What is a traditional Catholic?

Blogged by James Preece on 17th June 2009

Jackie Parkes has been getting a bit frustrated recently with people defining themselves as "traditional Catholics", not because she objects to traditional Catholicism, but because she objects to the idea that traditional Catholicism is some kind of specialisation and the implication that because she goes to an ordinary Mass, therefore she is not traditional (see here and here).

As she says...

As far as we were aware it was always traditional to go to Sunday Mass.

Are these kinds of different Masses? Is it better to go to one? Does it make you a 'Traditional' Catholic?

Is there anywhere in the Cathechism or some other document that describes how & if you are a traditionalist?

I've been Catholic for 46 years of course I'm Traditional.

Attending these Trad events doesn't make you anymore Traditional!

What are you if you don't go to a Trad Mass? Liberal? Non-Traditional? Non-Catholic? Not so good Catholic? Crap Catholic? New Rite Catholic? English/Irish Catholic? Basic Catholic? Uneducated Catholic? Roman Catholic? Follower of the Pope Catholic? Boring catholic? Sorry I think that was the Trad one!

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".

Update:

Apologies to anybody who is just very traditional but feels accused of being a traditionalist. That wasn't my intention.

I just wanted to add that I like Ben Trovato's explanation below..

I refer to myself as a traditional Catholic as a shorthand way of saying:

1) that I believe all that the Church teaches even the difficult bits, as opposed to 'cafeteria' or 'liberal' Catholics; and

2) that I prefer the traditional forms of worship, and displaying reverence, as opposed to the modern, informal, 'happy clappy' or 'charismatic' approaches.

I would like it if saying 'I am a Roman Catholic' conveyed all that; but alas it no longer does.

That pretty much sums up what I mean by it as well.

Update:

I think I got this blog entry wrong. I have posted a correction here.

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Reader Comments

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Gregory the Eremite said...

Now's the time for that Jaroslav Pelikan quote:

"Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

Mark Dobson said...

The idea of "traditional Catholicism" seems pretty redundant to me. You don't get Catholicism without the Tradition.

-1

Hestor said...

Catholics are prefer the 'extraordinary' form mass/traditional latin mass/usus antiquor (delete as appropriate) are plain Roman Catholics. The term "traditionalist" was something that progressives after the end of the Second Vatican Council used against those who opposed them (cf. the writings of Lubac, Congar and Kung).

I do not see the reason for this new crusade on Mrs. Parkes part against those who attend the old rite and see it as a thinly veiled attack.

Hestor said...

Btw: nice blog!

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Hestor said...

Jackie - if you read the memoirs of the man responsible for supervising the liturgical reform of the 1960s (Annibale Bugnini) you can quite plainly see that he refers to the end product (what was called the Novus Ordo - New Order) as a new creation and break from what was before. It can only follow that the mass that was in use before the reform (or deform however you look at it) is "traditional". Even on this point, I would go as far as to say that the 1962 Missal is not traditional and contained many changes that were just a precursor for what is now known as the 'ordinary' form.

If you truly wish to know the differences between the 'conservative' and 'traditional' Catholicism, then may I direct you to this article?

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Agellius said...

Excuse me, I don't mean to monopolize the comments here. I just wanted to say to Ms. Parkes that the article to which Hector links is directly apropos to the topic, as it discusses the philosophical differences between those who consider themselves conservative Catholics and those who call themselves traditionalist Catholics. If you're really interested, as you say you are, to know what makes a traditionalist call himself by that name and not others, it might behoove you to read it. (Please note that I'm not necessarily expressing agreement with everything in the article.)

Ben Trovato said...

I refer to myself as a traditional Catholic as a shorthand way of saying:

1) that I believe all that the Church teaches even the difficult bits, as opposed to 'cafeteria' or 'liberal' Catholics; and

2) that I prefer the traditional forms of worship, and displaying reverence, as opposed to the modern, informal, 'happy clappy' or 'charismatic' approaches.

I would like it if saying 'I am a Roman Catholic' conveyed all that; but alas it no longer does.

Agellius said...

The fact is that there was a major change of attitudes during and after Vatican II. That change didn't begin at Vatican II, but it became a major change during and after that time, i.e. it became widespread. In calling myself a "traditional" Catholic I mean that I reject that change of attitudes for the most part. The change in attitudes is clearly reflected in the differences between the old mass and the new, but are not limited to the mass.

I don't reject the new attitudes because they are new, nor hold to the old because they are old. Rather I hold to what I believe is good, true and beautiful, and reject what I believe is bad, false or ugly.

Surely those who favor the new attitudes (which I am not elaborating on since this is only a comment) consider them good and even an improvement on the old. In some particular instances this may be true. But frankly the decline in belief in fundamental doctrines, disregard of the Church's moral strictures, decline in vocations, etc., to me make it obvious that the old, in general, were better, for the Church and for the good of souls.

Agellius said...

Ms. Parkes:

I tried to comment on your blog but keep getting an error message from Internet Explorer saying that the site cannot be displayed. The page appears at first but then the error message pops up, and when you click "OK" the page disappears.

Is this a common error on your blog for which you might know the solution? I don't have trouble viewing any other blogs that I know of.

Thanks.

James said...

Hi Agellius,

I work professionally in web development and I know the bug you are describing is caused when a piece of Javascript code which has been placed within a table (ick!) attempts to modify the Document Object Model (DOM). Jackie has probably caused it by placing some kind of widget in her sidebar.

I only mention it, because that bug only affects Internet Explorer 6 and not later versions (you can find out which one you have by picking 'Help' and 'About'). Internet Explorer 6 is now very old in computing terms and is very dangerous to use from a security point of view, especially if you buy/bank online.

Being traditional is one thing... but I think you should upgrade, or better yet, get yourself Firefox.

Agellius said...

James writes, "Being traditional is one thing... but I think you should upgrade, or better yet, get yourself Firefox."

LOL!!

I appreciate the info. I have IE7.

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Agellius said...

Ms. Parkes:

Joe did comment on the article, but frankly he didn't say much of substance about it. If no one minds I will post just one paragraph which I think sums up its main point (as a man I'm happy to do the work for you ; ):

"Neo-conservatives have fallen into this way of thinking i.e. the only standard by which they judge orthodoxy is whether or not one follows the current magisterium. Traditionalists, as a general rule, tend to be orthodox in the sense that they are obedient to the current magisterium, even though they disagree about matters of discipline and have some reservations about some aspects of current magisterial teachings which seem to contradict the previous magisterium (e.g. the role of the ecumenical movement). Traditionalists tend to take not just the current magisterium as their norm but Scripture(41), intrinsic tradition, extrinsic tradition and the current magisterium as the principles of judgment of correct Catholic thinking. This is what distinguishes traditionalists and neo-conservatives i.e. their perspectives regarding the role of ecclesiastical tradition and how the current magisterium relates to it."

He spends some time defining "intrinsic tradition" and "extrinsic tradition". The main diff he finds is in our attitudes toward the Church's longstanding extrinsic traditions: trads value it highly whereas neo-cons don't.

"Neo-conservative" he defines in footnote 2 of the article. (I was about to post the definition but remembered that Hestor already posted a link to the article, so anyone who's interested can just click on the link.)

Joe said...

Agellius

I did link to the article; my brief comment tried to point out an assumption, which seems to me to be of the essence of what the article was about.

Joseph Shaw said...

Hey Jackie and James I do wish 'Conservative' Catholics would stop attacking traditionalists. I mean where does it get us? And the reason in this case is apparently the term 'traditionalist' which was foisted on us as a term of contempt. Like many such terms the group it applies to has come to terms with it. A pity you haven't.

If you've got a beef with particular attitudes or claims let's have some names and instances, and not direct your irritation at an entire group. It is pretty poor to criticise the innocent along with the guilty.

The fact is that plenty of 'Conservative Catholics' feel superior to 'Liberal Catholics' and in some cases perhaps they have a point. There's no use pretending there aren't different tendencies in the Church and it's no use carping about the labels people have given them. We just have to live with them or make fools of ourselves reinventing the vocabulary.

James said...

Hi Joseph,

Apologies if I've caused offence. My intention was to point out that there is a distinction between being "traditional" and being "traditionalist", it was certainly not my intention to accuse anybody of being one or the other.

I should also emphasise that it is not my view that people who like Latin are therefore traditionalist.

Joseph Shaw said...

Ok, and thanks for the clarificatioin in the post, but who are these people who you refere to?

'Traditionalists and Modernists both make the same error, they say "everything old is good" or "everything new is good".'

Are these 'traditionalists' imaginary? Aren't you saying that people who call themselves traditionalists take this view? And - you must realise - that is a parody of what they think. If I were inclined to be thin-skinned, I'd say it was a libel.

James said...

Hi Joseph,

I think Berenike covers my attitude to these things when she says "these are only useful terms if carefully used and in theoretical discussions (disucssions of theory), for describing or identifying particular schools of thought or approaches. And one would have to define one's terms first."

I was trying to define how I understand the words "traditional" and "traditionalist". I certainly wasn't ascribing the terms to anybody.

If there are people who call themselves traditionalist but understand the word differently then either I or they are mistaken. I'm quite open to the possibility that it is I who am mistaken - perhaps I have confused "traditionalist" with "traditionalism".

kate said...

We've had practising Catholic, committed Catholic, liberal Catholic, traditional Catholic, conservative Catholic; I'm offering one more: authentic Catholic.

Anon X said...

I believe in one,holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
or if you prefer
Et unam sanctam catholicam et aposolicam Ecclesiam.
Just give me the Body, SOul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and I'm happy.

James said...

"Just give me the Body, SOul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and I'm happy."

But Anon X... you are the Body, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and so are all your friends!

Who needs Mass?

Anon X said...

What?
I think you misunderstood me. I was trying to say I don't mind which Rite of Mass is said as long as I can have the most intimate union with Christ which is only reached through the Mass.

berenike said...

As soon as you start adding qualifiers to "Catholic" you imply that there are other kinds of Catholicism. There aren't. There is only Catholic.

Moreover using labels is extremely unhelpful. People set up in camps. Once you start saying to your beer-companion "you're such a neo-con", then he'll start calling you something else, and then any discussion will become about territory, and will no longer be a discussion between two Catholics leading each other to a better understanding of the faith and the faith in the world. Don't say "you're such a modernist" or "you're just a weird Trad" - describe or identify what it is that is not Catholic in the other person's thinking, and show why it is not Catholic. Labels are also a great temptation to laziness and arrogance.

Don't let's let other people define "Catholic". If someone says "I'm Catholic, but ...", or "But lots of people are Catholic, and do/don't ..." then we have to make the effort to show why the "but" negates the Catholic, and in what way. Otherwise, the punter goes away strengthened in his understanding of there being Liberal Catholics and Traditionalist Catholics and Charismatic Catholics and Modern Catholics and LGBT Catholics (in the Gay Pride sense) and Catholics For a Free Choice and Catholics for Usury and ... in the same way that there are Wee Frees and Wishy Washy Anglicans and the Sally Army and and and ...

*In a sense* there are liberal Catholics and neocons and so on and so forth, but these are only useful terms if carefully used and in theoretical discussions (disucssions of theory), for describing or identifying particular schools of thought or approaches. And one would have to define one's terms first.

Other than that, such terms are dangerous to everyone.

Sermon over :-)

Mark Dobson said...

Makes me think of 1 Cor

One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

(I'm always intrigued that Paul doesn't seem to approve of people saying "I follow Christ" either.)

Agellius said...

Berenike:

It's good to hear from you!

I agree with you that "party" terms should be used carefully and only in theoretical discussions, and not as labels which one applies to particular groups or persons. And that it's far better and more useful when discussing errors made by particular people, to discuss the errors themselves, specifically, and not which "camp" the errors cause those persons to fall into.

I also agree with Jackie Parkes when she says that traditionalists rarely apply that term to themselves. This whole discussion seems to be about that very thing: Certain people appropriating the term "traditionalist" and applying it to themselves and their views, to the exclusion of people who think otherwise. But I'm not personally aware of anyone who does that specific thing. Even the SSPX calls itself "SSPX", not "The Association of Truly Traditionalist Catholics".

But "traditionalist" does seem to be an apt description of their views, as well of those of we who don't go quite so far but are largely in sympathy with them. I suppose as an alternative one could use "old", but that fails to capture the essence of the thing, which is, the desire to preserve things that had been passed on (the literal meaning of "tradition") for centuries and which have now been largely jettisoned.

So by all means use labels as shorthand ways of describing certain sets of views, but be very cautious about applying them to particular groups or individuals; and be very careful to define what you mean by it.

By the same token don't be too quick to infer an insult by the labels people apply to themselves. If I say my views are "traditionalist" it's because I think that word describes my views; in using it I don't necessarily mean that anyone who disagrees with me rejects tradition in general.

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Patricia McKeever said...

I am always saying that prior to Vatican II we only spoke of Catholics and Protestants. That's because we all knew the Faith, knew what we believed and could explain and defend it. That is manifestly no longer the case and we find outselves in a situation where no two Catholics believe the same thing - at least that is what I found when I attended the novus ordo Mass. Sadly, therefore, because of the crisis in the Church, these labels (Traditionalist, liberal etc) have come into use. Generally speaking, Catholics who attend the Traditional Rite of Mass hold to the entire Traditon of the Church - not just Vatican II!

I wonder if you would be kind enough to visit our website and click on the Masses section, where there is a link to the Ottaviani Intervention, a letter penned by a group of Cardinals, incuding Cardinal Ottaviani (hence the title of the letter) in which he demonstrates that the new Mass is a "grave departure from Catholic theology of the Mass".

It is a simple fact, Jackie, that your definitions of Tradition are inaccurate, or maybe it was James Preece who defined it wrongly, I'm reading in haste with one eye on the hay I'm about to hit, but that is only to be expected: James is very young and if you are a sprightly 46 year old, you will have known nothing else but the post-Vatican II Church, more's the pity.

There is a thread on Apostolic Tradition on our blog, so if you scroll down a little to that thread, you will find an accurate definition of the term. Straight from the pen of one of the greatest Pope saints in the entire history of the Church - you cannot do better than that, now, can you?

Anyway, I hope you will check our site and read the Ottaviani Intervention because the simple fact is that the Mass now known, ironically, as the "ordinary" rite, is very far from ordinary. It was designed by an Archbishop widely believed to have been a Freemason with the express purpose of removing all obstacles for Protestants.

Martyrs who shed your life's blood in defence of the Holy Sacrifice, eat your hearts out!

God bless.
Patricia
Editor
Catholic Truth
www.catholictruthscotland.com

Hestor said...

Joe does indeed link to the article but then I really do wonder if he read the whole thing. There isn't the slightest hint of article trying to pigeon-hole "new movements" which Joe accuses it off. In fact new movements are not mentioned at all. It does plainly deals with the notion of what traditional and supposedly "conservative" Catholicism are. The fact is "conservative" Catholics are really just "neo-conservative". Take the matter of the new archbishop of Westminster and All I Am. It's "Conservative" Catholics would criticise those who dared to suggest that Archbishop Nicholls is wrong and accuse them of being schismatic. Likewise when people who complained about the mass being changed to suit ecumenical ventures, they too were labelled as being "disobedient" or "reactionary" or "preconciliar". But it is because that the Holy Mass matters the most, which is traditionalists took a stand and refuse to let a liturgical heritage die out.

berenike said...

Hestor, I know the sort of thing you have in mind, but as you've written it, "conservative Catholics" are "the sort of person who would ...". It's not very helpful either politically (in the sense of human relationships) nor intellectually (in terms of understanding what people say why they say it who says it and so on).

Your comment more or less says that there are two quite separate groups of people, one the wicked neo-cons who wouldn't criticise a bishop for something you think they ought to criticise him for, and the other the good tradiionalists who saved the liturgy (and presumably would criticise the bishop for the things you think they ought to criticise him for).

You're not even using the same criterion of division, or whatever the phrase is. Is there a division of people into those who would and wouldn't criticise critics of the archbishop (called conservatives and traditionalists respectively), and does it correspond (accidentally or necessarily) with a division of people into those who saved-a-liturgical-treasure and those who didn't?

Are there not any non-neo-cons who would criticise people for criticising Archbishop Nicholls?

Random ill-phrased venting of frustration is all very well (go and read Coffee Catholic for a particularly ebullient example) but it serves good purpose other than venting.

The Pope's pre-papacy books are, I think, immensely instructive examples of non-name-calling, non-generalising, fair, thorough and effective analysis and criticism. Don't let's just stick names on random collections of things that have existence as a unity only by virtue of being associated in our minds with feelings of approval or disapproval.

Look at your comment again. Now, if you weren't counterposing "conservative" and "traditionalist", it would be fairly innocent to say "traditionalists ensured Mass continued to be said according to the old missal", or even, if you want to be more emotive, "saved a liturgical treasure" - you would really just be meaning "people attached to the old rite of the Mass". In the context, though, the text suggests (as I've said) "traditionalist = earnest people who suffered in a noble cause ekcetra, unlike the neocons who do bad things like criticise people for defending the truth". A slight exaggeration, but you get the point.

I'm off to send my modem on holiday for a few days now, so apologies for not continuing any discussion.

Joe said...

Hestor:

I did read the whole article - printing it off for precisely that purpose.

Many of the new movements are considered to be "conservative" - so, if the article didn't intend referring to them in its set of people "neo conservatives" it needed to make the distinction.

I would say that, if Fr wanted to fully account for the situation of the contemporary Church, he needed to discuss the movements. Not doing so represents a failing in understanding ...

epsilon said...

The sort of catholics I don't like are the ones who at every opportunity say something snide about Salvation Army personnel, moslems, hippies, or anyone who they think doesn't fit in to their narrow world view. Coincidentally, these same types seem to approve of war, capital punishment, deportation and fascism.

When it comes to bishops or priests, who try to water down the Catholic Faith to some half baked pot noodle of empty ritual and "emergent" theology*, I feel angry that the rich traditions of Catholic liturgy have been thrown on the scrapheap, because these traditions keep us nourished by the Truth of Christ and strengthen us against our human frailty to sin. Many catholics are only "liberal" because they are being led astray by our own catholic priests and bishops.

*In my local Roman Catholic church the only "christian" literature available is a copy of "The Shack". No CTS booklets or anything like that. The priest was a former contemplative monk (Carmelite - though he has no desire for the Rosary to be said and never allows Benediction), and his relationship with his housekeeper...

Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

Hestor said...

Joe - I read the article again to try and see where you're coming from.

I still don't see why "new movements" need to be mentioned. Are you under the presumption that "traditionalist Catholics" see themselves as a "new movement"? There are plenty of people who objectively fall into the category of "neo-conservative" that don't belong to a new movement at all. The article is addressing the individuals themselves. The fact that new movements are so fragmented into different groups in terms of their spirituality (charismatics/focolare being at one end while Opus Dei is at the other) it would be rather difficult (but not necessarily impossible)to try and incoporate them into one group. I personally know of some Opus Dei members who are very defensive, when associated with other groups under the umbrella of "new movements" and regard themselves as unique in their place in the church.