What do you mean when you say you are a “traditional” Catholic?
The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ almost twenty centuries ago. But even before the time of our Lord on earth-literally since the beginning of mankind-God had made His presence felt in human history, revealing Himself to Adam and Eve, and to men like Noe, Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets. Progressively, He made His truth and His moral expectations known to mankind-finally sending His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ to establish His Church, the mechanism by which we all may know what He expects us to believe, how He expects us to behave, and how we are to worship Him.
Traditional Catholics are simply those who continue to observe our Lord’s wishes to the best of their abilities. We believe that, in those things about which God has revealed His will, it is positively wrong to defer instead to some sort of politically correct consensus-to what the “great minds,” or the “great religions” or the “vast majority” feel to be good or bad at this moment in time. God’s eternal truth and goodness are not subject to change, and certainly not to revision by human beings-yet many in the modern world are trying to do just that-as Saint Paul predicted they would:
For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own lusts they will heap up to them selves teachers, having itching ears, and will turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables (2 Timothy 4: 3-4).
Can anyone honestly say that Saint Paul’s prophecy has not been fulfilled? One needs only to read the newspapers to find reports of men in the highest positions of authority being rewarded for preaching and doing things for which their predecessors of past centuries would have punished them with lifelong imprisonment or even death.
The “gates of hell shall not prevail against” the Catholic Church (Matthew 16). Some day God will raise up holy men to repair the damage caused by ignoring His will. But, until then, the “itching ears” will prevail in the same climate of moral and doctrinal indifference. What can good Catholics do in the mean time?
The traditional answer is that virtually everything needed to be a good Catholic already exists in the official pronouncements of the Magisterium (the Church’s supreme authority for teaching matters of faith and morals). The First Vatican Council tells us that such pronouncements are “irreformable”-because they are expressions of divine truth-they cannot change. When someone claiming to be in authority makes statements that try to change the already defined doctrines of the Catholic Faith, he is preaching the “fables” that Paul predicted, and ought to resisted. Baptized and Confirmed Catholics are, after all, “soldiers of Christ”-with a responsibility to profess and defend the Catholic Faith.
Catholics do not worship in synagogues, mosques, temples, or Protestant churches-nor do they worship with those who do. We do not seek to dissolve long term marriages blessed by children, the sole primary reason for being married. We do not sanction perverted or abusive relationships which violate the holy function of matrimony. We do not worship in an air of casual disrespect and constant innovation, phrased in politically correct language, that caters to the social whims of the congregation and non-believers, while ignoring the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Real Presence of our Lord. We do not do these things because we have been warned against them through sacred Scripture and Tradition under the guidance of the unchanging Magisterium of the Church. We have the great and holy Apostles, Fathers, Doctors, and Popes of the Catholic Church as our unfailing guides.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema…. I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema (Saint Paul to the Galatians 1: 8-9).
Today there are traditional Catholic churches in many of the cities of the world. All though not well organized, there are a fair number of priests and bishops who keep the “faith of our fathers.” The old can re-learn and the young can learn what the Church has consistently taught in matters of faith and morals over the centuries, and can reverently worship God as Catholics have done for centuries in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We urge you to contact the traditional Catholic group whose name and address you will find at the back of this pamphlet. Come and visit us-and remember that no question that you have should go unanswered.
What Are We to Do?
In human terms the situation in the Church and secular society is extremely grave. God’s law is followed in terribly few places indeed, having been replaced by a mania to find consensus on all issues, while offending no one, no matter how bizarre their opinions-no one, that is, except God. Human efforts to deal with the problem will not be adequate, so we must seek a solution from God Himself. The first line of action must be a return to prayer. That means a return to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to the recitation of the Rosary, and to other traditional forms of prayer. To be successful it must also include the general attitude of prayer throughout the day, recognizing our dependence on God. And do not distain the assistance of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the angels, and the saints-nor fail to pray for the souls in purgatory, who will in turn not fail to pray for our needs on earth.
Related to prayer is personal holiness. It is not enough to place our problems before God if we are unwilling to live our lives in a way consistent with the restoration of order for which we pray. To be good Catholics we must resolve to live life in the state of sanctifying grace-to keep God’s Commandments to the best of our ability, to make a frequent sacramental Confession of our failures to keep them, and to receive the spiritual nourishment of frequent (daily if possible) Holy Communion. Remember that you are a temple of the Holy Ghost-God wants to dwell in your soul if you will but let Him.
Finally, we must strive to know our Faith to the best of our ability. Some will do better in this than others, but no one should accept the mentality, fostered by modern education and the mass media, which conditions people to expect to be told what to believe without any analysis of their own. Catholicism has a many-centuries old tradition of being a reasonable religion. We have the obligation to know our Faith well enough to receive (and even to demand) reasonable explanations from Church and civic leaders as to why things are being done as they are. And those explanations ought to be in keeping with what God demands of us-not with what some committee has decided will keep everyone happier, or bring us into closer relations with the pagans.
Is the Problem Real?
No doubt there are people who will say that nothing is really wrong, that things are just “changing with the times” and that “we must be prepared to change or be left behind.” This is patently absurd, for God does not change, and neither does His truth nor His morality. Science and technology may teach us more about the world God created, but they do not create a new world in its place-they may teach us new ways to sin, but can never justify doing so.
Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration (James 1:17).
