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Correction: I Think I Meant Traditionalism
Blogged by James Preece on 24th June 2009
I blogged a few days ago I blogged on the subject of "What is a traditional Catholic? It caused rather a bit more discussion that I had expected (my blog entries do not usually attract 37 comments).
As part of that blog entry I wrote...
I think we need to make a distinction between "traditional" and "traditionalist".
The traditional Catholic holds on to what is good until it gets old. The traditionalist Catholic holds on to what is old, whether it turns out to be good or not. All Catholics ought to do the former, while the latter seems a bit risky to me.
I'm not a huge fan of sort of Catholic whose arguments consist of shreiking incredulously "but its the twenty-first century!" either (you know who you are).
Traditionalists and Modernists both make the same error, they say "everything old is good" or "everything new is good".
Having read the comments and thought on it a bit, I think I may have got my words mixed up. I was talking about "traditionalists" but I think I meant to say "traditionalism".
My current understanding is that ist words like "Chemist", "Violinist" and "Archaeologist" simply mean that a person has expertise in a particular area. A violinist knows all about the violin, a traditionalist knows all about tradition.
The word I mean't to use was an ism word. These words like "Communism", "Socialism", "Marxism" etc have a more ideological feel. They say "this is my system for understanding the truth about the world" and of course there is only one system for understanding the truth in about the world and that is Catholicism.
Traditionalism puts tradition ahead of all things and essentially says "everything old is good" while Modernism does the opposite and essentially says "everything new is good". It is traditionalism and modernism to which I object.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any traditionalists who may have been offended by my original blog entry. I won't bother apologising to the modernists because they don't seem to have noticed (perhaps they don't have the internet yet).
Reader Comments
Mac McLernon said...
I won't bother apologising to the modernists because they don't seem to have noticed (perhaps they don't have the internet yet)
ROTFLMHO... that's a classic.
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Jackie Parkes said...
[Comment removed at Jackie's request]
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Joseph Shaw said...
Traditionalism is simply the system adhered to by a Traditionalist. If this isn't obvious to you it is to most people.
You're extremely uncharitable definition of Traditionalism is still offensive, I'm afraid.
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James said...
"You're extremely uncharitable definition of Traditionalism is still offensive, I'm afraid."
I am making a sincere attempt to understand and define a piece of terminology so that I can better understand the beliefs of others and grow in my knowledge of the different views held by Catholics. In the process of doing so I have made a mistake which I have gladly admitted and corrected, if I have made another mistake I will gladly admit and correct that one. I am trying to understand the differences between traditional Catholicism, traditionalist Catholics and Catholic traditionalism. I don't want to bash anybody, I want to understand them. As a traditional Catholic yourself I would have thought you would be glad of my interest and keen to share your own beliefs with others, I might have hoped you would offer to help me out with some correct definitions and explanations.
Instead you call my attempts "extremely uncharitable". Nice.
My question to you is simply this: Given that there is a theological view that says "tradition is the final arbiter of what is good, we know that the old things are good simply because they are old, we know the new things are bad simply because they are new" what do I call that? Temporalism? Oldism? Anti-newism?
I'm not saying all traditionalists or even a majority of traditionalists think that way, but some of them do some of the time. If the proper word for that isn't traditionalism then what is it?
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Joseph Shaw said...
Come off it, James, I have already explained. I say it is extremely uncharitable becuase it is - and you are repeating it even after I and others pointed out the problem on the previous thread.
No one thinks that things are good just because they are old. No one. If you are interested in the groups in the Church which actually exist, you should come out of fantasy land.
The correct term for the tendency you are talking about, as it happens, is Antiquarianism. But this is not the name of a theory with adherents - it is a piece of mud for one group of people to fling at another.
I don't mean to sound thin-skinned or crotchety. I have to say the truth, however: many people have been offended by these posts, good people who are your supporters and friends, and by repeating your extraordinary claim that traditionalists like things just because they are old you are repeating the offence.
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Jackie Parkes said...
[Comment removed at Jackie's request]
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Hestor said...
If I remember correctly all this was started off by a rather attention seeking exercise on the part of Jackie Parkes. And the above comment of hers just demonstrates that she falls into the very same thing that she likes to accuse traditional-minded Catholics off: spiritual pride.
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Agellius said...
I question the drawing of a distinction between "traditionalist" and "traditionalism". The suffix "ist" can mean that someone is an expert in something. But it can also mean that someone subscribes to a certain point of view. Thus a communist is one who subscribes to communism. By the same token a modernist is one who subscribes to modernism and a traditionalist one who subscribes to traditionalism.
I think it's a mistake to define "traditionalism" as the belief that "everything old is good". I think very few people would actually subscribe to it under that definition.
(The following is copied from a comment I posted on another blog:) To the extent that I think of myself as a "traditionalist", for me it means that I love and highly value many of the traditions, which Rapperger defines as "extrinsic" (http://www.christianorder.com/features/features_2001/features_mar01.html), which were passed on in the Church up to the time of Vatican II and then largely thereafter jettisoned. Included in this are of course the Extraordinary Form of the mass, traditional church architecture, traditional vestments and sacred vessels, traditional devotions and forms of prayer, traditional mass music (Gregorian chant in particular), incense, sanctus bells, statues, and on and on.
It also means that I object to the characterization of these things as trivial or unimportant on the ground that they don't touch on the essence of the Deposit of Faith or the validity of the sacraments. I think they are valuable simply because they were passed on from prior generations of Catholics, and also because they assist individuals to put themselves in the right frame of mind in which to approach the liturgy, in that they impart a sense of mystery and transcendence, in a way that newer church architecture, music, vestments, etc., most often do not.
I also love and highly value the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, and believe the lessening of emphasis on his teachings in seminaries and Catholic schools has done untold harm to the Church and endangered many souls.
In short, while this is not an exhaustive list of the traditional things the loss or neglect of which I mourn, I mean to say that there are a lot of things in the Church's patrimony which have been largely abandoned, to the great detriment of the Church, and I feel strongly about making efforts to recover them. The strength of my feeling in this regard is what, to my mind, makes me a traditionalist.
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Agellius said...
Joseph, I think, is being too hard on James. I for one did not consider James' attempted definition of "traditionalism" to be uncharitable. I took it as he says he intended it: An attempt to define a point of view which he believes he has observed.
If I were to judge any remark here as uncharitable, it would be Jackie's statement, "if I were you I wouldn't bother getting to an argument with a Trad! They positively thrive on them! in fact that's what the definition is." That strikes me as a generalized, bigoted insult of an entire group of people. However I believe that she means well. : )
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Jackie Parkes said...
[Comment removed at Jackie's request]
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Jackie Parkes said...
[Comment removed at Jackie's request]
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Joseph Shaw said...
Ok, perhaps I am being harsh to James. I don't intend to impugn his motives, just to describe how what he says comes accross.
James may have encountered people with an Antiquarian attitude. They don't hold it as part of an ideology, however - there's no ideology, no theory, of Antiqarianism. There's no position to criticise or explore. It's just an unfortunate attitude.
You can see Trads aren't antiquarians, because they don't seek out the most ancient practice, but the practice which has been handed to us by tradition in organic development.
So it wasn't trads, it was the liturgical reformers who wanted to revive long-defunct customs like Bidding Prayers, Communion in the hand, or the faithful taking part in the Kiss of Peace. They ignored the fact that the living tradition had abandoned these things, sometimes for good reasons, and they couldn't be brought back by a stroke of the pen - it's artificial. (This circumventing of organic development, of course, was forbidden by Vatican II.)
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Agellius said...
Joseph writes, "So it wasn't trads, it was the liturgical reformers who wanted to revive long-defunct customs like Bidding Prayers, Communion in the hand, or the faithful taking part in the Kiss of Peace."
That's the fact, Jack! Traditionalists don't by definition prefer what's old, they prefer what's traditional! It's the post-V2 reformers who took the "older is better" attitude.
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