Tea at Trianon: 10 Problems in the Traditional Catholic Movement

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

10 Problems in the Traditional Catholic Movement

From a 2019 article by Fr. Ripperger at Tumblar House:

1.) Becoming Gnostic & Elitist

The first has to do with the fact that the traditionalist movement is slowly becoming a Gnostic movement by among some, and by Gnostic we mean that they think that only they have this secret knowledge that nobody else seems to have or get and somehow there's something special about them because they get it and these other people don't. How do we know it's becoming Gnostic? They're constantly looking down and bad-mouthing everybody who goes to the New Mass, and things of that sort. Somehow or another they're special. But there's a darker side to this Gnostic aspect. Aside from the fact that it's rooted in pride and it's rude and it's haughty and it's presumptuous, because they presume that it's on their side and not on the grace of God that they can do these things, but there's a dark side.

2.) Impurity
Every Gnostic movement always suffers from grave problems of the impurity and so is the traditionalist movement. This is a serious problem. I'm not saying this as my own perception, although it is true that I noticed this some time ago. This is something that traditional priests are starting to discuss because it's becoming a serious problem. Why is this? Well it's pride. Pride is the vice in which a person judges himself greater than he is. So what does God do? He allows you to lapse into the lowest, basest, vulgarest forms of sins in order to lower your estimation of yourself. Well what's happening is, because traditionalists are so proud, they're really following into serious problems regarding the sixth commandment and it's across the board.

3.) Generational Spirits
The second problem is it’s becoming a generational spirit. What's a generational spirit? It's one in which if parents commit particular kinds of sins, they open the door to demons inserting themselves into their family life, and it gets passed from generation to generation. Now my own estimation of this is, is that the generational spirit is pride. But it's also becoming a generational spirit of impurity, because you're seeing it almost it's across the board, where the parents had a problem with the impurity, they haven't gotten it under control, or they've never done anything to undo this the generational spirit in their family or some spirit of pride.
And it's getting passed from generation to generation. What’s this mean? It means that kids that are coming up who are normally good kids, who are doing what they normally do (okay they might be disobedient here and there what-have-you), but they're getting to be 10, 11, 12 years of age and they're seriously struggling with impurity when they shouldn't be. There's nothing in the family other than the externals of the family life, but then you find out the father has a problem of pornography or self-abuse or they're doing other things or what-have-you. And this is where it's becoming a serious problem. If you look at the number of sins against the sixth commandment, sins like self-abuse, pornography, fornication, among traditionalists, they are not any better than the people who go to the New Mass. In fact, there's some estimates by some priests that it's worse than is among the New Rite people.
This is a serious problem. It's going to drag us down. Why? Because if we're not careful, we're going to end up suffering what St. Paul says which was “and God gave them over to their lusts and they started sleeping men with men and women with women.” It's already happening among the youth of the traditional movement, because of this generational spirit. If parents don't want this problem among their children, they've got to get their act together. If they've started stuff in the past they've got to get this generational line straightened out and cleaned up.

4.) Isolationist Attitude
Then there's also another Gnostic side to the traditional movement, and that is this isolationist attitude in relationship to the world. Now the world can have a variety of different meanings. You don't leave the world because it's bad. You don't try and avoid aspects of the world because it's bad. You try to avoid aspects of the world principally because it's good. But Gnostics always view everything in the world as bad and this is how traditionalists are becoming. This has never been part of the tradition, that is, this isolationist mentality with “circle the wagons, everyone's got to hide and just keep away from I can't let my kids talk to anybody whatsoever until they're 25 maybe 30 years of age if then.” This has never been part of the Catholic religion to be an isolation shunning people and that kind of thing. Why? Because how are you going to evangelize people? How are you honestly going to attract people to Mass? You're not going to attract people. Why? Because there's a natural human psychology. People aren't going to go to some place where they know people are looking down on them. This isolationist attitude, this isolation, occurred only in certain kinds of monasteries. This was to devote themselves full-time to God. Catholic families are not in that position. They're supposed to be in the world, not of it. Traditionalists don't want anything to do with the world whatsoever. That's not their role. Their role is to transform the world by being good and holy people in the world. That's their function. Yes, the world is bad.
Many traditionalists deny their children legitimate things because of the fact that it's an exaggeration, it's an excess. So what happens? Well you're ending up with the same kind of phenomenon that you're seeing among Amish. The kids end up just bolting from the traditional movement because they just can't stand the fact that things that are perfectly okay are being denied from them entirely. So we're having attrition rates among them. (Read more.)