The Toothpaste isn’t Going Back in the Tube: Tradition and the War of Attrition

"It is worth calling to mind that during the heyday of the JPII conservative Catholicism, an attachment to the Latin Mass was seen as a problem to be solved."

From Crisis

By Kennedy Hall

Traditional Catholicism is not going anywhere, and the more pressure you apply, the more it shines, like a diamond, or better yet, like a sword beaten between hammer and anvil.

Two notable events have taken place since Pope Leo XIV ascended the Throne of Saint Peter: Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte angered pretty much every traditionally-minded Catholic in the Anglo-sphere, and 20,000 pilgrims, mostly young, marched the Chartres and attended an internationally televised/streamed Latin Mass said by Bishop Athanasius Schneider. 

Bishop Martin’s actions became an international sensation and the documents leaked to the public came off like a temper tantrum by an unhinged ideologue who wanted to stick it to the Trads for not loving the New Springtime enough; whereas Bishop Schneider’s actions, along with the pilgrims, seemed simply Catholic and holy.

What we see in the dichotomous reception of these two events is indicative of an undeniable truth that the hierarchy must deal with, even if some want to ignore it: Tradition is winning and will win, whereas the experiment of the conciliar era will lose and is losing.

Even if we assume the best about the more “moderate” post-conciliar approaches—reform of the reform, etc.—what we find is that the fight is primarily between a general Novus Ordo parish paradigm, and Traditional communities that are bursting at the seams. Of course, I speak in generalities here, and there is not enough time to go into detailed specifics, so please forgive me if I fail to acknowledge some exceptions, which given their infrequency tend to prove the rule.

Now, the conciliar zeitgeist is far from dead, which makes sense since the Vatican II generation is still around and the youngest of it will be for a decade or so. Also, so many of the theologians and clerics who committed their lives to work for the Church during the 70s-90s did so when Tradition was barely acknowledged or maligned. I am thinking of the George Weigels of the world, and while they may not be as influential as they once were, they still get the front page of major journals and mainstream publications, which is a privilege Traditionalists rarely, if ever, are granted. 

It is worth calling to mind that during the heyday of the John-Paul II conservative Catholicism, an attachment to the Latin Mass was seen as a problem to be solved. In 1984 under Pope John-Paul II, the famous “Indult” Mass was permitted, which was rightly—you’ll see why—referred to as the “Insult” by Traditionalists.
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Released on behalf of the Polish Pope by the Congregation for Divine Worship, the letter Quattuor Abhinc Annos stated: “… [I]t appeared that the problem of priests and faithful holding to the so-called ‘Tridentine’ rite was almost completely solved… however, the same problem continues…”

Gee, how warm and fuzzy it must have been to hear from Rome, “You can have your pretty little missal, but we are giving you this because you are a problem that won’t go away.” Another example of the “pastoral” attitude of clerics in the wake of the pastoral Vatican II. 

Now, the Indult failed in its true intention, which was to clarify “beyond all ambiguity that such priests [who say the TLM] and their respective faithful in no way share the positions of those who call in question the legitimacy and doctrinal exactitude of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970.”

In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre went ahead with his consecrations, which I view as heroic and providential, and Tradition still continued to grow even though it was associated in the public mind with disobedience, schism, and excommunication. The communities established by Rome to try and pull traditionalists away from the SSPX or give those who were Tradition-curious a place to go continued to grow, and their priests, by and large, still don’t seem to be huge fans of the Novus Ordo or have glowingly positive things to say about Vatican II. I can say from personal experience as someone who has publicly professed himself to be a Lefebvre diehard that when I travel the world and interact with Catholics of all stripes, I constantly hear, “Keep up the good work, keep fighting.” I hear this frequently from priests of the FSSP, the ICKSP, and even diocesan bishops at times.

Pope Benedict made things even worse for those of the “Latin Mass is a problem” persuasion when he recognized the perennial rights of the Roman Rite in 2007. He even had the penalties levelled against the remaining SSPX bishops officially nullified, which symbolically was so much more than a juridical act; it was as if the excommunication on Catholic Tradition had been lifted. 

Pope Francis, may God rest his soul, tried to undo the good work of Benedict and the old war dogs who fought for Tradition for so many decades, but his efforts utterly failed as well. Surely, many have suffered since 2021 when Francis dropped a nuke on the TLM, but the only “victory” of that act of abuse has been a petty victory for the minority of bishops who still hold that Traditional Catholicism is a problem to be solved and who want to govern the Church like it’s 1984. Yes, an Orwellian pun is most certainly intended.

In reality, the 2021 act of aggression by Pope Francis only brought the Traditional Mass into the international zeitgeist as a newsworthy item for secular and Catholic outlets alike. This, combined with the fact that so many—although not all—diocesan bishops did their best to send faithful Catholics to traditional chapels by shutting their churches in 2020, has only solidified the long-standing consensus amongst traditionalists that if you want certainty and stability in your liturgical life, you need to find a priest who whispers, hoc est enim corpus meum when he says Mass.

The Chartres pilgrimage is simply an overt display of what is happening in parishes and chapels all over the world, despite the onslaught of on-and-off persecutions that traditionalists have dealt with for decades. I was recently in Virginia attending Mass near Front Royal. In 2020 the SSPX started saying Mass outside at a fairground for Catholics who had nowhere to go, and since then it has grown into a congregation of hundreds of Catholics who are now looking to build a new church because they have quickly outgrown the business park they renovated into a chapel. The Sunday I attended was a First Communion, and there were nuns, massive families, big-ol’ Chevy and GMC vans in the parking lot, and little boys and girls all dressed in white received Our Lord in the same manner all their ancestors had done. These little ones may not have known it, but by doing so, they heroically demonstrated the most effective protest against the modern world and the modern zeitgeist in the Church.

Does anyone, well besides men like Bishop Martin, honestly think that at this point you are going to “solve the problem” of Traditionalism? 

Traditional Catholicism is not going anywhere, and the more pressure you apply, the more it shines, like a diamond, or better yet, like a sword beaten between hammer and anvil. The war of attrition between the New Springtime and Tradition will end one day, and it will be clear when that day has come because what happens en route to the Chartres will be happening in the same way en route to perennial holy sites around the world. Those altars that were built with the sweat and blood of peasant artisans will be used again, and the tables that stand in front of them will be removed.

Try as they might, the hierarchs who have tried to solve the Traditional problem will never get that toothpaste back in the tube; the sooner they accept that, the faster we can move on and heal the rifts and divisions that have taken place in our lives—rifts and divisions which never should have been because what was done by the innovators never should have been done.