We have a new pope in Leo XIV. What can traditionalists expect from his papacy? The first impressions have been favorable. The new pope’s choice of name, his vestments, his demeanor, and several early addresses have found favor among traditionalists. These matters of form all indicate a break with the culture of his predecessor.

On the other hand, Pope Leo is reliably described as a candidate of the circle of Pope Francis, promoted by them when, for one reason or another, the “Bergoglian” papal candidates with the greatest media support could not advance. It was then that Prevost’s name moved to the front of the list. Indeed, Leo seems to be in several respects a compromise candidate. We see this reflected in the fact that representatives of contradictory factions in Catholicism are vying to claim him as their own. Moreover,  there still remains a dearth of information on what his real views are. 

Some conservatives and traditionalists remain disappointed because a pope explicitly friendly to traditionalism and orthodoxy was not elected. However, is it surprising that the new pope would emerge from the “Bergoglian” camp, given that the vast majority of the Cardinals were appointed by Francis?  And after Francis had de facto eliminated the college of cardinals as some kind of cohesive, deliberative body? As we shall see, however,  the prior history of a new pope, as well as the expectations of those who achieved his election, are by no means determinative of what his actual papacy will be like.  

Let me set forth some historical parallels to illustrate these points. Now I recognize it is a perilous thing to draw on historical precedents to understand the present. In this very year there appeared in the pages of Commonweal magazine a fatuous comparison, intended to be insulting, of the Catholic traditionalist movement to the Jansenists of the 17th century. (I myself thought traditionalists should be flattered by this comparison, especially since under Francis there was talk of canonizing Blaise Pascal.) Yet, if used cautiously in a general, non-pedantic way,  the past does offer real insights into the current age and, if we recognize this culture to be problematic, examples of how to get out of it.

I would analogize the “Conciliar” era, commencing in 1958, to three other great periods of crisis, decadence and collapse which enveloped the papacy and much of the rest of the Church as well: 

First,  the Pornocracy or Saeculum Obscurum, which lasted roughly from 880 to 1040. 

Second,  the Renaissance papacy between 1470 and 1534. 

Third, the late 18th century crisis between 1758 and 1800, culminating in the French Revolution.

Characteristic of each of these periods of decline is an almost exclusive focus of the papacy on a limited range of secular political issues. The popes withdraw from the great religious concerns of the Church that had previously governed their actions. The growing lack of awareness of spiritual issues goes hand in hand with the institutionalization of an all-engulfing fantasy world into which the leadership of the Church retreats.

In such ages we see the gradual acceptance as normal of what once had been considered unimaginable, perverted or even criminal. For example, in 882 the first pope was assassinated – in the following hundred years it became a fairly regular event.  After 1470, the popes and higher clergy routinely promoted and extravagantly enriched their nephews – and soon their sons and daughters as well – at the expense of the Church. In 1773 the Jesuit order was disowned and suppressed by its principal patron and beneficiary, the pope himself. In our own day, we have seen a never-ending series of financial scandals at the Vatican, a sexual abuse crisis continuing to rock the Church,  the trial, deposition, and laicization of Cardinals,  and papal promotion of change in what had been considered immutable rules of Catholic morality.

This indifference to scandal is not confined to the papacy.  The Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, discussing the disreputable conduct of Pope John XII (955-964) – who was at most 20 years old – is said to have philosophically remarked “he’s only a young pope.”  Leo X (1513-1522), under whom the Protestant Reformation got underway, was lauded by the humanist writers – the equivalent of today’s media.  If we look at our own day, the official Catholic Church – the Vatican, the mainstream religious orders, the hierarchy, the educational and media apparatus, and a great part of the laity – does not acknowledge that there’s anything amiss in the Church – at least nothing attributable to the Pope, the clergy or Vatican II.  

Now, in each of these cases, the papacy was completely immersed in the decadence and indeed led the way downward. And at no time did change for the better happen because a newly elected pope suddenly came to his senses, recognized the perilous situation and then systematically confronted the issues. Rather, the beginnings of recovery first required either outside political intervention (impossible today) or total disasters for the Church like the French Revolution. For it’s exceedingly difficult for the papacy to work its way out of bad situations all by its own,  because all the likely candidates for the papacy are themselves participants in the crisis. 

What can happen, however, is popes or bishops have a surprising change of heart, and members of the establishment begin a gradual and tentative transformation of a corrupt culture. A famous example is the election in 1534 of Alessandro Farnese as Pope Paul III. Pope Paul’s predecessor, Clement VII, when faced with the Protestant Reformation, the separation of England from the Catholic Church,  Turkish advances and local political disasters, such as the sack of Rome,  had no response other than to continue the Renaissance papacy’s focus on secular political maneuvering. His successor, Alessandro Farnese, embodied the best and worst features of the college of cardinals of that period:  an extravagant patron of the arts,  the proprietor of the most splendid palace in Rome, a skilled political leader – and the father of a number of children. Moreover, his rise to such prominence was in large part attributable to the status of his sister Giulia as mistress of Pope Alexander VI. He would seem to have been an unlikely candidate for a reformer. Indeed, Pope Paul III continued some of the worst abuses of the past (extreme nepotism, a focus on secular politics).  Yet this man, definitely not a saint,  also launched the Catholic Reformation – patronizing new orders, promoting spiritually minded clerics and calling the Council of Trent. By the death of Paul III in 1549, the Catholic Reformation was well underway. In the next decades setbacks and regressions occurred, but by 1564 changes for the better had become irreversible. Going forward, the Church, now under the leadership of the reformed papacy,  was able to hold fast against her enemies and create the baroque Catholic culture that flourished all over Europe. 

Of course, by that date, one third of Europe had been permanently lost to the faith.

I am in not at all suggesting that Leo XIV resembles in character Paul III!  However, the Farnese pope’s story does illustrate that the prior conduct and utterances of a cardinal are not necessarily an indicator of what he does as pope. And that, amid an age of decadence, often the most that one can hope for from a conclave is a pope who perceives at least in part the need for change and begins to initiate it – even if the reversal of culture is not total or complete. 

The indications Leo XIV has given us so far have been favorable. It is far too early to adopt an air of optimism, but let’s not be caught up in deterministic scenarios of disaster either.   We will learn about Leo XIV not so much by what he says but from the issues he addresses (or does not address), from the men he promotes (or leaves in place). We already have a welcome sign in the reduction of the responsibilities of archbishop Paglia. And it is likely that the Bergoglian and progressive forces will try to force the pope’s hand early on. Consider the insulting and restrictive actions just taken by Cardinal Roche and the French bishops against the Chartres pilgrimage ( measures decided before the election of Leo).  It is only from how Leo handles such sensitive matters that we will be able to gauge better the true meaning of his papacy. 

Irrwege und Umwege im Frömmigkeitsleben der Gegenwart

“Dead Ends and Deviations in the Piety of the Present Day.”

By Fr. Max Kassiepe OMI

Second Expanded and Revised Edition, Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1940.

Irrwege und Umwege (“Dead Ends and Deviations”) is a most extraordinary work  – the first edition was published in 1939. For it is a very early detailed critical commentary on the forces within the Church that were even then advocating change – above all,  the Liturgical Movement. By 1939 the Liturgical Movement had obtained achieved real significance, at least in the German-speaking world. It’s obvious, however,  that it still retained somewhat the air of a cult, gaining momentum, but still not readily understandable to the mass of Catholics. The Liturgical Movement, as described by Fr. Kassiepe, was promoted by a clique of writers, monks, young priests and their youthful lay enthusiasts. And it still remained a movement, as Fr. Max Kassiepe’s book testifies, that had not yet been canonized and could be challenged publicly and directly. (The publication date of this book also shows that even in 1940 the Church enjoyed considerable freedom in the Third Reich – that is, as long as one didn’t criticize the regime.)

Our author, Fr. Max Kassiepe, approaches the issue from the perspective of an experienced spiritual director. Fr. Kassiepe had led a wide variety of Catholic pastoral activities and seems to have specialized in giving retreats and addresses at major Catholic gatherings and events. He emphasizes from the start that he is not utterly opposed to the Liturgical Movement  – in fact it has brought about many beneficial results. He does object to the one-sided, confrontational and non-pastoral face of the new movement. Fr. Kassiepe describes the adherents of the Liturgical Movement as elitist,  unrealistic and lacking in understanding of the life and issues of ordinary lay Catholics.

His first point of criticism is the reduction by the Liturgical Movement of Catholic spiritual life exclusively to participation in the Mass. The prior forms of Catholic individual piety  – most notably the rosary  – are displaced and marginalized. Fr. Kassiepe criticizes the theoretical basis of this approach which proposes the superiority of an “objective” spirituality, as embodied in the Mass, over an alleged “private” spirituality. He calls this approach  “liturgism.” Fr. Kassiepe specifically criticizes the notion of returning to the age of the “Early Church” (Urkirche). He points out  – decades before such scholarly positions became more widely known – that the Liturgical Movement’s claims about the form of the liturgies of the Early Church – like the prevalence of versus populum celebration or the location of the altar in the center of the church building – were historically dubious. 

Fr. Kassiepe objects to the widespread disregard of the liturgical rubrics by the Liturgical Movement. The Liturgical Movement utilizes unauthorized vernacular texts, promotes versus populum celebration of the Mass and arbitrarily modifies the rules for nuptial marriages. Further, the Liturgical Movement agitates publicly for concelebration. Or its clerical members don’t celebrate Mass when a congregation is not present. Obviously, this kind of criticism is what we would expect in the days of the rules-focused 1870-1958 Church. But did not this principled rejection of liturgical rubrics later reach epic proportions during and after Vatican II and especially after the promulgation of the Novus Ordo? 

Fr. Kassiepe deems many of the initiatives of the Liturgical Movement non-pastoral. So, for example, he advocates continuation of the practice at that time of distributing communion outside of the celebration of the Mass. He further condemns the disparagement of the forms of popular piety and the reduction of the interiors of churches to “a puritanical prayer room as devoid of decoration as a barn, cold as the stable of Bethlehem, uncomfortable as a homeless shelter.” (p. 38 – quoting Cardinal Faulhaber!)

Kassiepe diverges from his liturgical focus to deal with other pastoral issues less obviously linked with the Liturgical Movement. He accuses circles associated with the Liturgical Movement of promoting an excessively romantic, lyrical and spiritual image of marriage. This leaves couples unprepared for the demands of married life. This chapter reminded me of an exchange at a conference long ago between Alice von Hildebrand and Christopher Derrick concerning the nature of marriage – von Hildebrand’s highly romantic view contrasted with Derrick’s realism.

Some of Fr. Kassiepe’s objections are at first hard to understand but reward closer investigation. For example, in one chapter, he denounces  “semi-quietism.” This would seem to an odd issue, given the almost exclusive focus of the pre-Vatican II Church on the active apostolate and the emphasis of the Liturgical Movement itself on participation in the publicly celebrated liturgy. However, what Fr. Kassiepe is primarily addressing is not a mystical deviation, but what later became known as pastoral approach in the sense familiar to us from the developments of the 1960s onward: relaxing collective, objective liturgical and moral duties in favor of spontaneous individual acts. The author even mentions some Catholics skipping Mass on Sunday given, what was to them, the right circumstances! 

A particular sore point for Fr. Kassiepe was the tendency of the disciples of the Liturgical Movement to disparage frequent confession and to restrict the sacrament of penance only to where it is absolutely necessary – when the penitent is in a state of mortal sin. These observations have particular resonance today when the sacrament of penance to a great extent has fallen out of use entirely. One cause was exactly this restrictive view of the sacrament of penance which I recall being expounded in the now-distant past.

Fr. Kassiepe devotes a chapter to the necessary interaction of young and old in the ministry of the Church. There is always a conflict but also a complementarity, a mutual enrichment between the generations. I think the Liturgical Movement – with its perceived disdain for the “old-timers” and their ways – represented to the author the younger generation! Fr. Kassiepe’s understanding approach, derived from his lengthy pastoral experience and seeing the good in both sides, contrasts with the 1946 Letter of Ida Görres – a  one-sided indictment of the German clergy of that day by a sympathizer of the Liturgical Movement. And the Letter was published just six years after Fr. Kassiepe’s book!

Fr. Kassiepe thus treats many issues that would become the focus of conflict twenty or more years later. Many of the practices and assertions he critiques in this book became dogma within the Church by 1970 – and in certain places, like Germany, well before that. But intellectually, how successful are Fr. Kassiepe’s arguments? In his introduction to the second edition, the author notes that some who agreed with him nevertheless concluded he had not gone far enough in his criticism. They pointed out that he did not explore the theological implications of the Liturgical Movement and the dogmatic errors which underlie the aberrations catalogued in his book. “More profound observers see a serious danger for the faith in these phenomena” (p.7) On the contrary, Fr. Kassiepe states that he has assumed the good faith of the Liturgical Movement advocates and chooses to treat the abuses he discusses primarily as problems of practical pastoral management. 

I would agree with these critical observations on Fr. Kassiepe’s book.  For the aberrations of the Liturgical Movement were by no means only attributable to mistaken pastoral policy or uncontrolled youthful enthusiasm but also reflected a more fundamental opposition to the Catholic Church as it existed in that day. It was indeed the beginning of a true revolutionary movement: rejecting practices of Catholic life as actually harmful which up till then had been encouraged or even mandated. And we all can observe about us today the effect on the practice and understanding of the Faith of the reforms originating in the Liturgical Movement 

Yet the author has good words to say about aspects of the Liturgical Movement. He mentions the renewed sense of being a child of God, and of the membership of all Catholics in the mystical body of Christ.  The Liturgical movement works to transform superficial, routine and “other-directed” Catholics into conscious, understanding and joyful followers of Christ. It has eliminated much that was kitsch and unworthy in Catholic devotional literature. And this kind of Catholicism is much more accessible to youth and those outside the Church. 

Reading such passages is it not paradoxical that the traditionalist movement today best realizes what was of value in the original Liturgical Movement? I would cite the awareness of the centrality of the mass, particularly the sung mass, and of the importance of understanding the liturgical texts. There is a stronger orientation of the spiritual life of the Catholic around the Church year and its various feasts, saints’ days and seasons – yet without any detriment to the devotions such as the rosary and Eucharistic adoration. And finally, a much greater participation by the laity in all aspects of the Church’s life.  The results are clear in the growing participation of youth and the increasing numbers of converts to traditionalist and conservative parishes. So, many years after the publication of Irrwege und Umwege, and under unimaginably different circumstance,  the reconciliation between the legacy of the past and that of the Liturgical Movement – as wished for by Fr. Max Kassiepe – may have finally taken place!

After reflection and having reviewed what I had written during the twelve years of the reign of the late Pope Francis I’d like to add my own modest comments to the subject.  The literature on the Pope which has appeared since his death is already immense. Some is perceptive, others fantastic nonsense. Some articles are critical others hagiographic – in some cases literally, as there are already calls for the canonization of Francis. Perusing the contributions  of the Francis enthusiasts, however, I note that they generally praise Francis not so much for what he did but for what he said and for the political positions he took which were aligned with those of Western secular society.

The Roots of the “Worldview “of Pope Francis

In my view the first key to Francis was his training in the official Church bureaucracy:  starting  in the Jesuit order and later as a member of the hierarchy. The second factor was his commitment to Vatican II. As to the latter, the result of the 1960s revolution in the Church had been to institutionalize a regime that on the one hand repudiated the Catholic past to a greater or lesser degree and on the other, welcomed the secular influence of the “modern world.” This dramatic reorientation, however, preserved the existing bureaucratic structure of the Church, and indeed depended on it for its implementation.

These two aspects of the Catholic Church coincided in the Jesuit order –  the spiritual home of Bergoglio. The Jesuits were among the most aggressive in implementing “the Council” while giving it a specifically secular cast. I can recall witnessing in the early 1970s  a clash between a leading Jesuit liturgist and some of his colleagues on the faculty of Georgetown University regarding the renovation of the university chapel. (There were no traditionalists active at that time!) The demeanor of the Jesuit was arrogant,  confrontational and openly contemptuous of the views of his opponents. I often recalled this experience when reading of the not dissimilar demeanor of Pope Francis. And in this very year another Jesuit liturgist speaking at another of the order’s universities demanded the summary and final abolition of the Traditional Mass. In both these cases Jesuits reduce an issue to a black-and-white, purely ideological confrontation with an “enemy,” without regard to other consequences. For the Georgetown chapel, once renovated, had to be restored again at considerable expense, and for those who frequent the Traditional Mass, as the website of the German bishops puts it, they may “fall by the wayside.” 

Of course, there was one radical difference between the behavior of Jesuits in the early 1970s and that today.  In the earlier era the Jesuits were openly contemptuous of Pope Paul VI. They acted on behalf of the Council and its “spirit,” regardless of Pope Paul’s “views.” (In any case, by that time they knew that Pope Paul would hardly ever act against them.). Under Francis, they can invoke blind obedience to the authority of the pope and the Council.

The innovation of Francis  – the leading example of his “cunning” – is the systematic deployment of the language, images and acts of papal absolutism in the service of the revolutionary cause. (In a sense this had already happened under Paul VI, however,  that pontiff was able to better disguise the nature of his authoritarian acts.) Francis understood that since 1968 the forces opposing or at least trying to slow down the course of reform had relied on papal authority as their ultimate bastion – exemplified by the regime of John Paul II. Moreover, given the bureaucratic nature of the Church it would be impossible for most priests and bishops to publicly oppose papal authority.  

Francis further understood the strength that the papal cult retained despite all the disorders of the post-Conciliar years.  For the Pope was now widely perceived as a “visionary” expected to stamp the Church with his spiritual ideals. The pope thus assumed  the status of a founder of a Catholic religious movement. This explains Bergoglio’s choice of the name “Francis.”

The post Vatican II era, however, had revealed that media support could serve as an effective shield against papal authority. Pope Francis would make sure that would not be an issue for him. For another key aspect of the Bergoglio papacy was the aggressive courting of the secular news media. This also required establishing the best of relations with the Catholic progressive forces and institutions that are allied with these media. Francis understood the great fear the higher clergy had of the media. He also understood that most Catholics got their information about the Church from the secular media. His successful media policy meant that from the beginning to the end of his papacy the words and acts of Francis were shrouded in a bodyguard of lies. For the public image of Francis often had nothing to do with the reality. 

I do not think that the substance of the policies of Francis is confusing or contradictory at all. I think we should take him at his word –  that he wanted to complete and make permanent the changes made to the Church in the 1960s. Whereas in the 1960s the enemy in the mind of the Catholic reformers was the Church as it had existed under Pius XII, for Pope Francis and his allies the target was the Church of Benedict XVI and John Paul II. The limited measures these two popes had had taken to redress the balance within the Church would now be systematically attacked and overthrown. With that accomplished, the progressive agenda would be rolled out once again. For the demands of the progressives had fossilized in the 1960’s and 70’s.

Traditionalism

The new Pope’s animosity to Catholic traditionalism was absolutely clear from the earliest days of his papacy. Consider the actions taken in 2013 against the Friars of the Immaculate and the constant disparaging language employed by Francis in reference to traditionalists. Yet, up to 2021 the traditionalist movement seems to have expanded its reach despite the overt hostility of Francis. Perhaps this was attributable to the demoralization of the Catholic conservatives – the closest alternative on the “right.” The conservatives saw their confident predictions in ecclesiastical politics proved worthless, their secular policies and alliances rejected and, above all, were disowned by their chief support –  the papacy. 

In 2021,  Francis decided to put an end to this situation by promulgating Traditionis Custodes (“TC”)after a typically opaque, manipulative and convoluted introductory buildup. The Catholic traditionalist movement was to be wiped out entirely regardless of the consequences to the clergy and laity involved in it. It was just one more example of the Roman Catholic Church repudiating an alleged achievement of Vatican II  – in this case, religious liberty.

However, it became clear early on that there were limits on the war of annihilation against traditionalism. Most notably, the Ecclesia Dei communities, instead being subjected to further restrictions in the implementation of TC, were for the time being spared. In many places traditionalist masses continued despite the provisions of TC. Monasteries and convents still adhered to the traditional  liturgy. And, in the background, the FSSPX continued on its course.

What developed was an arbitrary, unsystematic and lawless persecution. Under Francis the anti-traditionalist campaign became an essential element of the culture of the Catholic Church.  Traditionalist orders and priests still remained subject to summary expulsion from churches and dioceses. Catholic traditionalist masses continued to be terminated without explanation  – a process that continued in places such as Detroit up to the week before Francis  died. And the process of investigating the Ecclesia Dei communities had been restarted. 

But despite all the coercive actions and invective directed against it, the traditionalist movement did not collapse.  Masses are still celebrated widely;  the Ecclesia Dei communities continued to exist and continued to ordain priests. A seemingly endless stream of traditionalist literature was published. An ever-greater number of lay organizers and publicists stepped into the shoes of the clergy. In 2012 I had asked myself if the current generation of traditionalists had any idea of the long and tortuous struggle that had been necessary to achieve what was then in place. Now I can say that today’s young traditionalists have themselves lived and suffered through a similar and, in some respects, even more severe struggle, and have survived.

The Church Today

What is true of the war of Pope Francis against traditionalism also applies to his other initiatives. Wide sections of the Church have not accepted his institutionalization of divorce, recognition of  LGBT practice or unlimited ecumenism. The result is a continuation and intensification of the chaos that has prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church since the 1960s. It is no longer a question of a divergence between an establishment and “dissenters” –  if that ever was in fact the case – but of differences at the highest levels of church authority on the most fundamental issues. 

It is a conflict that largely takes place outside of the public’s view. The progressives and Pope Francis’s allies are loud and aggressive in propagating their views, their opponents have to be more discreet. Francis first tolerated a German synodal path and then spread it to the rest of the Church – all under the supervision of reliably progressive bishops and bureaucrats. Despite endless talk only the agenda of the progressives is on the table. 

But despite it all, Francis sensed there were limits beyond which he could not (immediately) go. This explains, for example, his drawn-out struggle to establish married priests and female clergy,  a measure that seemed on the brink of realization in 2019. I think Francis understood that to immediately impose the full agenda of his progressive allies would likely lead to a disintegration of the Church into an Anglican-style family of ecclesiastical entities. While forces such as the German church might have welcomed that prospect, Pope Francis and his more direct allies wanted to preserve the institution as well as implementing progressive demands.

What are the practical aspects of this regime? From the very beginning of his papacy Pope Francis unleashed an unending barrage of high-handed administrative actions. All of them tended towards the consolidation of power in his own hands. It became very clear that no prior customs, laws, traditions or principles bound Francis. Indeed, he repeatedly reversed his own recent decisions and those of his subordinates. Ultimately, the only authority in the Catholic Church became the will of Francis, as expressed at the current moment. There was a virtual dissolution of law within the Catholic Church.  Institutions such as the college of  Cardinals were virtually abolished. A cleric’s status within the Church was determined not by any external rank  but by the degree of friendship with Francis. And that friendship could be fleeting….

Within the clerical ranks and the church bureaucracy a pervasive climate of fear took hold. We have read about the animosity engendered in institutions like the curia or the diocese of Rome which had ongoing direct contact with Francis. But fear became a worldwide phenomenon as Francis used his nuncios and diplomats as informers and enforcers. We all know of the most spectacular instances of the removal of bishops without any procedure or “due process.” But the same fear was experienced at a much less exalted level. Clerics asked  not to be photographed or that their names be removed from online records of events  – like traditional Masses –   in which they had taken part years ago. Titles of conferences were rewritten to obscure their relationship with, for example, traditionalism or the personal enemies of Francis.

While these internal struggles proceed,  the institutional decline of the Roman Catholic Church continues and accelerates. Especially in the Western, more economically advanced societies, ordinations continue to decline, religious communities disappear, parishes are merged out of existence, schools are shut and the practice and knowledge of the Catholic faith among the laity reaches catastrophically low levels. None of these things seems to trouble the representatives of the institutional Roman Catholic Church. For an institutional fantasy world dominates all levels of the Church – except for some commentators who can be safely disregarded.  

The question of what happens next is more uncertain than usual. It’s always a safe bet to predict that the next Pope will be in some way a continuation of his predecessor  – one sees that in some of the current media lists of papabile. I would only say that in the past such “official” predictions have been egregiously wrong –  such as in 1978, 2005 and 2013!  And let us remember the increasing fracturing of the Roman Catholic Church into antagonistic worlds with differing religious practices and theologies. The division of the Church into “friends of Francis” and “enemies” will not end with his death. 

The central institutions of the Church likewise have been changed and weakened. A system of governance that has been reduced to a conveyor belt for the pope’s actions and ideas, once deprived of its head, cannot operate autonomously. Do many of the Cardinals really know each other? It will be difficult if not impossible to identify a man that could hold the clerical institution together under such circumstances.

In Conclusion

As traditionalists we can only stay the course.  Traditionalism  has survived nearly four years of official persecution by the Catholic Church. We are still standing. On the other hand, the vision of Francis has failed to materialize both in the Church and in the secular world. What will come next we do not know.  What we do know is that those who have survived such trials, developing their spiritual and intellectual life, should not fear to face the future.

When the Sea Recedes: The Tragedy of the Church in the 21st Century

By Jean-Pierre Maugendre

(Éditions Contretemps 2024)

When the Sea (or Tide) Recedes is a major new addition to the traditionalist library. It’s a selection of essays that chronicles life in the Catholic Church and in Western Europe between 2005 and 2023. 

I do have to warn the American reader. This is a very French book. It is Maurrassian, rightist, political and traditionalist – all anathema to mainstream Catholics (to the extent they still exist) in both France and the United States. Jean-Pierre Maugendre tells his story with intensity, panache and personal commitment. His speech is clear, decisive yet controlled. His positions are unambiguous – but hysteria, eccentricity and fanaticism are absent. Although some of his views – such those regarding the French abandonment of Algeria – may send “middle-of-the-road” Catholics into uncontrolled rage.

A further warning to the American reader relates to the subtitle of this book. Much of the book in fact deals not with the Church but with French politics and society. Indeed, it presupposes some knowledge of what has happened in France over the last 20 years. But again, this is very characteristic of the French right, which acknowledges and affirms the political dimension of the Catholic faith. The side-by-side narrative of When the Sea Recedes, covering events both political and religious, makes clear the unavoidable interaction between the Catholic faith and politics. 

And this link with the political world cuts both ways. The French right engages in politics on the basis of its faith. On the other side of the coin, as the ruling culture of Western civil society becomes ever more anti-Christian and totalitarian, those same tendencies become manifest as well in the “establishment” Catholic Church under Pope Francis. For although the Catholic mainstream and progressives rage against the political commitment of the French Catholic right, this is only because (a) they reject the right’s political positions; and (b) they themselves are infinitely more political than the right ever has been. Anyone who reads the National Catholic Reporter, the official media of the Catholic churches of France and Germany or has followed the actions of Pope Francis and the Jesuit order can verify this. The politics of the progressives, however, is a pale copy of that of the secular establishment. In contrast, what Maugendre calls, quoting sociologist Yann Raison du Cleuziou, “observant” Catholicism: “sets as its top priority the integral transmission of the Catholic faith and does not give up enriching civil society by the values of the Gospel.” (p.398)

I have to admire the author and the French right for their indomitable spirit. On the French political front, they suffer defeat after defeat on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. Despite the grave failings of Macron over the last three years,  the French political establishment continues to be able to exclude the rightist party from any role in the French government. And despite intermittent widespread public outrage over uncontrolled immigration, gay marriage and disastrous economic policies, the French right never is able to capture a majority of the electorate.  Yet, there’s never any slacking off of the intensity of the right’s engagement. 

The same can be said in relation to the Church. In the first ten years covered by this book the Catholic traditionalists received unprecedented recognition from Rome, if far less so on the national level. Since the accession of Francis, of course, all this has been reversed, and the Vatican has undertaken a new campaign against Catholic tradition. And while these struggles convulse the Church, Maugendre reminds us again and again of the relentless, drastic collapse of the Faith, as evidenced in the statistics of declining baptisms, marriages, and vocations in France – things that don’t seem to perturb the hierarchs of the Church. More recently, the cause of the French Catholic traditionalists has experienced fresh defeats in Pope Francis’s all-out war against Catholic tradition, such as the deposition of Bishop Dominique Rey. To continue Maugendre’s metaphor – is the sea still retreating? 

….

The sea of faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d;

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

Retreating to the breath

Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems 

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

Yet Maugendre rejects such a mood of resignation. In all the trials he describes he finds much about which to rejoice.  Such as the recent overwhelming turnout for the traditionalist pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres. (We just now hear that the French episcopate – and the Vatican – have backed off from ideas of closing Chartres cathedral to the pilgrims in 2025.)  Or in his retelling the stories of those who, in one way or another, had fought the good fight in politics or in the Church. Maugendre celebrates in this book the legacy of such varied personalities as Benedict XVI, Helie Denoix de Saint Marc and Jean Madiran.  And although it undoubtedly took place after the work on this book closed,  I’m sure Maugendre has welcomed the “miracle” of Donald Trump which has unleashed a counter-woke wave throughout the world. Maugendre was fighting the same struggle years ago. For example, in June 2010 Maugendre already anticipated J.D. Vance in stating the obvious truth of the “hierarchy of charity.” (p.121). 

As Maugendre tell us, such events and people confirm that situations are never hopeless.  “Because that which seems inevitable never is, it’s never in vain to resist it.” That’s especially true in religion where the ultimate triumph of the truth is assured.  “It isn’t the hope of victory, but the necessity of struggle that makes the Christian warrior.” (p.21)

We know the sea of faith will return again!

The Right Hand of the Lord is Exalted: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to Traditionis Custodes

by Aurelio Porfiri

Sophia Institute Press (Manchester NH 2024)

The Right Hand of the Lord is Exalted, (“The Right Hand”) is a new contribution to the growing literature on the history of the Catholic traditionalist movement. The author, Aurelio Porfiri,  has been writing for years on cultural and liturgical themes. I have appreciated very much his collaborations with Aldo Maria Valli. In these, Valli plays the role of the impassioned critic and visionary, while Porfiri poses as the calm voice of reason. Yet he makes his own trenchant points as well – while considering life in the modern world and the Church from the perspective of a practicing musician

If we view The Right Hand as an extended essay on the development of traditionalism since the Council this new book offers much that is positive. It is a leisurely ramble through the 60 years following the beginning of Vatican II. Porfiri structures his chronology around the reigns of the post-1958 popes. He also mentions cultural and world events occurring in each year; some of these examples from the outside world are insightful, others mildly amusing. It is important, however, to situate internal Church affairs in the context of secular history.

Porfiri’s views are solid and perceptive on such topics as the relation of the Vatican Council to the subsequent creation of the Novus Ordo, the role and real opinions of Pope Paul VI or the exact nature of the plans of Francis for the traditional liturgy. In the earlier years covered by this book, they are – perhaps surprisingly – aligned to a great extent with the positions of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Now I was looking forward to reading Porfiri’s insights into the traditionalist scene in Italy. Compared with the United States and especially France,  Italy remains somewhat of a ”black hole” in the history of traditionalism. Here in the States, we know of the glorious early days of Italian traditionalism up to the 1970s. We’ve heard of the role of various noble ladies in Rome and elsewhere. And then there is the Italian internet presence, established by both traditionalists and conservatives, which has steadily developed over the last 25 years. Sites such as Sandro Magister’s Settimo Cielo, Silere non Possum, the late Il Sismografo, Valli’s Duc in Altum, Messa in Latino, to name only a few,  have become required reading in the traditionalist scene worldwide, For example, Silere non Possum has been revolutionary in opening up the inner workings of one diocese to the public view – that diocese, of course, happens to be that of the pope, Rome. 

Porfiri provides helpful information on patrons, organizations and authors. He chronicles the positions of these participants in the traditionalist scene over the decades.  His information, however,  is often too summary to really give us an idea of what these people believe. There is no detailed account of the contributors in the online community. 

The only significant Italian-based community of which I am aware that was not an intellectual or journalistic organization was the Friars of the Immaculate, originally not traditionalist but later tending in that direction. In 2013 Francis set out to destroy them as one of the first shots in his war against Catholic tradition. Porfiri does describe this event but in a summary manner that doesn’t do justice to the topic and its worldwide significance. And contrary to what Porfiri says, the war against the spiritual descendants of these friars continues to this day. (e.g., the recent expulsion of the “Marian Franciscan Sisters and Friars” in the UK.)

I do have more significant reservations which relate to the subtitle of this book: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II  to Traditionis Custodes. The Right Hand is a serviceable introduction for someone who is absolutely new to the subject. It is short and easy to read. But it has serious limitations as history. For The Right Hand is in no way a thorough, scholarly history like the works of Yves Chiron, Joseph Shaw, Guillaume Cuchet or Roberto de Mattei all of which deal with aspects of the same years.

For starters, Porfiri allocates the 306 pages of his text as follows: 

Introduction, 3 pages;

Pope John XXIII, 56 pages; 

Pope Paul VI, 152 pages; 

Pope John Paul II, 43 pages;

 Pope Benedict XVI,17 pages;

Pope Francis, 17 pages (plus 6 pages on Traditionis Custodes).

Thus, the last two papacies, in which traditionalism achieved its most complete recognition by the Church and then became the target of a total war launched by the same Church – are covered in some 13% of the text. 

Furthermore, I do not understand why, in Porfiri’s view, each pontificate since 1958 (except that of John Paul I!) constitutes an “era” in the life of the Church or of traditionalism. It seems to me, for example, that the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict constitute a separate era on their own.

Porfiri’s impressionistic, personal approach to the topic by its very nature raises questions of focus and completeness. For example, regarding the Church as a whole, he discusses in some detail events in the 1960s and 70s yet, other than the Vigano affair, says virtually nothing about the sexual abuse crisis which has shaken the Church to its foundations since the 1990’s. Nor does he write of the unending series of  financial scandals of the Vatican since the late 1970’s.  As The Right Hand approaches the present day,  Porfiri’s judgments tend to become more summary and attenuated. We read that a book or issue is “complex,”  “important” or “interesting.” I don’t think these adjectives aid the reader, who is looking for the historian’s assessment of the significance of a fact or event.

Porfiri’s narrative also leaves out important aspects of traditionalism itself. In contrast to the extensive coverage of the earlier literature, more recent books related to traditionalism go unmentioned.  Porfiri says little regarding the United States –  but for him to summarize American traditionalism since 1964 by referring to Fr. Gommar DePauw, Patrick Henry Omlor, Francis Schuckardt and Fr. Gruner’s Fatima Crusader is simply preposterous. Even in Italy, Porfiri says nothing about the role of Cristina Campo in the early traditionalist initiatives, although all this is clearly spelled out in a book by Fr. Francesco Ricossa, which in 2023 Porfiri himself recommended as a source on the subject. In this regard, I note that Una Voce (both in Italy and internationally), which understood itself as the center of the traditionalist world over the decades covered by The Right Hand, is mentioned only in three or four scattered pages!

In my opinion, Porfiri frequently describes groups and individuals without considering their actual strength and significance. So, in United States, even if sedevacantist groups are represented (and thus in Porfiri’s view constitute  “traditionalisms”)  only three traditionalist “denominations” are predominant:  the FSSPX, the Ecclesia Dei societies/communities and the Summorum Pontificum communities.  Porfiri tends to devote substantial space to the more fringe elements within traditionalism, which may have contributed to skewing his judgment. For small conventicles and sects, without the responsibility of dealing with the Church and society as a whole, are freer to take up radical, aggressive and uncompromising positions. 

Perhaps as a consequence of this, Porfiri exaggerates the significance of the divisions among  “traditionalisms.” For what unites all traditionalists is devotion to some form of the pre-conciliar liturgy and adherence to Catholic doctrine and morality as they were understood in the continuous tradition of the Church. There do of course exist belligerent groups, particularly in the sedevacantist sphere. Yet differences among traditionalists are minor compared to the variety of views among “conservative Catholics “ in the United States – to say nothing of the chaos that prevails in the “official” Church.  Didn’t Malachi Martin many years ago foresee the Catholic Church disintegrating into entities not just autocephalous but autozoic  – a development being realized in our own day? 

I also wonder what exactly Porfiri understands traditionalism to be. It’s not, as described by him, a succession of declarations and actions by the Pope, bishops and the Vatican, on the one hand, and responses of diverse traditionalist groups in the form of statements, publications and organizational acts, on the other. Nor is it a series of books being published(although I spend a lot of time reviewing them! ).  Rather, traditionalism is about Catholics who concretely experience the catastrophe unfolding about them at the level of parishes, schools, religious orders, universities, individual families and the entire society – a catastrophe which the Church has never acknowledged. Traditionalism is about the efforts and sacrifices these Catholics (predominantly the laity) make to save the faith of their families and their children by handing down to them “the faith of our fathers” in the liturgy, the sacraments, Catholic culture, and in doctrine and morality. And this engagement frequently spills over into political activity as well. For traditionalism is not at all merely a defensive response: it ultimately wants to restore the entire Church and even reach out to all men – but as Catholics. I am especially disappointed in this regard because Porfiri’s collaborations with Valli demonstrate that he is very much aware of what is happening on the ground in the Catholic Church today and what it’s like living in the desacralized world of modernity.

In conclusion, I would recommend The Right Hand  – with the above reservations. It provides a handy, understandable review of developments in the Church and among traditionalists since 1962. On many of the points this chronicle raises the author and I agree. But we are still waiting for a complete history of Catholic traditionalism as an international phenomenon.

(I find myself with a backlog of five or so book reviews! Here, I review a book – or rather an essay  – published in 2005. It’s significant for two reasons. First it deals directly with topics we ourselves have repeatedly considered on this blog  – indeed it represents a school of thought almost exactly the opposite of the views found in Sebastian Morello’s 2024 Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries which I reviewed yesterday. Second, some consider that I have neglected the sedevacantist strand of Catholic traditionalism. By this review I would hope to start to fill that gap.)

Cristina Campo, or the Abiguity of Tradition

by Fr. Francesco Ricossa

2005 Centro Librario Sodalitum, Verrua Savoia TO (revised edition 2006)

Fr. Francesco Ricossa, as far as I am aware, is still active. He has been one of the leaders of the Institute Mater Boni Consilii in Italy since1985, when he and others split off from the FSSPX. Mater Boni Consilii promotes a variant of sedevacantism and publishes Sodalitium(named after the Sodalitium Pianum, the heresy-hunting organization established by Msgr. Umberto Begnini under Pope Pius X). I gather that in Italy Fr. Ricossa enjoys a considerable reputation that extends well beyond sedevacantist circles. 1) His Cristina Campo, or the Ambiguity of Tradition (the “Ambiguity of Tradition”) is one of the first Catholic attempts to deal with that remarkable leader of early traditionalism. Both Roberto de Mattei and Aurelio Porfiri have recently mentioned favorably this book.2) In the last paragraphs of my own review of Campo’s The Unpardonable I refer, somewhat humorously, to Ricossa’s essay. 3) But in view of the Ambiguity of Tradition having being raised once again, I feel the need to address it in greater detail. I ask: is the Ambiguity of Tradition a serious historical source?

Ricossa’s essay does refer to primary sources (which he often quotes) and is footnoted. On the positive side he succinctly details Cristina Campo’s decisive role in the initial stages of the resistance to the liturgical revolution, such as in several petitions by Catholic and non-Catholic cultural figures to save the Traditional Mass, in the founding of Una Voce Italia and in the so-called “Ottaviani Intervention.” Later, there was her close collaboration with Archbishop Lefebvre and other high clerical figures such as the future cardinal Mayer. 

What I do question, however, is Ricossa’s depiction of the spirituality and religious beliefs of Campo. Contrary to Porfiri’s claim that the Ambiguity of Tradition presents a “learned and respectful” account, it is in fact a sustained attack on Campo’s memory. 

Ricossa’s problems with Campo start with her early fascination with the thought of Simone Weil. There follows Campo’s relationship with Elemire Zolla.  Ricossa is not so much concerned by the moral but the “ideological” aspects of this association . For Ricossa describes Zolla as a “gnostic,” a disciple of Rene Guenon and the “traditionalist” or “perennialist” school. Very briefly, “perennialism” posits the existence of a universal primordial revelation manifest in the traditions of Man which is opposed to the spirit of modernity. Ricossa argues that Zolla became Campo’s “maestro” or guru, guiding her through all kinds of esoteric and hermetic doctrines including those of the eastern religions (Zen, Hinduism). 

Now with the coming of the Vatican Council Campo did become a convinced defender of Catholic “tradition.” But Ricossa insinuates that this conversion may well have been partial, or incomplete. The main evidence for this, as we shall see, is her interest in what Ricossa calls the “deviation” of the Eastern Church. He concludes his biography with sanctimonious prayers for the soul of Christina Campo, hoping that she may be numbered among the saved.

Looking at the published works of Campo, I am unable to find overt advocacy of perennialist, hermetic or esoteric doctrines. Her references to other religions are dwarfed by her constant recourse to the saints, culture and devotions of the Catholic Church: both the post-Tridentine Church and the Eastern Church. Ricossa, however, finds support for his claims in the influences other authors allegedly had on Campo, such as those set forth in the chapter In the Darkness: Weil, Hofmannsthal, Zolla. (pp. 7-16)  I do not know anything about Zolla, but I do know something about some of the more significant figures Ricossa mentions.

Let us start with Simone Weil, who in this book receives almost as much page space as Cristina Campo.  Ricossa describes her this way: 

‘At the crossroads of Christianity and all that is not Christian Simone Weil did not have a doctrine, rather an unstable metaphysical and theological  gnosis made up of tendencies now of the Cathars, now Pythagorean, now Platonic,  which emerged within her from the breeding ground of oriental traditions, especially Indian….” 4)

Ricossa adds:

 “She was a gnostic, therefore, and as so outlined, genuinely Jewish, even in her Marcionite repugnance for the Old Testament” (p. 7) 

Later he describes the alleged gnosticism of Simone Weil as having not pagan, but Talmudic and cabbalistic sources.  (p.41)

This is how Ricossa characterizes one of the most profound mystics of modern times, who, in her way, was an apologist for Catholicism. 

Ricossa continues:  “Along with Simone Weil the literary ‘guiding light’ of Campo was the freemason Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one of the numerous Jewish mitteleuropäisch writers” into whose works Campo was supposedly “initiated” by Jewish and probably masonic friends. ( p.8) In footnote 17, however,  we learn that it was in fact Hofmannsthal’s paternal grandfather who converted to Christianity (although Ricossa claims this was feigned).  In the same footnote Ricossa cites a 1998 masonic source that asserts Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “distinguished” masonic family background “appears in his works” (not that he was a freemason). 

This is the manner Ricossa describes a writer who considered himself a Catholic, who was buried in the robes of a third order Franciscan and whose works are infused with a profound Catholic culture (e.g. the librettos for Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten). Moreover, I don’t immediately understand – other than his Jewish ancestry – why Hofmannsthal is singled out in comparison with Eduard Mörike, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, the English metaphysical poets, T.S. Eliot, and especially William Carlos Williams. After all, Campo translated far more of each of these poets’ work than she did of Hofmannsthal’s; her selections show her outstanding good taste. 

Now one would have thought that after what Campo described as her “conversion” and her engagement in preserving the Latin mass, her Catholic “credentials” would have been established in Ricossa’s eyes –  but no. Campo, among other things, had become involved with what Ricossa calls the “deviation” of the Russia Catholic Church (and of the Eastern Churches in general). And the Eastern Churches are reducible to Hesychasm: the path of contemplation or “quietness.” Indeed, according to Ricossa, there is a relationship between the “Byzantine church” and Freemasonry and with perennialism as well:

“Hesychasm became thus the typical form of “Christian” esotericism especially among the disciples of Rene Guenon…” (p 27)

To the above examples I could add many others – Ricossa writes of the “lethal” Dostoevsky (p.25) and of Boris Pasternak, “(Campo’s) last literary guiding light along with two other sui generis Jews, Simone Weil and von Hofmannsthal.” (p 25). Ricossa even feels the need to defend Romano Amerio from the suspicion of heterodoxy to which the subtitle of his book Iota Unum “Changes (Variazioni ) in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century” could otherwise give rise. (fn.132 at pp. 72-73). 

In summary, these illustrations of Ricossa’s judgment prevent me from taking him as a serious biographical authority.

Now I think there is more profound difference between Campo and Ricossa than the latter’s obsession with Freemasons, Jews, esoteric circles and their influences and conspiracies. At the very beginning of his book he cites Weil’s Letter to a Priest in which Weil confesses ( I paraphrase)that while she feels nothing in common with the Catechism of the Council of Trent, when she reads the New Testament, the mystics, the liturgy and sees the celebration of the Mass she feels a kind of certainty “that that faith is mine.” Ricossa remarks that passage “could have been written by Cristina Campo” – in fact, Campo did write a critical but understanding analysis of this and similar passages in her introduction to Weil’s Waiting for God. What both she and Weil are pointing out, however, is the inadequacy of a “decadent” Catholic catechesis that understands the Faith primarily as a set of doctrines (propositions) to be accepted. I regret that Ricossa seems to have such an understanding – thus his allergic reaction to this quote.

Similarly, Ricossa inquires why Campo opposed the changes of the Council in the first place. He speculates that this was “culturally” determined, (merely) aesthetic and even (just) a defense of a generic “sacred” or “tradition” (among many other traditions).(pp. 21-22).  In this argumentation, does not Ricossa come close to the Conciliar establishment’s views, which scorn aesthetic considerations and Man’s natural love of beauty? And is Ricossa that far removed from Bergoglian advocates Cavadini/Weinandy/Healy, who have written of Traditionalists “loving the Mass more than Jesus” as if they were separable or even potentially contradictory? 

Ricossa makes these points himself in an interesting section of his essay which covers the reception of Campo’s work up to 2005. He claims interest in Campo’s writings revived when they were republished starting in 1987 (ten years after Campo’s death)by the Adelphi press, which Ricossa identifies as gnostic and the creation of representatives of Jewish and esoteric circles in the 1960s. ( A look at Adelphi’s current catalog doesn’t seem to me to evidence a pronounced esoteric focus but is rather your typical, somewhat pretentious European literary catalog.5)) 

In June 2002 Gianni Rocca published an essay (“Cristina Campo and the “Primordial Tradition”) setting out the thesis of an “esoteric” Campo. The publisher was Edizioni Ares which Ricossa claims is Opus Dei controlled. ( I believe I have found some evidence for that.)  Now Ricossa is critical of Rocca.  Rocca dwells on the words of various esoteric and related authors rather than what Campo herself wrote and makes errors of fact and interpretation. (Much the same could be said of the Ambiguity of Tradition!)Yet Ricossa nevertheless agrees with Rocca’s conclusions if not his methodology. One wonders:  was Rocca’s essay really the basis of the Ambiguity of Tradition?  Ricossa further claims Rocca’s essay was published by Opus Dei to discredit traditionalism by associating one of its main champions with gnostic and esoteric thought. But isn’t this what Ricossa himself is achieving in the Ambiguity of Tradition? (Una Voce Venice published a statement calling Rocca’s essay “calumny.”) 6)

Doesn’t the Ambiguity of Tradition illustrate two forms of traditionalism,  two possible reactions to the revolution in the Church of the 1960s? That of Fr. Ricossa seeks at all costs to preserve doctrinal purity. In furtherance of that goal, it separates itself from outside contamination of all kinds. In Fr. Ricossa’s mind, Catholics should restrict themselves to their own tradition. This is the sedevacantist way. 

A second approach is that of Christina Campo and like-minded people since her day. She sought to find a common ground with Catholics and non-Catholics in defense of Catholic tradition. To do that she had to argue for the supreme importance of the Catholic tradition to the Christian West and even beyond. Is it not strange  – the “reactionary” traditionalist Campo was able to reach a broader (and better educated)community outside the Church than the Conciliar establishment itself, despite its mania for ecumenism! She was able to do this by virtue of her years of investigating poetry, myths and rituals. This gave her an understanding of the significance of form in liturgy, which in more recent years has been revived and  developed by, among others, Martin Mosebach.   Her intellectual and poetic work did not contradict her later advocacy of Catholic tradition but rather made it possible. 

For contrary to Ricossa, it is not heterodox or “syncretistic” to find mysterious correspondences between the Faith and other religions throughout history. One may glance at the Sistine chapel with its prophets and sibyls. And what of the role that Vergil had in the Church early on as a supposed precursor of the Gospels? Despite Ricossa’s aspersions, a Catholic may seek out the good in schools of thought not aligned with Christianity. Thomas Molnar, for example, cited authors like Mircea Eliade or Jung – and even, if less frequently,  Guenon and Evola – for their insights into desacralization and the loss of the sacred in the West. Yet he in no way was their disciple – he even wrote a book against such currents of thought. (The Pagan Temptation, 1987)

This outward-focused Catholic traditionalism is in a real sense missionary. It wants to communicate Christian truth, as incarnated in the tradition of the Church, to Catholics, Christians and indeed all peoples. Here and there we have seen how effective this can be even under the assault of Traditionis Custodes.  Future events will reveal when and how this “outward focused” traditionalism can progress. Campo herself never saw the success of her endeavors. Indeed, she has been largely forgotten by the traditionalists themselves – even to the present day! Yet for all these insights into what traditionalism can become we can be grateful to Cristina Campo.

1. Porfiri, Aurelio, The Right Hand of the Lord is Exalted at 247-250 (Sophia Institute Press, Manchester NH,  2024)
2. Porfiri, Aurelio, “Cristina Campo and the Monsters of Traditionalism,” onepeterfive (April 28, 2023); De Mattei, Roberto “Cristina Campo and the world of Tradition,” Rorate Caeli ( 2/14/2025)
3. The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, “The Unforgivable,” (8/9/2023)
4. Ricossa is citing here B. Matteucci, “Simone Weil” in Enciclopedia Cattolica Vol. Xll (Città del Vaticano,1954).
5.  Adelphi Catalogo.
6. Ivo, Don Cesar, “Riatualizzazione del Paganesimo? Callunnie contro Cristina Campo,” Una Voce Venetia (No date; found on the Una Voce Venetia “Pagina Cristina Campo“)

(all internet links accessed 3/3/2025)

Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries: Recovering the Sacred Mystery at the Heart of Reality

by Sebastian Morello

Os Justi Press (Lincoln, NE 2024)

Sebastian Morello, a well-known contributor to European Conservative magazine, makes a dramatic plea for the reorientation and renewal of Roman Catholic spiritual life. His new book, Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries (“MMM”) appears at a favorable moment, for hasn’t Rod Dreher just published his own manifesto in favor of mysticism and rediscovering the ”enchantment” of the world:  Living in Wonder? (In fact, Morello reviews this book at the end of MMM). Moreover, Charles Coulombe, an advocate of such ideas for many years,  has written a foreword to Morello’s book.

Like Dreher, Morello confronts the desacralization of the world and of the contemporary Church, both now almost totally suffocated by the rationalism and materialism of modernity.  The mystic wellsprings of Christianity have been largely sealed off. In the West, the contemplative life has been reduced to the province of a small group of specialists. Indeed, there are indications that even these remnants have become targets of the leadership of the Church. Among the clergy, instead of mystics we have managers. The result is a world devoid of meaning.

Now throughout this book the author provides a critical review of the state of the Roman Catholic Church today. I have rarely read such a damning and accurate indictment. Of course, Morello’s status as an author at a secular publication enables him to be franker than most. Consider his perceptive comments on the Church’s dramatic loss of authority:

The hierarchy of the Church has almost entirely lost authority in the eyes of the rest of the faithful. … Among the vocal, active, Catholics of the second half of the twentieth century, there were broadly three factions: the progressives, the traditionalists and the post-conciliar neocons. That third category was dominant until the reign of Pope Francis, but since then has nearly totally disappeared. The champions of the “hermeneutic of continuity” have, generally speaking, fallen silent. It was too difficult to keep it up. …[T]here remained two dominant groups: the progressives and the traditionalists. Neither of these groups maintained much confidence in the authority of the Holy See or the curia. (p.47)

Very true – although I am not as confident that the neocons, even if they have quieted down, have totally disappeared!

Morello traces the disenchantment of the West to the ascendancy of the philosophy of Descartes and its division between the mind and the body. He advocates a return to the medieval and renaissance vision of the material world as participating in the divine. He cites elements of Catholic spirituality in prior ages that have been subsequently obscured: like the connections of Albert the Great and even Thomas Aquinas with Platonism, mysticism and “hermetic magic.” He discusses favorably the writings of  Renaissance humanists in Italy and Germany and their fascination with Platonic, esoteric and  hermetic thought. Morello also finds intellectual allies in much more recent times, such as Valentin Tomberg and his unique Meditations on the Tarot (1980)!  All these connections and links were once mainstream in Catholic thought, but in recent ages have been consigned to obscurity by an embarrassed Catholic Church. Morello does not claim that   reconnection with hermetic magic will rescue the Church – after all, the church has one Savior, Jesus Christ.  But, Morello argues, it may help to break the spell  – the black magic – of Enlightened man. 

And thereby, we may begin to retrieve meaning, and in turn start the Church’s process of humbling itself before the true King of the Universe. (pp.79-80)

MMM summarizes some of the best arguments in favor of monasticism that you will encounter anywhere. For Morello, Western Christendom is Benedictine. (In contrast, he has reservations about the spirituality of the Society of Jesus.)  He sees the revival of the Church (whenever that  occurs) as the rising out of a renewed monastic spirituality. To rediscover a spirituality that recognizes the participation of the material world in the sacred will take many years of living a Christian life. This vocation cannot be individualistic but must be shared in a like-minded community. Thus, I think Morello offers a corrective to the facile hopes of restoring a sense of enchantment through an individual spiritual odyssey or, likewise, to the dreams of those who believe they have a blueprint for the restoration of Christian culture. Any such re-enchantment or restoration will be the fruit of years  – indeed generations – of spiritual effort. That is the task of the monks.

Morello gives us concrete illustrations of his ideas. He analyzes, for example, artwork like Vermeer’s Allegory of Faith:

As the woman (a representation of the Christian soul )is whirled up into union with the infinite love of God she remains anchored by her foot in this world where she encounters that love. (pp.7-9)

Some of Morello’s examples like his description of exercising ( “like a knight Templar!”) with a medieval Indian mace,  may be a little too esoteric.  But there’s no denying the power of Morello’s chapter on “killing our elders.” This of course is now happening literally as the practice of euthanasia spreads. But “spiritual murder”  is also taking place in society and in the Church – in the form of the destruction of prior culture and traditions. We no longer want or listen to the advice of the elders – a key institution in all traditional societies. Instead, we applaud breaking with nature and tradition:

This pattern of replacing what we had with a poor version of the same thing is clearly observable in the cultural killing of our elders, for our societies are now full of therapists and counselors. … We went from a people who will seek a solution for the problems that arise, for love of the community that they helped to build, to a people in whose financial interest it is to perpetuate the problems encountered. (p.126)

Morello challenges us to reject this modern paradigm, starting in our own homes –  by teaching our children and grandchildren how to relate to parents, grandparents and relatives.

Concluding MMM is Morello’s review of Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder. Morello endorses that book and argues that it makes a clearer and more systematic case for the recovery of the sacred that I was able to discover. However, Morello does criticize Dreher for a certain lack of clarity when he seems to identify the pagan and Christian understanding of the world.  A Christian must distinguish this world, however enchanted, from the divine original. This world does participate in the divine original but is also fallen. Morello thus very clearly rejects the temptation of pantheism – an accusation often raised against those who wish to restore the role of mysticism in the Church.

Altogether a unique and challenging book!

Here is a link to the book listing at Os Justi Press:

Mysticism, Magic and Monasteries

“Brief über die KIrche”

Die Kontroverse um Ida Friederike Görres’ Aufsatz – ein Dokumentationsband

A Letter on the Church

The Controversy surrounding the Essay by Ida Friederike Görres – a Documentary Collection.

Paraiso, Jean-Yves (Editor)

(2005 Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar,  Vienna)

Last year I wrote a review of the 1951 book The Church in the Flesh of Ida Friederike Görres. Now that book prominently refers to a prior essay of hers, A Letter on the Church, (the “Letter”) from 1946, which at the time had created an uproar in the German Church.1) I felt it was incumbent upon me to examine the Letter and assess its significance. Fortunately, in 2005 Jean-Yves Paraiso – who seems to have impeccable progressive credentials  – had published the Letter along with other source documents relating to it. He also provided notes and an introduction. 

I do have to confess that I find Görres’s prose to be somewhat tiresome. Her style is now enthusiastic and emotional, now dogmatic and pontificating. It reminds me of what someone once wrote about the writings of Eric Gill (who, among other things, was a Catholic publicist): it’s like being harangued in a pub by someone who’s speaking too long and too loudly. It is somewhat unfortunate, however, to judge Görres by these post-World War II writings. They leave the impression that she is first and foremost a commentator and polemicist on ecclesiastical issues. Her most famous works, however, published during and before World War II, dealt with spirituality and hagiography,  such as her lives of Mary Ward and St. Theresa of Lisieux.

The Letter takes the form of a dialogue between a ”Protestant” and the author. The Protestant speaks of his admiration for the Catholic Church: its liturgy, splendid and understandable for the common people; the beauty of Corpus Christi processions; the high educational level and exemplary conduct of the clergy; the sacrificial service of the nursing sisters. Görres, however, feels compelled to point out that his “outsider’s” understanding may be superficial. She then launches into a catalog of the woes afflicting the Catholic Church at that time.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Letter is its focus upon the deficiencies of the Catholic clergy, particularly the diocesan clergy. In the post-1870 Church such public attacks on the clergy by Catholics of course had been few and far between.  According to Görres,  the conduct of the German clergy may indeed be “correct,” but that is inadequate. Görres provides a long list of clerical deficiencies: their education, their personalities, their worldliness and the leadership of their parishes. Why are there are so few pious priests? The priests often rattle off the Mass without any thought. To hear a decent sermon is an exception. “Celibacy, instead of freeing up the priest for fraternal encounters,  locks the individual rigidly and icily in his unmastered self.” Clerical authoritarianism can reach an extreme that Görres qualifies as “clericofascism!“ These problems  – and worse – are even more rampant in her homeland of German Bohemia (the Sudetenland).(By 1946 the German population there was either dead or in exile).

Certainly, the diatribe against the German clergy in the Letter attracted the most attention at the time, but other aspects of the Church are not spared. The  German monastic orders are impressive in choir, but such monks,  according to Görres,  should be “angels.” Catholic charitable organizations can be cruel and disrespectful to those in need. The laity, at least in certain 100% Catholic rural districts,  are narrow-minded and anything but Christian – after all, are they not the source of the clergy? Catholic schools are all too often characterized by a “narrowness bordering on fanaticism, perpetuation of the inadequate and substituting competence with zeal.” Moreover, Görres suspects these issues of the German-speaking countries may also be prevalent elsewhere in the Catholic world.

Görres’s imaginary dialogue partner, after hearing all this, inquires why she remains a member of the Catholic Church. She answers, not inappropriately, because the Church is the bearer of the Truth. Therefore, she loves the Church. In fact, she says all these things against the Church because she loves it so much. This love enables her to see everything clearly without any cover up. Her anger and sorrow are prompted by her conviction of how great a presence the Church should be. For the Church is the Church of Christ. These sentiments are set forth in a lengthy, emotional peroration.

Now, surprisingly enough, you do not find in the Letter certain things that you might have expected based on the polemics of subsequent decades. There are only tangential references to the war or the Third Reich, and the role of the Church in that time. There’s no real analysis of how the desolate situation of the Church came about and no examination of the role of the (current) hierarchy or the papacy, nor are any solutions offered. Curiously, she cites as a major issue that the Holy Saturday services take place in the morning of that day, which represents to her a logical absurdity. I don’t know if raising this point would make much sense in a dialogue with a real, as opposed to an imaginary, Protestant, but it does reveal the influence of Liturgical Movement agitation. Otherwise, as elsewhere in her writings,  Görres devotes surprisingly little attention to the liturgy.  At times Görres’s recitation of ecclesiastical ills declines into nonsense, such as when she cites real or imagined anecdotes from the life of aristocratic priests in the 18th century. 

The Letter demonstrates that in that “pre-conciliar” era the blunt critical speech of Catholics could match anything found online today. And Görres’s Letter provoked a response no less vehement. Indeed, the editor of this collection claims a statement of Pope Pius XII was specifically directed at Görres’s remarks (without expressly naming Görres).

Of the critical responses quoted in this volume,  I find most persuasive that of the Catholic archbishop of Freiburg, who pointed out how utterly inappropriate it was for Görres to publish the Letter at that time. For Germany in 1946 was not like the United States in 1965. Many German Catholics and their pastors were living in bombed-out cities or refugee camps, many families were still hoping for the return of their loved ones who were prisoners of war. The economic and political situation remained chaotic. Moreover, in the total German collapse of 1945, the hierarchy and clergy of the Catholic Church had played a great role in stabilizing society to the best of their ability –  just as the bishops of Gaul did during the barbarian invasions in the 5th century. And what of the witness of a not insignificant number of  clerics during the Third Reich – many  of whom paid with their lives?

I of course do not have direct experience of what the German Church was like at the parish level in 1946, but I think there are independent witnesses of that age that offer a stark contrast to Görres’s depiction. Such as Peter Seewald’s Benedikt XVI: Ein Leben, which describes the youth of Joseph  Ratzinger in the 1920s and 30s. For Poland, George Weigel’s Witness to Hope tells a similar tale about Karol Wojtyla’s younger days.  Do we need to mention the situation of the Church in the United States in those immediate postwar years, which Catholics at the time thought was a “golden age?” This evidence at a minimum demonstrates the “black legend” given us by Görres is a one-sided caricature. 

This is unfortunate because there were there were significant issues with the Catholic Church in 1946. Görres hints at some of these when she writes about priest-bureaucrats. Or when she comments on the worldliness of some priests, their desire to fit in with the laity and ingratiate themselves with the world. These were harbingers of what was to come.  Now, of course,  in prior ages saints like Benedict and Bernard, Dominic and Francis rose up to reform the Church even when everything seemed to be in flourishing condition. For in earlier eras, the response to mediocrity or worse in the Church was not just to denounce, but to reform one’s own life, and then attract others to the same cause – in other words, to found monasteries and orders. 

But I do not think the Letter‘s dark image of the Church necessarily has anything to do with historical truth. It is the start of a myth – like the myths of the decadence of the Church before 1517 and the Reformation, or of the French state and society prior to 1789 and the French Revolution. Such myths serve to delegitimize the establishment, in Church and state, to call its rule into question. They also justify political action against the establishment

Am I mistaken in seeing the vehemence of the Letter the consequence of the exalted notions of the author regarding the clergy and the institutional Church? Ideals that were derived from the excessive glorification of the institution that the Church inculcated after 1870. It seems Görres expected the clergy could be “angels.” Such an image inevitably would lead to disappointment when it collided against the actual condition of the Church in the world  (no matter what that might be). In Görres’s case, the reaction was rage – and eventually, the dream of a future total transformation.  

Now, in a way her subsequent book, The Church in the Flesh, 2) can be seen as atonement (Sühne) for the Letter. For The Church in the Flesh has as its stated purpose the defense of the Church as it concretely exists, as opposed to some disincarnate spiritual entity. However, she did not at all renounce the Letter. Indeed, The Church in the Flesh leads off with a dialogue that is clearly modeled on the Letter. This time the “Protestant” is replaced by a “convert” and the author is replaced by a “bold” representative of the worker priest movement in France. (pp. 3-4) The emotional indictment of the clergy and the Church is absent or subdued in The Church in the Flesh. Yet Görres states:

 “(In the Church today- SC) [t]here is also ‘the dying of the Church in souls’ ….the slow , creeping imperceptible dying from catching a cold and from impoverishment, from spiritual malnutrition and hardening.” (p. vii)

And she hopes for a new age of the Church:

Do you not feel how much has begun to flow that still seemed to our parents petrified in unchangeability? …It is a pleasure to be a part of this unique adventure of becoming new!  … So often it seems to be as if the Church is once again in early spring, in the very early part when nothing could be seen but snow, ice, mud and floods. (p.48)

Görres in 1960 published Zwischen den Zeiten ( Between the Eras or Ages, titled Broken Lights in the English translation).3) On the one hand, she returned to blanket denunciations of the Catholic Church of her day and restated her faith in a ‘Church to come”:

Nothing saddens me more at the moment than the pitiable mediocrity and flatness of Catholic Christendom – I can hardly find one redeeming feature anymore. 

The Church of Today, which is as much my concern as the Church of Tomorrow is that of the reformers. In me the present Church in changing if only in one tiny fragment, into the Church to come – that is the nucleus and meaning of my destiny.

 On the other hand, in this book she already was distancing herself from the concrete positions that were dominating Catholic progressive circles, like revolutionary criticism of the liturgy and unbounded admiration for the United States. 

During and after Vatican II, Görres took up these themes once more in private letters. 4) She acknowledged the frankly mythical character of these dreams of destruction and renewal by invoking an image of the Church as the phoenix, arising from the ashes of the existing Church, thanks to the creative destruction of the Council. Yet early on she challenged this image and then expressly repudiated the entire idea of a total rejection of the Church’s past:

I know, the Church is a phoenix. She has already died many deaths. But by suicide? Is there resurrection after that? If that’s so, then I wouldn’t really want to live any more. I can’t in such a wicked way separate myself from the whole past, to throw it overboard as a tissue of mistaken developments, of disappointments and wrong interpretations of the Gospel….  I simply can’t believe that the Lord incarnated in such a wrong way….( Letter of February 23, 1965. p. 89)

Yet the myth lived on. Have not we not heard the stories about the bad old days of the pre-conciliar Church? In the 1960s the specific target of progressive condemnation shifted from the clergy, who after all were the agents of the Conciliar revolution, to the laity. The Catholic laity does remain a target of progressive abuse even today. But Pope Francis, in his repeated attacks on “clericalism,” has redirected the criticism back to the clergy. And the progressive forces advocating women priests and the abolition of clerical celibacy have no hesitation in excoriating the current clergy, 60 years after the Council, using terms not unlike those of Görres!

But is there not an element of truth here ? Did not the revolution of the 1960s indeed create a clergy with problems very much like those Görres describes  – and far worse? She did, after all, concede to the German clergy of 1946 “correct” behavior. Since 1965, that has clearly no longer been the case. Not with $5 billion having been paid by the Church to victims of sex abuse since 2004 in the United States alone. Frankly,  the clergy today,  aside from a dedicated minority, is totally inadequate to the monumental evangelical task facing the Church. Indeed, in the advanced West, it is increasingly difficult to find any candidates at all for holy orders and a large percentage of clerics must be imported from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Poland.

As Paraiso concedes, Ida Görres was no ”left-wing” Catholic. As she herself wrote, she indeed stood between the eras. But by that she first had meant her position between the existing Church and the Church to come. Later, the expression took on a different meaning. Görres had shared in the prerevolutionary ferment of the progressives. Eventually, however, she could no longer follow either their concrete recommendations or their myths of destruction and renewal. The result was, at the end of her life, a public confrontation. But by that time a general revolution was shaking the Church to her foundations!

1. First published in Frankfurter Hefte, Number 8, November 1946 pp.715-733. 
2. https://sthughofcluny.org/2024/09/the-church-in-the-flesh.html
3. https://sthughofcluny.org/2020/03/is-it-really-a-phoenix-ida-gorres-and-the-collapse-of-german-catholicism-part-i.html
4. https://sthughofcluny.org/2020/03/is-it-really-a-phoenix-ida-gorres-and-the-collapse-of-german-catholicism-part-ii.html

I have been meaning for a long time (two years to be precise!) to provide an updated report on where we think the Church stands and what the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny intends to do in the upcoming year. That task kept being deferred. But I think I now owe you are an accounting of where we are today. I am especially thinking of our loyal supporters and contributors.

By now traditionalist Catholics have suffered over 3 1/2 years of persecution. They have been segregated from the rest of Catholics, regulated and restricted. Their Masses are arbitrarily suppressed. They are routinely denounced by various spokesman of the official Church – including of course Pope Francis himself, who not only calls them enemies of the Holy Spirit but also mentally ill. In individual dioceses, orders and parishes the Church establishment continues its attack – sometimes coordinated by the papal nuncios. Throughout this campaign of annihilation, the hierarchy, the Catholic religious orders and the Catholic educational institutions have absolutely refused any “dialogue” with traditionalists. Often the Church does not deign even to publish the actions it takes against the traditionalists. It is entirely an exercise in brute force. The war against Traditionalism has become a core initiative of the papacy of Pope Francis.

If we consider only the clergy,  the persecution to a significant extent has been effective. Priests have abandoned the celebration of the traditional mass; traditional parishes or masses of long standing have been abolished or displaced without resistance. Yet many traditional masses continue to be celebrated openly. And many others have “gone underground” or at least do not call attention to themselves. These traditionalist activities have attracted favorable media attention – even, here and there,  (by mistake?) in the diocesan press.

Now of course we were aware of the reports last year concerning a more definitive prohibition of the traditional mass being prepared by Pope Francis. We did not engage in that discussion, above all because we have no special knowledge  of the facts in Rome. Based on prior disclosures, we believe that ideas or drafts for such a prohibition have existed and have been circulated at the Vatican for months and even years now.  Whether such a measure will be adopted will depend on the sudden and arbitrary decision of the Pope. He has decided up till now not to proceed further down the path of persecution, but that is no guarantee he will not reverse himself tomorrow. Given how the Church is governed, there is little point in speculating on this subject.

Furthermore, I think such speculations highlight one of the worst aspects of the Roman Catholic Church today: the exclusive focus on the Pope and his entourage. On blogs and online media, we read more about opaque personnel moves in the Vatican, the opinions of Francis’s favorites and the day-to-day utterances of Pope Francis than we do about the faith, canon law or the principles of morality. I see no reason to contribute to such abuses. 

The Twilight of the Conciliar Church.

We find ourselves in a late stage of the regime of the Catholic Church that was established starting with the Second Vatican Council in 1962. We’ve already discussed in the past the most fundamental principles  of this system. First, ultramontanism: the concentration of all governance and spiritual authority in the papacy, combined with an understanding of the rest of the Church as a ministerial bureaucracy under Vatican control. Second, Vatican II:  not any specific text of the Council, but the general principle of openness to the world (that is, the political, social and cultural regime dominating the western world by the 1960s). This was associated with a revolutionary rejection of the Catholic liturgy, morality and culture as they existed prior to1962.

Under Pope Francis these two cornerstones of the post-Conciliar Catholic culture have fused and have been pushed to a new extreme. At least within the Church bureaucracy, the only rule of law, morality and liturgy is the arbitrary will of Francis as expressed at any one time. The Pope contradicts not only the decisions of his predecessors but even his own rulings of the immediate past. The Pope removes or protects prelates or clerics without any explanation or accountability. He and his Vatican directly manage the affairs of individual priests and parishes. 

As to the Council, the decisions and utterances of Francis, the synodal path of Germany and the “Synod on Synodality” embracing the whole Church have reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to an ongoing, open-ended series of changes in doctrine, liturgy and morality. The substance of the Church’s message at least at the highest levels has been reduced to a copy of the secular agenda of the quasi-totalitarian culture of the liberal West. (At least as it existed prior to Trump’s election!) 

But the roots of the present situation predate Francis. In 1962 a new culture of conflict was introduced into the Catholic Church.  In the movement for updating (aggiornamento),  a party was established in the Church that demanded immediate and complete accommodation to the world of today and its morality. It was opposed to a second tendency or faction which wanted to restrict the Conciliar innovations to certain discrete areas while leaving basic Christian moral rules and the basics of Catholic theology intact.  ( A third group, that dissented from the decisions of the Council,  was excluded from the conversation.) 

Thus, with the Council, a struggle broke out within the governing and teaching institutions of the Church itself. Progressives were pitted against those who wanted to “conserve” earlier rules and structures of authority (or at least go slow on innovations).  By its very nature, no resolution of this conflict was possible. For given the hostility of the modern world to the Catholic faith – an animosity that only continued  to grow – achieving the progressive ideal could only mean the liquidation of the Catholic Church.  A substantial part of the establishment was unwilling to do exactly that. The result of this conflict, drawn out decade after decade, has been chaos and lawlessness within the Church

Pope Francis has embraced this conflict and has aggressively confronted, in word and deed, the entire spectrum of enemies of Catholic progressivism – Conservative, traditionalist and middle-of-the-road. They range from individuals posting on social media, alternative Catholic news sites, individual bishops and even cardinals. And, after Fiducia Supplicans, even an entire continent joined. We cannot say that the Pope has succeeded in eliminating them. 

For the reach of the Pope’s authority and the progressive cause to which it is wed today have definite limits. First, the very nature of the regime of Francis entails a high degree of confusion and incompetence. No effective leadership structures have been established, rather, doctrinal concessions to progressive demands have been made and individual adversaries have been targeted,  demoted or destroyed. But the chaos which Francis seeks to create functions as a barrier to any consolidation of his regime. 

Second, Francis depends on the goodwill of the secular media and of the Catholic progressives. It is they that create a favorable or at least neutral public image for Francis throughout the world. It is they that make sure the glaring faults of his regime are buried or at least minimized. For these services a price must be paid: continued progress on the accommodation of the Church with the secular world of today. Given this dependence on external and internal allies, the regime of Francis is only a limited totalitarianism.

Third, the Church is dependent on the laity to provide both funding and congregations. In today’s society,  the Catholic Church is unable to compel anyone by penal sanctions to either participate in or contribute to the Church. Even in Germany lay participation is ultimately voluntary. Here too the Francis regime feeds on itself – under any empirically quantifiable measure the Catholic Church is in drastic decline: the level of religious participation and understanding of Catholic doctrine among the laity, the number of priests and religious, the number of parishes etc. And this is especially so in the “advanced” nations of the West which have long served as the model for the Conciliar Church. These trends have already required drastic reductions of parishes, schools and religious foundations in places like Germany, the United States and the Netherlands. Even the merging of dioceses has commenced.  More losses will inevitably follow.

Regardless of what is officially claimed,  the rites of the Conciliar Church, as they are celebrated in the vast majority of locations, have been ineffective in retaining people in the Church, let alone finding new members. The mind-numbing banality and uniformity of the Novus Ordo and its music are in no way an attraction but a deterrent.

How is the Church establishment addressing these crises?

Pope Benedict’s response was increased tolerance of the Traditional Mass and encouragement of traditional elements in the Novus Ordo. Both initiatives have been expressly rejected by Francis. More recently the Church has deployed, often outside of the liturgy,  selected practices and forms of a prior era. Relics of saints brought from Europe are being paraded around dioceses in the United States. A new jubilee year in Rome with the appropriate indulgences has been proclaimed. And, of course, there is the “eucharistic revival” – the attempt to revitalize eucharistic piety or just the awareness of what the Eucharist represents. Tabernacles are being returned to the center of churches. Monstrances are prominently displayed as a new kind of Catholic “icon.” Eucharistic processions –  in the United States until very recently exclusively the province of conservative and traditionalist Catholics – are now conducted with great fanfare. And, last year,  a grand (and expensive) eucharistic conference was held in Indianapolis.

A second official response to religious collapse is to foster the charismatic movement. So, last year’s eucharistic conference was also accompanied by charismatic services and performances. Charismatic meetings and encounters are held regularly.

But how effective will be these initiatives? The establishment may be fostering eucharistic processions and rites – but at the same time Cardinal Cupich,  who is held out to be great friend of the Pope, continues to call into question all these practices. Thus, the underlying conflicts within the Church, such as those on the nature of the Eucharist, remain unresolved –  the “new conservatism” is more a matter of appearance.

As for the charismatic renewal, its presence remains limited. Its close connection with evangelical Protestantism is problematic in a country, like the United States, where in many places the evangelicals a strong force (and competitor).  For example,  I would see the development of charismatic ministries as  prompting the departure of as many Hispanic Catholics as it wins or retains. The charismatics’ encouragement of unrestrained emotionalism is hardly propitious, in the context of the numerous occasions of Catholic faith leaders abusing their spiritual authority over gullible followers. 

Thus, the culture of the Conciliar Church will continue. Conflict, lawlessness and pervasive dishonesty are its hallmarks.  It is any wonder that we increasingly read of apocalyptic expectations?  That the question of whether and to what extent Francis is pope no longer is reserved to an eccentric fringe but is ever more widely discussed.  That more and more appeals to divine intervention are being made?

 Misunderstandings and Weaknesses of the Traditionalists.

Obviously, these times have been traumatic for traditionalists. Based on a total misinterpretation of what had happened within the Church after Vatican II, most of them previously viewed themselves as defenders of the papacy –  at least as it was defined in 1870. To have such an exalted notion of the Pope and then to be denounced and persecuted by him “with magisterial authority” is obviously a severe blow.  Many bishops and priests who had been favorable to the traditionalist movement, quickly became indifferent or even turned into persecutors after Traditionis Custodes.

Traditionalists had very much underestimated the continuing commitment to Vatican II and its implementing decrees among the clergy, the religious and their lay acolytes. 1962-65 indeed had unleashed an authentically  revolutionary movement. Admittedly, that elan largely had dissipated by the time of Francis. Many of the first wave of participants had died or left the Church. Yet in the institutional Church the dream remained of a grand opening to a superior modern world, and concurrently,  of the need for a violent rejection of traditional Catholic culture in all its aspects. This was no mere intellectual exercise – adhering vocally to “the Council” offered career opportunities in Catholic education, media and administration. 

During the era of Summorum Pontificum I can testify to numerous encounters with the clergy and Catholic religious who showed a continuing violent hostility to the traditional mass and the culture associated with it. This hostility was also shared by that minority of the laity that had associated themselves with these priests and religious. For, given the dearth of vocations to the religious life and to the priesthood,  many of the Catholic institutions – parishes, schools, colleges and dioceses – are in fact run today by lay bureaucrats who have been nurtured in the attitudes of the makers of the 1960’s revolution.

To expect that this culture would change because of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio was extremely naive. The implementation of Summorum Pontificum was very uneven:  in some parishes and dioceses near miraculous results were achieved. In others there was no real change from the situation after 1988 in which the Traditional Mass was permitted as a matter of episcopal grace under severe restrictions. 

The Traditionalists’ dilemma also reflected a continued misunderstanding of the constitution of the Church –  in particular its de facto organizational form as a modern bureaucracy, imposing rules from the top and demanding obedience.  Traditionalists underestimated the continuing effectiveness of papal power within such a bureaucracy. They had been misled by the ineffectual attempts of Popes Paul VI, John Paul, and Benedict to restrain the progressive Catholics. They didn’t consider that those progressive forces occupied key positions of power in the Catholic Church and had important relationships with the secular forces, above all the media. They also didn’t fully appreciate that the three popes above mentioned agreed in varying degrees with aspects of the progressive ideology. 

Traditionalists, on the other hand, had no such allies. They have virtually no representation in the mainstream Catholic religious orders and educational institutions.  The secular political world and its media often view them as reactionary political adversaries.  So, when Pope Francis launched his persecution, there was limited public resistance. Regardless of what his liturgical, moral, and theological convictions might be, it is very difficult for a Catholic priest or bishop to publicly stand up to the policies of Francis.

The Traditionalist Movement Continues

Yet, the traditionalists have carried on. The Ecclesia Dei congregations are still functioning and still training and ordaining seminarians. The traditionalist masses continue, sometimes, as in a dimly remembered past,  on a clandestine or unannounced basis. Alternative forms of Catholic liturgy such as vesper services have been proliferating. And should we fail to mention the courageous support given to the traditionalist cause by individual bishops and cardinals throughout the world? This support is not just in words but by direct participation in traditional liturgies. 

Among the laity,  the current generation of traditionalists has come to its convictions as a product of personal spiritual development,  through the conscious participation in the traditional liturgy. Their faith is the product of conscious choice not conformity to some outside culture.

In finding and developing their faith they enjoy a whole range of supports that did not exist in the 60’s and 70’s. A host of Catholic sites, blogs and podcasts provide contemporaneous coverage of news in the Church. These sources also provide access to orthodox Catholic spirituality. It is true that, especially for the more narrowly defined traditionalist world,  many of the best sources are still not to be found in English but in the French, Italian, German and Spanish languages.  To become an informed traditionalist, it’s a great advantage to be a polyglot too!

Accompanying this this is a veritable avalanche of new books  – now available in English – on Traditionalism and related movements. They include detailed analyses of the Mass, music and rites of the Church. Noted scholars have given personal  witness of their commitment to Catholic Tradition. Even the history of Catholic traditionalism has by now acquired its own literature. Most of these works have appeared since 2020. The contrast with the meager intellectual support the establishment has been able to drum up in favor of Traditionis Custodes is remarkable.

A whole spectrum of special events now exists in which the traditionalist can participate: pilgrimages, retreats and conferences of every kind. Recall how the overflowing 2024 pilgrimage to Chartres made such a strong impression on the secular world and stunned the Church. Instead of rejoicing in the success, the immediate reaction of the ecclesiastical authorities was to discuss banning the pilgrimage from the cathedrals in Paris and Chartres! But that is a restriction the pilgrimage has lived with before. In the United States, similar if smaller pilgrimages are scheduled this year for Auriesville, New York and Clear Creek, Oklahoma.

Thus, the era of Traditionis Custodes, if a time of sorrow and tragedy for so many,  is at the same time an era of growing understanding of the cause for which traditionalists fight.  Resources unknown to their forbears are available to them. These aids, in addition to the goad of persecution,  permit a far clearer understanding of what it means to be a traditionalist. The position of traditionalists today is thus very different from that which prevailed between 1965 and 1978 – the previous highwater mark of the ecclesiastical assault on the traditions of the Church.  

What is Catholic Traditionalism?

Traditionalism is not primarily an esthetic movement. For decades traditionalists celebrated the mass of their forefathers without the aid of beautiful music, splendid vestments or churches. Traditionalists have developed important and growing links with “right-wing” political movements – yet political engagement has played a subordinate role in traditionalist life.  In this regard, the contrast is remarkable with the “Conservative Catholics” of the United States and even more so with the relentlessly secular political orientation of the progressive Catholics (and Pope Francis). Similarly, traditionalism by now has no connection with nostalgia – if it ever had any! Traditionalism is not attached to any one period or era of the past – neither the age of Pius XII nor the Middle Ages –  in contrast to the exclusive focus of the Conciliar Church on the modern world of Western Europe and the United States.

Rather, traditionalism is a movement for the recovery of the Catholic faith lived through the ages and concretely experienced in liturgy, in morality and in theology. It is a vision that sees the faith as encompassing and transforming all aspects of human life –  yet it does not proceed from politics or “Catholic social doctrine” nor does it primarily rely on the techniques of publicity, agitation or argumentation. Rather,  it grows through offering the experience of the dignified and complete celebration of the Traditional Mass and other liturgical functions. This is not an individual quest, but takes place in congregations, orders, parishes and communities. In the so-called ”secular age,” traditionalism retains a holy hope for the recovery of the Church and of the sacred. Traditionalists understand that now they can only be a minority movement, but their ambition is to transform the entire Church.

The Role of the Society of Saint Hugh of Cluny

What is the role of this Society in the present day? Let me first summarize our activities in 2023 and 2024. As you can see, the Society sponsors a blog which seems to be widely read. We have sponsored a whole series of solemn masses, usually in connection with a classical Catholic school in Connecticut. We have acquired and made available additional vestments for the dignified celebration of the Traditional Mass at local parishes. We have helped to sponsor in New York and Princeton solemn vespers with outstanding music and magnificent ceremonial. We have sponsored very well received lectures  by John Lamont and Marie Meaney. The Society has joined the CISP (the “International Coetus Summorum Pontificum”), and since 2021 the Society has been represented each year at the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage in Rome (not at the expense of the Society!)

We thank all those who contribute to support these efforts. Much more could be done and perhaps we should more actively seek out donors. The main constraint on the Society’s mission, however, have always been not the lack of funding but the lack of personnel. In 2023, for example, we tried to organize a large-scale conference in Connecticut. In the world of Traditionis Custodes, finding a venue is challenging. And bringing off our usual format of combining lectures with the celebration of a traditional liturgy is even more so. Several key speakers could not in the end attend. With all these complexities, by the time a suitable venue was found it was too late to proceed with the conference. I suspect with more (human) resources devoted to the project some kind of resolution could have been achieved.

Going forward, we envisage continuing the path set forth above. The Society will sponsor more conferences and liturgies. Our primary area of activity will remain in and around the greater New York area. We of course welcome suggestions from  readers as to projects and events the Society should support. With this in mind, we look forward to continuing our successful activity in the course of 2025.

Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age

by Rod Dreher

Zondervan Books, Grand Rapids, 2024

Rod Dreher, the conservative political analyst and cultural critic, now lives in Hungary – one center of the struggle against globalism. Dreher published last year Living in Wonder, the third in a series of commentaries on the social and religious life of our age. In The Benedict Option he championed the establishment of small communities as a refuge from the surrounding world. In Live not by Lies Dreher wrote in a darker vein. He no longer saw self-sufficient communities as successfully existing within today’s society but anticipated conflict and persecution exemplified by the life and experiences of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Now, in Living in Wonder, Dreher writes both of his own spiritual quest and even of the restoration of the sacred in this “secular age.” 

I doubt that this work will attain the celebrity of The Benedict Option.  Living in Wonder covers too broad a range of topics: history, spirituality,  philosophy,  religious practice and personal faith experiences. The book’s starting point is the classic topic of disenchantment: the loss in the modern world of any sense the divine as present in the universe. This of course has been an ongoing issue since the romantic movement. Much more recently, Catholic authors have taken up the theme.  Cristina Campo, whose works we have reviewed here,  wrote eloquently of the loss in the modern world of symbols and of man’s sense of destiny.  Czesław Miłosz did the same in The Land of Ulro.  How is Man to live in such a world or even rediscover a sense of this world’s “enchantment”? These are the questions Dreher addresses.

He writes of the importance of prayer,  liturgy and of the beautiful as portals to the sacred. Here and there throughout this book Dreher speaks warmly of his(relatively) new faith, Eastern Orthodoxy. His advocacy, however, is never overbearing or exclusive and it’s refreshingly different from the tirades of others who have moved to the East. Dreher doesn’t rant about filioque, the Byzantine empire, 1204 and the allegedly unbridgeable gap between West and East. Indeed, it would be hard for him to do so,  since, like his earlier works in this series,  Living in Wonder aims at a broad readership in various religious traditions.  Speaking of his Orthodox faith, Dreher appropriately emphasizes those aspects attractive to outsiders: the beautiful liturgy,  the continuing centrality of the mystic tradition, the cult of icons. Dreher makes the case that Orthodoxy has thereby preserved a greater sense of the sacred as present in this world.

Dreher however, ranges far beyond this.  He particularly dwells on tangible experiences of the sacred in this world: wonders and miracles, coincidences and healings are discussed at length.  The author not only presents experiences of a benign “spiritual presence” but also the dangers of encountering evil forces actively working harm. In so doing, Dreher delves into realms such as exorcism,  demonic forces potentially present in AI, and even UFOs.

I think that these matters weaken the argument of the book.  I myself have met people who have had such experiences – so I do not at all dismiss this aspect of reality. But the counsel of all the spiritual writers I know is to eschew pursuing such things. Dreher, however,  seems to think the opposite: someone wishing to rediscover the sacred should be expecting and seeking out these phenomena.   Is this the residual influence of the world of evangelical Protestantism which the author claims to have abandoned? The bizarre nature of some of the events for which the author vouches will unfortunately lead many readers not to take his latest work seriously.

Rod Dreher brings his own experiences into the narrative of encounters with the world beyond the world. Some of these events involve personal tragedies in the author’s life. This lends a poignant and serious note to the author’s reflections. As in his other books, Dreher also relentlessly quotes witnesses to support the argument of his book.  They are predominantly, but not exclusively, Western converts to Orthodoxy.  The overall effect of these “voices,”  however, is to create a feeling of disorganization: the reader feels that he is hopping from issue to issue, from topic to topic, from country to country. And all in a rather short book. Dreher’s language also detracts from his exalted spiritual aims. It all too often is excessively colloquial; on other pages Dreher offers undigested terms derived from Orthodoxy: nous, perichoresis, theosis etc.

Dreher has moved in this book  beyond the facile optimism of The Benedict Option and the focus on cultural and political catastrophe of Live Not by Lies. He correctly sees that what is needed is the recovery of faith and of spirituality.  Disenchantment is a defining feature of contemporary Western culture. A culture, however,  cannot be changed by the exercise of the willpower of individuals or communities however well intentioned. And certainly not by the idiosyncratic spiritual quests of some of the characters quoted in this book. Only  generations and even centuries of men living  an ordered, sacramental faith can effect a reversal of the present malaise. This world does need to be reenchanted  – but that is not something that we should consciously set out to achieve. If and when the perception of enchantment revives it will be the result of the practice of a rediscovered faith.