Jeff Mirus has an interesting article on How Traditionalists and Modernists Are Alike which I mostly agree with. Though I would substitute the term traditionalist with radical traditionalist because there are many who call themselves traditionalist who don’t say stupid things like the new order of Mass is invalid. I have said before that modernism and radical traditionalism are really both sides of the same coin of dissent and Jeff Mirus takes this much further in giving some concrete examples of the similarities.
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“I would substitute the term ‘traditionalist’ with ‘radical traditionalist,’ because there are many who call themselves ‘traditionalist’ who don’t say stupid things like ‘the new order of Mass is invalid.'”
No, not “radical traditionalist,” but “pseudo-traditionalist” (pseudotrad, for short). “Pseudo” is Greek for “false,” and those people are not genuine, since the newer rite of the Mass is part of the ongoing Tradition of the Catholic Church.
Let’s call them pseudo-traditionalists from this point forward.
Taken from the quoted article, when mentioning how (whateveryouwannacallthem) Traditionalists have an emphasis on Personal Experience as a guide to what they believe:
Similarly, traditionalists consistently shape their theories of Church governance to justify the spiritual pleasures they take in their own experiences, particularly their own liturgical experiences,
Because of course, there is no objective data (church attendance, baptism rates, men entering seminaries/being ordained) that shows the Church has been having some problems over the last forty years or so.
*eye roll*
I know people who are on both sides of this issue, I have plenty of family who are very modernist and a few freinds who are in the traditionalist camp. I wrote about this article when in came out, and I also use the term “traditionalist”. The Catholic Church by its very nature is traditionalist, so to say you are a traditionalist Catholic is to imply something more than simply Catholic.
You my travel left, or you may travel right, but at the extreme you do not gain greater distance from the opposite extreme, because you travel around the circumferance of a circle, rather than a linear distance. That is why the distance from radical left to radical right (or vice versa) is so little.
I love God,The Tridentine mass,theHoly Father,and The Magesterium.
God bless you.
When on the Catholic Answers forums, we call those who thought the NO was invalid, Traditionalists. Note the capital T.
I am a traditionalist, or as a wise man once called us, Historic Catholics.
The problem is that most parishes are run by innovators and feel that this is middle of the road, when most people want an Historically Catholic Holy Mass. No handholding, no usurping the Orans for the laity, no female feet washing. To those in power in the parishes, these innovations are just normal.
That is the extreme.