Traditional Roman Catholicism

This group has a shared pattern of consumption and dress & blends with the TradWife & Homeschooling subcultures. They claim to be the “true church” but they are living in a very specific way. They idolize only certain things of the past, and they pick & choose certain things to purchase and focus on. The fashion tends to be the same, such as the mantilla or certain “modesty” dresses from specific websites. They pray a rosary daily, go to “first Saturdays”, and tend to have large vans with many children. They do not think of themselves as a subculture, and are therefore ignorant & pretentious, as if the “Catholic Church” ever had shared patterns of consumption, culture, or dress. This is largely an American phenomenon, where subculture hopping is a thing.

Focus

Traditional Catholicism exists for this reason: they look at The Church in the pre-modern world, and compare it with the modern church, and they say that these are two different religions. However, there has never been agreement on when the change happened. For Traditional Roman Catholics (CMRI, SSPX, ICKSP, FSSP, etc.) they tend to focus on Vatican II, so they often hold to a certain practice & aesthetic that existed in the 1950s (the exact cutoff is debated among groups) and this is the practice they hold to.

Cult Leaders

The traditional Catholic movement would not exist except that certain charismatic leaders (bishops, priests, and laymen) helped to start the movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, by quote mining & appealing to emotions. Some of the earliest cult leaders who helped to shape what the movement became:

• Francis Schuckardt, a Catholic layman from Seattle who went on speaking tours and eventually gathered a group around himself in Coeur d’Alene, ID. He convinced many people to move to North Idaho, eventually buying numerous properties. He was made an independent bishop through an Old Catholic line of priests. Schuckardt was eventually found out to be an abuser, addict, and unstable, and the final break happened on June 3, 1984. Schuckardt moved to the Seattle area with a small group of followers. He died in 2006 and is buried in Seattle. Other members of the original group took over the CMRI name, costumes, and properties and they continue to this day.
  • The CMRI was initially led by a Jesuit, Father Burton Fraser, S.J. He was exposed as an abuser.
  • The CMRI in the early days also worked with Fr. Joseph Pineau, who was also accused of abuse around 1967. This was only exposed after he died. 
  • One of their original priests (Fr. Clement C. Kubesh ) moved from Nebraska in June 1971 with some people to join the CMRI cult. My guess is he became disaffected with the group in the 1980s, and then had nowhere to go since he’d cut ties with the main church. He was buried in Coeur d’Alene Memorial Gardens (at the back towards the chapel). Why he’s buried in a non-Catholic cemetery is a mystery, only the insiders know what he isn’t buried in a Catholic cemetery.
  • Bp. George Musey was working with them in 1984. Bp. Musey told them to disband, but the remaining people refused, since they’d set up a nice cult compound with followers, so they weren’t going to give all this up.
  • A book written in 2014 exposes that a nun at the boarding school was sexually abusing girls, but that the Bishop & other nuns wanted to cover it up in order to protect the CMRI. I believe this crime happened in the 1990s

So for example, in the 1960s and 1970s, many of the personalities involved in the Traditional Catholic movement would search papal documents to find just the quotes they needed to prove their opinions. They would only use those quotes & scholarship that proved their specific group, while ignoring others. So for example, the sedevacantists use opinions that show that all the popes since 1958 have made heretical statements, therefore can’t be pope, so the “true church” should hold to the practices of 1958 indefinitely so long as this situation persists. Other groups have different opinions, with various ties to The Vatican.

Disaffected Priests – CMRI

I was part of the group for a few years, but even in that time I became aware of numerous CMRI clergy who have left, or are living on their own and don’t go to a CMRI chapel anymore.

• Fr. Anthony Short was a CMRI priest who went to the minor and major seminaries, and became a priest. He become totally disaffected with the CMRI for how bad the families are and how corrupt the group is, that left to join a group of families in Minnesota. He seems to have a good and innocent heart and wants to do the right thing, although I think his criticism of Catholicism doesn’t go deep enough
• Rev. Dominic Crawford left to join Fr. Anthony Short in Minnesota for similar reasons, but with a focus on Baptism of Desire & NFP. I don’t think he goes far enough with his criticism, so I don’t agree with him.
• Fr. Julian Gilchrist, who knows his reasons. He says Mass privately in a house in Coeur d’Alene where his parents live. I think he’s a citizen of New Zealand. I think he doesn’t like their position towards the SSPX, so he’s given permission to just say Mass in a house? I don’t understand the logic.
• There’s a priest who is trying to start a boys camp somewhere in North Idaho. He doesn’t go to any of the CMRI chapels
• Fr. Louis left Mt. St. Michael to get married
• Fr. Dunphy (?) was ordained a priest, and now just lives in a trailer on his family’s property on Church Rd. in Rathdrum. I don’t think he ever goes to the CMRI church, but I heard he does visit CMRI.

Aesthetics

While these people claim to be the “true church” they have in reality chosen a very specific aesthetic that was popular among certain Americans in the 1950s, and they have made this into what people expect. The cult leaders of the various movements are sure to provide this aesthetic, as the people have come to expect it:

• Priestly costume, often with a focus on the “fiddleback chausuble” even though scholarship has shown that vestments themselves were a creation centuries after the church was founded

The Mass

The central focus for Traditional Roman Catholicism is Sunday Mass. Some will go to daily Mass, but the Sunday morning Mass is far more important. Here are some points to note:

• Men are encouraged to wear a suit and tie, even though this is no more than a costume popular in the early 20th century. The main churches began avoiding this costume around the 1970s, and it had largely faded into obscurity in the wider culture by the 2000s. It’s still the traditional costume of lawyers, so you’ll normally only see this in congress or a courthouse.
• Women are encouraged to wear a full-length skirt or dress and to wear a mantilla. The Catholics don’t realize they’re simply copying a style that the Spanish colonizers had brought to America in the 16th & 16th centuries. There’s nothing eternal about the mantilla, but it’s part of their uniform.
• Hand missals. These become popular in the early 20th century & faded from use by mid-century, so it was only a practice in the Catholic Church for about 50 years. However, since Trad Cats idolize all things 1950s, they have adopted for all time this habit that just happened to be popular at that time period. Many people buy older missals (e.g. New Marian Missals) although there are Trad Cat publishers that are catering to this niche group.

Confession

Protestants had begun to criticize the specific methods of Roman Catholic confession hundreds of years ago. A summary of much of the research was published in 1896, “A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church” by Henry Charles Lea. Of course Trad Cats will never read this stuff, so it’s hopeless. New converts to Traditional Catholicism also have never heard another perspective, and they’ve only ever seen a caricature of opponents (e.g. liberal Lutherans, Charismatics, Republican Evangelicals, etc.). Some points to note:

• For the early centuries of a church, only two methods were known for forgiveness of sins: confession directly to God & confession in front of the congregation. Confession to a priest was unknown.
• The concept of private confession to a priest was first introduced in the 4th century during the mass conversion of the Roman Empire to Orthodoxy. At this time, confession was also done directly to God or publicly in front of everyone. However, not everyone recognized confession to a priest, such as St. Augustine who fails to mention confession to a priest for forgiveness of sins
• Prior to the 12th century, only bishops were thought to have the permission to forgive sins. In the 12th century, the power of the keys were added to priestly ordination formulas.
• The concept of confession to a priest in a box weekly as the only way to forgive mortal sins is a practice of modern times. This never existed in the early church.
• The practice of children confessing to a priest at age 7 prior to receiving First Communion is a practice from Pius X in the 20th century. No child even went to confession prior to this, confession had always been a practice for adults.