What is a Traditional Catholic?

Thanks to the FBI’s leaked memo, resulting in congressional hearings and an investigation of the bureau, “Traditional Catholicism” is now a household term, used even by non-Catholics to describe this “mysterious type of Catholic” that the FBI targeted for unconstitutional investigation. Still, what is a Traditional Catholic anyway?

According to Wikipedia…

Traditionalist Catholicism is a movement that emphasizes beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions and presentations of teaching associated with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Traditionalist Catholics particularly emphasize the Tridentine Mass, the Roman Rite liturgy largely replaced in general use by the post-Second Vatican Council Mass of Paul VI.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_Catholicism

And according to the Fish Eaters website (https://fisheaters.com), while some Traditional Catholics do attend the post-Second Vatican Council Mass (or Novus Ordo Mass), when no other form of the Mass is available to them, they generally seek out more traditional forms of liturgy, which can include the Ordinariate liturgy of Divine Worship, the Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy, but most especially the pre-conciliar Traditional Latin Mass (or Vetus Ordo Mass). Thus, says Fish Eaters, Traditional Catholics are defined not exclusively by the form of the Mass they attend, but rather, those Catholics who adhere to…

• the dogmas of the Faith understood in a manner consistent with the way Catholics had always understood them… and an upholding of traditional Catholic moral theology,
• a desire to preserve and restore all of the ancient sacramental rites, and to do so not because these are “preferred,” but because they are objectively superior to the new rites and should once again become normative,
• a deep understanding of or intuition about the importance of preserving not only instrinsic tradition (the unwritten Deposit of the Faith handed down by Christ and His Apostles), but also the ecclesiastical tradition (extrinsic tradition) which has served to preserve intrinsic tradition and allows parents and priests to pass it down in an effective way.
• a strong sensus Catholicus (Catholic “sense” or “instinct”), including a cautious, Catholic approach to novelty.
• source: https://www.fisheaters.com/traditionalcatholicism.html

So, the bottom line is this. While liturgy plays a very important role in the life of a Traditional Catholic, that alone is not what defines Traditional Catholicism. Rather, Traditional Catholicism is defined by what Catholics believe, and how they view the Church and the world. Traditional Catholicism is exactly what it sounds like: Catholicism as traditionally practiced and understood throughout history.

This is opposed to the Modernist, or Progressive Catholic, who sees the Second Vatican Council as a revolution that changed the Catholic Church into a new kind of religion that is superior to the old. Pope Benedict XVI referred to this mindset as the “Hermeneutic of Rupture.” In contrast, Benedict XVI referred to the Traditional Catholic mindset as the “Hermeneutic of Continuity.”

So a Traditional Catholic is just a Catholic, a regular Catholic, who just happens to view the Church and the world in the way the Catholic Church has always taught, in continuity with Catholics from the ages past. When understood this way, a lot of Catholics are really “Traditional” in their mindset, even if they don’t regularly attend a Traditional Latin Mass (Vetus Ordo Mass), or some other traditional form of liturgy.

The foremost authority on Traditional Catholicism is The Remnant Newspaper, as it is the oldest Traditional Catholic publication in the world, having basically coined the term in the late 1960s. Every Traditional Catholic should have a print subscription to The Remnant Newspaper.

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