TRADITIONALISM AND ORTHODOXY—THE TWO DON’T NECESSARILY GO TOGETHER

Eric Sammons writes this (copied from a longer commentary HERE):

 How has (traditional Catholicism) changed for the better? In many ways, traditional Catholicism has become more accepted, more normalized. Whereas for a long time traditionalism was a fringe movement within the Church, now traditionalists are part of the wider Church in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. Young Catholics in particular don’t look askance at traditionalism, and in fact they often embrace it in disproportionate numbers.

But how has traditional Catholicism changed for the worse? It’s become more internally divided. Perhaps that was inevitable. Success bred complacency, and Francis’s death removed the common focal point. There’s no question in my mind that there’s far more infighting among traditionalists today than five years ago. Under Francis, there was a unifying force among traditionalists: resisting the anti-traditional agenda of the Argentine pope. Now, however, with Pope Leo, there are real disagreements among traditional voices as to how to best proceed

My comments:

I see myself as an orthodox Catholic and priest. That means that I am obedient to the Church and her popes and bishops even if I dislike this, that or the other in terms of discipline and change. 

While I loved the option of having two forms of the one Roman Rite freely allowed, it isn’t anymore. I dislike that but as an orthodox priest, I am obedient to the new rules. 

I see that both forms could have benefited from cross-fertilization leading to a new single Roman Missal. But for the time being that isn’t on the table anymore. 

I embraced Summorum Pontificum in a literal way, meaning the Bugnini Mass is the normal, regular, ordinary Mass of the Roman Rite while the 1962 Missal and ancillary liturgies are not the usual, ordinary or regular liturgies of the Roman Rite—these are out of the ordinary, the exception not the rule.

I am not opposed to girls and women allowed to serve the altar, distribute Holy Communion and read the Scriptures. And I accept and wish that the formal ministries of lector and acolyte for adults become the norm and those who serve these without benefit of these official ministries would be suppressed.

I would love to see the Order of the 1962 Mass be an option for the Bugnini Mass to include ad orientem and kneeling for Holy Communion—those two things should not be viewed with suspicion by clergy or laity, to include popes and bishops. 

I would love to see the changing parts of the 1962 Mass celebrated in the vernacular as an option and the Liturgy of the Word, using the 1962 lectionary, offered as in the Bugnini Mass and with lay lectors, male or female—the same for altar servers. 

All of this makes me orthodox not heterodox and that is the distinction that everyone should embrace be they on the right or the left, traditionalists or revisionists. Always orthodoxy seeking unity and never heterodoxy pouring gasoline on disunity.