by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

French Translation

I have been on the internet since 1991, so I have seen a lot of characters, games, tricks and modus operandi. And since all the fraudsters out there are mostly johnny-come-latelies, they lash out at anyone who recognizes them for that they are.

But the longest scam I have seen so far, is that of those who claim to be Traditional Catholics but who are nothing of the kind.

I make this stark declaration, because I know what the Church has always taught and how the Saints have comported themselves, because from my youth I have read the documents of the Magisterium and the lives and writings of the Saints.

And the first rule, by which they all say, a Catholic can rightfully and accurately detect falsehood or fraud in our Holy Religion is this: novelty.

That is, if anyone is promoting a new way of living or doing or observing the Catholic Faith, it is nearly always of the Devil or of crass ignorance, and not of God.

The Traditional Movement is for the most part, of this kind. (Here I use “most part” as regards numbers)

Fake Traditionalism

This Movement is lead by false pretenders to the name, because they are all involved in grave novelties, even though they proclaim and advertise themselves as traditional.

Nearly all of these bad apples are modernists, for this reason, because they justify their novelty as the current correct interpretation of past Catholic beliefs and practices. But if you point out that Catholics of the past actually did not act as they are acting, they will insist that the past way of acting is not possible.

To understand this better it would be best to list the errors of modernism which they hold:

1. That private judgement is a sufficient basis to claim that anything is true or right.
2. That Catholics have the moral obligation to take as their leaders those who are most consistent in adhering to private judgement.
3. That Catholics have no real obligation to act within the canonical order of the Church’s laws, when this conflicts with private judgement.
4. That prayers and rituals are acceptable to God only when they are offered by those who adhere to private judgement.

These are the 4 principles that Modernists and nearly all Traditionalists live by. And that Traditionalists live by the same principles as Modernists shows that they are not really Traditional Catholics, but Modernists of a different flavor.

Traditionalism is also a heresy condemned at the First Vatican Council. Thus, anyone who would even want to take that word to name themselves, has a problem.  Traditionalism is the heresy which says all truth comes from tradition. Such a definitive error wants that no truth comes from Divine Revelation or Ecclesiastical Authority, nor from human investigation through a right use of the intellect.

Traditionalism leads to private judgement and the errors I have listed above, because since all those who are dead cannot tell us what they did or held, it is the field of private judgement to say what they would say and make it a rule for the present.

Authentic Catholicism is Traditional in another way

Authentic Catholicism is traditional by its very origin, since our Holy Faith was revealed by Jesus Christ Our God to the Apostles, and handed down by them to the whole Church. Part of this Apostolic Tradition established the Sacred Hierarchy with the authority to interpret and protect the Deposit of the Faith.

The Catholic Faith does not change, that is, does not undergo alteration. Those whose faith, which was once Catholic, but which undergoes alteration, believe things different than that which was handed down from of old.

This is why Pope Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum declares that what the Church once did, can never be outlawed.

But Catholics of old did not just go to Mass or receive the Sacraments. They also obeyed their superiors and reproved them privately and publicly.

The Church has canonical procedures for condemning heresy and putting back into canonical order the Church: Synods, Provincial Councils and Ecumenical Councils.

Larping on Social Media is not one of them. Claiming to be persecuted is not one of them. Auto-justifying your own private schism is not one of them.

Thus Sedevacantism and large parts of the so-called Traditional Catholic Movement, by the very fact that they jettison every intention to observe Canon Law or remain in ecclesiastical communion, by this declare themselves to be NOT traditional.

Catholics who are truly concerned with the salvation of souls do not act this way. They organize and collaborate among themselves to correct problems in the Church. And you won’t find them among the Catholic Grifter Collective, which only wants to lament and collect money for themselves, and who are incensed most of all that anyone would dare correct the problems, without which they could not continue to grift on Social Media.

True Catholics are always traditional. They do not seek to break from ecclesiastical communion, and they actually do speak with and lobby their superiors, with charity, to get problems corrected. They are persistent and work with others. And they do not do it for the sake of fame or personal enrichment, but only for the salvation of souls.

In modern times, this authentic catholic spirit is much lacking, because we live in an age with excessive centralization, such that nearly no one knows how to defend their rights or those of the entire community, in  Catholic way.

We need to relearn these things. But the Clergy need to do so especially.