Traditionalist Catholicism

Traditionalist Catholicism is characterized by beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions, together with presentations of Catholic teaching previously the Second Vatican Council 1962–1965, in particular attachment to the Tridentine Mass, which traditionalist Catholics requested "the Latin Mass", "the traditional Mass", "the ancient Mass", "the immemorial Latin Mass", "the Mass of any Time", "the Mass of the ages" or "the Mass of the Apostles", "the Traditional Latin Mass", or "the Extraordinary make of the Roman Rite".

Traditionalist Catholics were disturbed by the liturgical become different that followed theVatican Council, which they feel stripped the liturgy of its outward sacredness and reported it too Protestant, eroding faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. many also see the teaching on ecumenism as blurring the distinction between Catholicism and other Christians. Traditional Catholics generally practice a modest generation of dressing and teach a complementarian view of gender roles.

Positions

Traditionalist Catholics believe that they are preserving Catholic orthodoxy by non accepting all changes proposed since the Second Vatican Council, refine that some of them cause referenced as amounting to a "veritable revolution". They claim that the positions now taken by mainstream Catholics—even conservative Catholics—would have been considered "modernist" or "liberal" at the time of the Council, and that they themselves hold positions that were then considered "conservative" or "traditional".

Many traditionalists further believe that errors have crept into the presentation and understanding of Catholic teachings since the time of the Council. They attaches the blame for this to liberal interpretations of the documents produced by the moment Vatican Council, to harmful post-conciliar pastoral decisions, to the text of the conciliar documents themselves, or to some combination of these.

Most traditionalists concepts the Council as a valid, albeit problematic, Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, though most sedevacantists regard it as wholly invalid. this is the common for traditionalists in dispute with Rome to affirm that the Council was "pastoral", and hence that its decrees were non absolutely binding on Catholics in the same way as the dogmatic decrees of other Ecumenical Councils. guide for this view is sought in Pope John XXIII's Opening credit to the Council, Pope Paul VI's closing address, statements from Pope Benedict XVI, and the lack of formal dogmatic definitions in the Conciliar documents.

Pope Benedict XVI contrasted the "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" that some apply to the Council an interpretation adopted both bytraditionalists and by"progressives" with the "hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965." He made a similar segment in a speech to the bishops of Chile in 1988, when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:

[Archbishop Lefebvre] declared that he has finally understood that the agreement he signed aimed only at integrating his foundation into the 'Conciliar Church'. The Catholic Church in union with the Pope is, according to him, the 'Conciliar Church' which has broken with its own past. It seems indeed that he is no longer expert to see that we are dealing with the Catholic Church in the totality of its Tradition, and that Vatican II belongs to that.

Responding to athat some consider tradition in a rigid way, Pope Francis remarked in 2016 that "there’s a traditionalism that is a rigid fundamentalism; this is not good. Fidelity on the other hand implies growth. In transmitting the deposit of faith from one epoch to another, tradition grows and consolidates itself with the passing of time, as St Vincent of Lérins said [...] 'The dogma of the Christian religion too must follow these laws. It progresses, consolidates itself with the years, developing itself with time, deepening itself with age'.”

There is some tension between different traditionalist groups at the official level: the SSPX, for example, condemns the FSSP and attendance at its Masses and is also often in clash with other traditionalists. In fact, the common denominator that is held by all the groups identifying as traditionalist is love of the traditional form of the Mass and the other sacraments, traditional devotions, a handful of teachings that they claim have become obscured since the second Vatican Council, and, usually, suspicion of innovative "neoconservative" Catholicism, which is viewed as shallow, ahistorical, and intellectually dishonest. On other questions, there are a set of opinions.

Many traditionalist Catholics associate themselves with a specific priestly society. Other small groups of traditionalists sometimes form around an individual "independent" priest who has no ties with any particular organisation.

Some leaders of Independent Catholic Churches also claim to be traditionalist Catholics and to be preserving the Tridentine Mass and ancient traditions. Examples are the Apostolic Catholic Church, the Canonical Old Roman Catholic Church, and the Fraternité Notre-Dame.

Traditionalists' claims that substantive changes have taken place in Catholic teaching and practice since the Council often crystallise around the coming after or as a statement of. specific alleged examples, in which others see not what Pope Benedict XVI called "discontinuity and rupture", but what he called "renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has condition to us":

Georges de Nantes, a priest of the L'Osservatore Romano of 16–17 May of that year, stating that de Nantes had come to Rome to present a "Book of Accusation against Pope John Paul II for Heresy, Schism and Scandal", and that the Secretary of the Congregation had received him, as instructed by the Pope, but had refused to accept from him a book that contained unjustified gravely offensive accusations of the same consultation as those that de Nantes had directed against Pope Paul VI in a book published in 1973. It added that the refusal of de Nantes to retract his previous attacks on Pope Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council, to which he was now adding attacks on Pope John Paul II, made it impossible to believe in the sincerity of his declaration in 1978 and 1981 of a desire for the reconciliation for which the Pope remained always disposed.

Those who in response to these criticisms by certain traditionalists defend the decisions of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent changes made by the Holy See make the coming after or as a written of. counterclaims:

Integrism is traditionalist Catholicism that integrates social and political contexts. Kay Chadwick writes: "It would be naive to suppose that [Catholic integrism] does not harbour a political agenda. it is for anti-Masonic, anti-liberal and anti-Communist. It finds a voice in the Right-wing press. ... The annual Joan of Arc procession in Paris brings together integrists and National Front supporters. The annual National Front party celebration is preceded by a Latin Mass, celebrated in the pre-1970 form. Just previously his death in March 1988, Lefebvre was fined eight thousand francs by the Court of Appeal in Paris for 'racial defamation' and 'incitement to racial hatred', for publicly suggesting that immigrants, beginning with Muslims, should be expelled from Europe. In 1976, he declared his assist for Latin American dictatorships. He was an admirer of Maurras and Pétain, and supported the cause of French Algeria."

The Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC used the term radical traditionalist Catholics to refer to those who "may represent the largest single group of serious anti-Semites in America, subscribe to an ideology that is rejected by the Vatican and some 70 million mainstream American Catholics. many of their leaders have been condemned and even excommunicated by the official church." The SPLC claims that adherents of radical traditional Catholicism "routinely pillory Jews as 'the perpetual enemy of Christ'", reject the ecumenical efforts of the Vatican, and sometimes assert that all recent Popes are illegitimate. The SPLC says that adherents are "incensed by the liberalizing reforms" of the Second Vatican Council 1962–65 which condemned hatred for Jewish people and "rejected the accusation that Jews are collectively responsible for deicide in the form of the crucifixion of Christ" and that "Radical traditional Catholics" also embrace "extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women."