By Father Richard G. Cipolla

It is indeed difficult in these times in the Catholic Church for those of us who love the Tradition of the Catholic Church to have joy at the center of our lives.  The mean-spirited and dishonest attack on Tradition in the publication of the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes has been followed by statements by the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Archbishop Roche, that make it clear that these relics of the 1960s who are now in power in Rome are determined to erase from the Church’s memory the Roman Mass of Catholic Tradition. There are those of us who believe that the crisis of the Church today is no less severe than the crisis the Church faced when the “world woke up to find itself Arian”.  The Arian crisis was overcome not only because of the constant witness of great bishops like St. Athanasius to the Catholic faith but also because of the laity who continued to sing the liturgical hymns at Mass that proclaimed the full divinity of Christ as true God and true man.

I have been blessed in my retirement as a priest to be able to celebrate the Traditional Roman Mass in a number of parish churches both in my diocese and in other dioceses.  This past Sunday, thanks to the true graciousness of the pastor, I celebrated a Missa Cantata in a parish in Bayside, Queens, New York.  I remember the first time I celebrated Mass there over two years ago, perhaps even three years ago (the pandemic has made time fuzzy).  I remember a congregation of perhaps 50 people in a parish church whose ethnic roots are Polish, a small choir, and four altar servers.  This past Sunday the size of the congregation was well over 150 people, the choir had grown as well, and there were 15 altar servers, ages (my guess) from 9 to over 20.  The mix of people in the congregation was truly catholic:  old, middle aged, young, very young; various shades of black, brown and white; some women veiled others not, some men in ties, others in casual dress. 

A priest always knows when he is celebrating Mass whether the people in the congregation are “with him”.  There are times in my priesthood when I was celebrating the Novus Ordo Mass in a parish that despite my facing the people I felt alone, for so many of the people at that Mass were waiting for Mass to end.  Their obligation would be fulfilled, and then on to brunch.  Of course, there were always those at Mass who really believed their response to my “Pray, brethren…” expressed something real in their response: “May this sacrifice…” And a number of those people have since then discovered the Traditional Roman Mass as the embodiment of what that exchange between priest and people really means.  

At Mass this past Sunday there was no doubt that the bond between priest and people in the offering of the Sacrifice was truly there.  There was no sign of “traddie” stiffness or super-piety, just a group of heterogeneous Catholics happily entering into the Sacred Mysteries and coming to Holy Communion with grateful hearts.

I must say one more thing about the altar servers.  Before Mass all fifteen were in the sacristy and the camaraderie among them was inspiring to see.  It is neither reactionary nor misogynist to recognize and take joy in that special relationship that is the bond of male friendship, even at the level of “merely” serving at the altar together.  Of course, I hoped while watching this motley crew serving at the Mass that at least some would become priests.  But even if none of them become priests, because of their sense of that bond between them that comes from participating so closely in the awesomeness of the Mass, they will make good husbands and fathers, and good friends.  

I continue to love the season of Advent with its dark and cold that anticipates the coming of the Light.  But I do not like the darkness and the cold of a Church manufactured in the 1960s that tries to cancel Tradition and has forgotten that the three names of God are Truth, Goodness, and yes,–Beauty.

I recently read that the Berlin monastery of the order known as the “Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters” in the English-speaking world is to be closed and sold. The reason given is lack of vocations. It seems that only 11 sisters are left (aged between 40 and 84). These sisters – colloquially called the “Pink Sisters” because of the unusual color of their habit – have preserved their strictly cloistered community. The focus of their spirituality is Eucharistic adoration. Strangely, however, the nuns of the monastery of St. Gabriel and the Annunciation of Our Lady have not followed a prescribed order of prayer for decades. (“Ewiges Gebet hinter Gittern: die “Rosa Schwestern” in Berlin,” Katholisch.de, 10/12/2021)

I do not know if the closing of this monastery is connected in some way with reported Vatican initiatives to centralize control over contemplative religious life – and allegedly also to reduce the number of such communities. The list of orders and monasteries throughout the Catholic world declining or disappearing is also, of course, almost endless. But the monastery of St. Gabriel and the Annunciation of Our Lady is remarkable for several unusual features.

First, the church and cloister were built in 1933-37 under the National Socialist regime. It is not a very well known fact, but a fair number of Catholic churches were erected in Germany immediately prior to World War II. Construction continued, even as elsewhere in Germany individual laymen, priests and bishops were attacked or in some cases even killed, as Catholic publications and organizations were suppressed. It was only with the coming of the Second World War in 1939 that the regime launched a broader crackdown on Catholic religious life (especially schools and congregations).

Second, the “Pink Sisters” had been called to Berlin by Fr. Bernhard Lichtenberg, the provost of the Berlin cathedral (a Catholic diocese of Berlin had been established only in 1929). Fr. Lichtenberg had undertaken the audacious task of evangelizing this non-Catholic and even non-Christian city – at that time one of the greatest in the world. But he recognized that to succeed in such a work the support of contemplative religious prayer and of Eucharistic adoration would be needed. Therefore, he established a strictly cloistered monastery in the midst of secular Berlin. A vocal opponent of the regime, Fr. Lichtenberg went on to have numerous altercations with the Nazis, and in 1943 died of ill-treatment as he was being transported to Dachau concentration camp. (Kloster St. Gabriel und Kirche Mariae Verkündigung, de.wikipedia.org, read 11/27/2021)

I have often thought that neglect of the contemplative life was a not insignificant flaw in the otherwise admirable record of evangelization of the New York Archdiocese. For in New York, as in Berlin, a missionary Catholicism had to build up the faith in an alien environment. In New York, however, the focus was almost exclusively on apostolic action. In Manhattan the one remarkable exception was the establishment in 1909 of the order of Marie Reparatrice in the former parish of St. Leo – initially, against resistance of the Archbishop. These semi-contemplative sisters, dedicated to Eucharistic adoration, soon enjoyed great suceess in the city. For a long time their church remained a welcome island of contemplation even for non-Catholics. These sisters of “Mary Reparatrix” were destined to disappear in the wake of the Council – their church is now the site of a high-rise apartment building. ( The Churches of New York LXXXI: Losses 11)

Third, the architecture of the Berlin church and cloister may be surprising in its modernity. For, regardless of the dogmas proclaimed by that era’s National Socialist propaganda and by our present day intellectuals and academics, the architecture of the Third Reich (like its music and films) in fact resembled very much that of the previous Weimar republic and also that found elsewhere in the West. The style of church of St. Gabriel – especially its interior – is severe but elegant. Is this not “noble simplicity”? The complex of buildings is protected by the local German law governing historic monuments.

So the “Pink Sisters” came to Berlin in most difficult times. But they perhaps were prepared for that – hadn’t their umbrella organization, the “Steyler Missionaries” (aka the “Society of the Divine Word”), founded in 1875 by a German priest, had to start its existence in the Netherlands because of the persecution under Bismarck’s Kulturkampf? And the convent of St. Gabriel, once established, did persist – through the allied bombings, the horrifying fall of the city in 1945 and the subsequent decades-long division of the city into East and West Berlin. It is only in the age of Pope Francis and of the rich and progressive German church that the story of this contemplative community comes to an end. A precious refuge of peace, quiet and spirituality will be lost.

Lately we’ve read a series of appreciations of the past great men of the “Conservative Movement” in Chronicles magazine and elsewhere. These remembrances come at a time when the establishment of the United States is deploying its power in unprecedented ways in the courts, in academia, in the media, in the government, in the economy, in the government bureaucracies and even on the streets and at dinner tables in support of a quasi-totalitarian ideology. In so doing, it also demonstrates the abysmal failure of the said conservative movement to effect the slightest cultural change. But it also awakens in us a feeling of gratitude for those in the past who, sometimes at great professional cost to themselves, pointed out truths and pronounced opinions regardless of their acceptability to the establishment. Was that not something that, once upon a time, Americans, even progressives, professed to admire? ( e.g., John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage)

So far, among these published remembrances, I have missed the name of Thomas Molnar (1921-2010), although, especially in the light of the events of the last two years, I believe him to be by far the most perceptive of all these figures. When I last checked, only one of his many books has enjoyed a recent reprint.1) His many French books remain untranslated (into English, that is). I have found on the internet only one attempt to describe the man and his thought – and that from 2013. 2) It offers insights and provides valuable context – nevertheless, I was surprised to read a number of views attributed to Molnar which differed not only from what I had heard him say in private conversation, but also from what he had expressed repeatedly in his published works. Now Molnar was anything but a systematic ideologue – a role and a concept he detested. He loved to toss out new theories for discussion – even if his views on a given topic were still a work in progress. He definitely liked, when the occasion presented itself, to tweak the nose of “conservatives” and especially of “conservative Catholics.” So I could see encountering here and there unexpected and apparently contradictory views in his books, articles and correspondence. But certain remarks attributed to Molnar in this 2013 appreciation had the definite tendency of harmonizing his views with those of the American conservative mainstream, of reconciling him to their shadow establishment. But that is the very thing that Molnar utterly rejected – in fact he described the American conservative movement as a “failure.”  

What is the best way to describe Thomas Molnar? I am sure you want to hear in the first instance about his work and intellectual achievements, not about his biography and personality.  I met him frequently, starting in the early 1980s. I last spoke with him shortly before his death in 2010. Molnar himself rarely talked about his life, except where necessary to illustrate an argument he was making. Even his own late, supposedly autobiographical Moi, Symmaque (1999 ) draws on his own experiences not for their own sake, but to provide the concrete setting for his savage critique of this age.

Was Molnar a Catholic philosopher or intellectual,  as he is so often characterized? To answer that question we have to define “Catholic philosopher.” Molnar’s philosophy was the product of great erudition and of profound meditation on European and Catholic philosophy and history. This informed all his works. Molnar drew on the ancient philosophers with whom the medieval scholastics later contended and finally absorbed into their synthesis of Christianity and Greek thought. He often wrote on the role of the Church in history – ancient, medieval, and modern –  and of the need of the sacred to leaven the culture and partner with the state.  Molnar always asserted the spiritual nature and destiny of man and fought against ideological deviations of both left and right. The tragic fate of the Church in post-World War II modernity affected him deeply. If these are attributes of a Catholic thinker, then Molnar was preeminently such a man.

But if we mean by “Catholic” an author devoted to explaining and defending the politics, institutions, and personalities of the Church; an academic expounding and interpretating the texts of councils, encyclicals, and other ecclesiastical documents; a writer engaged in agitating and even proselytizing on behalf of the institutional Church – then Molnar was most definitely not a Catholic intellectual.  A review of his works shows that the official pronouncements of the Church play only a subordinate role in his understanding of the world. 

His comments to me about alleged Catholic greats and institutions of the 1980’s onward could be very unflattering indeed. After a notorious incident in which a lecture by  Cardinal Ratzinger was interrupted by loudly demonstrating homosexuals, he remarked that, given Ratzinger’s mumbled delivery and unprepossessing appearance,  “no wonder a homosexual would confront him!” ( Much later Molnar had a couple of personal encounters with Pope Benedict but remained cool regarding him). He attended a meeting in New York between Cardinals O’Connor of New York and Lustiger of Paris, Yes, Molnar said, one shouldn’t expect Richelieu meeting St. Augustine, but this was more like a get-together of two labor union bosses and their staffs. On several occasions in my presence he raised the ire of younger conservative Catholics by politely but emphatically stating his views of John Paul II.  He also talked of the “super-puritanical” Thomas Aquinas College and characterized the magazine First Things as the “black fruit” of the accommodation of Catholicism to American civil society.

This attitude reflected his experience of the Church. Regarding Catholicism, it was the sincere faith of one Catholic sister he had come to know in San Francisco that had made the greatest impression on him. It’s not by chance that in Molnar’s works Simone Weil is repeatedly favorably mentioned. And of course there was the idiosyncratic Georges Bernanos, for Molnar the model of a Catholic intellectual and the subject of Molnar’s first book. (Bernanos: his Political Thought and Prophecy, 1960)  One weekend Molnar even took the time to lead a session of a book club for us young (or at least younger) Catholics at the old St. Agnes church in New York – the topic was Bernanos’s The Diary of a Country Priest.

This serves to introduce one of his characteristics: he was a great listener. He would talk with everyone: college students, a Haitian taxi driver, assorted eccentric Traditionist Catholics, a dear Russian Orthodox friend and, at least once, a late-night radio host. From every encounter he seemed to gather new insights and new facts.  Molnar was ever the central European gentleman; however, you may gauge from the remarks quoted above that his observations could be biting and he did not necessarily suffer all fools gladly.

Related to this openness to new encounters was his love of travel. Obviously,  he journeyed repeatedly to France and Spain but also, when the opportunity presented itself, to Africa, Asia and throughout the “third world.”  I recall, for example, him talking about his recent journeys to Peru and Korea. The fruit of these encounters is found in early books on Africa, in later essays analyzing the developing world, as well as in anecdotes scattered throughout his works. After the fall of communism in Europe, of course, he regularly travelled to his native Hungary but also to places like Prague – which impressed him greatly (the architecture, not what was going on there at that time).

To get an idea of Molnar’s thought, let’s start with his notion of “civil society.“ Characteristic of modernity is the domination of all aspects of life by civil society: the complex of economic powers, media, educational and other institutions which actually rules today throughout the western world. Now civil society essentially reduces man to a consumer and a producer, to a cog in the economy. According to Molnar, the only role for man under the regime of civil society is business. Molnar described the ascent and supremacy of civil society and its culture,  in both the United States and then in Europe, in a series of critical works, mostly written in French and untranslated into English: Le Modèle Défiguré: L’Amérique de Tocqueville à Carter (1978); L’Americanologie: Triomphe d’un Modèle Planétaire? (1991); L’Hégémonie Libérale (1992); The Emerging Atlantic Culture (1994).

For Molnar, the cultural horrors of today are inherent in the ideologies of democracy and liberalism. But above all else is the direst crime of modernity: the severance of the sacred from the state and society. – the separation of Church and state. By cutting off the state from its transcendent support and from its natural ally, the Church, profane civil society had drastically weakened both, opening the door to the total secularization of society. 

The exemplar and current leader of the resulting culture is the United States. For here the liberal culture is innate and not, as in Europe,  an imposed regime, or the product of imitation. Additionally, the puritanical foundation of America ultimately gave birth to the characteristically American missionary zeal combined with the desire to reduce all issues to formulas that can be readily disseminated and applied. After World War II this culture conquered Europe,  assimilating and incorporating related local tendencies. 

The despotism of modern civil society has brought about an unprecedented leveling and coarsening of the inherited cultures. In lieu of the rich European (and non-European) traditional cultures, civil society has imposed a uniformity disguised by relentless activity. To the extent culture exists at all under civil society it inevitably assumes arbitrary and preposterous forms. Representative examples of this in Paris are the glass pyramid stuck in the courtyard of the Louvre or the Centre Pompidou. Everywhere he went, Molnar saw the triumph of ignorance, licentiousness, and rudeness. Again and again he was shocked by the rising tide of incivility he encountered on his annual trips to Europe: topless women on the beaches of a Spain so recently traditional, drivers running one off the road in France. On this side of the Atlantic, he was particularly horrified by the rudeness displayed by American children to their parents in the presence of strangers.

Molnar had written frequently and forcefully against leftism of all kinds  (e.g., La Gauche vue d’en Face (1970); Utopia, the Perennial Heresy (1967); Sartre: Ideologue of our Time (1968). Yet he saw the United States as being a “new Utopia” sharing the same problematic features with the leftist would-be transformers of the world. As he once put it,  the first step of political wisdom is to perceive that communism is wrong. The next is to realize (as had Orwell) that communism and the “West” are the same. But the final insight is that communism is only the preparation for the further expansion of the liberal cultural hegemony.  Such views brought him into direct conflict with the champions of the “American experiment” who grew increasingly dominant among American conservatives from 1989 onwards.

His views of the Second Vatican Council were similarly negative. For Molnar,  the Church at the Council surrendered its claims to unique truth and definitively accepted its subordinate status as a citizen of civil society, as one “pressure group“ (Molnar’s term)among many. This was illustrated by Church’s adoption of the techniques of the media  – such the endless series of papal interviews, starting with John Paul II. In these the popes lower themselves to the level of their journalistic partners in dialogue. Further, by diminishing cultic life by its liturgical changes, the Church opened the door further to the depredations of the surrounding desacralized society.

I recall many instances of Molnar’s disdain for modern society in both Europe and the United States.  When I told him that my employer at that time was installing television screens in elevators he only remarked “you people are sadists!” He was always a savage critic of the news media, their lies, malicious intent, and ignorance. The way society and government are ruled by the news media was one of the most disastrous aspects of contemporary life.  His contempt for American education at every level was equally great.  Molnar saw the problems with American education as a pathology inherent in the fundamental principles of those institutions which had abandoned the purpose of education in favor of functioning as an instrument of modern secular society.  I told him of a lecture by a visiting German academic who had advocated a great expansion of the student body at German universities in order to catch up with the situation in the United States. Molnar only commented what that professor really intended was the destruction of education in Germany – to finally reduce the German system of higher education to the level found the United States. Do I need to say that subsequent developments at both German and American higher education have only verified Molnar‘s observations? In contrast,  Molnar was overjoyed to witness the application in his homeland of Hungary of tough requirements for admission to university  – as it should be for the future leaders of the nation.

Thomas Molnar’s thought has stood the test of time better than that of almost all of his colleagues of the earlier days of the conservative movement. They devoted their energies primarily to defending the “free world” against communism, the capitalist system against “liberals” and socialists.  On the religious front, the Catholic conservatives – at least most of them –  profiled themselves as champions of the Pope, the Vatican, and the institutional Church against “dissenters” of all kinds. Yet are we not seeing today the commitment of the “feudal powers” (Molnar’s term) of Western civil society ( law, finance, industry, education, think tanks, NGOs etc.) to radical progressive ideology?  Hasn’t the government bureaucracy (the military, police, the intelligence services, prosecutors, courts, etc.) also united with them in this endeavor? And how different is the current “woke” frenzy of the West  – and, increasingly, the details of its concrete application – from the practices of the Soviet empire? Similarly,  the institution of the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis has reaffirmed its final capitulation to these same secular forces and their ideology. By any objective measure, moreover, in the West religious practice itself  – even baptisms and weddings – seems to be in irreversible decline.

Molnar already had chronicled this accelerating decadence of Western society, its increasingly closed mind.  He (and others as well) had still been able to publish fairly freely books and articles through the early 1960s – now, these would not be permitted to see the light of day (Thomas Molnar made this remark, I recall, in the 1990s!). In 1961, Molnar’s Decline of the Intellectual, perhaps his best-known book, was accepted for publication even though the editor of that publishing house openly disagreed with what Molnar had had to say  (The Decline of the Intellectual, Introduction to the 1994 edition). As we all know, that doesn’t happen anymore.

Now Thomas Molnar was not only a keen analyst of the politics and culture of modernity but ranged over many other topics in his books and essays.  As I noted, he devoted a great deal of interest over the years to the so-called “Third World.” (Le Socialisme sans Visage: l’Avènement du Tiers Modèle, (1976); Tiers–monde: Idéologie et Réalité (1982)) His thought here was less systematic and is less well-known than his reflections on the West. In part,  this is so because there is no one “non-Western” world: Black Africa is not India; the Islamic countries are not East Asia. Molnar emphasized above all the otherness of the Third World. An example of that are the overwhelmingly strong tribal identities encountered especially in Africa. After the departure – or flight – of the Western colonial powers, older local forms of loyalty and administration – tribes, families, and villages  – regained their significance. Furthermore, in most of these countries,  religion remains a major integrating force. In contrast, the central governments of these states remain corrupt, remote and generally irrelavant to daily life. In the future, Molnar saw the developing world as trending towards monolithic, “socialist” and nationalist forms of government. These countries will not conform to Western capitalist society , but neither will they adopt the Communism of the old Soviet Union. Could this third “way” or “model” be called “fascist”?  Perhaps, but this is also imposing a Western political concept. Of course, Molnar was initially reacting against the ideas of the United States and the United Nations,  which, in the early 1960s, were forecasting an easy transformation by stages of the former colonies into copies of the West. I cannot say Molnar worked out a systematic theory for the non-Western world – but he had identified the issues that even today need to be considered in dealing with it. After the catastrophes in Afghanistan and Iraq,  have we not all seen the futility of trying to impose a Western model on a society having radically different beliefs, ecomomy and social stucture? And is not “communist” China, a socialist and very nationalistic power, now rising up to challenge the United States for domination – first in the South China Sea and afterwards,  who knows?

Molnar himself described a bleak picture in Moi, Symmaque( I, Symmachus). The title of this late work reveals Molnar’s personal identification with Symmachus, one of the last of the articulate Roman pagans in the 4^th century, who saw Christianity sweeping aside his pagan world.  In this book,  Molnar tells of his ideals and their subsequent betrayal. He cherished a love of France, its culture and language – only to see that crushed by the modern “Atlantic culture.” He took up an academic career – only to experience higher education being reduced to a farce.  He supported the Church – and endured the greatest betrayal of all in the 1960s. Indeed, Molnar’s situation was worse than that of Symmachus. For if that Roman author saw his temples and gods being erased, he could at least take comfort that another regime of the sacred was taking its place: the new alliance of the Christian Church with the empire. In contrast, Molnar could only see in his time an accelerating “eclipse of the sacred” with no institutional way out. 

Yet Molnar did not despair. He didn’t pose as the last of the Christians or of the cultured Europeans. He viewed with the greatest pleasure the recovery that took place starting in the 1980’s in Hungary and elsewhere in Central Europe – of nations who in the face of the greatest hardship had fought for and recommitted to Christianity and to their links to Western Europe, rejecting both Marxist ideology and “Asia.” He couldn’t help admiring, for example, a kind of Hungarian “rock opera” about St. Stephen, the apostle of Hungary. Today, we are witnesses of the continuing resistance of Hungary, of Poland and others – this time, against the EU and United States – led modernity.

More importantly, Molnar deeply believed that the soul of man is open to the sacred – that God is closer to every man than that man’s very self.  In union with the ancient and the scholastic philosophers, Molnar affirmed that contemplation is the highest calling of man.  In his later years,  Molnar increasingly wrote works more purely philosophical in nature: God and the Knowledge of Reality(1973); Theists and Atheists: a Typology of Non-belief (1980): Archetypes of Thought (1991, 1996); Return to Philosophy (1996). The philosopher’s vocation to explore truth and the real is eternal –  the modern robotized and secularized world of this age will have no permanent victory. Upon the ruins of European culture, in ways, in places and in the souls of men unknown to us, a new civilization will arise with the “same quest for harmony, the same thirst for the transcendent.”  3)

1. The Church and the State (Cluny Media, Providence, RI, 2018)
2. Mezei, Balasz M., “Thomas Molnar’s Place in American Conservatism” (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 6/10/2015; originally published in Modern Age, Summer 2013)
3. Cf. Molnar, Thomas, Moi, Symmaque at 103-104

I was fascinated to read the recently published Report in Paix Liturgique on the “epic” of Traditionalism in the United States. And not just because of the complementary reference therein to my own series on the history of  Catholic Traditionalism! It’s always useful to get an outsider’s view of one’s own world – even though one may not agree with all his conclusions. The French believe, for example, that The Trouble with Harry is Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest film. It isn’t, but by understanding their logic one learns a lot about Hitchcock and his movies. On the other hand, Michel Houellebecq’s short book on H.P. Lovecraft is the best criticism of that American author published so far anywhere. 

The Paix Liturgique Report, in eight installments, is attributed to the late Daniel Hamiche and is largely structured as an interview between him and the publication. It deals primarily with the present and benefits from “field work”: surveys on the current views of American Catholics. In certain areas the Report provides unique information – such as the installment on the sedevacantists and the independent priests. Given its French audience, the Report of necessity needs to set its discussion of Traditionalism in the wider framework of American Catholicism, both past and present. The Report accordingly starts with a brief historical review of American Catholicism from the 16^thcentury to Vatican II.  Actually, I have more critical comments on certain factual statements and judgments in this installment  as opposed to the content of later chapters dealing with Traditionalism itself.

For example, we read that “only two colonies, Maryland… and Rhode Island (which practiced a “blind welcome” that is, without religious exclusion) had a Catholic population….” Rhode Island was actually militantly anti-Catholic.  Perhaps the author really means Pennsylvania,  the second British colony with a significant Catholic population, which just before the American Revolution was far more tolerant of Catholics than the original Catholic home of Maryland.  Katherine Drexel was not a convert. Elizabeth Seton founded the Sisters of Charity in the United States, not just those of New York  (that designation relates to a split later in the 19th century). 

As one might expect, the Report describes with justifiable pride the major contribution of French Bishops in the early years of the US : some dioceses – New Orleans, Bardstown/Louisville, Vincennes/Indianapolis  – were largely or totally  in their hand, while Boston, New York and Baltimore each had at least one French prelate. However, although I haven’t attempted to make a complete tally,  I am not totally sure that French bishops were a “majority” of the U.S. episcopate in the first half of the 19^th century.

Of more substance are some nuances that I don’t think the author got exactly right. The domination of Irish Catholicism from 1830 onward is not attributable to the sudden appearance of the Irish:  they always had been a strong component of  American Catholicism from the founding of the United States. Rather, it was the radically increased number of the Irish (and also the German ) immigrants in the decades preceding the Civil War that by 1860 transformed the Catholic Church in America from an exotic fringe to a significant presence at least in most urban areas. The author also seems to think that the status of Catholics as a “closed society” prior to the Second Vatican Council is attributable to the multiplication of ethnic parishes. That was hardly the case –  the alleged Catholic  pre-Conciliar “ghetto” was typified by the mainstream “American-Irish” parishes, not Italian or Polish national churches. 

Finally we note with some humor  (and perplexity) our author’s assertion that:

“One hears now and then that American Catholics are more pious  and practicing (compared to those of Western Europe) …  . It’s hardly astonishing that 25% of baptized Catholics attend Mass every Sunday and of the remaining 75% a good proportion attends Protestant services, depending on the region.”

Perhaps this level of religious practice is acceptable, even admirable,  compared to France or Germany – it is absolutely catastrophic, however,  for the Catholic Church in America and for its finances. And the author attributes even these statistics  primarily to the social pressure of an allegedly Protestant society. Now, as indicated  in the very quote above,  the Report is well aware of the “regional” differences in the United States. I am not sure though, that the author fully appreciates how radical those differences can be. For example, whatever the situation in “Trump country” may be, NO conformist pressure supporting religious practice exists in any of the places that control the secular power in the United States: New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C, Chicago, Silicon Valley/San Francisco, the suburbs of all these places,  almost all of higher education – to name only the most prominent examples. Indeed, in this stratum of American society the public hostility to Christianity of any kind is strong and growing ever stronger.  Like many European Traditionalists, Paix Liturgique is perhaps a bit too enthusiastic about the American scene.

The chapter of the Report on independent priests and sedevacantism  is a unique contribution and fills a gap in my own essay.  I would, however,  wish to see the support for  the author‘s estimate of  the number of independent priests: it seems extraordinarily high to me. At least today in and around New York they  are (perhaps with one exception) hardly found at all. The significant  presence of various sedevacantist sects(as well as other FSSPX offshoots) is duly noted, as is the fact that such movements seem more numerous in America than elsewhere. But, if we consider sedevacantism to be the flip side of extreme ultramontanism, does not the Irish, papalist heritage of the “American Catholic Church” explain this phenomenon?

I would also highlight the installments of the Report on Traditionalism in the religious life,  particularly that of the female religious. He also deals with the Society of St John Cantius at some length. Yet in his enumeration of “Traditional priests,” he considers the FSSPX, the FSSP and the ICRSS –  who celebrate the Traditional Mass  exclusively –  to be the sole “traditionalist” clergy of the United States.  I have noticed this attitude in other European publications. 

Now I have attended celebrations of the Traditional Mass since 1988. Except in the very last year,  almost all my experiences were with diocesan priests or members of “mainstream” religious orders who celebrated both the Traditional Mass and the Novus Ordo.  Thus this essay very much underestimates the actual scale of Traditionalist activity. Of course the author is aware that there are a great many celebrations of the Traditional Mass in addition to  those of the above orders and dedicated Traditionalist “chapels” (his term) and that many diocesan priests are involved. The author rightly points out the remarkable number of diocesan priests that have received training in the Traditional rite.  He seems to think, however, that the activities of the diocesan priests are a kind of underground. That has not been the case for many years – Traditionalism in many places has become a normal aspect of American Catholic life. 

Indeed, our author is heartened by his surveys that indicate that 72,7% of practicing Catholics find the simultaneous practice of both the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Mass  pursuant to Summorum Pontificum “normal”  and that 41.5% of these Catholics could well see themselves attending the Traditional Mass if it were offered at their parish. That’s impressive testimony to how, in the United States at least, the Traditional Mass has joined the mainstream of the Church as a significant and beneficial force. It is precisely for this reason, of course,  that Pope Francis has now determined to destroy Catholic Traditionalism.  What will be the result of his campaign in the United States? The facts set forth in this essay, demonstrating the growing strength and acceptance of Traditionalism among the laity, priests and religious,  give me some confidence that it will survive the trials that are to come.

Today the Pope issued his Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes (“TC”) (with an accompanying letter) on the Traditional liturgy. I think I owe you an initial reaction. After all, in 2007 this Society sponsored the first Mass in the New York Archdiocese pursuant to Summorum Pontificum (as opposed to the indult regime). I want to address general principles and leave up to others more qualified the discussion of the legalities (to the extent Canon Law can be said to exist anymore) or even the validity of aspects of this Motu Proprio.

 The Motu Proprio TC abrogates Summorum Pontificum both in its theory and operative provisions.  Insofar as diocesan clergy are concerned, it resurrects a regime similar to the 1984 Indult Quattor Adhinc Annos in its most restrictive interpretation. So, for example, the Traditional Mass is not supposed to be celebrated  (in the future?) in parochial churches;  new Traditionalist groups are not to be authorized and those that exist are to be examined whether they deny the “legitimacy” of the Novus Ordo, etc.

Noteworthy is the uniquely radical style of TC. Entirely absent is the nebulous and effusive verbiage that characterize Francis’s other documents (like Amoris Laetitia) with their endless talk of “accompaniment,” “mercy”  and, of course, “tenderness.” In TC,  the language is succinct, harsh and adversarial. The reasoning is often transparently dishonest. What are we to say,  for example, of the passage in the Motu Proprio quoting St Augustine for the proposition that remaining in the Church “with the heart” is a “condition of salvation” – after the unrestricted ecumenism of the last 60 years? Or of Francis’s insistence on “unity” and “communion” as almost exclusive criteria of Catholicism, when every day the fundamental tenets of Catholic theology and morality are challenged – often with the express or implicit support of the Pope (e.g.,  the prohibitions of divorce, abortion,  homosexual behavior)? 

Clearly, Francis and his episcopal allies want a war in the Church. Considerations of the past  – reintegrating the FSSPX, accommodating the just desires of certain of the faithful –  don’t apply anymore. Traditionalists, as such, are declared to be enemies of the Church, who:

 exploited (the indults and Summorum Pontificum) to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.

The ultimate goal is their annihilation:

It is up to you to proceed in such a way as to return to a unitary form of celebration, and to determine case by case the reality of the groups which celebrate with this Missale Romanum. ….

Indications about how to proceed in your dioceses are chiefly dictated by two principles: on the one hand, to provide for the good of those who are rooted in the previous form of celebration and need to return in due time to the Roman Rite promulgated by Saints Paul VI and John Paul II… 

I could be mistaken, but I know of no recent instance where a whole, worldwide class of Catholics – including by 2021 Cardinals, bishops, priests, laity and religious orders  – has been similarly publicly denounced and anathematized. The specific contempt for Pope Benedict is palpable – his motivation for promulgating  Summorum Pontificum is misleadingly described in a way directly contradicting the previous pontiff’s repeated statements. Is this document in part personal revenge for the derailing of the “Amazonian” synod – and for the “Pope Emeritus“ and his allies acting as a brake for the last nine years?

Why is the Pope doing this? After all, Francis and his allies control the Vatican, the mainstream religious orders, the Catholic press and educational system worldwide and certainly the majority of most hierarchies? How could these nefarious “trads,” whatever they may be advocating, undermine this structure? How, given these disproportionate resources, can Traditionalists  be jeopardizing the “unity” so desired by Francis?

I think the answer has nothing to do with supposed “divisive”  activities and positions.  The real problem is not traditionalism, but the manifest, catastrophic failures of the Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo and the ultramontanist organization of the Catholic Church.  The sin of the Traditionalists is that, by their very existence and even more so by their success, they bear witness to the fact that (a)the current “Conciliar” regime is in discontinuity with its pre-Conciliar predecessor; and (b) this regime is in rapid disintegration.

The response of Francis is not to make the case once more for the Council and the Novus Ordo, but to declare them identical with the will of God. He does not attempt to convince the critics of their errors but uses coercive measures against them. In so doing he carries ultramontanist  centralization to a new extreme: external unity is the absolute value, “groups” (of the laity) need to be supervised and vetted by bishops, priests need, indirectly, permission from the Vatican to celebrate the Traditional Mass…

I think the strong-arm measures of TC will only increase the focus on Traditionalists, while exposing even more the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy the so-called Conciliar Church.  As I have written before, there is, humanly speaking, a great benefit of these experiences: the truth. For I doubt anyone who reads TC and its accompanying letter can deny that a radical crisis has engulfed the Catholic Church.

I am truly sad for the overwhelming majority of Traditionalists – the families who over the years have found a sense of beauty in the liturgy and an environment conducive to raising their families,  handing  down the faith and even evangelizing those outside of the Church.  If the reader examines our posts and our photographs over the last 14 years, he can get a sense of this vast new activity. These people know nothing of the alleged offenses of priests and agitators denounced by the Pope.  It is indeed a great cross for these faithful Catholics to be subject to such reprehensible calumny by the leadership of the Church.

My advice to all Traditionalists would be to carry on as before. Pope Francis may have declared war, but there are many different ways to fight.  After all, did not Archbishop Bergoglio and most of his episcopal colleagues, in their complete disregard of Summorum Pontificum over the last 14 years, give us the best example?  If the Francis and his bishops want to create martyrs, close parishes and even excommunicate – let them take the initiative. At the St Hugh of Cluny Society we intend to continue and even redouble our support of the Traditionalist movement. Maybe it will take different forms – maybe we will have to shift once more to an underground form of organization. But the fight for the whole of Catholic Tradition  – in Liturgy, theology and morality – will go on! 

The entire Traditionalist world seems to be waiting with trepidation for whatever Pope Francis will be doing to Summorum Pontificum and the celebration of the Latin Mass worldwide. It’s noteworthy that the entire process has been conducted in secrecy by the Vatican and certain episcopal initiates. That those reported to be in the forefront of the anti-SP effort – such as Cardinal Parolin or, for that matter, the Pope himself – do not necessarily enjoy the best of reputations or authority at this very moment is no hindrance to their ability to initiate global liturgical changes. And on this issue, (as opposed to, let’s say, the German Synodal Path) papal power in the eyes of the European Church establishment is unlimited. Consider the statements of Professor Georg Bier in the online publication of the German Catholic Church :

As a matter of principle it is possible for the Pope to completely abolish again this form of the Mass ( the Traditional Mass -SC). The Pope as supreme legislator can always decree whatever he deems to be most beneficial for the Church... (According to the author, however, for tactical reasons abolition of the Traditional Mass is unlikely -SC). There will be at most moderate restrictions – but as a matter of principle the Pope has all possibilities. 1)

In Bier’s view, both Summorum Pontificum and the document Pope Francis is crafting are governed entirely by material and political considerations and tactical expediency. The passage in Summorum Pontificum which seems to expressly limit the authority of the Church to abolish the Traditional Mass is dismissed by Bier as a “dodge” or “trick” by Benedict to preserve continuity with his predecessor – no theological issue here.

Reading these words today, I was struck once again by the link between centralized ultramontane absolutism and liturgical, moral, and theological experimentation (the latter, of course, taking in 2021 a reactionary, defensive form!). The totally arbitrary and unlimited Papal authority described in the quote above contrasts with the historical role and self-understanding of the Papacy in the “greatest of centuries” (the 13th) or in the Counter-Reformation. In my view, the Catholic Church’s dysfunctional structures and organizational principles continue to exercise a highly negative influence, blocking true reform and spiritual development

Two recent articles, dealing with issues arising in unrelated contexts, have neatly identified this highly problematic situation for the Church. First, Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society, has this to say in his review of Una Voce: the History of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce 1964-2003 ( by Leo Darroch):

The first (episode Shaw considered – SC) is the interview and associated correspondence which took place between de Saventham (the head of Una Voce International – SC) and Archbishop (later, Cardinal) Giovanni Benelli, then Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, in 1976…. . De Saventham summarised Benelli’s position in a letter to him following the meeting:

Your Excellency has urged us to espouse as a matter of conscience the new forms of the Church’s public cult… Although the character of irreformability only attaches to definitions, promulgated ex cathedra in matters of faith and morals, [you asserted that] the assent due to the acts of the Sovereign Pontiff ought equally to express itself in humble obedience to those of his acts which merely concern the discipline or other nondoctrinal aspects of the government of the Church. For there also, you said, it is the same one and indivisible charisma which guarantees that all these acts cannot but be ordered towards the true and certain good of the Church. Consequently, you could only consider as reckless and irreconcilable with a proper ecclesiology all demands or initiatives which implied that the utility of such and such an act of government duly promulgated by the reigning Pontiff or under his authority could be a subject of discussion or even contestation.

Cardinal Benelli did not dispute the accuracy of this summary. What it amounts to—as Dr de Savanthem goes on to explain at some length, though not in these terms—is an extreme Ultramontanism, the view that imbues the reigning Pope’s prudential decisions with something close to infallibility, and his wishes with a force approaching that of Divine Law. 
The prevalence of such attitudes in a Rome is part of the explanation of why things were so difficult for Una Voce in the 1970s and later.

Second, Bronwen McShea considers a case of excessive Vatican intervention in local artistic issues in the 1920’s but draws broader conclusions ( “When Rome Policed Art,” First Things (August 2021):

(After the Council) [T]he new generation of churchmen, once in power, redirected the Church toward a warm embrace of the modern world. The irony is that in doing so, through the decrees of Vatican II and in the ­Council’s aftermath, they preserved and strengthened centralized mechanisms of ecclesiastical control, not just over doctrine and worship, but also over cultural judgments and sensibilities. Rome and the clerical hierarchy were suddenly airing out a Church that supposedly had been stifling and stale inside for many centuries. Now, “openness” was not optional: ­Dialogue became the order of the day. The modernized engines of ecclesiastical governance were revved up for aggiornamento, which the laity and lower clergy would get, whether they wanted it or not. Even Maritain, late in life in The Peasant of the Garonne, would rue this turnabout.

Much as they had with theology and the liturgical reform, the bishops oversaw a rushed, coordinated aesthetic revolution. Old-fashioned crucifixes, paintings, statues, stained-glass windows, and even sacred vessels were cast aside for modern ones—beautiful, well-crafted, and elegant in some cases, but ugly, kitschy, and blasphemous in countless others. Vatican-­issued and chancery-stamped statements, more revisions of canon law, an­d conferences paved the way. Ordinary Catholics stood by—­bewildered, often—as the styles of art that had been ­forcefully opposed by their mitered shepherds just a few years before were now promoted by them. All manner of Expressionist, Cubist, Fauvist, and Abstract works began to populate cathedrals and small-town ­churches. Sacred spaces were bulldozed, whitewashed, and reconstructed. And a great deal of fine artwork—crafted lovingly and donated by the laity of past eras—disappeared overnight.

….

In view of the complex history of which Servaes (the Belgian artist referenced by McShea’s article – SC) was a part, it is worth considering whether more mature modern approaches to sacred art would have developed organically, in creative dialogue with the wider culture and ancient traditions, had Vatican bureaucrats and their defenders in the early twentieth century behaved more, not less, like their Tridentine-era predecessors. Vatican I and Vatican II both effected highly centralized, Rome-driven reform. They may appear in some respects antithetical, but they ran on the same rails. The centralizing impulse of the age seduced Rome into censoring experimental artists in ways that Tridentine and medieval Church officials had not imagined necessary or even possible. Then, by the mid-twentieth century, mortified by the Church’s cultural marginalization, the hierarchy tried to reverse it with an even heavier hand—f­oisting a sloppy and destructive aesthetic revolution on the Church to accompany the dramatic liturgical and theological reorientations.

1. Bier, Georg (“Professor for Canon Law and the History of Canon Law at the University of Freiburg”) as interviewed by Christoph Hartmann, “How the Pope could limit the celebration of the pre-Conciliar Mass,“ Katholisch.de (07/14/2021) (in German)

…of 60 Democratic Party politicians. By Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. In First Things.

From the “Statement”: We are committed to making real the basic principles that are at the heart of Catholic social teaching: helping the poor, disadvantaged, and the oppressed, protecting the least among us and ensuring that all Americans of every faith are given meaningful opportunities to share in the blessings of this great country.

Archbishop Cordileone: One of the “basic principles” of Catholic belief is rather blunt and simple: Don’t intentionally kill, or collude in enabling others to kill, innocent human life. Catholic principles build systematically on one another. The protection of innocent, defenseless life is first and foundational.

A RESPONSE TO THE “STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES”

I feel I have to respond to two items creating a tempest in the traditionalist teapot. Is it simply fortuitous that as reports circulate of an imminent confrontation between the Vatican and Traditionalists subversive voices 1) are heard?  Self-appointed “conservative” and “Traditionalist” spokesmen of the internet now denounce Traditionalists. And their alleged status as Traditionalists gives their words added credibility. Is it an accident that both articles discussed below appeared or were favorably reviewed in the American Conservative, where Rod Dreher holds court?  Rod Dreher recently has made a specialty of combining cultural criticism with endless denunciations of Donald Trump and his supporters. In other words, the conservative may criticize at length the political and ideological deviations of today’s culture but may not confront – like Trump and his movement do –  the establishment in any meaningful or effective way.

Michael Warren Davis is a cultural commentator who held – briefly – the leading editorial positions of Crisis magazine and of  the US edition of the Catholic Herald. He identifies as “conservative “ or “orthodox.” But he now also claims to have attended the Traditional Mass “on two continents” “almost exclusively since I was received into the Church”  and speaks of “us trads.” Davis was the author of a 2018 article denouncing long-departed Catholic conservative heroes – Joe Sobran and the editors of Triumph Magazine – while pontificating on how relevant some of at least Sobran’s thought may be. 2) The similarity to the Dreher party line is obvious. 

His Prodigal Trads and the Holy Father continues in the same vein. In a nutshell,  Davis  argues that any action the Pope takes against against Traditionalists is justified because of their strident criticism of him. You see, Pope Francis was initially favorably inclined to the Traditional mass but changed his mind after “we Traditionalists” became critics of his policies. Davis’s article is one long diatribe against Traditionalists. 

Both in the text of the article and the published title and headings Davis employs constant anti-Traditionalist innuendos: “prodigal“ trads:  “liturgical dissenters” “defiant,” “bizarre,” “angry,” “defensive,” a “clique.”  Pope Francis is of course quoted at length. And our author builds up to this indictment :

 The fact is that no other “clique” within the Church shares our (sic!) reputation for disobedience and uncharity. …trads are in a league of our own here.

Davis’s judgement in making these assertions is appalling; his errors of fact are monumental. Let me give some examples. For the proposition that Bergoglio began his  papacy as an “eager friend”  of the Latin Mass Davis quotes Michael Matt and Jeffery Tucker – neither of whom, regardless of their other merits, had any knowledge of Argentinian situation – while ignoring authoritative reports from 2013 detailing the new Pontiff’s consistent hostility to the Traditionalist movement. I should add that, entirely apart from this, I myself have spoken with two knowledgeable people who confirmed the actions and style of Francis the Pope are identical to those of Bergoglio the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. This consistency in word and action has been evident from the earliest days of his pontificate ( consider the actions taken against the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate) – all of which Davis ignores.

Quoting Bishop Fellay in favor of Francis is a little misleading:  the bishop’s statements very likely were made in the context of negotiations between the FSSPX and the Vatican.  Claiming Cardinal Sarah to be the “world’s most prominent Traditionalist” is simply nonsense; if anything, his adherence is to the “reform of the reform.” His appointment had nothing to do with favoring Sarah’s liturgical ideas but was undoubtedly a specific response to a spat over the role of African bishops in Francis’s synods. Davis doesn’t mention, of course,  how Francis subsequently  consistently undermined Sarah and blocked his (Novus Ordo) liturgical initiatives.

Davis seems to think that the Protestant Reformation only developed as such because Luther raised the level of antipapal rhetoric too high – after all, didn’t he just want to stop the sale of indulgences? At the Council of Nicaea in 325:

The Council then declared Arianism a heresy, and nearly all of Arius’s supporters relented.

Of course in historical fact the response of the Arians was the exact opposite. It’s true that  “for a while, it looked as if the Arians would win control of the Church” but that happened, contrary to what Davis implies,  years after, not before the Council. And it’s a joke to whine now about unique Traditionalist “disobedience” after that vice has been practiced by the entire Catholic left with great success for decades and as the German Church is indulging in now once again (with the Pope’s understanding).

More importantly, though, I don’t get a good idea of what Davis really stands for. He asserts that: 

[S]o many trads over the last few months … are walking away from the Latin Mass.  That’s ( the attacks on the bishops the Pope, Cupich, Martin etc. – SC) not what they signed up for.” 

I’d like to know what they and Davis actually did “sign up for.” Nice vestments and music? For Davis has nothing good to say about them in this article. Even though the things that Davis says the Trads criticize about Francis – which generally are not liturgical questions  – have also been the subject of attack by conservatives and by Davis as well, as a cursory review of the archives of Crisis magazine will demonstrate. He himself says:

As the Francis papacy wore on, and as the controversies piled up—“Who am I to judge?”, Amoris Laetitia, the McCarrick scandal, the Abu Dhabi declaration, the Affair of the Pachamama, etc.—traditionalists began to grow wary of the Holy Father. And I believe that our suspicions are often warranted.

Yet now all is forgiven:

I also believe that most of Francis’s actions can be reconciled with Catholic orthodoxy.

Davis quotes, in support of this assertion, from an essay by a fellow cultural commentator, also unqualified to render judgment in all these areas. And “can be reconciled with Catholic Orthodoxy” is, I might add, a mighty low standard for assessing a Pope’s teaching. 

According to Davis, it’s just a matter of interpreting Francis’s papacy in the best possible light – a mandatory “hermeneutic of putting the best spin” on whatever he says. At this moment, Michael Davis seems to be striving to be neither a Traditionalist nor a conservative but rather a “man of the establishment.”  And that establishment’s real operative rules are obedience and avoidance of criticism of ecclesiastical authority.    I wonder: is Michael Warren Davis seeking employment with Bishop Barron’s organization? 

Steve Skojec has been running a  website, Onepeterfive, that I have found helpful and informative. Recently, however, he seems to have had an altercation with his FSSP pastor in Phoenix, who according to Skojec denied baptism to one child and first communion to another. That resulted in a rambling article “Against Crippled Religion”  in which the author gives vent to many different frustrations with the Church. And he concludes by saying he’s done with that crippled religion:  “Nobody is coming to save us. Not even God.”

Now I sympathize with much of what Skojec says. The author is obviously suffering a crisis of faith. I too have certainly had my difficulties over the years with the “crippled religion” of today’s  Roman Catholic Church and its clergy. A religion that often harshly enforces petty formalities yet condones behavior of those having media, political or economy power. It’s commendable that somebody can summon up the character to react  – however explosively – to these at times insufferable conditions.

More specific to the facts Skojec’s case, I have heard tales of harsh, unpastoral treatment by FSSP priests and, going back quite a few years now, even experienced it directly in a few minor incidents.   So, although it would be unfair to generalize from what little I know to an overall judgement about the order, I am not exactly surprised to hear about this kind of thing in connection with thee FSSP.  In his pre-Traditionalist days, moreover,  Steve was exposed to the Legion of Christ and its practices  – I have only indirect experience of that but I can imagine what it was like. So to a great extent I am sympathetic with Steve Skojec’s predicament.

I am far less sympathetic about other aspects of Skojec’s article. Such as combining a narrative of a personal crisis of faith with petty resentments about the lack of space at the overflowing traditional parish. (It seems they are acquiring an additional church anyway) Skojec seems to ignore the role of his own decisions in certain bad experiences.  He voluntarily went to one of the World Youth Days; he stuck with Legionaries of Christ after he himself began to perceive  problems. In these negative encounters and circumstances, as Skojec himself describes them, an unacknowledged element of his own bad judgment is playing a role.

What I cannot accept at all is for Skojec to proceed from these real issues to a specific all-out attack on traditionalism, e.g.,

 “Traditionalism, in my experience,  often attracts an unrelentingly toxic and negative sort of person.”

“Traditionalism remains akin to that DVD collector or civil war re-enactor: a recreation out of place and time needing to justify its own existence in the present as a nostalgic aberration.”

Instead, (Traditionalism) is an ideological mask more identifiably in the shape of true Catholicism (compared to the post-conciliar Church-SC). 

But it is essentially an affectation; an attempt to reconstruct and live within a historical context that no longer exists.

Thus Skojec himself adopts as his own the litany of lies Traditionalists have heard about themselves for the last 50 years from progressives and the official Church: that they are toxic, rigid, perhaps mentally unbalanced; they are trying to recreate the past; they are ideologues; they are aesthetes… . It is distressing to hear someone say such things who claims he has lived with the traditional liturgy since 2004 and who set himself up as a spokesman. For it indicates to me the author, after all these years,  has no real understanding of why someone is a Traditionalist in the first place.  Does Skojec believe the families he reports as thronging his (former) parish became members of it because any of the things he enumerates? If these caricatures really reflect Skojec’s internet experience, that is an entirely different matter. And I can assure him unpleasant individuals are not confined to Traditionalism – or, for that matter, even the right wing of the religious and political spectrum. 

Again I am sorry for Steve Skojec who has contributed so much of value over the years. He has had the honesty to publicly reveal his pain. But to suddenly radically reject a movement that one had adopted as a mature man,  had practiced and advocated –  ultimately because of an experience, however distressing, with one priest, indicates that perhaps the foundations were not quite right in the first place. As Nicolas Gomez Davila says somewhere:

He who is rejecting the Church is often really rejecting the Sacristan.

1. “Subversive Voices” (Recitative from Bellini’s Norma)
2. My review: Sobranistas without Sobran

( I wanted to present to you as soon as possible a translation of this powerful essay that has just appeared in Paix Liturgique ( Letter 799 of 5/28/2021). It deals with the menacing developments in Rome but is also a brief summary of the history of Traditionalism, especially in France. And that history is reason for much hope. For fortunately, the Church is not just the preserve of the Vatican and the hierarchy but also includes the sensus fidelium of the laity. Please forgive my somewhat limited command of French! – SC)

UPDATE: In the meantime, here is Paix Liturgique’s own translation.

The provisions of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum were measures of peace. Totally atypical from the perspective of liturgical legislation, Summorum Pontificum effectively met a situation which itself was atypical. It created a modus vivendi between the old liturgy and the new liturgy, acknowledged a right of every Latin priest to the ritus antiquior and set forth the rules for its public implementation. It aimed to pacify liturgically a church which was sinking ever more into a crisis.

But this right, finally recognized, appeared intolerable to the gentlemen in power since 2013. Among them, the view is gaining the upper hand that this text must be, if not abrogated, at least dismantled in order to destroy the essence of its meaning. According to them, the pre-Vatican II Mass cannot enjoy anything more than tolerance, appropriately restricted.

Their mental and ideological structure makes them undertake “with a light heart” – to cite the words of Emile Ollivier who thrust France into the war of 1870 with all the consequences we know – the responsibility of a renewal of liturgical hostilities. Because of them, the risk exists that we will find ourselves once again in a situation resembling that of the years after the council but under conditions far worse for the institution of the Church. 

Celebrating the Tridentine Mass: A hard-won Right

One must understand that it was under the pressure of a protest movement that could not be suppressed that the Roman legislator came through a series of stages (in 1984, Quattor Adhinc Annos; in 1988, Ecclesia Dei and, in 2007, Summorum Pontificum) to interpret as non-obligatory the promulgation of the missal of 1969.

Indeed, in France but also everywhere in the world, pastors had calmly continued to celebrate the traditional mass. During the same time “wild” chapels were organized in many places. The measures taken by certain bishops had no other result than to further incentivize the propagation of these celebrations. They acquired even more cohereence when the young priests formed and ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre began to exercise their priestly ministry both in the independent houses founded in order to receive them and in the places is set up for worship – often of in a summary manner – in the town or in the country.

The suspension a divinis of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1976 gave his cause even more notoriety. This event was followed by another; the peaceful occupation of the church St. Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris by Msgr.  Ducaud-Bourget and the faithful. They entered one Sunday, and they are there even today. In the same way, 10 years later, near Versailles, the traditionalist parishioners of St. Louis du Port Marly – who had been chased out of their church and against whom the doors had even been walled up – simply smashed them open and settled down again on the premises. They have never left since.

A historical survey of the IFOP (Institut Français d’Opinion Publique) in 1976 published in Le Progres, a Lyon daily, showed that 48% of regularly practicing Catholics thought that the Church had gone too far in the reforms and that 35% remained favorable to the mass in Latin. Subsequent surveys made until the present day by Paix Liturgique in France and in the rest of the world highlight a decisive trend: the request to celebrate the traditional mass in their parishes by a significant part – even at times the majority – of the practicing faithful.

Subsequently, as a consequence, on the one hand, of the favorable psychological atmosphere created by the motu proprio of Benedict XVI, and, on the other, of the continued growth of the institutes specialized in the traditional liturgy (the FSSPX and the Ecclesia Dei institutes founded after1988) the number of places where the traditional mass was celebrated also continued to grow throughout the world.  Between 2007 and 2017, for example, this number simply doubled.

It’s a paradox noted by sociologists of religion like, in France, Daniele Hervieu-Leger:  the traditionalist movement opposed the Conciliar trends in a manner modern in appearance – a rising up against authority. The traditionalist reaction has certain characteristics which today would be called populist:  challenging the legitimacy of the elites because these adopt novel positions worked out in their elitist bubble. Another paradox: the traditionalist movement from its origin has been based on the actions of laypeople who supported and even “produced” priests by means of the specialized traditionalist institutes. They rejected the instructions of Vatican II, which were supposed to advance the laity. We could even add that while the Roman church ceased after Vatican II to be “Tridentine,” “Tridentinism,” in its essence hierarchical, from that time on was taken over by the people at the base. 

In truth, we could say that theologically and not just sociologically, we have a manifestation, astounding and providential, of the sensus fidelium, of the faithful’s instinct of the faith, which fights tooth and nail for the expression in the lex orandi of the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice, of the real presence, of the hierarchical priesthood, and more globally of the transcendence of the mystery of “do this in memory of me.” 

An Indomitable Capacity for Resistance. 

In the face of the danger which today is taking shape, one can attempt to assess the forces now in action by looking at the French situation (which is certainly not that of the entire Church, but which always gives very good indications in this area) 

The “official” Church is not at all anymore the solid institution that it was in the first decades after the Council.  It has been bled white regarding the number of priests and of religious. The number of seminarians and even of seminaries continues to diminish. The practicing faithful – ever older – are ever more “socially distanced” in the naves of the churches without the need of any anti-Covid measures. Logically enough, all this is accompanied by a catastrophic financial situation in not a few of the dioceses. Added to this are the consequences of what is called the coronavirus crisis which has made approximately 30% of the remaining parishioners vanish. Because of historical habit, which fades away only with difficulty, Catholicism is still considered as an essential component of society. In reality, however, the Church appears now totally exposed: she has practically disappeared from the public sphere.

In contrast, the traditional world represents an exception in the Church especially regarding priestly and religious vocations – resembling the situation before 1965. Many young people who have never experienced the conciliar quarrels turn spontaneously to this movement today. The Sunday congregations are full, and the average age is young.  In the traditionalist matrix, everything takes place – in the liturgical life as well as in the “fecundity” of its vocations – as if Vatican II had never occurred. Catechetical instruction in the old style – very structured – and an important network of schools assure a good transmission of the faith, of the practice and of the habits of Christian life. What is more, the frontiers are porous between Traditionalism and the “official” “conservative” world – the St. Martin community, Emmanuel, etc.  – whose vitality is partly explained by reason of its differences with the official policies, and which is partially inspired, more or less, by the traditionalist resistance.

I acknowledge that this success has its shadows: generational renewal has certainly been assured but, in a world that has been secularized to the ultimate extreme, this was not achieved without losses. In comparison to the militant situation of the immediate post-Conciliar years, the traditionalist world might appear at times more “settled down” than it was before. Yet we can assert that actions and pressures deemed necessary to maintain the hard-won positions and to achieve further growth could be organized without difficulty. The social networks constitute here, as elsewhere, a considerable aid to the development of a non-conformist network.

All things being equal, an explosion of discontent like that of the gilets jaunes (the “Yellow Vests” – a populist protest movement in France) could occur at any moment in the Church.  With the great advantage that, in Catholicism, for the Christian people doctrine and practice are centered on the celebration of Sunday Mass. To celebrate the Mass, it’s sufficient that that a priest says it and that the faithful participate – ultimately nobody can prevent them from doing that.   That’s what happened after 1965 and especially after 1969 – the Tridentine mass continued to be celebrated as if nothing had happened. Threats, opposition and even persecution followed each other – nothing worked.  Priests and the faithful continued to do what the Church had always done, as Archbishop Lefebvre loved to say.

A recent, very instructive, fact is that while the bishops of France and elsewhere stupidly imposed on the Eucharistic celebrations the coronavirus measures laid down by the government (by prohibiting the communion on the tongue), a number of the faithful, respectful of the sacrament, left the “ordinary” churches to go and receive with dignity the Holy Eucharist in Traditionalist celebrations.  So, it was found that, after the coronavirus crisis, the number of those attending traditional masses has notably increased in most places.

A Useful Reminder

The phrase of St. Jerome is well known, who said in the 4^th century: “the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.”  While the hierarchy had largely gone over to the heresy, nevertheless, numerous faithful remained attached to the Christological doctrine of Nicaea. Have we not seen; do we not see a similar situation repeating itself today? But this  capability for resistance, rooted in practical experience and of its nature uncontrollable, does not exclude demonstrations and powerful actions, which are already being seriously contemplated in many places in the world.

A Bernini marble sculpture of a skull rediscovered in Dresden – as described in Art News:

Eerily life-like marble skull—hidden in plain sight in a German castle—was made by Bernini for the Pope.

The artistic sensitivity of the baroque world was extraordinary! The marble skull was made for Pope Alexander VII around 1655. If you visit Dresden the skull can be viewed in an exhibition that has just opened. The gallery’s full description is here:

Bernini, the Pope and Death

“In the seventeenth century, sudden and often violent death was omnipresent, which is why people were intensely preoccupied with mortality. A constant threat was posed not only by wars and assaults, but above all by diseases. In 1656 there was an outbreak of plague in Rome, and it is remarkable how closely the measures Alexander VII used to fight the epidemic (quarantine, masks, and the extensive shutting down of public life) resemble those that determine our everyday life in the face of the coronavirus today. Death, too, is again more prominent in people’s consciousness due to the current situation, and Bernini’s death’s head thus proves to be a memento mori of extraordinary topical relevance.“

(From the gallery’s description)

Actually, people “were intensely preoccupied with mortality” in almost all ages and cultures up to the dawn of Western Modernity, which has made a deliberate effort to suppress and marginalize the subject. A topic already incomparably set forth by Edgar Allen Poe in The Masque of the Red Death.