In the past few days, I’ve been reading with interest about a recent speech that Harrison Butker gave at a conservative Catholic college. Though I disagree with Butker’s views, I defend his free speech rights. But I do think the growth of a traditionalist Catholic movement that Butker represents is a dangerous trend within the Catholic community for both conservative and progressive Catholics.
Before I go on, I want to differentiate between traditionalist Catholics and conservative Catholics. They are not necessarily the same thing.
Traditionalist Catholics reject the reforms of Vatican II, want a return of the Latin Mass, and oppose the spirit of ecumenism and the spirit of religious liberty that was initiated by the 1965 Vatican document Nostra Aetate.
Pope John Paul II was a conservative Catholic pope who clashed often with traditional Catholics. Though John Paul II thought the Vatican II reforms went too fast for the laity to adjust and wanted to slow down the reforms, he faithfully implemented the reforms of Vatican II. Pope John Paul II was especially a strong and enthusiastic proponent of ecumenism and outreach towards different religions and Christian denominations, reaching out to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and other religions. John Paul II had several close Jewish friends who died during the Holocaust, so he was especially sensitive to fighting antisemitism and promoting religious tolerance.
Traditionalist Catholics deeply opposed John Paul II’s outreach to Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and other religious leaders because they opposed religious liberty and any outreach to nonCatholic religions or Christian denominations.
I worry about the growth of traditionalist Catholics because traditional Catholics have tended to support right wing authoritarian movements because these authoritarians promise to protect traditional values. I think this is very dangerous. The Roman Catholic Church plays a very important role in opposing right wing authoritarianism in the Philippines and Latin America. If traditionalist Catholics gain greater influence within the Catholic Church, they could potentially undermine those Catholics who are opposing right wing authoritarianism in the Philippines and Latin America.
Here is the 1988 Apostolic letter “Ecclesia Dei” where John Paul II excommunicated the traditionalist Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X (1970), seeing Lefevre’s unapproved ordination of four bishops as a schismatic act.
In this letter, John Paul II explains that he has a fundamental difference with traditional Catholics in how each defines what tradition means within the Catholic Church. For John Paul II, traditionalists do not take into account the living character of Tradition that grows as the Church gains new insights as the times change. The Church is able to grow because it is open to reform and from learning from its mistakes.
I firmly believe this. Even with all its flaws, the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century is a far better church than the Roman Catholic Church of the 19th century because of reforms starting with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum to Vatican II and Nostra Aetate.
In the 19th century, the Roman Catholic Church was a deeply reactionary church that supported totalitarian monarchies and was deeply suspicious of democracy. It was complicit in the subjugation and attempted eradication of indigenous cultures. The 19th century church was deeply Antisemitic and Islamophic and was hostile to other religions and Christian denominations. This 19th century church tended to side with a status quo that favored the wealthy elites against the interests of the oppressed poor and working classes.
During the 20th century, though, the Roman Catholic Church slowly evolved so that it is now a great defender of democracy against both totalitarian communism and right wing authoritarianism. They learned from their mistakes and are now one of the great defenders of indigenous rights in the Philippines and Latin America. After the 1965 document Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church has been a champion of ecumenism and outreach to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and other religions and Christian denominations. And after Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church has been a critic of capitalism and a strong defender of workers’ rights and the poor.
Here is an excerpt of John Paul II’s excommunication of traditionalist Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his critique of traditionalist Catholics:
“The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, ‘comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth’…
…However, it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended ‘harmony’ which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.
b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church…
…To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations. In this matter I ask for the support of the bishops and of all those engaged in the pastoral ministry in the Church.”
ANGELO LOPEZ BLOG 