Trad Catholicism is Anything but a Trend

I recently had occasion to read a piece in National Catholic Reporter titled “Is the trad Catholic trend about tradition—or about individual proclivities?” The author, Stephen Adubato, makes the argument that traditional Catholics, rather than living an organic and authentic expression of the Church’s timeless traditions, have constructed an artificial idea of tradition which results in insular, ideological communities. I felt compelled to respond since this piece is not only incorrect in its depiction of traditional Catholics, but clearly and demonstrably shot through with the very errors it ascribes to them.

Mr. Adubato begins by writing that he enjoys the Latin Mass and attends on occasion. He adds that he knows many different people who have attended and benefited from the Latin Mass—many of whom do not fit the general trad Catholic stereotype. Having established these credentials, he launches into his critique of traditional Catholics by identifying the central issue of traditional Catholicism as “an antagonistic relationship with modernism.” By refusing to approach the issue with “nuanced engagement,” traditionalists fail “to discern the positive from the negative aspects of modernism.” As a result, the movement is “anything but traditional.” By refusing to adopt and integrate the good that can be gleaned from modernism, traditionalists construct an artificial, man-made notion of tradition, and thereby place their faith not in God, but in “the limited, fragile strength of human beings.” Instead of opposing modernism, traditionalists fall into one of its greatest errors.

Mr. Adubato is certainly correct in saying that traditional Catholics have an antagonistic relationship with modernism. Beyond that, his argument ceases to hold water. It is scandalous to suggest that a Catholic should have anything but an antagonistic relationship with what the Church has condemned as “the synthesis of all heresies.”  

In the Church’s definitive document against modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, St. Pius X describes the modernist as “the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church” (Paragraph 3). The saint takes great pains to explain that modernism is such a dangerous enemy of Truth because its primary goal is to infiltrate the Faith by having Catholics adopt seemingly good elements or aspects of modernism that can be characterized as separate or even opposed to those elements or aspects deemed dangerous. Pius X precisely and emphatically condemns this practice—the exact practice that Mr. Adubato excoriates traditionalists for failing to adopt. Pius X writes that modernism “does not consist in scattered and unconnected theories . . . it is not possible to admit to one without admitting to all” (Paragraph 39). In the case of modernism, contrary to what Mr. Adubato would have us believe, there is simply no gold in Egypt.

In attempting to characterize traditionalists as falling into modernism, Mr. Adubato succeeds only in demonstrating how thoroughly imbued his own argument is with those same errors. These errors are most clearly demonstrated in the language he assigns to traditional Catholics, and to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is striking that not once in his article does Mr. Adubato address the Mass or the Catholic Faith as such. Rather, his argument is built on his own subjective experience, which forms the lens through which he evaluates both liturgy and various Catholic communities.

In centering his argument for how Catholic liturgy and community should operate on his own experience, Mr. Adubato demonstrates the central error of modernism. St. Pius X explains that, as a believer, the modernist finds the foundation of his convictions regarding God and religion “in the experience of the individual” (Paragraph 14). He goes on to say that the modernist sees his relationship to God as “an intuition of the heart” whereby man is put in contact with the reality of God. “It is this experience which, when a person acquires it, makes him properly and truly a believer” (Paragraph 14).

This experiential view of liturgy and faith is what forms Mr. Adubato’s argument. Not once in the article is the Mass evaluated for what it is and how it accomplishes its goal. Rather, it is viewed as a mechanism to deliver the individual to the ideal state of mind. It is not presented as the continuation of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, but as an experience through which a person can be rendered more or less likely to hold the sort of view that the author would like him to hold. The Latin Mass is praised not because it makes unbearably clear the awful majesty of Christ’s sacrificial triumph, but because it “can in some ways be more inclusive for certain marginalized folks.” In this argument which seeks to prove a lack of solid foundations in the traditionalist world, primacy of place is given, ironically, to the individual proclivities of the author.

This shallow modernist view of the Mass is to be expected when the basis for religious evaluation among the modernists is examined. For the modernist, the Sacraments, like everything else, are “explained by inner impulses or necessities.” The first need of the Sacraments for the modernist is to give “some sensible manifestation to religion” (Paragraph 21).

Mr. Adubato’s argument manifests this point when he makes the case for alternatives to traditional Catholic communities. These alternatives, in his view, “can provide young people with their traditionalist fix,” while better disposing them to live out the Gospel. He believes that Catholics who choose the traditional Mass and Sacraments do so in order to scratch at itch. By evaluating liturgy based on its response to an inner impulse or desire, he demonstrates the modernist principle which gives primacy to “the religious conscience” and subjects even the Church Herself to it (Paragraph 23).

This authority of conscience is demonstrated in the example he gives regarding the reception of Holy Communion. He writes that when traditionalists “insist on disrupting the flow of the communion line by dropping to their knees,” he can only assume it is an act of “performative virtue signaling,” and that traditionalists are merely “attempting to distinguish themselves from others.” Leaving aside the liturgical, canonical, and terminological errors contained in this short, uncharitable dig, such a reaction makes perfect sense for someone with a thoroughly modernist view of liturgy and religion.

The supremacy of individual experience and inclination is central to modernism. Mr. Adubato’s judgement of traditionalists follows naturally from this disposition. St. Pius X writes, “It is pride which fills modernists with that confidence in themselves and leads them to hold themselves up as the rule for all.” He goes on to say that this pride drives the modernists to show themselves as different from other men, and by doing so “to embrace all kinds of the most absurd novelties” (Paragraph 40). This is the attitude that accompanies, and the result that follows from viewing the Mass and Catholic communities through the authority of individual conscience and seeing them as a means to satisfy one’s individual proclivities. Rather than embrace or even associate with this modernist deception, Catholics are called to do the opposite.

St. John the Baptist tells us, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). This humility should be our example when approaching Holy Mass. We must leave our own desires and peculiarities behind. What better place is there for this attitude than the traditional Latin Mass? As Mr. Adubato relates elsewhere in his writings, he knows many people from across the political and social spectrum who find solace in the Latin Mass because they can so easily lose themselves in it. The Mass is not for us, it is for God. It is “the source and summit of the Christian Life” (CCC 1324). We should seek to abandon ourselves to it and thereby embrace and embody “all that it signifies, all that flows from it, and all that goes with it” (FSSP Constitutions). Traditionalists put the Latin Mass at the center of their lives because of the perfection with which it expresses the supernatural reality of Christ’s Sacrifice. Individual proclivities have nothing to do with it.

I will conclude by saying that my rebuttal is by no means an attempt to attack Mr. Adubato. Rather, I am concerned with refuting the errors in his argument and preventing the damage they might inflict if left unanswered. My words do not begin to do justice to the monumental achievement of Pascendi Dominici Gregis, which I have quoted extensively throughout this article, and which forms the basis of my argument. I invite Mr. Adubato and any reader desiring a deeper understanding of what I have written here to read this great encyclical and thereby to enrich his mind and soul.

Photo by Ramses Sudiang on Unsplash