Am I a "Protestantizing" Catholic Now Or Was I Formerly a "Catholicizing" Protestant? (+ Discussion)
This is simply shoddy thinking all around (whoever reasons like this). I've run across the attitude myself on several occasions. It's a sort of nebulous guilt-by-association mentality that ignores many relevant particular factors. I do understand (I want to make it clear) that this is not your point of view of the writer, but is the opinion of some radtrads.
There are indeed, converts who have, unfortunately, been unduly influenced by their Protestant past in a negative way, and have not totally shaken off the false elements of it, but they tend to be "traditionalists" themselves: folks like Gerry Matatics, who couldn't stop thinking like an individualistic fundamentalist Protestant (and so is now a sedevacantist). One might argue that Gerry and others like him never learned to completely think like Catholics, and so their reasoning processes still incorporate erroneous Protestant premises.
But we need not point out only extreme examples - many sound Traditionalists - myself included- have sometimes wondered about what under-the-surface "baggage" Protestant converts bring to the Church. This is a legitimate question.
Yeah, I know, because, like I said, I've come across these suspicions many times. I think we can only approach each individual. If we want to talk about baggage, that is not simply a problem with converts (assuming for a moment that it even is that significant of a problem among the apologists being discussed as a group). While we were learning a great deal of truth in evangelical Protestantism (respect for the Bible as inspired and infallible, love of God and service to Him, learning to pray and to evangelize and defend Christianity and to work together for social justice issues such as abortion, thinking seriously about Christ and culture), many cradle Catholics in the 70s and 80s were learning liberalism and an insipid, nauseating "Catholic Lite."
Who's to say which was worse? For my money, I'll take my evangelical past, because on the whole I learned more truth there than I would have in any of the thousands of liberal parishes then and now. I suspect the whole comparison is a wash. If the Church hadn't suffered through the crisis we have seen in the last 40 years, this wouldn't be as strong of a counterpoint. But it has, and so my argument has some force.
But before answering it, we ought to ask ourselves first: why bring up that such-and-such an apologist is a convert? After that we should wonder: what do we imply by pointing out that they are?
Obviously because you suspect there is heretical "baggage". Also, I think that existing differences of approach and emphasis between converts and cradle Catholics breed the sort of suspicion that occurs between all people who differ in some way. But one thing is for sure: the convert has lived the Protestant life in a way that the lifelong Catholic never has. That is not an advantage
in and of itself (I would say that a lifelong Catholic who was properly taught their faith would be in far better shape).
But it is an advantage to some extent in apologetics and evangelism, because the more one knows one's opponent and his viewpoint, the more effective one can be. This is why. I think, we see many converts active in apologetics. We also were forced to give answers to our Protestant friends and that led naturally to apologetics (this was, in fact, the circumstance that led to my first book,
A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, which wasn't even intended to
be a book for a couple of years).
Cradle Catholics can learn a great deal about Protestantism and be just as effective in these ways (witness Keating and Madrid), but it is clear that the person who used to believe something and later changed his mind, has a certain advantage (generally speaking) going into an encounter with one of that group. St. Paul could talk to Jews effectively because he
was one of them (in the religious sense). He still called himself a Pharisee even after his conversion. I still call myself
evangelical, in the larger sense of that word.
By labelling an apologist as a convert or "ex-Protestant," we are implying that there exists some kind of dynamic or paradigm about converts from Protestantism within the Catholic Church.
There does indeed tend to be a dynamic, but I think it is mostly a positive thing, such as what I was just discussing above, not a negative thing. The question is whether the overall result is a net gain or a net loss.
Before we go any further, we ought to establish that this label is not in any way meant to deny the fidelity of these convert apologists. We are not attempting (or at least we should not be) to cast suspicion on their orthodoxy, as if they are modern day moriscos or maranos of whom we need to be extra cautious.
Very good. I appreciate this.
What we do need to acknowledge, however, is that since converts from Protestantism come into the Church from a different path than cradle Catholics, their view of what is important about the Church will necessarily be a little different.
Sure; but the Catholic who came out of a liberal background has wrong emphases as well (often including a heterodoxy that is rarely the case with almost any convert who knows
why he converted). I think it is much more fruitful to discuss error more broadly, rather than combine people into converts and cradles. I'm responding to this because I think it is a misguided suspicion, but I rarely bring up the distinction myself. I'm always responding to someone else who wants to make this an issue. Once it is brought up, however, and such things are being analyzed, I can do sociology (my major in college) and "demographics" as well as the next person.
I come at this from a unique position, as a cradle Catholic who toyed around with Protestantism and then "reverted" back to Catholicism,
Good, then you have some "inside" knowledge of non-Catholic Christianity as well.
and so I can see where both sides are coming from, and I see that the first thing we need do is acknowledge that such a dynamic between cradle Catholics / converts does in fact exist.
There are differences, for sure. I wish we could view them as complementaries rather than conflicts leading to suspicions and other unhelpful or unedifying attitudes. I've long noted that cradle Catholics in many instances have skepticism toward the convert in various ways.
Of course, it does not apply universally. Few labels do. But here is how it works, as one commentator on Athanasius' original post pointed out: While the cradle Catholic-turned-Traditionalist is deeply disappointed that he had never heard of Benediction, Processions, Te Deum, Salve Regina, etc. before finding his way into traditionalism,
Here is an example of the deprivations of the liberal Catholic life. But I don't have to be a "traditionalist" to have all these benefits. They all occur in my parish, where I have gone to church for 18 years now. Granted, most parishes don't have these things. I'm just saying that I didn't have to have all the distinctive "traditionalist" gripes and beliefs to possess them. I never went through that phase. I went right from mainstream evangelical Arminian Protestant, to orthodox Catholic (having been mentored by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., who is honored on the sidebar of the blog where this post appears).
the convert is so thrilled to have access to the sacraments and the magisterium that he cannot imagine the leadership in the church having ever done anything wrong by getting rid of or hiding so many small-t traditions.
I don't think this holds up as a generality. Most apologists I know want liturgical tradition as well as doctrinal orthodoxy. I work on the CHNI discussion forum and I am always noticing, for example, a strong devotion to eucharistic adoration among converts (one I am particularly thinking of was a Baptist and daughter of a pastor). I don't think convert apologists are different in this regard. I would caution, then, against this generalization. If there were examples provided of some apologist actually denigrating these small-t liturgical traditions, then the point would have force, with regard to them. Instead, it is submitted as a vague general criticism, and has little or no force.
One who comes into the Church from Protestantism naturally finds great excitement in the fact that the Catholic Church worships liturgically, that Christ's grace is present through the sacraments ex opere operato, that the authority claimed by the papacy is authentic, that Marian veneration is in fact biblical, etc. He has come to the Church of Christ and finally feels at home.
Indeed.
However, because he is so excited to be home, he frequently ignores what state the home that he came back to is in.
Who are these convert (and apologists) who think that liberalism in the Church is no problem at all? I don't see them. I see lots of converts and apologists, though, fighting against liberalism. Catholic Answers certainly has always done so. I myself have opposed those errors as well as the extreme radtrad errors all along.
A convert is so overwhelmed and over joyed that the Church does in fact have an infallible head (something he denied as a Protestant) that he has a hard time imagining how such an infallible head could permit the Church to fall into such disastrous straits,
This assumes the altogether questionable premise that it is all the pope's fault in the
first place, that there is a liberal crisis. But that is absurdly simplistic, and I utterly reject it.
if he even gets around to realizing that the straits are disastrous.
This is the common traditionalist belief that non-traditionalists think the situation in the Church is hunky-dory. I've stated till I am blue in the face that we don't disagree on the existence of a crisis: only what to
do about it, and what the initial
causes were. You guys were the ones who (as a class or large group) went after Vatican II and after the
Novus Ordo Mass and ecumenical efforts. We, on the other hand, have attacked the problem where it always was located and centered: liberal theology and liberal dissenters.
At length, many "traditionalists" have figured out (happily) that maybe Vatican II wasn't the Worst Thing Ever, and just maybe, the Pauline Mass (though they may not like it themselves) is legitimate and not anti-traditional. You've come around to sense and common sense, and we are right where we've always been: in the position of orthodoxy and in opposition to heterodoxy, without going down all these paths that "traditionalists" usually go down.
Ah, but you yourself have not come to these more sensible positions as of yet. You are closer to the radtrad position, at least according to your November 2007 article,
Conversion to Traditionalism. You have all the classic hallmarks, that I critiqued years ago (2002) in my
book about "traditionalism":
1) You oppose Vatican II and even the Catechism:
I began to be uncomfortable with several statements and ideas found in post-Conciliar documents (and later, in the Conciliar documents themselves). I noticed a glaring lack of references in ecclesiastical statements to documents from before the Council. . . .
You have gone from deploring the false interpretations of Vatican II to realizing that the inherent problems are in the documents themselves, irrespective of any subsequent interpretation. . . .
You once turned to the Catechism and the documents of Vatican II as the sure bastions of orthodoxy; now you have to supplement them with hefty references from the pre-Conciliar documents in order to fill in the glaring doctrinal gaps and ambiguities. . . .
You used to defend Vatican II by saying, "I know there have been abuses done in the "spirit" of Vatican II, but the Council itself was necessary,"; now you believe the entire Council was utterly unnecessary and you wish to God it would have never occurred.
2) You show the common "traditionalist" admiration for the SSPX:
You have gone from attacking the SSPX as schismatics and condemning them unreservedly to thinking they really have some good points.
3) You severely criticize Pope John Paul the Great:
You have gone from admiring Pope John Paul II and calling him "the Great" (as I did in 2005) to thinking his papacy was not a very good one.
You guys usually love Pope Benedict XVI. Well, I've loved what he stands for, for years, too, and I say his position is closer to mine than to yours. I don't see
him running down the Pauline Mass or Vatican II, like you do. Here is what the Holy Father said about the Latin Mass in both its forms:
Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the "Lex orandi" (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Blessed John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same "Lex orandi," and must be given due honor for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church's "Lex orandi" will in no any way lead to a division in the Church's "Lex credendi" (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite.
(Summorum Pontificum, 7 July 2007)
You expressed happy agreement with it
in July 2007:
Praise and thanks be to God for the document Summorum Pontificum released this Saturday. I think I speak for many when I say that this document exceeded many of our expectations.
But you casually disagreed with the statement above, by continuing to show disdain for the "ordinary expression" (learning nothing from the pope's statement):
What should come next? When will it be enough? I will tell you what I would like to see next:
(1) The old usage be declared the "normative" form of the Latin rite instead of the extraordinary form.
(2) The gradual phasing out of the Novus Ordo.
(3) Some kind of official acknowledgement that the hoped for "riches" envisioned by Sacrosanctum Concilium have not materialized and that the implementation of the Novus Ordo has been an abject failure.
You reiterated your oppositional view in your November 2007 article:
11) You once wanted a dignified celebration of the Novus Ordo; now, nothing less that the Traditional Latin Mass will suffice. 12) You once thought perhaps the TLM should be available to those who were still "attached" to it, but now you think the NO should be suppressed and the TLM should be the missa normativa of the Latin rite, mandatory for everybody ultimately.
And you were more blunt than that in a
July 2007 post:
The Novus Ordo, while being a valid form of the Mass validly promulgated by the legitimate Second Vatican Council, was nevertheless a terrible idea. Not only the abuses but the Mass itself are wrought with grave omissions and ambiguities. The Traditional Mass of Pius V should be the normative Mass of the Roman Rite and the Novus Ordo ought to be abolished. . . .
The surest route to a true restoration of Catholic Tradition is to restore the Rite of St. Pius V (ie, of Gregory the Great) as the missa normativa of the Roman Rite. The Novus Ordo ought to be cast off as a failed experiment (for that's what it truly is: a liturgical experiment, an artificial creation in a liturgical labratory, a test-tube baby of the Church with no precedent in Tradition), and the sooner it is done away with the better.
So who is closer to the Mind of the Church, expressed by the pope? You don't even seem to grant that he expresses the Mind of the Church. You simply disagree and go right on casually suggesting that the Pauline Mass should be abolished, in direct contradiction to what the pope taught. In other words, you argued precisely as the liberal dissenters and Protestants argue: you reject the pope's teaching and prefer to go your own way (even though that "way" has shown many major vacillations over the last ten years or so).
You question the orthodoxy of Vatican II, think the problems that occurred after the council were inherent in the words of the conciliar documents, and
"wish to God" that it had never been held. This is vastly different from the Holy Father's position. Writing in 1985, then-Cardinal Ratzinger was very clear:
It must be stated that Vatican II is upheld by the same authority as Vatican I and the Council of Trent, namely, the Pope and the College of Bishops in communion with him, and that also with regard to its contents, Vatican II is in the strictest continuity with both previous councils and incorporates their texts word for word in decisive points . . .
Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church, particularly also the two previous councils . . . It is likewise impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them from their foundation. And this applies to the so-called 'traditionalism,' also in its extreme forms. Every partisan choice destroys the whole (the very history of the Church) which can exist only as an indivisible unity.
To defend the true tradition of the Church today means to defend the Council. It is our fault if we have at times provided a pretext (to the 'right' and 'left' alike) to view Vatican II as a 'break' and an abandonment of the tradition. There is, instead, a continuity that allows neither a return to the past nor a flight forward, neither anachronistic longings nor unjustified impatience. We must remain faithful to the today of the Church, not the yesterday or tomorrow. And this today of the Church is the documents of Vatican II, without reservations that amputate them and without arbitrariness that distorts them . . .
I see no future for a position that, out of principle, stubbornly renounces Vatican II. In fact in itself it is an illogical position. The point of departure for this tendency is, in fact, the strictest fidelity to the teaching particularly of Pius IX and Pius X and, still more fundamentally, of Vatican I and its definition of papal primacy. But why only popes up to Pius XII and not beyond? Is perhaps obedience to the Holy See divisible according to years or according to the nearness of a teaching to one's own already-established convictions?
(The Ratzinger Report, San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985, 28-29, 31)
Once again, I and all orthodox Catholics are in line with the Mind of the Church, but a so-called "traditionalism" that has utter disdain for Vatican II is not. It is not even consistent enough to be able to call the authority of Trent to its defense, since the pope said that its authority and that of Vatican II rested on exactly the same basis.
He is so thrilled with liturgical worship (as opposed to his former, anything-goes, a-liturgical, non-denominational Protestant emotional sob-fest) that he takes little thought as to the quality or history of the liturgy he participates in. He is more impressed with that it is as opposed to what it is.
Of course this analysis has a limited application. It applies only to those who came from that sector of Protestantism. Plenty of Protestants are liturgical. But this is true in some cases, yes.
When somebody once commented to me, around eight years ago, about the sad state of Catholic liturgy today, I glibly told them, "Why not just be humble and happy that you have a liturgy and that you can receive Christ in the Eucharist?"
Now you show that you are reacting in part against your own past errors. You were liturgically nonchalant eight years ago, but not all converts follow your own progression. My own views then were exactly the same as they are now: very liturgically traditional but not in the same way that many professed "traditionalists" are, since I prefer the
Novus Ordo Latin Mass. I don't have to run down the Tridentine Mass. I'm delighted that it is permitted now. We have it in my parish. That is the Catholic way: "both/and." We have these liturgical traditions, and many other rites in Eastern Catholicism. I feel no need to set one against the other as superior. In other words, my position is identical to the Holy Father's position on the two forms of the one Mass. I simply respond to attacks that are wrongly conceived. Thus I have defended the Pauline Mass against many "traditionalist" charges that it is anti-traditional or "objectively inferior" and so forth.
I was making several errors in my thought here: 1) I was failing to distinguish between the objective validity of the sacrament itself and the fittingness of the decora that surround that sacrament, and that the latter can actually influence the amount of grace ex opere operantis I can receive through the former. 2) I was failing to distinguish between the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass and the reception of the sacrament at the Mass.
No disagreement here. Vatican II talks about the same things.
3) I had the mistaken minimalist notion that proper Catholic worship (or theology, or whatever) consisted of several essential elements, and that so long as the essentials were present, everything else was just a matter of "taste" (like Gregorian Chant vs. praise & worship).
Is not Gregorian chant a means to foster reverence and worship of God? What else would it be for, if not that? I've been equally blessed and brought into God's presence and the spiritual realm in the Tridentine Mass and also in a charismatic mass with more contemporary music. True worship comes from the heart. This is the interior disposition that perhaps is part of what you refer to in #2, and that is stressed in Vatican II. One can worship God as wholeheartedly and receive the Blessed Sacrament with as much piety and humility at one sort of Mass as they can at the other, since the key is always one's internal state of heart and soul.
In my own parish, we're as traditional as they come, but once a year we have a bagpipe band come in. They march right down the aisle and play
Amazing Grace (a Protestant song). That is as moving to me (especially as a Scottish-American!) as any Gregorian Chant or Mozart liturgical music (that we do perform at our Masses) that I've ever heard. If we as Catholics can't marvel at God's grace as much as the Protestants do, then there is something wrong with us. But it is an objectively great song and one that no Catholic should disparage. This was not part of the Mass, by the way, but right before the Mass. But many "traditionalists" would, no doubt, condemn it.
I'm sure there are some more errors in this line of thought that some of you could pick out, but I think that suffices for now. I know this was the case for me, and I can only imagine that this frequently happens with other converts (or reverts) from Protestantism. We tend to stay in a convert mentality for a long time. We can spend years rejoicing that we have found our home before we look around and decide it is in need of cleaning. Coming into the Church can be a matter of only a few months, but working Protestantism out of the system can take decades.
Not if one is properly formed in the faith from the outset. That's where catechesis and apologetics can play a key role. I've devoted my life to such education. On the Coming Home Network forum where I am the moderator we are helping new converts every day learn to think with the Church. I see that you are doing the same thing as a DRE. This is how you and I and others who teach in the Church can prevent having Protestant debris for decades. It doesn't have to be so. But if you war against the pope's teachings, as you did above concerning Vatican II and the Pauline Mass, you are hardly teaching new Catholics to think like Catholics. You're teaching them to think like Protestants or Catholic liberals.
Is it wrong to suggest that the Church needs cleaning? Absolutely not; St. Augustine himself says that the Church is always in need to purification and reform. It is no help to our individual holiness or to that of the Church Universal to deny that it is so.
I agree; anyone who denies this is a dumbbell and knows little of either Church history or the current situation. But we would disagree as to how common such an attitude is (at least among those who know their faith, not the nominalistic types).
What is so offensive to many, however, is the suggestion that the reform is needed to counteract certain tendencies that originate from within the Church itself.
This is where the proposed solutions greatly diverge. Liberalism came from within the Church insofar as it took hold among many prominent Catholic
theologians and spread to the schools and seminaries. Fr. Hardon used to say that the "revolution" began around 1940. But I disagree that any part of the cause is located in an ecumenical council or the teaching of popes. It comes from liberal dissidents and the negative influence of the surrounding increasingly secularized and amoral or immoral culture.
This is where the convert mentality breaks down. He has just spent months, maybe years, discovering the impassible, infallible, one, holy, catholic and apostolic Bride of Christ, so much so that he has left his Protestant tradition as wholly as Abraham leaving Ur. And how can he, in this mindset, see that the Church has some very serious problems originating from the acts of the very hierarchy and papacy that he has just learned how to defend to his Protestant friends and family? I'm not saying it cannot happen, but that in these circumstances it becomes less likely that a new convert will be inclined to see things from a traditionalist angle. That is what this dynamic is all about: what is more or less likely based on how a person comes to the Church.
The convert can understand that there is a liberal crisis in the Church. I understood this even before I came in because I understood that the same problem exists in Protestantism, to an even greater degree. But to locate the problem in the recent popes or Vatican II is the very thing that is under dispute. I don't see that the convert has to come to that realization, because I reject it in the first place. This is not a denial of reality; it is truly how we see the situation. We think that "traditionalists" are dead wrong in this respect. It is one of their most serious errors.
While the convert to Catholicism tends to react to Traditional things with a manner of indifference (or, at best, curiosity), the cradle Catholic who comes in contact with Tradition tends to respond with feelings of having been cheated or short-changed; Disinherited would be a better word. He is able to respond to these things this way because he has never had to come into Catholicism through the door viewing the liturgy or the sacraments as complete novelties. Therefore, instead of asking, "How is this worship different than Protestant worship?" he is in a sense freer to examine the more practical dimension of the matter: "How does is this worship more or less conducive to faith?" He can view the sacraments and the liturgy in a more holistic way, with sacraments, form, matter, vestments, music, architecture and all rolled up into one experience, because this experiential totality is Catholicism for him. For the new convert, it is perpetually a contrast to his previous experience with a focus on the essentials to the exclusion of what are errantly deemed irrelevant trivialities ("Who cares what type of music is being played? You get to receive Jesus!")
I think there is much insight in this paragraph and a lot of food for thought. But again, I would differ insofar as I disagree with the common "traditionalist" analysis of causes of the modernist crisis and solutions to them. I can accept the above but disagree on the implications of it and in what direction to go, once one realizes these things.
But as time goes by and the convert begins to feel at home within the Catholic Church, and continues to study and grow in prayer, he begins to come into the birthright that he obtained through baptism, and it is then that as liturgy becomes the pulse of life, he can begin to see the forest and not just the individual trees within it. This is why many converts become conservatives (no converts from Protestantism become liberal Catholics: that category is made up exclusively of poorly formed cradle Catholics). These conservatives then begin to gravitate towards Traditionalism as they feel more at home in the Church and begin to see themselves no longer as converts but as regular Catholics, especially if they are sensitive to the disorders within the Church and begin to ponder why the Church is in such a dire state.
If they read or listen to only the "traditionalist" version of the causes of the crisis, then obviously they will go in that direction, since we are what we eat. You appear to have done this yourself, since you stated in your November 2007 article:
The real turning point was when I really got to know fellow-blogger Anselm earlier in 2007. He had already trod this path (in his case from charismatic to Traditionalist) and helped to give formula and words to the inexpressible dissatisfaction I had in my heart with the way things currently were. We spent much time together, . . .
But as you surely know, the "traditionalist" movement is very diverse, with wild-eyed schismatic radicals and sedevacantists or nutty anti-popes on one end of the spectrum and folks like me at the other, who are orthodox, believe all that the Church teaches, and prefer liturgical tradition (though Pauline and not Tridentine). That's the problem: people tend to go in one direction, rather than read both sides.
I always want people to use their minds and see what both sides of a major dispute have to say, rather than read one. So I think dialogues or exchanges such as this have great value. If someone reads this and rejects everything I say, down to the last detail, I'm still happy because I am delighted that at least they heard some other position besides "traditionalism". It's the same with any belief-system. The anti-Catholics only read their own leaders. Liberal Catholics tend to read only liberals and to look down their nose at orthodox Catholics, etc.
While many Catholics remain NO conservatives their entire lives, I think conservatism in the Church, philosophically speaking, is a kind of halfway house. The conservative position is to the Catholic Church what Anglicanism is to Christianity as a whole: a stop-over point where people can rest momentarily before delving further into where their beliefs will logically lead them.
This is one major false premise that is a huge discussion in and of itself. I am in no halfway house. I am in the One True Church. If the Holy Father says that the Pauline Mass is every bit as legitimate as the Tridentine, what "traditionalist" can deign to know better than he? We have a papacy because we're not Protestants; we're Catholics. He is our guide. He has the special charism from God, to teach the faithful. We can trust him.
If the Tridentine Mass is the only possible way to go, what becomes of the other 21 or so rites of the Church? Are they all inferior too? Will you visit each rite and issue a report card, grading them on how reverent they are, and then let us all know, so that we can follow your wisdom? At some point the
hubris and utter presumption of "traditionalism," routinely second-guessing pope and Church alike, is patently obvious. You guys always seem to think that you know better than the Holy Father. If you can't even accept Benedict XVI's teaching on the Mass and continuing place of the Pauline Mass (since he is generally highly regarded by "traditionalists"), then almost certainly you'll dissent from any other pope. The problem resides in the mindset itself.
Now you want to compare us with
Anglicans, for heaven's sake: people who reject the papacy altogether, and large portions of which (American Episcopalians) accept sodomite "priests" and who chose to separate from the Catholic Church because of one man's lust, pride, and lust for power? This is a sort of grotesque, surreal version of Cardinal Newman's analogy: what he said in his
Apologia, with regard to Anglicans, Monophysites, and Catholics and their relative positions. In so doing, ironically, you demonstrate what your
own logic leads you to, and it is an absurdity (which is a shame because much of this essay was, I thought, quite balanced and moderate in tone -- in the best sense of that word).
And so, that brings us back to Tradition. The roads by which we get here and becomes Traditionalists are many and varied:
I am already "in" Tradition. I have never been
out of it since becoming a Catholic in early 1991. I reject the common equation of "traditionalists" as the sole possessors of the entire Catholic Tradition, and the notion that any non-"traditionalist" is somehow essentially deficient in their Catholicism (even though it may be granted that we are "orthodox"), which is why I almost always put the word in quotes. I firmly reject the implications of that. It's a falsehood.
Protestantism, conservative Catholicism, charismatic Catholicism. While we ought never to be calling into question the orthodoxy or fidelity of people just because they used to be something else, we still ought not to be afraid to acknowledge that we did all in fact get here by different doors, and that those doors color what we see once we arrive.
. . . Just as the common "traditionalist" motifs color how you guys see things. You have your profound biases just like every other group, and there is plenty in your ranks to disagree with.
All in all, though, there was much in this essay (as far as it went) that I could agree with. Mainly I profoundly disagree with the conclusions near the end, which exhibit some of the fundamental errors of "traditionalism" quite clearly, in my opinion. And I strongly disagree with the anti-Vatican II and anti-
Novus Ordo positions, that I documented from places other than this current post. These are not in line with the Mind of the Church, which comes from the magisterium, not individual "traditionalists" who can't even agree with
each other, let alone offer a position more authoritative and spiritually wise and prudent than the Holy Father himself.
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