn’t St Athanasius seen as a tad extreme at one time ? A traditionalist holds dear all that must be held. Tradition is the measuring stick. One who thinks the Chair of St Peter is vacant isn’t a traditionalist. One who has concerns for what a pope teaches if it appears to contradict Tradition doesn’t place him/her outside of full communion with the Church. We’d have to erase a tremendous amount of previous teaching to claim that.

“It is granted to few to recognize the true Church amid the darkness of so many schisms and heresies, and to fewer still so to love the truth which they have seen as to fly to its embrace.”
St. Robert Bellarmine

“Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.”
Pope St. Felix III

“Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.”
Pope St. Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique

We can’t discard these sort of statements and proclamations, lest we become dissident. So, a true traditionalist is in fact orthodox as well. That involves weighing everything in lieu of Tradition.

Liberals are not traditionalists, nor are sedes.

 

[laszlo]

Men of true tradition believe that:

• we Catholics are distinguished from other Christian, that we accept the primacy of the Pope, which defined by the Sacred Scripture means that he has the binding and loosing
• Jesus Christ was right, when He said

Matthew 13:52 … Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.

Mark 2:21-22 No man seweth a piece of raw cloth to an old garment: otherwise the new piecing taketh away from the old, and there is made a greater rent. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled, and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles.

• as the philosophy teaches everything exists only because God made it exist, consequently everything what exist has good elements

This means that that true tradition does not reject the change, because that is change, especially if it is approved by the popes; and the true tradition search for the good in everything, and not what could be rejected.

The enemy wants the divided Church and unfortunately many traditionalist work with him against the unity.

 

[Timothysis]

“Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.”
Pope St. Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique

Don’t think that the Holy Father was writing about traditionalists in the same way that the termed is used here.

 

[At_Trent]

Don’t think that the Holy Father was writing about traditionalists in the same way that the termed is used here.

Used by who ? Someone holding a paint brush ?

Ok Tim, rave on.

 

[laszlo]

Ther are no traditional or liberal Catholics. There are only Catholics who are in a state of grace or in a state of mortal sin.

You can say that the important thing is the state of grace, but as the matter of fact there are those who prefer the traditional and those who prefer the new.

In both side some are in the state of grace, some are not. God, and only God is the judge.

 

[laszlo]

Quote:
Originally Posted by At Trent View Post
“Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.”
Pope St. Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique

Don’t think that the Holy Father was writing about traditionalists in the same way that the termed is used here.
Reply With Quote

Notre charge Apostolice starts as

Our Apostolic Mandate requires from Us that We watch over the purity of the Faith and the integrity of Catholic discipline.

and written against those laymen and of the lower clergy who want to take the decisions into their hands against the Magisterium. The tradition is to honor the Magisterium

papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10notre.htm

 

[archangel04]

Men of true tradition believe that:

• we Catholics are distinguished from other Christian, that we accept the primacy of the Pope, which defined by the Sacred Scripture means that he has the binding and loosing
• Jesus Christ was right, when He said

Matthew 13:52 … Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.

Mark 2:21-22 No man seweth a piece of raw cloth to an old garment: otherwise the new piecing taketh away from the old, and there is made a greater rent. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: otherwise the wine will burst the bottles, and both the wine will be spilled, and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles.

• as the philosophy teaches everything exists only because God made it exist, consequently everything what exist has good elements

This means that that true tradition does not reject the change, because that is change, especially if it is approved by the popes; and the true tradition search for the good in everything, and not what could be rejected.

The enemy wants the divided Church and unfortunately many traditionalist work with him against the unity.

Really? Wasn’t it the “progressives” who went against VII? They tore down statues, altar rails, made the liturgy ONLY in the vernacular, removed Gregorian chant, moved away from devotions and looked down on those who kept them, introduced liturgical dance (chaos), have protested against their own bishops, and most of them believe that the Church started in the 1960’s and not in Apostolic times. Hhmm yeah those darn traditionalist those who have stayed with the Church and endured these painful 40 years, those who have given so much reverence and respect to the Eucharist and the House of God, those poor fools who still go to confession and believe in hell, and those who have stood by the last popes in the 40 years even though the world has been against them. Yeah sounds to me like those darn traditionalist are working with Satan to divide the Church, thank heaven for the crowd who pushed for the “spirit of Vatican 2”.

But in all fairness I agree to the first parts of the post, it was just your last sentence, By the way when I speak about traditionalist I am not talking about EF lovers, but those who have remained faithful, any faithful Catholic is, whether you like it or not, a Traditional Catholic.

 

[laszlo]

Really? Wasn’t it the “progressives” who went against VII? .

Vatican II was a balanced conglomerate between a few progressives, the mainstream, and a few traditionalist. I believe all participants wanted the same goal: to let the Church survive under the unprecedented attack of the Enemy, which controls the information, the education, the legal field and the whole economy.

In 1962 it was clearly seen that the future will be controlled by this factors, and that the Church lost the control over this areas. It was a solid consensus, that the Church need the unity with all Christians for survival, not by giving us her principles, but by searching for what is uniting to and not what is separating from our brothers and sisters.

The problem and polarization started only about ten years later, when the progressives provoked the separation of the traditionalist SSPX from the mainstream, by denying the previously given jurisdiction (pia unio status) to Archbishop Lefevbre in Germany in 1975, which resulted in the suspended ordinations.

The traditionalist became insignificant minority, (less than 2000 priest the less than 2 million faithful against the 400,000 prist and 1200 million Catholics) and the part disunited from Rome became a highly divided group within themselves. They represent practically only themselves.

Meanwhile the Enemy worked hard to destroy the unity of the lIturgy. They sent their agents to the local liturgical committees, and took the control over the liturgy.
The process from the liberal side

• started with eliminating/restricting the confessions, and herding everybody to communion,
• followed with the unapproved and theologically questionable hymnals, which basically form the faith of the majority,
• the restructuring of the architectures of the new Churches, which practically denies the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (in my territorial Church everybody turns his/her back to the Most Holy Eucharist)
• and is culminating in the recent adlibited masses

The Enemy through the traditionalist side want to convince us that all this is the direct result of the XXI Ecumenical council, and thus pull as down to the desperation that there is no remedy against his control, and to convince us, that the true faith is outside of the Magisterium.

And you Lord, have mercy on us.