Traditional Catholicism is the Future

I recently made a pilgrimage to Gower, Missouri, to witness the incorrupt body of Sr. Wilhelmina of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles Abbey in Northern Missouri. It was a good three and a half hour drive from where I live in the Ozarks. So after Mass on Pentecost Sunday, I spent a total of about seven hours on the road, round trip, and three house at the abbey. It was totally worth it. See the video above for a short summary of my pilgrimage.

In the video, I used the term “Traditional Catholic,” and it occurs to me that I should blog about what that actually means. When I say the words “Traditional Catholic” I am using that expression as an umbrella term to describe my understanding of the practice of Catholicism in the modern age…

While the Traditional Latin Mass (1962 Missal) obviously plays a central role in the Traditional Catholic Movement, probably the most visible role actually, the term “Traditional Catholic” is much bigger than that. It encompasses Catholics who use various different forms of the liturgy. Some of us attend a solemn and reverent form of the Novus Ordo Mass, or what some have dubbed the “unicorn mass” because it seems so rare. This is a regular, Ordinary Form Mass (1970 Missal) wherein the priest celebrates ad orientem (facing liturgical east), a small amount of Latin is used, Gregorian chant and older Catholic hymns are the norm, and communion is distributed on the tongue while kneeling. Some of us attend Eastern Catholic liturgies. And some of us attend Divine Worship, the Ordinariate Form of English Patrimony used in the Personal Ordinariates that Pope Benedict XVI established originally for Anglican and Methodist converts to the Catholic Church. All of these forms of the mass are “traditional” in the sense that they place an emphasis on tradition over innovation.

Some discussion of the term “Traditional” is in order here. One wouldn’t think this would be controversial, but sadly in today’s world everything seems to be controversial. Ideally, monikers like “Traditional” shouldn’t need to be used at all, and one would think the term “Catholic,” by itself, should be sufficient. In an ideal world, that would be true. Sadly, we don’t live in an ideal world anymore, and this applies to the Catholic Church as well. The “Traditional” moniker wouldn’t be necessary, were it not for the wild and radical changes that occurred in the Catholic Church since 1970. I’m not going to rehash the details of that here. Everybody knows. Suffice it to say, a whole lot of modern innovations went into both the liturgy and pastoral methods at that time, that resulted in what we have today. Church membership is down proportionally. Vocations have plummeted. Parishes are closing. Dioceses are downsizing. A large number of Catholics no longer accept basic Catholic teachings on such things as the Eucharist, the papacy, chastity, matrimony, sexuality, gender, heaven, hell, purgatory and the authority of the Catholic Church in general.

Whatever the 1970s “Spirit of Vatican II” was trying to accomplish, it failed miserably. I’m sorry if it’s offensive to say that, but I call it as I see it. I’m a convert to the Catholic Church. I don’t have the sentimental baggage that a lot of cradle Catholics have. I tend to look at things as objectively as I can, and if something is not working, I call it out. The current Novus Ordo culture, which is the result of the 1970s “Spirit of Vatican II,” is an absolute failure. The proof is in the numbers — cold, hard statistics…

Compare these numbers with the explosive growth of the Traditional Latin Mass since 1988, and we have a striking contrast…

Now, admittedly, this is just the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). This graph doesn’t account for the growth of the Reverent Novus Ordo (RNO), the Eastern Catholic Liturgies (ECL), or the Divine Worship Ordinariate (DWO), which is the liturgy of the Ordinariates of English Patrimony. All of those have grown considerably as well. While it is true that Traditional Catholics only make up a small minority of Catholics at this time, they happen to be the ONLY demographic of Catholicism that is actually growing in the Western world. Then, if you actually visit one of these Traditional communities (TLM, RNO, ECL or DWO), you will find a mostly young and vibrant community of college-age singles, young parents, and growing families.

Again, I go back to cold, hard statistics. What works? Clearly, Traditional Catholicism (a more traditional way of being Catholic) is actually working, while the newer innovations of modernity are failing miserably in the typical Catholic parish and diocese. The size of Traditional Catholicism is irrelevant. What matters is growth. Small communities that grow, will eventually become large communities, and if they continue to grow, sooner or later, they will become the dominant communities. While large communities that aren’t growing will stagnate, shrink and eventually become the minority. Size is a relative thing and somewhat irrelevant. Trajectory is everything.

As I said above, I’m a convert. I don’t have the sentimental baggage of cradle Catholics. I don’t care about the “Catholicism I grew up with,” because I didn’t grow up with any Catholicism. I entered the Catholic Church as a 30-year-old man. I tend to look at things more objectively. Traditional Catholicism is the winning team. It may be small right now, but size means nothing. It’s the one and only form of Catholicism, in the Western world, that actually has momentum. Everything else is stagnating and dying. So, that’s why I’ve been saying for years now, the future of the Catholic Church is Traditional.

Of course, some of the bishops of the Catholic Church are open to this idea, while others are hostile to it, seeking to cling to the ideology of the 1970s “Spirit of Vatican II,” and trying to hang on to a culture of religious modernity for as long as possible. This has caused many of the higher-ups, especially those in the Vatican including Pope Francis, to actually try to stunt the growth of the Traditional Catholic movement. The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) being the flagship of this movement, has therefore become the primary target. This is sad, because in targeting this group for canonical persecution, the good are punished alongside the bad. Sure, we know there are some Sedevacantists and Anticonciliarists in the Traditional Catholic Movement, but these people are a minority. Does it make sense to punish every single TLM devotee, including young people just getting started in life, simply to go after a few heretics? Why not address the heresy? Why not just punish those who promote it? Why punish the many for the crimes of a few?

A wise bishop reminded me, several years ago, that it is unjust to punish the innocent alongside the guilty. It resulted in me changing a couple blog posts, and publicly repenting of some of the things I said. He was right. It is wrong to punish the innocent along with the guilty. Yet, that is exactly what Pope Francis, and the 1970s “Spirit of Vatican II” ideologues, are doing right now with Traditionis Custodes — a declaration of war on the Traditional Latin Mass. I don’t worry about it too much. What’s happening now is just a setback. This will eventually pass. Traditional Catholicism is still the future, and the TLM will prevail someday. Until then, Catholics can still find a few bastions of the TLM at places like Traditional abbeys and monasteries. They can also find refuge in communities that celebrate Divine Worship Ordinariate (DWO) mass, the Reverent Novus Ordo (RNO) mass and Eastern Catholic Liturgies (ECL).

In the video above, I also said that Catholicism is the future of the Ozarks, the Midwest and the South. I stand by that. Granted, I’m not expecting any radical changes in the near future, and I probably won’t live long enough to see this prediction fulfilled. It’s not a prophecy. It’s an observation. I’m watching it happen on a micro level right now. So it’s just a matter of time before micro becomes macro. Already, the Midwest and South are experiencing the largest growth of Catholicism in the United States. This is just a demographic shift, as Catholics in the North move southward, and Protestants continue to convert in the Midwest and South at a steady pace. Something else is happening though, beneath the surface. Traditional Catholicism is taking root in the Midwest and South.

The Ozarks are a prime example of this, where Evangelical Protestantism has been the norm for at least a century. The Ozarks will soon be home to not one, but two, Traditional Catholic monasteries. The first is Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey in Eastern Oklahoma. This is a Benedictine community of monks and is well established. The second is The Monastery of St. Joseph and Fathers Shrine in Southwest Missouri, which is a project of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and is currently under construction.

When you consider the Catholic population in the Ozarks, which is extremely sparse, the idea of not one but two Traditional monasteries, in the same relative area, is a sign of things to come. In addition to that, Southwest Missouri is home to one Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) community in the City of Ozark, and a thriving Divine Worship Ordinariate (DWO) community in City of Republic. There is also an irregular but growing TLM community at the SSPX chapel in the City of Springfield. While this only consists of a small number of Catholics in the area, proportionally to the sparse number of Catholics in the Ozarks, this is highly irregular. Furthermore, we’re not seeing much growth of the regular dioceses in Ozarks. To be fair, Catholicism in the Ozarks is not Modernist. It’s just casual. And casual Catholicism tends to lean toward modernity, which doesn’t help the local dioceses much, setting up Traditional Catholic communities and monasteries for disproportionate growth. That, however, doesn’t explain everything. I think the real story has little to do with the casual Catholicism of the dioceses in the Ozarks, and more to do with the Protestants in the area.

Local Protestants in the Ozarks are Evangelical, and when Evangelicals convert to the Catholic Church they don’t want an Evangelical-friendly or “casual” type of Catholicism. When they convert to Catholicism they want to actually BE Catholic. They want all the old traditions, practices and “weirdness” of the Catholic Church, because that’s exactly what they signed up for! This is why a disproportionate number of Evangelical converts to the Catholic Church end up becoming Traditional Catholics (of some type) eventually. So, to me, this all makes sense. The future of Catholicism is traditional, and the future of the Ozarks is Catholic — Traditional Catholic that is.

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Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church through Anglicanism. His articles have been featured on LifeSiteNews, The Remnant Newspaper, Forward in Christ, and Catholic Online. You can read Shane’s books at ShaneSchaetzel.Com