Traditionalists: The Greatest Cafeteria Catholics of All Time

Traditionalists are always accusing the rest of the Catholic world of picking and choosing what they want to believe and throwing out the rest.  Certainly that is true for a certain number of Catholics.  Pope Francis himself has warned us of this trap, saying that such people have one foot out the door.  

But no "Novus Ordo" Catholic can hold a candle to the Traditionalists when it comes to picking and choosing what they will believe.  Traditionalists by nature reject everything that doesn't meet their own exacting standards, and that includes almost everything in the Church post-Vatican II.  

They reject the Second Vatican Council pretty much in its entirety, believing that even if there were good things from the Council, the good is far outweighed by the bad and therefore everything must be rejected. 

Traditionalists believe no one can be truly Catholic unless they love and attend the Traditional Latin Mass.  

They have rejected every post conciliar pope to one extent or another, and of course, they have completely rejected Pope Francis as a heretic who needs to be condemned and removed from the papacy.  

Traditionalists even reject such post conciliar teachings as Divine Mercy, believing that this negates the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  

And yet Traditionalists will tell us that they are the only true Catholics at this time in the Church's history.  Because of that, they feel justified in trying to destroy everything and everyone whom they view as an enemy.  

Now that Pope Francis has called them out and said they are the source of disunity and divisiveness in the Church, they are denying they ever believed any of the above things.  

Eric Sammons, a convert (so many of the Trads are converts) who is a hard core Traditionalist, wrote an article for Crisis Magazine in which he accuses Pope Francis of giving them a serpent when they asked for a fish:  "Traditionis custodes: Serpents over Fish." 

From Sammons' article:

One of my first thoughts when reading the Pope’s decree was our Lord’s words, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent?” (Luke 11:11) A growing number of Catholics have been asking to be fed by the “fish” of the TLM; now the Holy Father has given them instead a serpent.

These divine words come to mind because I think of all the people I’ve met in recent years who have discovered the traditional Latin Mass and found it to be a source of strength and comfort in their spiritual pilgrimage here on earth. They don’t reject Vatican II; they don’t think they are better than Novus Ordo Catholics; they don’t hate the pope. By and large, they don’t concern themselves with Church politics. They simply love the beauty and reverence and richness of the traditional Latin Mass—a beauty, reverence, and richness they could not find at their local parish.

They don't reject Vatican II?  They don't think they are better than "Novus Ordo Catholics"? (His very use of that term shows his bigotry.)  They don't hate the Pope?  Who does Sammons think he is kidding?  Show me one Traditionalist website on the entire Internet that doesn't promote all of these things.  It doesn't exist.  

Sammons' wording belies his statement "They simply love the beauty and reverence and richness of the traditional Latin Mass - a beauty, reverence, and richness they could not find at their local parish."  So they couldn't find this at their local parish, but they aren't rejecting anything.  Yea, right.

Just a few weeks ago, on July 2, Sammons did a video with another rad trad entitled, "Why is the Traditional Latin Mass Superior to the New Mass?" He doesn't even try to make it more palatable by asking "IS the TLM Superior", but comes right out and states "WHY the TLM is Superior."  This, of course, goes completely against Summorum Pontificum which says neither Mass is superior to the other.

On May 2 of this year, Sammons wrote an article claiming that the Second Vatican Council is a failed council.  The article is entitled: "Moving Beyond Vatican II" with a subtitle, "How do you solve a problem like Vatican II?"

He states that, unlike other Trads, he does not consider Vatican II to be heretical, just failed, and that Catholics must respond by "moving beyond" the Council:

So, how should Catholics approach Vatican II? First, to be clear, this is not a call to “reject” Vatican II or to declare it heretical. It’s a call to stop being handcuffed to that council, to move beyond it. Too often we’ve had binary debates about Vatican II: you either have to follow it slavishly (or, more precisely, follow a specific interpretation slavishly), or reject it completely. We need to put Vatican II in proper perspective—both the good and the bad—and stop seeing every problem through a Vatican II lens. Perhaps the council doesn’t have the answer to our problems; or, even more controversially, perhaps the Vatican II solution isn’t the proper solution for today.

Both liberal and conservative Catholics have made Vatican II into the raison d’etre of modern Catholicism, the lens through which the entire Faith is seen. This practice has transformed the council into an albatross, shackling Catholics to failed and outdated ideas and practices.

Catholics need not be cult members, desperately trying to save face by defending every jot and tittle of Vatican II. We can admit we have councils in our past that, in spite of good intentions, didn’t work out as hoped—or whose pastoral advice and worldview just don’t apply to us anymore. In the face of today’s (seemingly countless) problems, we should focus on those things in our Tradition that have worked and re-embrace them, for the good of the Church and the salvation of souls.

Sammons is treating us like fools.  He honestly wants us to think that judging the Council as irrelevant and "moving beyond" it is not the same as rejecting it.  C'mon!  A rose by any other name . . . or better said, condemnation by any other name. . .

It is also beyond ironic that Sammons accuses Vatican II of "shackling Catholics to failed and outdated ideas and practices."  The Council is not even 60 years old, which is nothing in terms of Church age. The Trads have been condemning it since the end of the last session in 1965.  They refuse to even consider that it is divinely inspired.

Next question.  How does Sammons view Pope Francis?  Here is an article he wrote on June 4 entitled "Pope Francis Sets His Sights on the Latin Mass." regarding the then rumors that Francis was going to abrogate Summorum Pontificum.   

Sammons writes this:

Why would Pope Francis do this? If a CEO decided to shut down the fastest-growing division in his company, it would be a head-scratcher for sure. So why would Pope Francis look to limit the reach of what is, in terms of growth, the most successful movement in the Church today?

The most likely answer is that he and other Vatican officials behind this move realize that the growth of TLM communities is not just about the way the Mass is celebrated. In many ways it represents a repudiation of the entire post-Vatican II project into which Church leaders up to Francis have invested so much.

Sammons makes it abundantly clear that he sees only malicious intent on the part of Pope Francis. This is classic Catholic Traditionalism. They never consider that there is any possibility that they are doing something wrong.  As I have written so many times before, Trads portray themselves as innocent victims who want nothing more than to obey and worship God. They then demonize everyone whom they consider an enemy, and no one is a bigger enemy in their messed up minds than Pope Francis and the post conciliar Church.

Sammons ends his article with a threat that restricting the TLM will spell the end of the Church.  He obviously doesn't believe Jesus Christ who said the gates of hell will never prevail:

My prayer is that it never comes to that—that the pope realizes the growth of the TLM is the best thing happening in the Church today and he should do all he can to promote and encourage it. If he doesn’t, he might one day find that the only Catholics left will be those who need to turn off the lights and lock the doors, since everyone has already left the building for good.

It never enters the Traditionalist mindset that being in opposition to the Pope and the 21st Century Catholic Church in a 21st Century world might put them on the wrong side of the equation, that they might be causing division and disunity and hurting the Church in very severe ways.  

Some will pick up on my last statement and say, see, you think the Church should change and try to fit into the world.  I am not saying that at all.  The needs of our contemporary world are vastly different from the medieval world.  This world bears no resemblance to the world in which the TLM came into being.  

Also, and very importantly, the TLM is a European product. The TLM is based on a white European culture.  The Church needs to relate to other cultures and other people, and the language, rubrics, architecture and even vestments just don't cut it in places like Africa and Asia.  It is no coincidence that since Vatican II and the "New Mass", the Catholic Church is growing in tremendous numbers in other parts of the world while European Church is slowly devolving into negative numbers.

Credit

If we listen to the Trads and try to restrict the Church's ability to reach out and relate to all cultures, all of this will end.  We need to reach out to more than western European peoples.  And this is exactly why Vatican II and the creation of the "Novus Ordo" was and is so very important.  If we stay stuck in the Traditionalist mindset, the Catholic Church will diminish greatly in other parts of the world and will even suffer greatly here in the West, where the vast majority of Catholics have no interest in the TLM.  

The Traditionalists pick and choose what they like.  If they like something, they pronounce it good and holy.  If they don't like it, it is evil and must be destroyed.  Their choices have little to do with the teachings of the Church or whether they are showing charity, compassion and mercy to others.  Their decisions are mainly based on how something makes them feel.   As I have previously stated, they do not worship AT the Latin Mass.  They worship the Traditional Latin Mass itself. It colors everything they do, and the fruits have been disastrous.

The Traditionalists have made it very clear that they care only about themselves and their little world.  They feel what is right for them is right for everyone else, and if others don't understand that, then they are just not Christian and have nothing to offer.  For the Trads, it's the TLM or nothing.

The problem is not with the Traditional Latin Mass.  The problem is with the Traditionalists who are using it to divide and destroy the Church.  They have taken something beautiful and made it into a weapon of mass (no pun intended) destruction.  

The Traditionalists gave Pope Francis no other choice than to proceed as he has done.  The Pope's first loyalty is to his flock.  The Trads have made it very clear they do not consider themselves to be a part of his flock.  They have no one to blame but themselves for having come to this point.