I agree with most of this. I didn't mean to apply it to all trads, just a big number. If you've never experienced what I'm talking about then God bless. And also of course I think Traditional Catholicism should permeate every aspect of your life
Trad culture I think is pretty self-explanatory, go to any big trad parish and you'll notice a distinct subculture quite beyond just believing and practicing the Faith, just like goths or Italo-Americans have their own subculture.
Where I would push back is against what I have bolded:
1. This can be taken in good meaning and that's the one I presume, but it often doesn't, the concepts of pre-Vatican II discipline, modesty, gentlemanliness, ladylikeness, maturity, masculinity, femininity, scandal, fitingness, apropiateness, etc. get used as social conformity and peer pressure tools rather than their genuine meaning as general and broad principles and concepts that can be quite divorced from their mid-20th century American and European expressions or from their current "trad" expressions.
2. Modernism and modern are not the same, who says we should root out every modern thing? From a Catholic perspective, why is Mozart acceptable but not Skrillex, outside of "one is old"? Modernity as we know it started arguably in the the industrial revolution, or if you want to, you can say Vatican II. Should we ignore every cultural product produced after then? Why, per Catholic doctrine?
3. That's exactly what I'm pushing back against, a suit is only the ideal of trad culture, not of Traditional Catholicism. It's like how wearing a green shirt could the ideal of the meetings of the Chicago Irish-American Club. Now that's fine for a club, but it's not fine to turn the Faith into a social club / clique and conflate it into that, so that if you break the rules of the social club / clique, you're treated as breaking the Faith.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. In some areas, trads have fallen into the error of equating culture with doctrine to the point where they are inseparable in their minds. A glaring example of this is found among the Old Order Amish. There are sadly many instances of groups of Amish who condemn one another based on adopting things as minor (to outsider eyes) as differing hat brim widths, women’s waistband widths, the cut of the sleeves on little girls’ aprons. There are entire church splits over use of Coleman lamps rather than confining lighting to kerosene and wick lamps. Families are separated in many of these. An example is of a community that decided to allow motorized stationary balers because of the large acreage on farms. They were an offshoot of a community in Pennsylvania where the plots of land were as small as they could become before farming was no longer possible for an increasing number of people. It became common for people, both men and women, to take work “in the world,” among the worldly in order to exist. A group of families pooled resources and moved to Kansas where there was plenty of land. Families could stay on the farm and nobody had to go out to work. They saw how working out led to the youth becoming lazy, materialistic, and sinking into immorality in many cases. The move to Kansas resulted in some necessary changes of the church rules, called Ordnung. They allowed stationary balers and tractors for field work only. Certain modifications were made to clothing, for example, denim was permitted for work clothes whereas in Pa. denim was not permitted because of its connection to the hippie (immoral) lifestyle. In Kansas, denim was allowed because of its durability. It had lost its connection to hippies. The Pa. group permitted occasional eating out in a family restaurant or treating to McDonald’s or other fast food. Pennsylvania Amish country is filled with such family friendly eating establishments because of all the tourism. The Kansas preachers decided that restaurant dining was too extravagant and expensive, a poor example to “the world.” Both groups grew apart although they kept the same basic beliefs. After 10 years, the Pa. bishops “excommunicated” the Kansas group as too wordly—the balers, tractors, and denim, and too strict or “low,” the clothing, restaurant ban, also, they banished Coleman lights and returned to kerosene. The Kansas bishop “excommunicated” the Pennsylvania group. Families were divided, people shunned, and others pulled up the stakes and moved from both places. Think of the logistics of moving an entire farm, equipment and livestock! A few families were faced with an insolvable dilemma. Unwilling to split up their family and be shunned or required to shun loved ones, they started a new community in Northern New York State. That way, they’re not excommunicated and they can go back and forth to either place…for now! There’s no telling when they get “excommunicated” by one or both original groups, or split due to infighting. They mistake Doctrine for Ordnung. The two are so intertwined in their thinking that there’s no difference between them.
Tradcats, does this sound familiar?
Topic: Adiaphora (Read 449 times)