Interesting that these priests have a propensity to mock traditional Catholics when they aren't out there earning money to be respectable for the SSPX.

Several things for sneering priests that depend on the charity of the laity to consider:

1) the economy and opportunities for young men are far worse than they have been for a long time
2) Catholics aren't masons or Jєωs.  Or even liberals.  Traditional Catholics face many obstacles in getting along in a corrupt society.  That's one of the reason for the whole idea of self-sufficiency and going back to the land.

As for your observation that there aren't many traditional Catholics in business - I don't think that's true, to be honest.  Certainly it's not true around here.  It does seem those who are more devout and more principled tend to have more difficulty.

Young people are having trouble establishing themselves everywhere in the world today.

Of course many young people who have trouble establishing themselves will have certain defects and flaws of character - as do most people, I dare say.  However a large fraction of young people are certain to fail to make a lot of money - that's how the current system is set up.

A system based on debt will always have a certain number of people declaring bankruptcy - sometimes through no fault of their own - because there is never enough money in the system to pay all outstanding debts and interests.  It's musical chairs - the current economic system means that some people will fail.  

And SSPX priests will call those people mentally ill because they don't provide revenue.

It's probably because Traditional Catholics are taught to be wary of riches and money and live the simple life. Also they often marry young and start having children right away and the fathers need to put off college and get jobs immediately to support them, thus thwarting their future professional potential.

To be a professional, you need an education. Besides a small college at St. Mary's meant mainly for teachers there are approximately zero Traditional Catholic universities in the US. That means the Trad either bites the bullet and goes to a conservative NO university or lives amongst the wolves for a period of years at the atheistic secular universities.

In the days of the family farm, when youngsters were more mature at a younger age, they could get married young, start a family, and live off their own farm or helping with the family's. Today that is a dream.

Today youngsters in the world stay immature longer and  some never mature. In order for young single Trads to be professionals they would have to put off marriage for a while and focus on education, training, job search etc., then once they are established and moving forward in their profession, look to potential marriage options.

There is a focus on blue collar jobs at a lot of Trad schools it seems. I remember reading an article where almost all the grads of a Trad primary school went on to vocational and technical schools. This is fine and a blue collar job is admirable and a holy way to make a living indeed. However, I think that sometimes it is just assumed that working with one's hands is the best calling and it is a sign of grace to live in povery with many kids. It seems this is the preferred cross of Traditionalists and if you don't go down that road you are somewhat suspect of being a greedy worldling.

Opus Dei has capitalized on the "Catholic Professional" motif, encouraging it, and then creating a "numerary" "vocation" where one works a lucrative job and signs over one's checks to the Opus while the priests give you "formation" to live as a "Catholic" in the middle of the world.

I think they caught on to a very good idea, though they warp it with odd notions of vocation, money making scheme, and the NOM/ VCII ideology.

The good idea, which is not theirs but an old Catholic one, is to get lay Catholics involved in the world as salt and light in all of the professions, not just plumbing and carpentry, etc. We need Traditional Catholic lawyers, doctors, accountants, businessmen, financiers, psychiatrists, historians, etc. desperately. If everybody is a farmer, who does one go to if they need help in these other areas? Typically worldly secularists or, at best, evangelical Christians or conservative NO types.

I think there needs to be a push for a higher Traditional education. A top notch Traditional Catholic university in the US would be a first step towards that goal. We need to start cranking out intelligent, articulate, and solidly formed Traditionalists into the professional job market.

The following film is rather tendentious and annoying, but it does lay out the truth about college education having become a "scam."

Why are there almost no businessmen/professionals among traditional Catholics?

As a corollary, any time you meet a businessman or professional at your local traditional Catholic chapel, you can be certain you're speaking to a convert (or at least a convert from the Novus Ordo). Why is that?

The US Military seems to be a particular darling of Traditional Catholics. Yes, I find that hard to stomach as well. I suppose it's where you go if you want a respectable living, but have no hope otherwise of achieving that goal.

I say this as a life-long Traditional Catholic. I've been around the block a few times when it comes to traditional Catholicism. I'm certainly on to something.

An SSPX priest at the North American seminary spoke about this several times. He would often mock the lack of ambition shown by many young men he met, particularly how they were only interested in "huntin' and fishin'"

Maybe a sad, misguided attempt to be masculine in a world that has destroyed true masculinity? Masculinity is hard to find these days, as in, there are few true male role models for young men to look up to? So they end up finding crude ideas about what it means to be a man (hunting and fishing).

I suppose it's good to have down-to-earth skills, but it seems like traditional Catholics are more melancholic in temperament and/or easily discouraged by the countless obstacles involved in starting a business, or becoming a highly paid professional.

One of the obstacles might be going out into the Big Bad World which many trads tend to isolate themselves from. Also, why go through all the trouble to become a Lawyer when the world is going to end soon, or the Three Days of Darkness are just around the corner?

I'm not mocking, I'm just pointing out some possible explanations. I think this is an important discussion to have.

Matthew

This is true in a way though its not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.

In my experience I find that these days there are actually many more people going to university and far less people doing trades or what have you.
It seems to be a status thing to have a degree though perhaps these days there are more people doing airy fairy arts degrees and degrees in basket weaving that basically get you no where other than in debt with no job.

Perhaps there are not enough people doing more serious degrees such as engineering, law, businness, etc...

The other thing is that perhaps these higher profile jobs also put you at a greater risk of compromising your faith especially if you work in areas such as banking, insurance, and law with the modern day attitude of get big or get out.
Big business is destroying small business and to get any where or move up the chain of command, people would have to make compromises at some stage.

Yes and because of the big boys club attitude where unless you are a Jєω or a member of the local lodge you won't get a look in.

Also these jobs require far more time out of your life and that time has to be taken from home and family time which, if you have a big or any family, will take a toll.

Matthew, besides the Army, what is it that you notice that trads go into? At what age do they usually get married on average?

I think that among some trads there is a puritanical attitude of shunning the world and maybe a certain pressure or expectation of starting a family quick. I am not disparaging it. I am just stating that all this could be something going on nowadays.

  Also the attitude of going back to the land is present in some trads as well and some in the SSPX support such an idea.

SInce we are 40 years into the trad movement, Many of the youngsters this day in age might be 2nd and or 3rd generation trads. What is going on with them?

If the last post seems bitter, I'm sorry, but it's the truth.

People do get blacklisted, treated badly by the world for being Catholic - and the new SSPX response to that is to treat them the same way because money seems to trump other considerations.

Move away from Cincinnati.

Matthew, you have written upon a lot of issues here that would beckon scores of threads consisting of several pages each.

I see there are basically three chief issues that you have touched upon and which are interconnected, but are really distinct.

Why are there almost no businessmen/professionals among traditional Catholics?

I have been wondering about this too. I think it varies from Chapel to Chapel, and from State to State, aside from the obvious variation inherent in the difference between individuals and the environments wherein they were reared.

Maybe a sad, misguided attempt to be masculine in a world that has destroyed true masculinity? Masculinity is hard to find these days, as in, there are few true male role models for young men to look up to? So they end up finding crude ideas about what it means to be a man (hunting and fishing).

This is a very good topic to discuss, because it concerns not just the subject of employment but also the formation of Catholic boys and their growth to manhood in its essential aspects (spiritual, cultural, psychological, &c.) whilst they are compassed round about by an aberrant, gynocentric world that lulls women with lies about enfranchisement whilst debasing them to entities that deny their natures (the feminist who uses birth control or aborts because it's "her" body, and thus shall never become the mother she was meant to be) or to the objects of the vilest and most disordered passions of the very "phallocentric oppression" they pretend to oppose (such as women who get involved in the pornography industry). This entails the systematic implementation of a cultural notion of "masculinity" that is unnatural, false, and leads to many abuses. Above all, it robs boys of the ideals to which they ought to properly aspire.

This is a subject which cannot be exhausted in this reply [as it involves very profound cultural, sociological, psychological and, above all, spiritual issues], but it should be the concern of every father and every man who aspires to become a father in the future.

I suppose it's good to have down-to-earth skills, but it seems like traditional Catholics are more melancholic in temperament and/or easily discouraged by the countless obstacles involved in starting a business, or becoming a highly paid professional.

One of the obstacles might be going out into the Big Bad World which many trads tend to isolate themselves from. Also, why go through all the trouble to become a Lawyer when the world is going to end soon, or the Three Days of Darkness are just around the corner?

This is an issue which deals more with the trend many have perceived in traditional Catholics regarding their proclivities in general, and it has to be contextualized by present day factors in order to be correctly gauged.

Telesphorus discussed in his reply the socio-economic contingencies that explain why some men have difficulties in attaining to financial stability, as well as the systematic attempt of alienating Catholics from every aspect of modern life (as it has been corrupted thoroughly in its culture, art, philosophy, &c.). I agree with what he says regarding this (and he has discussed this issue many times before), because I myself am experiencing this too.

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These three topics cement in my mind even more the moral indispensability and absolute duty for traditional Catholic who is called to the married state of establishing and maintaining a household based upon the profession and practice of the Catholic faith, especially the Family Rosary.

It will be parents who thus raise their children who will ultimately save Western civilization. They may have to make many sacrifices and see their "double income, no kids" neighbors enjoying "the greener side," but the latter are doomed to be unwitting victims of the anti-Christian machine that has given them their tangible "success," while the latter shall see the fruits of their labors in this life and in the next if they persevere.