In the Catholic Church there is currently a crisis of faith and morals. Pointing this out is about as obvious and exciting as explaining how water is wet. All the data points show a massive drop in practicing Catholics over the last 60 years, disbelief in truths such as Transubstantiation, or the embrace of evils such as contraception and an empty hell. Catholics are split on what to believe and some separate themselves from their local parish entirely. Hence, what we are seeing are several different types of divisions in the Church.
(Here are some examples: Overall data points. Disbelief in Transubstantiation. Vocations. Latin American Exodus.)
However, Pope Francis in his attached letter to the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes tells us that there is a different “peril of division” in the Church today. There are certain Catholics who think they are the “true Church,” reject legitimate authority concerning the Second Vatican Council as well the subsequent reform efforts from post-conciliar Popes. All of them can be found at the Traditional Latin Mass.
Francis implies that these bad Catholics are such a large problem that it requires an immediate crackdown by severely curtailing the traditional Roman rite Mass with the explicit directive to eventually phase it out completely in the life of the Church. Therefore, punishing the traditional Roman rite itself is the apparent solution. This rite has been passed down and organically developing in the Church for 1,500 years - and that dating is only the known evidence of its historical emergence on record. There is no known starting point where one can say it began, hence descriptors such as “Tridentine” are misnomers.
Punishing the traditional Roman Rite also punishes the innocent Catholics who enjoy its beauty. All because there are bad Catholics who attend the TLM. This same standard cannot possibly apply to the Novus Ordo as it never sustains any serious problematic individuals of its own, right? Since Pope Francis’ motu proprio directs bishops to act, it is clear the document is aimed at diocesan approved entities. The Society of St. Pius X and other independent groups are not its direct target. So, we must wonder: Do the diocesan approved TLMs across the Catholic world generate such a large rift that it is tearing the Church apart? What is going on in real world Catholicism as opposed to the concentration of voices on social media and the like? Where can one find the vast majority of dissent, divisiveness, and offenses?
The Post-Conciliar Real World
Everyone has their own experiences. There is always a guy who complains he ran into some mean old trad at the local diocesan TLM. More often you will see people complaining about online “traditionalists” or even run into them yourself. For the time being, forget the online voices and random weirdos you encounter on social media. Forget the podcasts and all Catholic personalities, not just the “traditionalists,” but also the online Novus Ordo figures.
Now transport yourself into the real world, among the dozens of parishes in your diocese. Think about how much trouble these TLM attendees are causing to them. Try to imagine what influence they wield. Keep it all in mind. What you will see is that for as many problematic “traditionalists” that exist, they are severely outnumbered by the problematic Novus Ordo entities.
There is a good chance that within these Novus Ordo parishes you will encounter problems with the worship itself or even the priest. Think about how often you see these problems when visiting other parishes. Think about if you have parish “shopped.” Should this all be normal? Fr. Boomer Bob at St. Church in the Round spewed heresy again. A flood of liturgical abuse ensues. Does anyone really think Christ's death is mystically brought to the present at Mass in this parish? I’m going to start attending Fr. Lukewarm’s whitewashed, yet architecturally traditional church instead. At least there is less abuse there and only the occasional weird homily.
You know what I am talking about. A lot of people have experienced this to a certain degree or less. This is the post-conciliar real world, at least here in the West.
Anecdotal Experiences
For what it is worth, let me give you an example of what I have experienced. There is a certain priest-professor who has taught university for years. This priest is a geyser of heresy. For instance, he teaches that Christ never found a Church on St. Peter and denies that Christ did various miracles. This priest offers the Novus Ordo and likes Vatican II. This priest spews filth into the minds of the youth, year after year, class after class. This one priest has done more damage to Catholicism then probably several SSPX chapels combined.
But who cares, that is anecdotal right? It’s only one guy. Except that the majority of the university’s religion department is swimming with heresy. Now consider how many students they collectively reach over the years and the damaged is multiplied tenfold.
On the opposite spectrum, my former TLM community was tucked away in a dilapidated part of town, not causing any issues. The priests would often cite the authority of Popes and councils, even recent Popes and Vatican II. No dissent. No disobedience. But 15 minutes away was that priest-professor doing untold amounts of damage. Again, the whole religious studies department at this university was full of dissenters. Oh, but it’s time to crack down on the those who like the traditional Roman rite, that’s the real problem you know.
Don’t like my anecdotal experience? How about this: Select 10 random Novus Ordo parishes in your diocese - how high are the chances that you will find abuse, error, or even heresy therein? Now select all the diocesan approved TLM communities/parishes (if you have any) and compare. I am willing to bet that those TLM communities will be far less problematic than your randomly selected 10 Novus Ordo parishes. Especially in terms of comparing the public actions of the priests and parish life, which is much more damaging than some random weirdo who was being a jerk to you after Latin Mass in the vestibule.
The Great Visible Division
Pope Franics believes that the traditional Roman rite is being used to injure the Church and expose her to a “peril of division.” However, in the real world, most Catholics do not interact with “traditionalism” and even less so with “radical traditionalism.” In the real world, most Catholics attend their local Novus Ordo parish.
Where then can you find the most division in your diocese or archdiocese - or at least well over 90% of serious problems? Where do you find those who reject the most Catholic teaching? Where do you find more consistent pattern of showing Our Lord irreverence? Where do you find the most egregious errors and heresy? It is usually not going to found at your local diocesan TLM community. It is most often found in the Novus Ordo and attached entities (schools, universities). This is the great visible division in the Church. Far exceeding all problems in every TLM community combined.
So, where is the punishment from highest authorities in the Church for these Novus Ordo entities? Nothing happens to that priest-professor described above and to the various other persons in Catholic academia that spew evil year after year into the minds of young Catholics. Nothing happens to the problematic Novus Ordo parishes that you know exist in your area. Only a passing mention by Francis that they should not have liturgical abuse, no force of action.
Meanwhile, the obedient TLM goers get punished because the traditional Roman rite gets punished. You do not punish rites alongside innocent people just because some small number of “trads” cause problems. Again, we are not talking about the SSPX or Sedevecantists, because they are not targeted in the motu proprio. They will laugh off Pope Francis. They are not going to get punished because they are already dissidents who do not care about obeying in the first place. If issues occur in a TLM community then of course it is a problem which should be addressed, but not by punishing the rite of Mass itself along with thousands of innocent Catholics.
The final division happening in the Novus Ordo has to do with the ritual itself. Pope Francis thinks that the Novus Ordo missal is “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.” However, a priest can select starkly different worship options in this missal. Which leads to the question: What in the new missal is the expression of the Roman rite? The priest facing people or facing God? Eucharist prayer I, II, III, IV? Squishing together the Kyrie and Confiteor? Incense? No incense? Latin? Vernacular? Selecting the most minimalistic options possible in the Novus Ordo to one with all the traditional options will produce two Masses that in comparison look like two different denominations of Christianity. How is this not divisive? The dramatic ritualistic differences have the danger of communicating a different liturgical theology. Could that be part of the reason there are certain parishes in your area that are “liberal” and others “conservative” all using the same missal? No divisions here!
The Great Invisible Division
There is another great part of the Church that is suffering under a division. These Catholics do not even practice at all. When large numbers of Catholics have stopped participating in Mass it always results in a near or complete separation with their local communities. This is a form of division. They are not even there in the first place. You do not even know most of them. Large populations of Catholics no longer seen, separating themselves from the life of the sacraments. A true division: The great invisible division.
Neither the great visible division nor the great invisible division is caused or sustained by the presence of a few traditional Latin Mass communities in your local Catholic world. The cause of these divisions is many. Our Church leaders called the Second Vatican Council to renew the Church and reach out to the “modern world.” The alarming decline of practicing Catholics coupled with a crisis within the Church exploded during and after the reforms of 1960s. The reforms were never able to prevent the great divisions that ensued and perhaps even exacerbated some tenants of the crisis by watering down or making ambiguous certain aspects of Catholic doctrine, especially liturgically. These reforms were failures.
Admitting Failure
The great divisions are the reality and are proof of the failure of post-conciliar reforms. Francis does not want to admit it and his predecessors did not want to admit it. The theological, pastoral, and liturgical reforms after the council failed to retain the “modern man.” In general, they failed to keep Catholics in the pews and cultivate devotion. The massive changes and breakneck speed of the liturgical “reforms” alienated many Catholics. It shook their constitution in an unchanging religion. Those who were not shaken left for various other reasons. Watering down prayers coupled with options for minimalist protestant-like ritual has caused harm to the sense of the sacred at Mass, which in turn harms Catholic doctrine. Again, most of us have seen the data about Mass attendance and participation in the sacraments. By these measurements, most of the efforts of the Second Vatican Council to reach out to the modern world are objective failures.
After the council Popes and prelates had expectations for a “new springtime” that the Church would soon enter, but it was just a fairytale – a sort of pious nonsense. Some people want to compare the Second Vatican Council’s implementation time to that of the council of Trent. The naïve musings that it will take “100 years” to implement the council does not consider the vastly different world of the 20th and 21st centuries when compared to 500 years ago. It took some bishops months to even travel to the council of Trent. Yet with our mass communication, literacy rates, and all sorts of technology are we to believe that Vatican II’s implementation time is going to be the same? Ridiculous.
Additionally, how is a post-World War II/Cold War era council going to answer the needs of “modern men” by the time the 2060s roll around? We already have a society accepting insanity such as men becoming women, pushing hormone therapy on children, and sex education/techniques on kindergarteners, as well as some Western governments becoming more hostile to Christianity in general. What is everything going to look like 40 years from now? Vatican II to finally be implemented and save the day? Again, pious nonsense.
It doesn’t take much effort to see where most of the problems in the Church dwell and what failed to stop these great divisions from erupting. Our recent Popes implemented and promoted objectively inferior liturgies. The result is a dramatic decrease in Mass attendance. They tolerated or allowed many dissident theologians, sometimes giving them cardinal hats. The result is a crisis of faith and morals, confusion over doctrine propelled by the New Theology’s obfuscations and intentional ambiguity.
Your 5,000 square mile diocese containing a few Catholic universities, a seminary, various retreat houses, religious orders, adult education groups, local parish events, several dozen K-8 schools, and various high schools are all somehow being torn apart by two or three TLM locations, right? These TLM communities exert such divisive influence that entire dioceses are in disarray and countless faithful are rebelling against the Holy Father as we speak. Quick! Shut them all down so that entities like the Jesuits can come in to save everyone from disobedience and schism. They can use the non-divisive, theologically sound German church as their model!
The whole Vatican II experiment is a failure. The problems in the Church proportionally larger and more serious in nature in the Novus Ordo world than the typical diocesan approved TLM. It is time to stop gushing anxiety over the local TLM parish and start taking aim at the real cancer. Do not obsess over a leaky faucet while house is on fire.