In Catholicism, there is a division that can be said to be divided into four segments: the runaways, the liberal Catholics, the conservative Catholics, and the traditional Catholics.
We start with the runaways. We all know that the Church has witnessed an exodus of Catholics because of the Second Ecumenical Council. Vatican II was received as a massive trauma for Catholics because the religion that was important before now wasn’t; the liturgy that was sacred before now wasn’t; and because Catholics, who were never Protestants, suddenly became so. So, Catholics felt that they were lied to and deceived. They saw their cathecism swept away in a Pauline instant, and the family and the family values were never the same again.
The second segment is those Catholics who give the ‘liberal’ response, that is, the liberal Catholics. Those are the Catholics who embrace change with joy in order to cope because they fear leaving or losing being part of the church. There is a good portion of Catholics who are liberal Catholics. While being adamant about their Catholicism and while one wonders why they don’t simply leave the Church, they are completely heterodox. If you had to press them to answer questions, they would come up with a psychological reason to make you believe that they had a valid reason. Moreover, they will point their fingers and blame everything on conservatives and traditionalists who they describe as “intolerant,” “regressive,” “antiquated” and “stuck in the past.”
The third segment encapsulates the conservative catholics. The conservative response is analogous to the conservative or Neo-conservative Catholic mentality. In yet another coping mechanism, the conservative catholics are quite loyal and virtuous, but they still might have some blind spots. They never blame themselves so they have to blame someone. Over time, these Catholics either become spiteful of traditional Catholics or adopt liberal positions of their own, or both. How many times have we ever come across an apologist who says that something will never happen and that the pope will never do something like it. But when this worst nightmare of his comes true, he blames the traditional Catholics, describing them as schismatics and heretical for not understanding “Amoris Laetitia.” One thus wonders if there are truly Conservative Catholics, since they like to move the goalposts to where it is convenient and like to play with definitions of words like neo-modernist.
The final segment encapsulates the Traditional Catholics, or the Traditionalists. In societal terms, this is the person who will not be swayed and who has no problem calling a spade, a spade. Traditional Catholics will never go along with the changes that will make them bow to evil and what is wrong. Of course, they are labelled in many ways: they are called hateful, hard-headed, and regressive, among other labelling. Instead, they are the ones who truly care. They are often the victims of gaslighting and detraction from all sides. In the Church the traditional Catholics are the TLM hold-out. They are not perfect, and they occasionally let their temper and zeal for tradition get the best out of them, but they are always correct, even if they can’t always express themselves correctly. They know how the Church should be and how it should not be, even if the Conservatives and Liberals try some Hegelian and Chardinian jiujitsu to prove them wrong.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberals won’t play in the sandbox with the Traditionalists. Instead, Traditionalists are thrown stones from the other two.
The only issue and danger that the Traditionalists face is if they allow their anger to turn into hate or spite which is a weak point on which the Liberals and the Conservatives love to tap on and pounce on. Often, traditionalists’ anger is only a way of denigrating the whole enterprise and the enemies of tradition like to go after this weakness so to discredit it and make it look toxic.
The four divisions in Catholicism: the Runaways, the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Traditionalists
In Catholicism, there is a division that can be said to be divided into four segments: the runaways, the liberal Catholics, the conservative Catholics, and the traditional Catholics.
We start with the runaways. We all know that the Church has witnessed an exodus of Catholics because of the Second Ecumenical Council. Vatican II was received as a massive trauma for Catholics because the religion that was important before now wasn’t; the liturgy that was sacred before now wasn’t; and because Catholics, who were never Protestants, suddenly became so. So, Catholics felt that they were lied to and deceived. They saw their cathecism swept away in a Pauline instant, and the family and the family values were never the same again.
The second segment is those Catholics who give the ‘liberal’ response, that is, the liberal Catholics. Those are the Catholics who embrace change with joy in order to cope because they fear leaving or losing being part of the church. There is a good portion of Catholics who are liberal Catholics. While being adamant about their Catholicism and while one wonders why they don’t simply leave the Church, they are completely heterodox. If you had to press them to answer questions, they would come up with a psychological reason to make you believe that they had a valid reason. Moreover, they will point their fingers and blame everything on conservatives and traditionalists who they describe as “intolerant,” “regressive,” “antiquated” and “stuck in the past.”
The third segment encapsulates the conservative catholics. The conservative response is analogous to the conservative or Neo-conservative Catholic mentality. In yet another coping mechanism, the conservative catholics are quite loyal and virtuous, but they still might have some blind spots. They never blame themselves so they have to blame someone. Over time, these Catholics either become spiteful of traditional Catholics or adopt liberal positions of their own, or both. How many times have we ever come across an apologist who says that something will never happen and that the pope will never do something like it. But when this worst nightmare of his comes true, he blames the traditional Catholics, describing them as schismatics and heretical for not understanding “Amoris Laetitia.” One thus wonders if there are truly Conservative Catholics, since they like to move the goalposts to where it is convenient and like to play with definitions of words like neo-modernist.
The final segment encapsulates the Traditional Catholics, or the Traditionalists. In societal terms, this is the person who will not be swayed and who has no problem calling a spade, a spade. Traditional Catholics will never go along with the changes that will make them bow to evil and what is wrong. Of course, they are labelled in many ways: they are called hateful, hard-headed, and regressive, among other labelling. Instead, they are the ones who truly care. They are often the victims of gaslighting and detraction from all sides. In the Church the traditional Catholics are the TLM hold-out. They are not perfect, and they occasionally let their temper and zeal for tradition get the best out of them, but they are always correct, even if they can’t always express themselves correctly. They know how the Church should be and how it should not be, even if the Conservatives and Liberals try some Hegelian and Chardinian jiujitsu to prove them wrong.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberals won’t play in the sandbox with the Traditionalists. Instead, Traditionalists are thrown stones from the other two.
The only issue and danger that the Traditionalists face is if they allow their anger to turn into hate or spite which is a weak point on which the Liberals and the Conservatives love to tap on and pounce on. Often, traditionalists’ anger is only a way of denigrating the whole enterprise and the enemies of tradition like to go after this weakness so to discredit it and make it look toxic.