Responding to the Claim that Trads are Toxic and Divisive

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Since the release of Pope Francis’ recent moto proprio which severely restricts access to the Tridentine Mass or the Traditional Latin mass, there has been quite a bit of commentary about either the injustice or the necessity of this new arrangement.

I’ve already shared some of my own thoughts on it and so have others with a sympathetic view, but I I’ve also heard some, not the least of which is Pope Francis himself, express the need for this because of the toxic and dissenting elements within Traditional Catholicism that forced his hand for the sake of “unity”.

And of course, this is a valid concern. There are elements within Traditional Catholicism that promote disunity and disobedience, although I think the perception of such currents is highly overstated. I understand how people can develop that perception based on online interactions, but the internet tends to amplify more quarrelsome voices because controversy sells and the internet is dominated by whatever can hold our attention longest.

But, none the less, I do admit that you will encounter people in traditional communities at a Latin mass or a gathering of such people who can be hard to tolerate because of how assertive and even condescending they can be towards anything or anyone who deviates from their understanding of the faith.

A more recent example of this, for me, was when I rewatched a live stream I did on this topic last week and took a glance at the live chat replay. Frankly, I was a bit embarrassed by some of the comments that were appearing there.

And that forced me to confront this question: is this the kind of mentality that I want to encourage or attract? Because my channel has been shifting more and more traditional over time as I have done so personally. But sometimes I feel the need to take an inventory of how things are developing for me personally.

Which raises the question – why can traditionalists be so cantankerous, angry, and what some might call “toxic”? A comprehensive analysis of that question should offer a few explanations, but I’d like to focus on one that I haven’t heard discussed before.

Which is that traditionalists, for better or worse, strongly believe what they do and aren’t afraid to assert it. And this is actually a virtue but it appears to us to be rude or confrontational because modern decorum has impressed on us, unless we’re a “visible minority”, to never assert our beliefs or interests.

We’re supposed to be agnostic or at least, keep our strongly held opinions to ourselves – or if we must share them, do so in a somewhat self-deprecating way. We’re supposed to say things like, “this is my opinion, but it might not be right.”

GK Chesterton, I think, rightly said that this habit is entirely irrational. If you say that it might be wrong, you are saying that it is not your opinion. All you’re doing is reciting an opinion that is out there, but if you don’t actually believe it to be correct, then you are admitting that you don’t believe it, and therefore, that it is not your opinion at all.

The reason we say this is because of a weak-minded fear that we may have to account for our beliefs when they are challenged, so we use these kinds of wishy washy disclaimers as an escape route in case conflict arises.

In short, it’s because we lack fortitude to first, take a stand on an issue, and truly stand there. We’re afraid of the risks and responsibility. We’re afraid that we may actually have to do some research to know the truth of a thing that doesn’t come as easily as listening to the first bit of a podcast before we get distracted by something other trivial thing.

And when someone truly takes a stand on something and is unshakeable from that position, it feels like a confrontation. It directs a mirror on our own lack of fortitude so that we can see it for what it is – cowardice, indifference, and laziness.

The reason we have a tougher time encountering this kind of unshakeable confidence in mainstream Catholic parishes, is because there is a much larger rate of indifference and lukewarmness in those parishes.

I don’t mean to say that is the fault of those parishes necessarily, but when you are a big tent, you tend to attract a lot of everybody and unfortunately, most people today, in every walk of life, are just floating down the stream of indifference.

And it’s easy to mistake indifference for being laid back or “chill” when really it’s just laziness and apathy. And that should be a concern for Catholics because there’s this passage in Holy Scripture that says that God would prefer us to be either hot or cold. That what he hates most of all, is lukewarmness. He hates it so much that he uses the imagery of vomiting the lukewarm out.

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