Last week I came across an article in my inbox, written by two respected scholars of religion and social science, Dr. Stephen Bullivant and Dr. Stephen Cranney. Bullivant is a Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion and serves as the director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society, a joint initiative between St Mary’s University in London and the University of Notre Dame Australia. He has written many books and articles on topics such as atheism, secularization, and the sociology of contemporary Catholicism. Cranney, who is based in Washington, DC, is a nonresident fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for the Studies of Religion and a lecturer at the Catholic University of America. Even though Cranney is by his own admission not Catholic (he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), he is a respected researcher in the sociology of religion, and has written and collaborated on numerous articles about the Catholic Church — including a 2021 article for Catholic Social Science Review with Bullivant and Giovanni Sadewo.

Bullivant and Cranney’s new article, “Data and the Traditional Latin Mass,” was published by the Substack newsletter What We Need Now, which describes itself as a project of a Colorado-based nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal. The authors of the article state that they are writing a book that will collate “all previously published information on the demographics and attitudes of the TLM community,” and present the findings of their “own surveys and supplementing our quantitative data with approximately 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews of TLM Catholics across the country.”

Background

The subject of the article and upcoming book surprised and delighted me, in part because I am also editing a book that touches on these same themes, and also because I have long admired Dr. Bullivant’s work and have frequently consulted his research.[1] I find him to be a rigorous and generally objective researcher. In today’s ecclesial climate, scholars like Bullivant, who steadfastly adheres to the authority of the Holy Father and respects his primacy, are increasingly rare. Many others have succumbed to the temptations propagated by traditionalism within the broader mainstream.

Recently, and admirably, Bullivant submitted his resignation as a fellow of Word on Fire, as a token of protest over a controversy involving Bishop Barron platforming and interviewing the newly-christened Russell Brand, a British comedian and internet self-help guru who is currently the subject of ongoing investigations into allegations of serial sexual abuse.

I greatly admire Bullivant for his integrity on this matter, and this reassured me that he maintains a level of impartiality uncommon among those immersed in contentious ecclesial debates. He made it evident that he would not compromise his principles by ignoring such missteps or by showing unquestioning loyalty to the conservatively aligned Word on Fire apostolate. (I mention their political leanings because critiques of Bishop Barron’s platforming of Brand have predominantly come from politically left-leaning Catholics.) I was therefore surprised when Bullivant and Cranney offered an essentially one-sided portrait of traditionalists in their article.

My commentary — and what I see as a small, though necessary, critique — is therefore submitted with the utmost respect for Dr. Bullivant’s work and his person. I am not as familiar with Dr. Cranney, but if he is of similar caliber as Stephen Bullivant, then he has my respect as well.

From the outset, we must understand that Bullivant and Cranney present their findings as preliminary, so they are still being processed and analyzed. Therefore I withhold any final judgement about their project. I would also welcome any responses or clarifications to my comments that they might provide.

In a spirit of dialogue, I would like to highlight a few points in their article that I found faulty, as well as some areas of analysis that seemed incomplete. The article also suggests a few gaps in the research, and some of its conclusions appeared to depend on built-in presuppositions.

Judging from the candid introduction the authors provided, I anticipated that the article would analyze some of the more serious and specific critiques of traditionalism. Unfortunately, the authors’ reliance on numerical self-diagnostic criteria (leading to an inevitably favorable and sympathetic portrait of the movement) seems more inclined to patch superficial wounds. I do appreciate the authors’ willingness to engage with this difficult topic, and admittedly they do present some unequivocal criticisms. Unfortunately, their approach fails to address many serious and pervasive problems in traditionalism — the issues that most concern the movement’s critics.

The Study

Bullivant and Cranney begin with a good question: “What is the problem with allowing what is by all measures a small fraction of Catholics to participate in a licit Mass that they find beautiful, reverent, and holy?”

Unlike the way some depict Pope Francis, the authors avoid portraying him as a vindictive tyrant. They even offer a bit of a reality check on the traditionalist movement, conceding, “The very real fact is that Traditional Latin Mass participation has been associated with factions inside the Church who do not accept Vatican II and may even be quasi-schismatic.”

The purpose of their study is to determine “the extent to which the TLM community is a schismatic hotbed of negative attitudes towards Vatican II …” Which they state, “is ultimately an empirical question that is scientifically investigable, and on this point, there has been a clear lack of objective, systematically collected data.”

While it may be true that numerical data has been lacking, the increasing number of public testimonies of many priests, bishops, apologists, and average Catholics has not. Consider a recent YouTube video from Fr. Casey Cole, a Franciscan priest with close to half a million followers. On July 12, 2024, Cole argued,

You want to talk about the most toxic part of the Catholic Church that is not attractive to outsiders, look at the senseless bickering over the Novus Ordo and the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. It’s honestly one of the most unchristian things I see online, and it is destroying us from the inside out.

Cole doesn’t indulge in partisan bickering in this video. But whenever a toxic atmosphere prevails, and Catholics devote their energy to obsessive internal bickering over liturgy rather than the Church’s mission, it is no wonder the pope wants to see it restricted. Fortunately, the Church is not forced to  rely on personal preferences and opinions in deciding such matters. Ultimately, the pope is the custodian of the Tradition. He has decided a direction for the faithful.^[2] At the end of the day, our responsibility is to offer him assent.

Pope St. Paul VI reminded us in his magnificent and crucial exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi that the Church does not have a mission — the Church is a mission. “Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize.” When we get entangled in liturgical debates, the whole Church suffers.

Paul VI, also reminds us, prophetically,

If the Gospel that we proclaim is seen to be rent by doctrinal disputes, ideological polarizations or mutual condemnations among Christians, at the mercy of the latter’s differing views on Christ and the Church and even because of their different concepts of society and human institutions, how can those to whom we address our preaching fail to be disturbed, disoriented, even scandalized?

In some places, the authors make unsubstantiated assertions, such as when they claim that Francis’s papacy “has emphasized placing hedges around the more conservative, traditional elements of the Church.” It is true that in July 2021, the pope issued a decree, Traditionis Custodes, that places restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). Several other documents and decisions further regulating the TLM have followed. To describe his decisions on the liturgy as an “emphasis” of his pontificate, however, seems to extrapolate his decisions regarding the TLM outward — as if these actions define his papacy. This claim is difficult to substantiate because it implies a sort of intentionality and derives a rather broad-brush statement from a few isolated decrees.

The pope’s restriction of the TLM affects less than one percent of Mass-going Catholics in the US. Worldwide, only a tiny minority of those considered “more conservative, traditional” Catholics attend the TLM (the overwhelming majority of conservative Catholics participate in the reformed liturgy). And despite the attention traditionalists draw on the internet and in internal ecclesial debates, it seems most Catholics are unaware of their existence. According to an October 2021 Pew Survey of Catholics in the US (the country with the most TLM-attending Catholics by far), less than one-third were at all aware that Pope Francis had put restrictions on the TLM. The broader emphasis of his pontificate cannot be reduced to his liturgical regulations, nor can it be seen as favoring a particular ideology.

Pope Francis has accomplished a great deal since the beginning of his papacy, including overseeing major synods (on the family, young people, and the Amazon); he has promulgated many apostolic exhortations, as well as encyclicals on faith, ecology, and fraternity; he completed a restructuring of the Curia; brought significant economic reform; fought clericalism and abuse; engaged in significant ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and initiated the Synod on Synodality. He has also canonized many saints, including Popes John Paul II, Paul VI, and John XXIII. He has also canonized Cardinal John Henry Newman, and very soon he will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis.

Bullivant and Cranney write: “While his predecessor’s position towards the Latin Mass community can be broadly characterized as one of accommodation, Pope Francis has taken a more confrontational approach.” Although true to an extent, especially since 2021, this statement does not address the steps that led Francis to adopt this approach. Once again, it must be noted that this was not the case at the beginning of his papacy. It was a response to a significant problem he perceived among traditionalist communities.

Pope Francis’s decision to place restrictions on the TLM is a late development. From the beginning of his papacy in March 2013 until July 2021, Pope Francis let Pope Benedict’s wide allowance for the celebration of the TLM, Summorum Pontificum, to continue. Francis was pope for eight years before he finally decided that it was necessary to place restrictions on the TLM. Given the patience he demonstrated, it is difficult to argue convincingly that his decisions were a result of personal prejudice against traditionalists, or a “hatred of tradition,” as some claim he harbors.

During this time, he made some positive gestures towards traditionalist groups, such as in 2015 when he gave the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) the faculty to hear confessions legally and validly, and in 2017 when he established a path for SSPX adherents to enter into valid marriages. In 2020, he approved new prefaces and feasts for use in the TLM, demonstrating that he considered the older form of the Roman Rite as part of the living Church.

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, then-Cardinal Bergoglio embraced Summorum Pontificum, establishing traditional Latin Mass parishes in his diocesan territory within the first 48 hours after it was issued. And at the beginning of his papacy he affirmed Benedict’s decision, saying that it was “prudent and motivated by the desire to help people” although he did express concern about “the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.” Leaders of priestly institutes attached to the TLM have emerged from private papal audiences encouraged and giving positive reports. One can argue that Pope Francis has a long record of pastoral concern for the spiritual welfare of traditionalists, and there are many reasons to challenge the notion that he harbors malice or hatred towards them.

The road to Traditionis Custodes

A more likely theory is that over a period of time, the pope reached the conclusion that continuing along the path set by Summorum Pontificum threatened the unity of the Church. Pope Francis cites as a major factor in his decision a survey sent to the bishops of the world in 2020 on the status of the TLM in their dioceses. In his letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes, Francis lamented that the responses to the survey revealed what he described as “a situation that preoccupies and saddens me, and persuades me of the need to intervene.” He expressed regret that the indults and permissions extended for use of the TLM, which were “intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”

Bullivant and Cranney, however, question the legitimacy and accuracy of the 2020 survey. They suggest that due to the confidential nature of the questions and responses, it is impossible to confirm that the pope’s decision corresponds to the survey results. They write:

“The wordings used, the exact responses, the representativeness—any one of many things that would be required for a professional survey statistician to objectively gauge the validity of the survey—were completely unknown. Therefore, it is difficult to know how seriously to take the results of the survey.”

There are many unknowns about the survey, but the wording used is not a mystery. Internal Vatican surveys like this are routinely kept confidential, but the questions were leaked by several news sources, including the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli and the news site Crux. Although the authors are, perhaps justifiably, frustrated about a lack of transparency from Rome, the questions are in the public domain.

It may be worth looking into the concerns identified by members of the US episcopate. Although few US bishops have offered public praise for the TLM restrictions, there are signs that many of them quietly sought a change. Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh shared a note he received from an anonymous US bishop, suggesting that “the survey that led to Traditionis Custodes was prompted by US bishops — including conservatives — during their ad limina visits, who asked Francis to act pro-Vatican II and Church unity.”

In the note, the bishop wrote,

Frankly, these folks, or more importantly, their real and social media leaders, have brought this on themselves.

Most centrist bishops here were okay with a live and let live approach but the vitriolic attacks on Francis caused growing concern. The last straw for many center-right bishops was the attack on Vatican II. That pushed a lot of guys over the edge. Francis got a polite and discrete earful during some of our Ad Limina visits. The consultation allowed guys to say what they thought. Francis responded.

You should see some of the frothing mouths and words in some of the TLM media here. Archbishop Di Noia of the CDF, no liberal to say the least, came out pulling no punches in excoriating them.

Some did speak out publicly. As the letter-writer mentioned, the Dominican Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, who is from the US and has served in the Roman Curia since 2009 in various roles in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and Divine Worship (DDW), was blunt in his assessment of the traditionalist movement in July 2021, saying, “The decisive point is there for all to behold: the evident and ongoing betrayal of the intentions of the two pontiffs who permitted the celebration of the 1962 Missal to draw traditionalists back into the unity of the church.” He went on to argue that Pope Francis’s decision to promulgate Traditionis Custodes was justified, stating that, “What the Holy Father is saying is that the TLM movement is working for objectives that are precisely contrary to what St. John Paul and Benedict XVI hoped for.”

Some active diocesan ordinaries, such as Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, have shared their thoughts on the necessity of Traditionis Custodes publicly, bluntly stating what he believes about the continued opposition to the reformed liturgy: “We should name it for what it is: resistance to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and the undermining of genuine fidelity to the See of Peter.”

Support for Traditionis Custodes was not limited to the US. In December 2021, a retired French bishop, François Blondel of Viviers, also welcomed the motu proprio. Writing in La Croix, he expressed concern that the TLM community was creating a parallel Church. Blondel saw the angry backlash against the decree as confirmation of this, writing, “The ‘reactionary’ violence shows, it seems to me, that the Pope was right to intervene.”

Blondel also expressed regret for his failure to intervene with the traditionalist community during his tenure, writing, “Perhaps I (or we) were a little complicit in this laissez-faire attitude: Let traditionalists, who are highly critical and opinionated get together among themselves. After all, it left us alone.”[3]

Although none of the above assessments are taken directly from the responses to the 2020 survey, they do shed some light on the issues that guided the pope’s discernment.

Shockingly, the authors completely overlook an extremely important and comprehensive overview of survey responses that is available to the public: the French bishops’ Summary of the Results of the Consultation. This document, which was first leaked online in 2021 and was translated into English this week by Where Peter Is, represents the responses of 87 of the 92 diocesan bishops and metropolitans in France at the time of the survey. As Mike Lewis noted in his preface, France has the second-largest traditionalist movement in the world after the United States. Given that influence, this document likely had a tremendous impact on the pope’s decision.

Most of the key issues and serious concerns described by the French bishops in their lengthy list of “Weaknesses” of the use of the TLM are reflected in Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying letter, as well as in many articles and interviews given by Church leaders explaining the justifications for the pope’s decision. The French bishops identified many problems that they believed were caused by the increased celebration of the 1962 Missal, including (in order of recurrence): “Wounds Church unity,” “Introduces a parallel Church,” “Closed group; isolation; withdrawal; community apart,” “FSSP priests refuse concelebration, even at the Chrism Mass,” “No participation in diocesan life,” “Nurtures a lack of understanding and a blurring of the lines between the different forms of the Roman rite,” “Little mention of the Holy Spirit,” “Favors liturgical tourism,” “Poor preaching,” “Many priests who celebrate exclusively according to the EF believe that the Ordinary Form Mass is illegitimate,” “Suggests that liturgy is a matter of personal taste,” and “The bishop’s authority over these communities is virtually non-existent.”

Yet these issues are almost totally absent from Bullivant and Cranney’s analysis. They might argue that since this survey response was from the French bishops, rather than British or Americans, that it isn’t directly relevant to their study. But if the goal of their study is to clarify why Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes and to determine whether it was justified by the data, the survey results from the country with the second-largest traditionalist community should not be ignored.

The Bullivant-Cranney Study

The Second Vatican Council called for a reform of the Liturgy. It did not foresee a vocal minority of Catholics vigorously campaigning on behalf of the Tridentine liturgy decades later. Although Pope Benedict XVI’s novel approach in 2007 imagined the two forms of the Roman Rite side-by-side, that was not initially meant to be the case. Paul VI was clear on this, such as when he stated in 1976, “The new Ordo was promulgated to take the place of the old, after mature deliberation, following upon the requests of the Second Vatican Council.[4]

Francis can be described as returning to the approach of St. Paul VI, once it became clear that the alternate course charted by Pope Benedict XVI was not as successful as hoped.

Bullivant and Cranney do not demonstrate awareness of the Church’s original intentions for the reformed liturgy, and question the return to that vision during Francis’s pontificate. They write,

The Prefect for the Dicastery for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arthur Roche, has made it clear that he thinks the TLM has a different liturgical theology than the Novus Ordo. There is also the argument that the TLM is an implied, if not explicit, rejection of Vatican II. It seems the Holy Father himself holds this view.

They note however that “Conclusions based on impressions are suspect if they are not supported by more objective evidence.” The authors, therefore, hope “to remedy the lack of transparent, systematically collected, objective data on the TLM community.”

Bullivant and Cranney go on to report a number of research findings and the results of surveys of TLM attendees to support the idea that traditionalists mostly hold mainstream Catholic views. But there are some discrepancies and problems with the phrasing and framing of their data collection results.

Here are some of their findings:

• “There is some truth to the conventional wisdom that [TLM attendees] tend to be politically conservative. Of the 446 respondents in our survey who attend the Traditional Latin Mass at least once per year, 77% of them lean Republican.”
• “They are very, very pro-life. 85% of the TLM Catholics in our sample believe that abortion should be illegal in all cases, whereas 13% believe it should be illegal in most cases, while only 1.6% believe it should be legal in most cases, and less than 1% believe that it should be legal in all cases.”
• “They are orthodox. In our survey only 2% of TLM Catholics believe that the bread and wine of communion are symbols, as opposed to the Real Presence, of the body and blood of Christ. In a similarly worded Pew survey of general Catholics, 69% considered the Eucharist a symbol.”
• “They generally accept the Second Vatican Council. When we asked ‘I accept the teachings of Vatican II’, 4% Strongly disagreed, 7% Disagreed, 10% Somewhat disagreed, 15% Neither agreed nor disagreed, 15% Somewhat agreed, 27% Agreed, 22% Strongly agreed.”

Each of these conclusions, however, fails to provide sufficient context to provide a full understanding of the results. For example, the authors do not delve deeply enough to explore the reasons for this trend of conservativism within traditionalism. The predominance of conservatism among attendees of the Traditional Latin Mass is not merely circumstantial or rooted solely in the desire for conservation of the ancient ethos surrounding the older form of the liturgy. The demographics of TLM participants reflect more than a preference for worship style; rather, they signify a heightened response to broader cultural dynamics within and outside the Church. Originating largely from the influence of traditionalism’s founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, this movement is marked by a strong identification with extreme conservatism — liturgically, politically, and socially.

Describing traditionalists as “pro-life” without qualification seems to be an overstatement. It is true that they are pro-life on the issue of abortion, but anyone who has followed Pope Francis’s papacy closely is acutely aware of the traditionalist backlash against his development to the Church’s doctrine on the death penalty. Many traditionalists reject the fact that “the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.’” Traditionalists like Peter Kwasniewski consider this teaching to be “Gravely wrong, and harmfully wrong.” Such traditionalists do not hold to the entirety of the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life in accordance with Pope St. John Paul II’s consistent ethic of life and the principle of infinite human dignity taught by Pope Francis.

On the matter of the real presence, besides relying on a questionably worded Pew Survey that pits the symbolic reality of the Eucharist against the real presence[5] (which tends to inspire fantastic overreaction,[6] and was recently supplanted by a more carefully-conducted study by Georgetown University in collaboration with the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame University[7]), the authors seem to invoke a presuppositional bias that equates belief in the real presence with overall orthodoxy. Traditionalists and some conservatives may rely on this definition of orthodoxy, but orthodoxy is more accurately defined as adherence to the Church’s teachings in their entirety, of which belief in the real presence is only an indicator, and not necessarily an accurate one. Recently excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, for example, believes in the real presence, but he denies the legitimacy of the pope and the Second Vatican Council. He can hardly be considered orthodox. Archbishop Athanasius Schneider, another traditionalist hero, denies the pope’s authority to substantially modify or restrict the Latin Mass, thus denying the teaching of the Council of Trent Session XXI, Chap. 2; of Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei, §58.; and the third chapter of Pastor Aeternus of Vatican I.[8] Schneider’s position is clearly heterodox as well.

Furthermore, without supplying further context, the correlation between belief in the real presence and attendance at the TLM could give a false suggestion that the TLM is the source of this belief — overlooking the fact that a large percentage of TLM attendees first came to believe this doctrine while attending the Novus Ordo. The notion that TLM attendees tend to be more orthodox overall also overlooks the traditionalist understanding of ecclesiology which is a crucial point of contention between traditionalists and Church authority. It is an area where traditionalists have been corrected by popes on many occasions, including Pope Francis, when he wrote in Desiderio Desideravi, “It would be trivial to read the tensions… as a simple divergence between different tastes concerning a particular ritual form. The problematic is primarily ecclesiological” (DD 31).

Further, metrics associating orthodoxy with TLM attendance could very well stem from factors such as heightened scrupulosity among attendees, Jansenist or Pelagian tendencies, formation in manualistic pre-conciliar moral theology, and a TLM culture that fosters elitism, rigorism, and legalism (except when challenged by ecclesiastical authority, of course).

The Traditionalist Worldview

Those who engage in reaction rather than reflection, whether due to ideological conditioning or heightened sensitivity in the face of contemporary political and social challenges often find solidarity and community at the TLM. This uniformity without universality tends to create an echo chamber that traditionalist talking heads exploit to peddle conspiracy theories,[9] misinformation,[10] prophecies of imminent doom,[11] and overblown narratives of ecclesial crisis.[12]

Many reactionary conservatives find refuge in the TLM and develop strong internal cohesion and distinct identity markers there because they feel that they are marginalized by the mainstream Church — and no wonder, considering the plethora of extreme or conspiratorial beliefs and uncommon lifestyle choices they embrace.

That said, it is indisputable that many TLM attendees see their commitment to traditional liturgy as integral to preserving traditional values. This is not coincidental but reinforced by the community’s desire to uphold a “traditional” identity in all aspects of their lives. This sadly results in mockery from other Catholics, many of whom claim that traditionalists are LARPers (live-action role players) with their tweed suits, flat caps, and tobacco pipes. The preservation of the TLM serves as both a literal and symbolic rallying-point for a larger countercultural movement amidst perceived threats of liberalism within the Church and without.

In other words, the conservative tilt among TLM attendees is not solely about the Mass but also about a broader sociological vision. It also correlates with resistance to decisions made by the Church hierarchy that they perceive as threats to a traditional way of life. All of this points to a traditionalist worldview that is not merely about the liturgy but extends to conceptions of authority, continuity, universality, and the necessity of social cohesion with the rest of the Church.

An example can help illustrate this. The introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae aimed to update and make the liturgy both more intelligible and accessible. Traditionalists do not care to argue over whether the reforms were effective in accomplishing these goals — they dispute the validity of the goals altogether. Traditionalists will argue that the reforms and the motives behind them were part of a larger “modernist” agenda that they believe prioritizes understanding and rationality over reverence for mystery and humility in light of the transcendental grandeur of God.

In this traditionalist worldview, the Novus Ordo Mass is seen as having abandoned transcendent mystery in favor of a secularized and anthropocentric liturgy — an abomination. Its adherents often argue that the Church’s liturgical reforms amount to an attempt to replace God with man. They ignore the notion that a rich Christian anthropology necessarily includes a deeper Christology. After the Council, their misplaced logic led traditionalists to think the changes to the liturgy were modernist and a departure from Catholic tradition, and their movement has resisted the reform ever since. In some cases, the reforms are even believed to be the result of Soviet or Freemasonic infiltration (but, in charity, let’s say that this perception is in the minority).

Many prominent traditionalists make no secret of their desire to overturn the reform. For example, during a One Peter Five “roundtable” discussion featuring Peter Kwasniewski, Timothy Flanders, Kennedy Hall, and others, Theo Howard of Vendée Radio describes Kwasniewski’s views favorably (as others on the panel nod in agreement), stating that Kwasniewski,

“has promoted the idea of calling the traditional rite THE Roman Rite—that we want to actually see the abolition of the Novus Ordo, that we want to say that publicly, we want to be very clear, and so I think as far as this attack helps to perhaps prompt some of our leaders—I think in particular of our clerical leaders—to take a stronger stance against the deficiencies of the Novus Ordo and the heresies and ambiguities that have abounded since Vatican II, then I think in the providential long haul, that is a good thing.”[13]

This group discards any semblance of the traditional Catholic understanding of obedience and assent. It arrogates to themselves the authority of the pope and Magisterium of the Church. Not long ago, Kwasniewski was criticized for his non-Catholic conception of obedience by the French Dominican theologian Fr. Henry Donneaud, OP in Revue Thomiste, one of the oldest and most prominent academic theological journals in the world. In his article, Donneaud describes Kwasniewski’s theory as “a completely innovative theological thesis, unknown to tradition, without any support in the magisterium, and which quite simply borders on heterodoxy.” He adds that Kwasniewski “is only further vindicating Pope Francis” on Traditionis Custodes. Later on, Donneaud states, “By rejecting the Church’s teaching in this way, the author is providing a stick with which to get beaten.”

Donneaud explains why Kwasniewski’s radical and unprecedented theories can potentially cause great harm to traditionalists and alienate them further from the Catholic faith. He writes that Kwasniewski’s work “contributes doubly to the suffering of those who, not content to suffer Roman restrictions, are all the less able to understand them because they allow themselves to be trapped in the vicious circle of non-obedience to the Church by misleading statements.”

Traditionis Custodes addresses real problems

If there is any hope of resolving the contradictory positions between the institutional Catholic Church and the worldview that pervades the traditionalist movement, it seems Pope Francis’s restrictions on the TLM are justified as a means to preserve the unity of the Church. These restrictions are also a response to the factionalism and political polarization that have arisen around the TLM, which detracts from the Church’s primary mission of evangelization.

If traditionalists continue to platform extreme voices like Kwasniewski, Bishop Schneider, Archbishop Vigano, and countless other schismatic or schismatic-adjacent figures and “news” sites (including The Remnant, Lifesite News, Father Z’s Blog, Rorate Caeli, One Peter Five, and the Mass of the Ages Society), then they should not be surprised when the toxicity of the ecclesial environment in which they dwell becomes subject to the corrosion that naturally accompanies acidity.

The Church is a communion. Perhaps traditionalists in their ultra-conservative and yet Protestant-American culture have been convinced that they will be alright fostering philosophies of individualism and private judgement, but accountability and being one’s brother’s keeper are Catholic philosophies, and without this, they will continue to spiral and suffer the natural consequences.

Nevertheless, our sociologist authors make insightful points for the Church to consider in their approach to reconciliation with traditionalists. They note:

A very common theme found in our interviews was distinguishing between what was actually in the Vatican II documents and how it had been carried out or interpreted. … Even with how Vatican II has developed they exhibited ambiguity, often seeing both bad and good things arising from the Council at the same time.

Larry Chapp challenges this popular narrative — that the Novus Ordo contradicts the directives of the Council Fathers — in a recent article for the National Catholic Register. He argues that even though genuine criticisms can be made about specific liturgical reforms, “it is a bit of a stretch to say that the Novus Ordo violates the specific guidelines established by Sacrosanctum when the text itself grants a wide latitude for future ecclesiastical authority to make whatever reforms it deems necessary.”

Chapp adds, “The fact remains that it was developed and promulgated by the highest ecclesial authority, which is precisely what Sacrosanctum allowed for in an open-ended way — precisely so that the reform would not be hamstrung by too many prescriptive rules in advance.”

We must distinguish authorized changes (such as reception of Communion in the hand and lay Eucharistic ministers in the 1970s and female altar servers in the 1990s) from the unauthorized practices that were introduced in the same period. The disorientation is understandable, because at the same time the Church was faced with a crisis of theological dissent on the ecclesial-political right and left. Also during this period was the rise of the traditionalist movement, which put forth inaccuracies and conspiracies in their newspapers and magazines. This reaction created an intellectual environment ripe for manipulation and confusion.[14]

The aftermath of Traditionis Custodes

According to their survey, Bullivant and Cranney say that the respondents “accept the authority of Pope Francis. … 95% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, ‘I believe the Pope is the Vicar of Jesus Christ.’” This response is unsurprising, almost any traditionalist agrees with this in word and in principle.

This answer does not address whether they accept the authority or wishes of the pope in practice. Despite the clear incentives for traditionalists to present a positive image to the rest of the Church, a more telling indicator of a spirit of obedience is whether they accept the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo in the life of the Church — not just its validity or liceity. Moreover, it would be pertinent to ask whether they would accept the authority of the pope when it conflicts with their liturgical preferences, or whether they will accept a formal teaching of the pope that they personally deem problematic.

Questions about specific cases involving the exercise of papal authority would shed much more light on traditionalist dissonance between principle and practice. Examples include the refusal of priests in the FSSP to concelebrate with their bishop at the Chrism Mass, or the widespread opposition to the recent Declaration Fiducia Supplicans on the blessings of homosexual couples.

Also, despite the authors’ assertion of traditionalists’ fidelity to Pope Francis, the survey question does not mention him by name. In light of the increasing acceptance of sedevacantism among prominent traditionalists, it should be noted that the statement mentions “the Pope,” not “Pope Francis.” Some of the respondents may have affirmed the statement about a “theoretical” pope while considering Francis illegitimate.

The authors also note that their study participants sadly see the restrictions on the Latin Mass as hurtful and perceive them as persecution. Many said that they distrust the current pope.

Conclusions

Notably (and this is not a criticism), our authors admit that these conclusions they have sketched are the result only of interviewing Catholics who attend canonically regular Latin Mass parishes. It is likely, therefore, that their results present a “best-case scenario” of traditionalists’ beliefs. Their results do not include members of SSPX or sedevacantist communities. They warn that as Church-approved Latin Mass parishes close, the presence of the SSPX increases. The authors note that among respondents, “attitudes towards the SSPX could best be characterized as … ambivalence. While many of the TLM Catholics we interviewed had reservations about such groups, they empathized with them.”

I wonder whether this threat of further separation can be considered a very substantial argument against restricting the TLM. It is noteworthy that for the French bishops, the top “positive” aspect of allowing the TLM is “appeasement” — as if Summorum Pontificum was a shield keeping angry traditionalists at bay. Are there any points of unity and bonds of communion between traditionalists and the wider Church from which we can build?

Finally, Bullivant and Cranney cite a rather notable statistic in their closing paragraphs, remarking that following the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes, the number of TLM sites in the United States has dropped from 800 to 500 within three years.

As mentioned above, the authors are compiling a book on this topic, which promises to explore more questions, such as “the mental health and flourishing of the TLM community, whether they actually are younger and have more children, their politics, how they have adapted to Traditionis Custodes, and their perspectives on liturgy, the Vatican, and the future of the TLM movement.”

Our authors conclude,

it is clear that, as might be expected for such a theoretically fascinating group, their attitudes are nuanced, and do not fit neatly into stereotypes about schismatic sedevacantists. … What we need now is a serious scientific examination of who TLM Mass-goers are, what they believe, and how a suppression of their preferred form of worship will impact them and the Church more generally.

I concur with this conclusion broadly, but I would add one thing: Traditionalists may be fine people, but it’s clear that their leaders have betrayed them. The sympathy of Bullivant and Cranney is well-appreciated, but if they are going to portray traditionalists as obedient sons of the Church, they must do so by the Church’s own metrics. They should not allow their research to be driven by the sentiments of popular narratives. These narratives have helped push the Overton window away from the established hierarchical mode of Church authority and towards an imaginary pseudo-democratized understanding of ecclesiology. Unless traditionalists begin to address the significant problems in their ideology, theology, and ecclesiology, it won’t matter. A self-reflective attitude is more urgent than ever.

Traditionalists must stop their antisocial online behavior, such as doxing fellow Catholics who escaped from traditionalism and are working to help other former traditionalists find the peace they have found in full communion with the pope. This is what the SSPX-supporting YouTuber Kennedy Hall and other traditionalists did with the administrators of Trad Recovery. They must stop using disgusting and offensive analogies, such as Kwasniewski comparing the pope’s restrictions to Jim Crow laws or others comparing them to Hitler’s ‘Final Solution.’ They must disavow stunts like the parallel “Traditional Eucharistic Congress” rivaling last week’s National Eucharistic Congress, hosted by organizations like Lifesite News and featuring a special address by the excommunicated Archbishop Vigano.

This being said, we must all examine ourselves and discern whether we have a propensity for affection or animosity to those who worship in a different mode. Whatever the future holds for the Church — whether it’s more debate or if there are opportunities for reconciliation and greater integration and unity — our call is to love. In order to love, it is first necessary to know. And on that note, I salute and pray for Drs. Bullivant and Cranney as they continue to undertake their admirable effort to contribute to peace and reconciliation in the Church.

Notes

[1] I can heartily recommend Dr. Bullivant’s books, Vatican II: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2023); Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America (Oxford University Press, 2022); and Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II (Oxford University Press, 2019).

[2] Pope Francis writes:

“For this reason we cannot go back to that ritual form which the Council fathers, cum Petro et sub Petro, felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and following their conscience as pastors, the principles from which was born the reform. The holy pontiffs St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, approving the reformed liturgical books ex decreto Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Vaticani II, have guaranteed the fidelity of the reform of the Council. For this reason I wrote Traditionis custodes, so that the Church may lift up, in the variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity. [23] As I have already written, I intend that this unity be re-established in the whole Church of the Roman Rite.”

Desiderio Desideravi, 61.

[3] Translation from the French.

[4] Pope St. Paul VI, Allocution to the Consistory of Cardinals, May 24, 1976.

[5] Gregory A. Smith, “Just one-third of U.S. Catholics agree with their church that Eucharist is body, blood of Christ,” Pew Research Center, Aug. 5, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/. Ascension Press has since, produced an article clarifying some of the misleading points derived from the Pew survey.

[6] In terms of understanding how research reports fit into this search process, we need to appreciate how data is derived. Otherwise, headlines become harbingers of truths that may not hold true. See: https://media.ascensionpress.com/2019/08/16/how-accurate-is-the-pew-survey-on-the-eucharist/. Mark Gray, PhD, also consulted in this article notes that, “The PEW Research referred to the “actual” presence of Jesus in the bread and wine compared to the bread and wine being (mere) symbols of that presence. Gray theorizes that asking instead about Christ’s “real” presence in the Eucharist would have yielded different results, since “actual” in common parlance tends to mean “factually present as proven by empirical observation.” We’ll see if that turns out to be true when CARA tests the question later this year”.

[7] Mark M. Gray, PhD, Eucharistic Beliefs: A National Survey of Adult Catholics, A study commissioned by the McGrath Institute for Church Life, CARA, (Sep. 2023). chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://static1.squarespace.com/static/629c7d00b33f845b6435b6ab/t/6513358329f868492a786ea6/1695757700925/EucharistPollSeptember23.pdf.

[8] Archbishop Schneider remarks in dissenting fashion, that: “The Pope does not have the power to ban the Traditional Mass in Latin because it is the property of the entire Church, the Saints and the Church of all ages. The Pope simply has no power to abolish it, just as the Pope would not have the power to abolish the Apostles’ Creed.”

[9] See for example, Taylor Marshall, Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within (Sophia Institute Press; Crisis Publications).

[10] Martin M. Barillas, “‘Demonic sacrilege’: Brazilian bishop condemns Vatican gardens’ ‘Pachamama’ ritual”. Lifesite News. (Oct. 28, 2019). https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/demonic-sacrilege-brazil-bishops-condemns-vatican-gardenspachamama-ritual/. In fact, the figure was not Pachamama, but the spin by the “Catholic” media convinced the world it was, despite the protests of the Amazonians who brought the figure, the Vatican spokesman, and the priests ministering to the indigenous Catholics in attendance. See: Pedro Gabriel, “Our Lady of the Amazon: solving the contradictions,” Where Peter Is, Oct. 25, 2019. https://wherepeteris.com/our-lady-of-the-amazon-solving-the-contradictions/.

[11] Buying into unapproved versions of La Salette which state that Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the AntiChrist, a version which was not part of the original, and placed on the index of forbidden books. See Sec. 4 of this article: https://www.arcaneknowledge.org/catholic/lasalette.htm:

“Melanie . . . later found it difficult to comply with cloistered life, and was heavily influenced by lurid apocalyptic writings, as well as less than scrupulous advisors who wished to coax the secret out of her. Finally, in 1879, she released a greatly expanded version of the secret, including new interpretations of the true secret as well as completely new revelations unmentioned in the 1851 version. All these new embellishments were indiscriminately ascribed to Our Lady of La Salette, resulting in an apocalyptic tract many times longer than the authentic secret submitted to the Pope in 1851. This tract contained prophecies that were either in tension with the Catholic faith, as in its assertion that Rome would apostatize, or, more commonly, proven to be historically false in the course of time. This false apocalypse circulated under the title of Apparition of the Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette, bearing the imprimatur of Bishop Zola of Lecce. The fact that a French tract had to seek the imprimatur of an Italian bishop should arouse our suspicions, and indeed, Melanie had been instructed by her bishop not to publish any prophecies. After joining a convent in 1851, Melanie invented fantastic stories of her miraculous childhood, playing with the child Jesus and leading animals in a religious procession. Her behavior became progressively bizarre, as she had hysterical fits and threatened to bite her superior. She was never allowed to become a sister, and instead was sent off to England in 1855. There she claimed to hear voices and witness miraculous events. Away from her bishop, she began to make apocalyptic prophecies. . . . It is in reaction to this thorough rejection by the Church hierarchy that Melanie wrote her new tract, full of bitter invective against a supposedly faithless clergy. Not contrary to faith and morals in the narrow sense, it received an imprimatur, but in 1880 the Holy Office forbade her to write further tracts. Few copies of the 1879 tract were circulated, and it was published again more widely in 1904. A third printing in 1922, with a new imprimatur, finally resulted in Rome’s placing of the tract on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1923.”

 

Or for example, note the cynical and overblown extrapolations from the Fatima message which has resulted in subcultures and conspiracies about a fake Sister Lucia. See for evidence of this, John L. Allen, Jr. “A Tale of Two Fatimas,” National Catholic Reporter, May 13, 2010. https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/tale-two-fatimas.

[12] See almost any article from Crisis Magazine or the Remnant Magazine.

[13] One Peter Five, “Traditionis Custodes: 3 Years Later,” YouTube video, (42:30 timestamp) June 18, 2024.

[14] For a resource helpful in navigating the post-conciliar confusion and turbulence, see my grandfather’s book: The Pope, the Council, and the Mass (Emmaus Road, 2006), which was endorsed by the Vatican newspaper, Fr. John Hardon, SJ, and Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar. https://stpaulcenter.com/product/the-pope-the-council-and-the-mass/. I also wrote this article explaining how it has helped me: Andrew Likoudis, “A Beacon Of Christ’s Providential Light In The Post-Conciliar Church,” Patheos, Jun. 12, 2023. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/natureandgrace/2023/06/a-beacon-of-christs-providential-light-in-the-post-conciliar-church/. For a more comprehensive review, see: Michael Lofton, “Faithful to the Magisterium, Faithful to Christ,” Where Peter Is, Jun. 13, 2023. https://wherepeteris.com/faithful-to-the-magisterium-faithful-to-christ/.

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