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.