The Young Trad Priests and the Angry Boomers

a commentary on that ridiculous AP article

If there’s an article sweeping through Catholic news, I typically get sent it sooner than it floats across my newsfeed. Especially one that heavily features Madison, Wisconsin, my hometown. But this time, I was in New York for a work trip and didn’t see the piece that has everyone up in arms until two days later.

The offending piece: ‘A step back in time': America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

Friend, let me tell you something: I hated this article. I thought it was ridiculous.

My hatred isn’t necessarily about any one group or parish or organization named, or even about the AP or the specific writer. It’s more about the very specific sore spot this article aggravated: the media and the world-at-large’s obsessive need to thrust everything they see into liberal and conservative boxes, stoking culture wars with pokers while having no idea about the ideologies of the institutions they’re talking about.

Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I have a three hour layover and you are about to be subjected to my sore spot’s pain points.

First, let’s have a very brief summary of the article’s claims:

(This is not a sum total of everything the very long article said. If I left out something essential, mea culpa. These are the highlights as I read them.)

• In Madison, my hometown, a fairly-trad priest was put in a fairly-liberal parish and much tension ensued. (When this happened, it was pretty dramatic—I remember.)

• The article claims that “the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.”

• It goes on to say that a tide of young, orthodox Catholics are searching for more orthodoxy, which is putting them at odds with Boomers + the Pope. One boomer says that the young trads are basically waiting for the boomers “to die”.

• It describes the trads with “four, five, or even more children” (💀) who are veiling and looking for a more “ethereal” experience

• Essentially, it returns the refrain over and over again of how Vatican 2 brought wonderful changes like “barely mentioning Confession” and now the trads are returning to these outdated customs

• Some hip, online Catholics are deceptively orthodox, like Sr. Miriam James and Fr. Mike Schmitz

• My favorite line: “You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?’” said another ex-parishioner at St. Maria Goretti, whose family eventually left the church, describing the 2021 promotion of a new pastor, and A SUDDEN FOCUS ON SIN AND CONFESSION.

• The article describes Benedictine College in Kansas as having explosive growth, and paints it as a place that’s very difficult for more liberal-minded students to attend.

I am so tired of large media organizations displaying a profound ignorance about the structure, beliefs, and thought processes of the modern Catholic church.

And I am so tired of people who would stomp their feet and pout when reminded that our church has, like, rules.

All of this, and—I did see a couple of valid points in this article.

It’s really hard when a place you love shifts, morphs, or changes.

I say this from personal experience. I’ve been a member of groups that I loved, and seen them go through hard transitions. When not done carefully—or even when done with the upmost care and love!—such a change can leave you feeling isolated and wondering if a space is really for you anymore. That’s really, really difficult.

As a missionary, I can tell you without a doubt that I could have been more careful about this. I stomped into college Catholic centers with the swagger of a mish who’d spent all of five weeks learning about scripture and hoo-boy, watch out. I knew our structure was the best model and yours was wrong and if you didn’t agree, you needed to be more teachable, damnit. I very (very!) recently had a priest friend tell me, as gently as he could, that my response of “well, I would just change that because I’m the pastor and I’m in charge” was one of about 18 reasons I should never be a pastor.

Yes: some more trad-minded Catholics are Andrew Tate-following jerk faces who are more interested in power than sanctification, and care way too much about musical tastes or aesthetics.

Yes: Latin Mass is not necessary for your souls’s salvation and people who claim Masses in English are invalid are incorrect.

Yes: American parishes are shrinking.

Yes: many Catholics could really use a course on trauma responses and understand the way mental health interacts with faith.

Yes, AND: I hated this article with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.