Counter-Currents
1,707 words
Pope Francis effectively condemned and restricted the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) last week. The Vicar of Christ issued a letter revoking Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, which welcomed the Latin Mass and encouraged its spread. Francis said this policy change was needed to curb division within the church. The papal edict argues TLM congregations sow discord, and they need to recognize Vatican II as a fact.
The new order isn’t 100% clear in what it entails. Most dioceses waited to make a move concerning TLM practices within their jurisdiction. A few flat out banned the practice within diocesan churches, leaving the traditional mass exclusively in the hands of orders such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and the Society of St. Paul X (SSPX). The edict discourages bishops from allowing new Latin mass parishes to take root and requires these groups to state their loyalty to Vatican II. It also makes clear that the new mass — the Novus Ordo — is the one true liturgy of the 21st-century church.
The order could lead to a mass suppression of the old mass, or it could leave things as they are now while slowly strangling its growth. What is clear is that the Pope wants to curtail the spread of the TLM. He sees it as a threat to this vision for the church and he wants it to end.
The move was greeted as another Drogheda by conservative Catholics. Everyone from Ben Shapiro lackeys to integralists went ballistic over the order. They couldn’t believe the Holy Father would take away their mass. Some said it was an act of war against traditionalists. The wailing and gnashing of teeth did little to sway the hierarchy. The laity have very little say over how their church is run — unless they wield tremendous power through secular institutions like the federal government. Conservative Catholics don’t have that kind of power. Nor do they even have much manpower. Despite their large presence within the conservative movement and on Twitter, there are an estimated one million traditionalist Catholics in the entire world. That’s 0.1% of all Catholics. (There are 1.3 billion faithful.) Even among western countries, their numbers are not as high as trads may like to think. Traditionalist groups estimate on their own that there are around 100,000 TLM goers in the U.S. There are over 70 million American Catholics.
Francis doesn’t have to worry about a major schism when faced with these numbers. Trads are not an insignificant minority, however. They are well-represented in Catholic and conservative media. Pretty much every English-language Catholic outlet that leans right is operated by TLM sympathizers. This group isn’t particularly fond of Francis. They’ve hated his outreach to gays. They hate his support for liberal reforms in church teaching. They’re disgusted with his embrace of third world worship practices that smack of paganism to traditionalists. The Pope has also seemingly turned a blind eye to rampant sex abuse and homosexuality within the church. These Catholic media outlets have churned out a deluge of criticism for Francis, his allies, and his policies. The Pope probably feels justified in retaliating by taking away his critics’ mass. He is the Vicar of Christ after all, and he may feel the flock doesn’t respect him enough.
The most obvious reason for the restriction is what’s stated in the letter. Francis wants to promote unity by stifling an unruly element within the church.
But there is a larger mission at work here and it’s something that even trads don’t want to address. Ever since Vatican II, the Catholic church has sought to lose its European trappings and become a more authentically global organization. Most of its members now belong to the non-white world while white Catholics lose the faith in record numbers. The Tridentine Mass is a throwback to the discarded past and is mostly enjoyed by whites. It’s hardly practiced in Africa, where 250 million Catholics dwell and take in the faith through their native languages and practices. The TLM, barring a miracle, was never going to become the primary mass of the church even before Francis’s letter. Now TLM enthusiasts will have to acknowledge that fact following the order. Even though TLM adherents love to claim it attracts the youth, most youth, particularly white youth, are leaving devout religion. More young people believe in horoscopes than an all-knowing God. The youth who do stay with religion are usually more liberal than older congregants. Young Catholics are more supportive of homosexuality than older Catholics.
While liberal Catholics are probably less faithful than traditionalist Catholics, there are far more of them, particularly in the West. Keeping them within the church is a bigger concern for Francis than preserving the liturgy of traditionalists. Francis faces a more pressing problem for church unity in the conflict between faithful in the West and in the Third World. Some readers may think this pits Latin Mass-loving westerners who want a stricter faith versus globalists who desire a more liberal faith. It’s actually the opposite. The Western church, as represented by Germans, wants a more gay-friendly church that welcomes female priests. The church in the Third World is adamantly opposed to this. Neither side cares about the TLM, and the two sides are on the opposite side of issues dear to identitarians. Western liberals and African conservatives both support mass immigration to the West and the noxious concept of “racial justice.” The difference is over adherence to traditional Christian teachings on sex and gender.
This conflict is where the real threat of schism lies. The German church is already starting to defy the Vatican. Over 100 German parishes began to recognize and bless gay couples in May. Teutonic bishops are discussing the prospect of ordaining women priests. The Vatican has threatened stiff punishment for any deviation from orthodoxy, yet it has done nothing about the German church embracing gay marriage. It’s quite the contrast to how Francis swiftly cracked down on traditionalists in retaliation for online grumblings about his papacy.
He’s trying to prevent an open break with an international conclave that will likely drown the demands of western liberals beneath the tribal dances of Africans. The German church still may bolt to the delight of its liberal congregants who want a more progressive Catholicism. That example may inspire further breakaways in white countries. That wouldn’t necessarily spell the end of the church.
The future of the Catholic church lies with the non-white world. In 2010, sixty-seven percent of the world’s Catholics lived in either Latin America, Africa, or Asia. Only 24% of the world’s Catholic population lived in Europe (and a not insignificant number of those Catholics aren’t European). In 1910, 65% of the world’s Catholics were in Europe. Those numbers have surely changed in the non-white world’s favor since then. It’s expected that there will be twice as many African Catholics as European Catholics by 2050, and many of those “European Catholics” will be African themselves. As previously mentioned, these third world Catholics don’t adhere to traditional liturgy. Most of them mix their traditions and customs with the church in the same way Germanic tribes did in the Dark Ages. Francis’s Amazon Synod in 2019 showcased many of these traits, with tribal dancing and crude idols from Amazonians. Third worlders create a faith that expresses their identity — and it does not include the Latin Mass. But they do share the social conservatism of the traditionalists.
The various peoples of the non-white world will shape the church for years to come. This means the Vatican won’t change its stances on abortion or sexual morality. But it will be even more committed to bringing these faithful to white countries. The Catholic version of the Great Replacement means swamping undevout whites with devout non-whites. It matters little if Muslims and other non-Christians are brought along in the process. This will also mean that church practices and liturgy will be more third-world in style. The concerns of a tiny minority of whites won’t matter when the masses of color demand shamanism. Liberal Catholics won’t mind these changes. Goofy white liberals love exoticism, and they will happily join in the strange dances and chanting. What they will mind is demands they follow church dogma on sex and marriage.
Francis has to perform a delicate balancing act. He wants to appeal to the globalist powers in the West and demonstrate he’s not a zealot. It’s why he opposed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops supporting the denial of communion to pro-abortion politicians. He doesn’t want to ruffle the feathers of those in charge. But at the same time he wants to make the church better represent those who actually practice the faith.
Whatever happens in the conflict, identitarians should understand that the church is no longer a “white” institution. Its interests will fully align with those who want to replace us and ruin our homelands. Unless whites suddenly return to church en masse, and all of these whites are racially conscious (an unlikely scenario), the church will continue on its present path. The only real hope to restrain the church’s complete turn into a third-world institution is for our side to win secular power. Then the prelates would accommodate our interests in the same way Francis sucks up to gays. The Vatican would know better than to advocate mass immigration if we were in charge.
But until that victory occurs, identitarian Catholics are put into a serious conundrum. Do they grit their teeth and remain within a hostile organization that doesn’t even grant them their preferred mass? Do they back a schismatic sect or leave the faith entirely? This is a question best left to the identitarian Catholic himself. The best solution for now is for them to support the work of Latin Mass orders like the SSPX. The SSPX has irregular status with the Vatican and can ignore the worst actions of the current prelate. But there may come a time when these groups are declared schismatic and kicked out of the church. That may be for the best; identitarian Catholics would no longer need to worry about the Vatican in that case.
One thing is certain: we can’t hope to save our civilization through the Catholic church alone. It’s on the side of those who want to replace us.
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17 comments
I’m a formerly Catholic trad, identitarian. There are more of us than you might think. Nevertheless, the RCC is now fully committed to being the enemy of Western civilization, it probably has been for a while, I just held out some vain hope. Not anymore, I’ll be joining an Orthodox Church. Many of them are conservative, nationalist and unapologetically so.
I’m a former TLM Catholic myself, generally trad catholicism is a big-city phenomenon and remains largely unknown or vague to Sunday Catholics or devout rural churchgoers. As a political force it means little outside the tradcath media outlets and social platforms. While aligning with them doesn’t hurt (remnants of ultra-montanism practically died with Francis’ pontificate), they need a definitive backing in order to be useful against globohomo clergy and liberal laymen. Orthodox Church could become an asset but only as a potential alternative to catholicism, if it can’t spread effectively, it’ll remain an insignificant minority.
In the end, dissidents are left with populism and creating their power-bases largely in the province, where tendrils of globohomo metropolies penetrate slower and not too deep. That means getting along with the local uncucked priest(s) and their parishioners while encouraging folkisch localism against rich, cosmopolitan bishops or cardinals. Tradcath outposts in cities are useful, but in the long-term perspective, when broader masses are rallied against the managerial elite and their cronies.
This is a well-balanced and informative essay that promotes a more subtle approach than the usual “faithful trads vs woke innovators” one. If I might quibble a bit, this line strikes me as out of place:
“The Pope has also seemingly turned a blind eye to rampant sex abuse and homosexuality within the church.”
Not only is it wrong, but it occurs in a paragraph that gives reasons Trads dislike Francis, and this is hardly one of them. In fact, the truth is the opposite in both cases: Francis is the first pope to seriously address the problem (unless you count Benedict dramatically resigning, after his Latin American trip revealed to him how hopelessly corrupt the Church there is), and that is exactly why the Trads hate him.
As I discussed in a review of Frederic Martel’s In the Closet of the Vatican, the Church’s hardline positions on sex and priestly celibacy reflect not “tradition” but rather were crafted in the 2oth century by a cabal of homosexual insiders as a shield to conceal, by misdirection, their pederastic activities. (“Who, us? No way, we hate homos more than anyone does!”) The rest of the Church’s teaching on sexuality were crafted by the same bunch, who either knew nothing about healthy family life, or intended to sadistically punish normal people.
https://counter-currents.com/2020/06/papa-francesco-vs-steve-bannon/
Ever wonder why sex is the only issue Vatican II did not liberalize, but instead clamped down further on? Why the Church, as Francis said (in a line that had the Trads howling), seems to think sex is the only sin? (Alan Watts pointed this out decades ago, but he was an Episcopalian, so he doesn’t count). Trads are like our Republicans: they exist to make it seem there is an opposition to liberal reforms, but fold every time… except on sex.
Also, the mention of Trads comprising 0.1% of the Church, but wielding lots of power due to their disproportionate control of the media, sounds like another troublesome group, and one also know for projecting its sins on others….
I’ll have to read your review of the book. Is the gist of it that the Catholic’s Church’s teachings on heterosexual sex prior to the 20th century were not as stringent as they became in the 20th century? If so, was this a pre-or-post Vatican II development?
“the Church’s hardline positions on sex and priestly celibacy reflect not “tradition” but rather were crafted in the 2oth century”
There was no need to take hardline positions on these issues, because no sane person before the 20th century thought that fornication, rampant divorce, or homosexual “marriage” were OK. Not even the pagans or protestants.
“intended to sadistically punish normal people”
You mean, telling people to try to live like normal people lived in every functioning society before 1968?
The picture that you draw of the Catholic Traditionalist movement is a Jew-y caricature. It tells little about the movement itself (do you even know a single participant?), and a lot about your person.
Besides, keeping yourself riled up about the sins of others is Protestantism. It is also taken for granted that there is more sin higher up in the pecking order, because that’s just the nature of the world. Isn’t O’Meara an Irish name? I would expect someone with a name like that to have at least a basic cultural understanding of how Catholicism works.
The ‘turning around of the altar’ — Vatical II — plus Liberation Theology, was the end of my association with the Catholic Church. I had been trying to ‘make a comeback’ after first leaving when I was about 16, but when the choir vanished and was replaced by guitars and folk singers, and women became ‘readers’ and ‘deacons’, and the incense and the beginning and ending processions, and so on, vanished, so did I. There are even theologians now, I understand, that are questioning the Ten Commandments, as being too ‘harsh’ on minorities. Good luck with that, duckies, and bon voyage!
Exactly why I don’t attend Mass.
And also because church architecture is so ugly now. I can’t bring myself to step foot in any local church after visiting Notre Dame in Paris. THAT is a church.
Neoreaction is pretty prominent/loud in the dissident sphere, and Nrx somehow transformed from an ideology cooked up by one ex-Randian atheist and one ex-Deleuzean atheist into being interchangeable with Trad Catholicism. Which is why people in these circles often have the wrong impression that TradCaths are far more numerous than they are.
Likely because reaction classic was heavily Catholic.
The Latins, who once sacked Constantinople, cannot be trusted to defend Europa. Only the Orthodox East now remains as a bulwark.
That was in the 13th century. Seems a bit dumb to draw such a sweeping conclusion almost 800 years later.
“If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
Any church or other organization that is indifferent to or approves of the erasure of the White race has no love for our race.
Whatever proceeds from this anti-White lack of love cannot mean more to us than “wah-wah” and “ting-a-ling.” We must not give it authority or let it influence us.
I disagree. The real issue is, can a Christian be a white preservationist? I believe the answer is a resounding YES! I agree that the RCC (and pretty much every other Christian sect) has embraced diversitism to the extent that they are all today either outright proponents of white extinction, or at best indifferent to it. But just because the church has mostly fallen to this amorphous yet lethal (faux-)ethico-ideological mode of thought does not mean that it logically (as a function of its internal metaphysical precepts) had to. Instead of rejecting or attacking the Church, I think it smarter to investigate its theology; expose its errors in racial and political thinking; and then attempt internally (via activism on the part of its laity) to steer it back to a correct and more modest stance, whereby white preservationism, provided its political program does not violate actual Christian moral-theological requirements, is allowed to the faithful (as non-violent environmental preservation is).
Does anyone know what Tom Woods would say about this article? I don’t know him personally but I have read his book “How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization” and it is excellent. He is a brilliant man and extremely well read. I, myself, am a lapsed Catholic, and probably an agnostic. I like to think the Catholic Church will survive but I would like to see it survive as overwhelmingly white.
I read the book as well. The thing is, as much as we can appreciate past merits and admire the beautiful old temples standing as a testament to former greatness, we have to face present reality and ask ourselves if we can restore the glory of the once shining bulwark and make it de facto white man’s religion once again. Emperor Julian “the Apostate” tried to restore old roman virtues and religious practices in a new form, but it didn’t prevail. Christianity proved to be resilient throughout the ages, but it no longer has the vigor that once animated the Christendom.
As for me I want to see the those magnificent temples continuing to silently stand even if the religion dies out. They’re one of the many monuments to our civilization and their beauty should be preserved and passed down to posterity for ages to come.
SSPX stands for “Society of St. Piux X,” not “Society of St. Paul.” And Catholic liberals are not just “probably less faithful”; they are certainly less faithful than traditionalists. If you’re going to be a Catholic at all in the West, be a traditionalist. Otherwise, what’s the point? You’ll be worshipping the Zeitgeist instead of the Christian God.
But overall an excellent and fair treatment of the matter.
The Society of St. Pius X is not a long-term option, but the Fraternity of St. Peter is. FSSP was started by 12 SSPX priests after Pope St. John Paul II said in 1988 that Archbishop Lefebvre’s ordination of four bishops without Vatican consent was a schismatic act (see Ecclesia Dei). The Vatican said, “no, you cannot ordain four bishops until your order gets canonical status. And we need X, Y, and Z from you to get that status.” Lefebvre said, “But I need the bishops to make more priests.” The Vatican responded, “Okay, you can ordain two of the four bishops, but we need X, Y, and Z from you in the meantime.” Lefebvre then ordained all four bishops. The word schism is used three times in Ecclesia Dei.
Moreover, essentially nothing has changed since then. SSPX parishes are started without the local bishop’s consent (always a prerequisite for a church), and they do whatever they want, arbitrarily deciding along the way when they next want to pretend they desire full communion with Rome. That is why they have an “irregular” status.
The best thing that can be said about SSPX is that laity can receive their sacraments and will not be considered schismatic, as long as they are not consciously attending SSPX in a spirit of schism with their local bishop and his diocese (nor Rome, of course). Any faithful Catholic who is aware of that fact and attends SSPX Mass does so at his/her own peril. For more information from SSPX itself, see these interviews with Fr. David Sherry, District Superior of Canada (1, 2). This quick, detailed chronology shows why they are not recognized as a valid order. That’s Patrick Coffin, he’s hosted EMJ a couple of times on his podcast.
Lastly, most of the supposed liberalizing that has happened in the Church has not actually occurred. It’s remarkably similar to the Russian garbage of Trump’s Presidency. Just because millions of people are talking about something they think happened does not mean it happened. There has not been doctrine nor dogma defined since the Second Vatican Council that contradicts any teaching prior to the council. You can find tons of traditionalists slamming their fists over Lumen Gentium, whichever V2 document, or something following the council, but you cannot find these supposed errors with earnest and charitable reading. They don’t exist.
There are, however, thousands of priests and bishops who, for all intents and purposes, have lost the faith recognizable to pre-conciliar Catholics. Germany is a great example, which you gave. Fewer and fewer people are orthodox Catholics as a result. However, you’d do best to ignore the popular media, along with James J. O’Meara’s favorite gossip book, on most of these topics and ask yourself:
Are the dogmatically defined claims of the Catholic Church true or false?
That is all that matters. The rest is just a chorus of talking heads playing an obnoxious game of telephone.
If you think Catholicism is philosophically, theologically, or morally bankrupt, ask legitimate Catholics to answer your questions. Dr. Edward Feser, Tridentine Mass-goer and author of several books on metaphysics, along with his controversial defense of capital punishment, can be reached by his active blog (he’s written a couple of posts about Traditionis Custodes). Fellow metaphysician and very active blogger Alex Pruss, who got his PhD in mathematics at 23 and his philosophy PhD a couple of years later, can be easily reached. Same with Dr. Robert Koons at UT-Austin. Ask any of the Dominican scholars, such as Fr. James Brent, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, Fr. Gregory Pine, et al. Their contact information is out there.
You got to Counter-Currents by digging beyond the headline. So, stop reading the headlines about Catholicism.
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